The Dragon of Trelian (24 page)

When he finally reached the top of the dragon’s back, he crawled forward to where Meg was straddling the base of Jakl’s neck. She twisted around to look at him. He wanted to apologize for what he said earlier (especially in case he didn’t have a chance later on because he fell off and died on the way), but before he could say anything she smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I know this is hard for you. It means so much to me that you’re doing this. Now sit behind me and put your arms around my waist. Pretend we’re riding double on a really big horse.”

Despite his ever-growing fear, he had to smile at that. “Right,” he agreed. “A really big, scaly, flying horse. Not frightening at all.”

She laughed, and everything was all right between them again. He reached gingerly around her with both arms and clasped his hands together. She snorted and grabbed his arms, pulling them tighter against her. “This is no time to be overly polite, Calen. Hold on tight. If you fall off, I’ll never forgive myself.”

She’s just kidding. You know she’s only kidding.
But he gripped her more tightly all the same. And then the dragon lurched forward and up and into the air, and he was clutching her for dear life. Idiotically, he risked a glance down. His stomach threatened to fall out of his mouth as his heart sunk somewhere around his knees. How were they so high up already? The trees were like tiny green shrubs, the clearing the size of a paving stone. He wanted to close his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn’t respond. He was grateful when the clouds cut off his view of the ground, until he realized what that meant.
We’re higher than the clouds.
Blackness swam at the edges of his vision, and he fought to drive it away. He could only hope that if he fainted and fell, he’d remain unconscious the whole way down.

Meg was practically pulsing with energy and excitement in front of him. So was Jakl. He could almost feel their joy and pleasure rising in waves around him. He tried to be glad someone was enjoying this experience. It wasn’t easy. He resisted the urge to ask Meg if they were almost there.

Time passed slowly. Calen grew no less terrified, but he made the surprising discovery that constant, unrelieved fear was not only exhausting but boring as well. Meg was no help. She was gone, lost in whatever place she went to in her mind to share experiences with her dragon. It would have been too hard to talk anyway, with the wind rushing around them and the relentless drumming of his heart drowning out most other sounds. He needed something to distract himself from the thought of how far away from the ground they were, and how long it would take him to plummet to his death if he fell. He thought about trying to contact Serek again, but he doubted he’d be able to maintain the necessary level of concentration. Or worse, that he would be able to concentrate but in doing so would forget to hold on, and then go plummeting to his death. All lines of thought seemed to lead to plummeting and death. It was quite distressing.

One small corner of his weary, terrified mind was still able to marvel at the fact that he was riding on the back of a dragon. Maybe he’d be able to enjoy it in retrospect, once they were safely back on the ground and all danger of plummeting and death had passed. And once they had alerted the king and queen to the plot to kill Maerlie and everyone was safe. He wondered what they would do to Sen Eva and Wilem. Hopefully something painful. Maybe Jakl could carry them up high up into the air and then drop them. He bet Meg would enjoy hearing them scream as they plummeted to their deaths. He might even find it slightly pleasant himself. They deserved it for what they were trying to do.

Of course, Sen Eva might have some magical resources that would make her execution harder to guarantee. Maybe Serek would know what to do. Calen frowned. It was all so complicated. He almost wished he and Meg had never overheard Sen Eva and Wilem talking in the first place. But that was cowardly, and he knew it. Then they would have had no warning of what Sen Eva had planned, and Maerlie would almost certainly die. He could not wish for that, no matter how complicated or difficult their situation became. And besides, surely the worst was over now. All they had to do was get home and tell Serek and Meg’s parents everything, and it would all be okay. Sen Eva and Wilem would be stopped and punished, Maerlie and Ryant would get married, the two kingdoms would be united, and everything else would go back to normal. He looked forward to worrying about nothing worse than avoiding Lyrimon and keeping up with his magical training.

Calen’s arms were beginning to cramp. How much farther could it be? Surely Meg could get some idea from Jakl. He opened his mouth to shout the question at her, but at that moment he felt the dragon shift direction and start descending. They dropped through the clouds, and then Meg turned slightly to shout in his ear. “Jakl needs to rest! He’s going to try and find a good place to stop.”

