The Dragonstone

CHAPTER 72

As the Drake flew away, Egil and Aiko and Burel kept their downed horses from rising, the steeds grunting and thrashing, yet unable to gain their feet. Finally, the Dragon flew beyond sight, and now the trio allowed the steeds to scramble up, snorting and blowing and sidle-stepping, their eyes wide in fear. Yet with soothing words and reassuring touches and strokes, Aiko, Burel, and Egil at last calmed the animals. Burel then gave over his steed to Arin, saying, "Dara, you see best in the night, and our stock is scattered again."

Arin took the reins, then said, "Aiko, I would have thee come with me. Egil, wouldst thou find Alos?"

"Where away?"

"North, I think," said Ferret, pointing.

Egil's gaze followed her outstretched arm, yet he saw nought but prairie in the bright moonlight. Nevertheless, he mounted and rode away northerly, and no more than a hundred yards thither he found the old man lying on his back in the grass, gasping and wheezing in exhaustion.

Egil rode to join Arin and Aiko, and by the time they rounded up the mules and cattle and the remaining horses the moon had moved two hand-widths across the sky.

Arin and Aiko drove the cattle before them, and riding after came Egil, steeds and mules tethered in a line behind. As they arrived where those afoot waited, Aiko looked through the moonlight at Alos now standing with the others, her enshadowed gaze unreadable. Even so, the oldster could not bear the force of her regard, and he turned away and peered toward the Boreal, its waters unseen beyond the dunes to the west.

Without dismounting, Arin said, "Let us move into the shelter of the coppice ahead, a mile, no more. Alos, thou canst ride double with me."

"Double?" Alos looked about. "Say, where is my horse?"

"Taken by Raudhrskal," replied the Dara. "Thou wert fortunate to not be astride at the time."

Alos's knees nearly went out from under him. "The Dragon took my horse," he gasped, his voice tremulous. "And if I'd been in the saddle…" He ran a shaking hand across his forehead. "Lord, I need a-" His words jerked to a halt. Then he groaned, "My saddlebags. He got my saddlebags."

They made a small fire and heated water for tea, and as they sat sipping, Alos said, "Why don't we just stake out the cattle and ride back to Hafen, eh?"

"How will that get us the green stone?" asked Ferret.

Alos glared 'round at her. "It won't, but at least the Dragon will be busy eating cattle instead of us."

"Alos, thou canst take one of the horses and ride back to Hafen if thou dost so desire," said Arin. "We'll press on without thee."

Alos moaned and shook his head. "If you are bound to go on, I can do nothing but go with you, for unlike before, I'll not desert my shipmates in their time of need."

"Ha!" snorted Ferret. "Just as you did not desert your shipmates when the Dragon swooped down upon us, eh?"

Alos shook his head and looked into his cup. "I didn't desert you, you know."

"Oh?" Ferret arched her eyebrow. "What else would you call it? Or was that your twin I saw fleeing north?"

"Yes, I bolted, I admit it, but I didn't go far. Found I couldn't, in fact."

Aiko fixed the oldster with a penetrating stare. "How so?"

"I dunno. It seems the farther I got, the harder it was to run, almost as if I were on a steepening hill."

Delon looked out across the level plain. "When was the last time you ran any distance?"

Alos shrugged. "Twenty, thirty years ago."

"Alos, old man, I'd just say your age has caught up with you."

"Think what you will," snapped Alos.

"I do not fault you, Alos," said Egil. "Many would run in fear from a stooping Drake."

Alos looked at the Fjordlander. "I was just heading for a place out of the way, you know."

Delon laughed. "Yes, old man, like all the way back to the safety of town."

Arin shook her head. "But for a Drimmenholt or the like, no place is safe from a Drake." She turned to the oldster. "And neither do I fault thee, Alos, for, as Egil says, any and all may succumb to the dread a Dragon brings."

Alos bobbed his head to the Dylvana, then looked across at Aiko. Yet he received no reassurance from her nor any indication that she agreed with the Dara, for Aiko's dark gaze gave no clue to the thoughts she held inside.

That eve, as Aiko stood watch, contrary to the experience of the past hundred darktides, her red tiger whispered of no peril whatsoever as mid of night came and went.

Perhaps it was the fell beast slain by the Dragon my tiger sensed all along. If so, why would such a creature be lurking on our trail?

The next day they wound upward into the foothills lying against the northern flank of Dragons' Roost. Gradually the land steepened, and the air grew chill. And gradually as well, Aiko's red tiger began to mutter of peril ahead, for the closer they came to that icy pinnacle, the greater the warning of her arcane ward. Still they pressed forward, herding the slowfooted cattle up the cant of the land. Finally, near sunset, they reached a place where they could see that the slope of the terrain lying ahead was simply too steep for the animals to maintain even the slow pace of the past three days.

"Look there," called Arin, pointing forward and to the right.

All hearts beat a bit faster, for where she pointed they could see the beginnings of the path the folk of Hafen had described: somewhere above lay the ledge, a thousand feet up and three or four miles away, or so the townsfolk had claimed. This was the path they would follow up the mountain flank, hoping to find the place where a fearsome Dragon lay.

Egil looked over at Arin and Alos, the trembling old man sitting behind the rear cantle of her saddle. "I think from here we need to leave the animals behind and go afoot."

Arin scanned the uplift as well, then nodded.

Through his chattering teeth, Alos groaned, then hissed, "Let's turn back. Let's turn back before it's too late."

Arin shook her head. "Nay, Alos, we are going ahead."

"But the Dragon, the Dragon, he won't keep his word. He won't keep his word."

"Nevertheless, Alos, 'tis a risk we must take."

The oldster broke out in sobs.

In the twilight in a grassy box canyon they made a final camp. And they fashioned a simple rope barrier across the choke of the slot, penning the animals within.

That evening they spent sorting the goods they would take with them: ropes, climbing gear, lanterns, food, water, and other such, including weapons, though against a Drake, blades and arrows would be of no use at all. Ferret included her lockpicks, Delon a simple flute, Burel a tabard embroidered with the circle of Ilsitt… they all arranged to take something in addition to the gear needed for the planned recovery of the Dragonstone, though none knew what a Drake might find to his fancy or what such a creature might respect-all added something but Alos, that is, for now that his horse was gone, he had nought to bring but his own muttering, trembling, weeping self.

The next morning, just after