“Okay!” he shouted back. He fought back his disappointment. He should have realized it was too soon for them to be approaching home.

Before he could think better of it, Calen glanced down. They were still up at a dizzying distance, but that wasn’t the only thing that made him gasp sharply. He could see the tiny tops of trees, and what had to be another clearing in the woods, but there were also — shapes — moving below them. He looked at Meg; she was staring down in confusion. “What are those things?” he shouted. She only shook her head, still staring.

They were big, whatever they were. As Jakl dropped closer, Calen kept expecting the dark moving shapes to resolve themselves into something recognizable, but they did not. He was beginning to get a bad feeling.

He leaned close to Meg, putting his mouth beside her ear.

“I think we should go!” he shouted. Meg nodded slowly, her eyes still locked on the scene below. Jakl was circling now, no longer descending but not yet moving on, either.

Suddenly a terrible scream pierced the air around them. Meg sagged back against him. “Oh, gods, no,” she said. She spoke softly, but her face was close enough to his that he could make out her words clearly.

“What is it?” he asked. “Meg, what is it?” The sound of the scream still lingered in his ears, in his mind, like an oily residue. He had never heard anything make a scream like that. He did not wish to hear it again.

“It’s the thing from the garden,” she said. “The monster. Another one. But there are so many. . . .”

Calen felt his eyes widen. If each of those lumbering dark shapes was one of those terrible creatures . . . A horrible thought occurred to him. “Meg, they can’t fly, can they? That thing that attacked you. Did it have wings?”

She stared at him. “No. I don’t think so.” He saw her struggling to remember. “No. It didn’t have wings.”

They looked back down toward the ground. Now that they knew what they were seeing, they could make out heads and bodies. There were smaller shapes — people? — mixed in among the larger ones. Some of the larger heads seemed to be looking up.

Looking up at
them.

“Time to go,” Calen said. “Time to go right now.”

Meg nodded again and leaned forward. She didn’t say anything, but Jakl began climbing once again, moving quickly toward the layer of clouds. Another terrible scream sounded from below. Calen couldn’t help it. He twisted around to look over his shoulder.

One of the shapes had separated itself from the others. As he watched, transfixed by fear, it unfurled long, black wings from its misshapen body. They glistened slickly in the sunlight. The wings slowly pumped once, twice, and then the thing lumbered awkwardly into the air.

“Meg,” Calen managed. “Oh, gods, Meg. This one has wings.”

She didn’t hear him, couldn’t hear above the rush of wind, but then the thing screamed at them again, a challenge, and Jakl turned to meet it. “Jakl, no!” Meg started, then broke off in horror when saw what was coming for them. The dragon arched his neck and back, bringing his legs up before him. “Hold on!” Meg shouted. Calen didn’t need to be told. He was already clutching her desperately, praying that she had a tight hold on the dragon, or they would both be lost. He felt the dragon’s abdomen swell beneath them. Jakl inhaled deeply and then let loose a spray of steaming, clotted spittle. Meg was shaking her head. He thought she was crying. It was too early; Jakl didn’t have his fire yet. They were all three going to die.

The thing from the ground was close enough now that Calen could see its awful face, a lumped-together heap of flesh and teeth and tiny red eyes. It opened its mouth to scream again, and Calen buried his head against Meg’s back. The sound tore through the air, through them; he could feel the vile assault of it like a knife, like a hundred knives, and his fingers wanted to go slack in their grip from pain and terror. He forced them to hold on and screamed himself, in fear, in defiance, in prayer, spitting out the dirty strands of Meg’s hair he’d inhaled to scream again. Meg was screaming too, but her screams had words to them. “Don’t let it touch you!” she was screaming. “Don’t let it get you with its claws!” She was thinking of the poison, he supposed. Personally he was more concerned about the teeth.

Jakl roared a warning at the approaching monstrosity, but it had seen his lack of fire and was not afraid. Calen lifted his head, compelled to watch their quickly closing doom. Even if he could clear his racing mind enough to work a spell, there was nothing useful he could cast. Lighting candles and slamming doors were one thing, but — He caught his breath suddenly. Candles. Lighting candles. Why hadn’t this ever occurred to him before? He had fire of his own. Maybe not the devastating stream that Jakl would have one day, if he survived long enough, but at close range, even a little flame could cause a bit of damage.

The shock of this realization distracted him momentarily from the horror approaching, and Calen made full use of his sudden feeling of detachment. He focused inward, and in a blink his mind was clear and ready. The monster was close now, and Meg was still screaming warnings and instructions at her dragon, but everything was muted and far away as Calen studied the problem before him.
There,
he thought. Long, pointed, whiskerlike quills sprouted from several surfaces of the thing’s head and face. He picked one and stared at it, blocking out everything else.
It’s a wick. A long, ugly wick, and lighting wicks with flame was the first lesson I ever learned.
A glance, a thought directing the energy, and it was done. The quill ignited, bursting into flame that rose up before the creature’s eyes. He hoped it could feel the pain through its tough-looking leathery skin, but even if it couldn’t, the shock of suddenly being on fire was at least enough to distract it.

Jakl seized his advantage, striking out with his front talons and swiping at the thing’s head. The monster dodged, reducing the strike to just a glancing blow, but it fell back, still shaking its head in an attempt to clear the flame.

“Fly!” Meg screamed. “Jakl, fly! Go now! It can’t match you for speed!”

She had to be right. Calen had seen how awkwardly it flew, as if still figuring out how to use its thick, uneven wings. Jakl turned and shot into the sky like an arrow, straight and true. When the thing behind them screamed again in rage and fury, the sound was faint and lacking most of its paralyzing force. It was a long time, long after they were sure they had left the creature behind, before Jakl sought the ground once more.

MEG WALKED SLOWLY THROUGH THE COURTYARD
, keeping to the shadows and trying to be both invisible and silent. This was not at all the triumphant return she had envisioned. Soaring through the sun-bright sky on her dragon’s back, she had pictured them landing right before the main gates, in full view of everyone, then bursting into the throne room to announce Sen Eva and Wilem’s villainy before her parents, the guards, and any visiting petitioners who happened to be present. She imagined all the listeners’ horrified faces, her parents’ expressions turning to grim determination as they sent soldiers to collect the traitors. Sen Eva would be sobbing when they dragged her in, Wilem pleading for his life, but it would be no use. She would have watched, smiling, as they were executed on the spot.

Calen had made her see that it was, perhaps, not the best plan. She smiled ruefully in the dark. For someone with no political experience whatsoever, Calen admittedly had thought things through far more carefully than she had. For one thing, it seemed best not to let Sen Eva and Wilem know they had returned. Better to let them go on believing their secret was safe and not give them any warning that their plot was about to be revealed. If Sen Eva really was a mage, and Calen seemed certain that she was, there was no telling what she might resort to if she knew her plans were ruined.

For another thing, Calen had pointed out that now didn’t seem the best time to reveal Jakl to her parents. With the murder plans and all, they would have enough to occupy them without throwing a dragon into the mix. Meg was more than happy to agree with that. She would wait until after the wedding, when things had calmed down.

Meg couldn’t help chafing at the idea of letting more time go by — it had taken them through the night and most of the next day to get back as it was — but she knew that Calen was right. And so they waited until full dark, and then a few hours more for good measure. Jakl had let them off outside the castle grounds then headed back to the Hunterheart forest. Calen had set off for Mage Serek’s chambers to alert his master about Sen Eva. Which left Meg to cross the shadowy courtyard alone, heading for the kitchen entrance and desperately hoping no one stopped her to ask where she was going or what errand she was returning from. In the darkness, she thought her soiled dress might pass for servant’s clothing as long as no one examined her too closely. All she had to do was make it to her family’s chambers without being challenged. And then she could tell her parents and sisters everything, and they would know what to do.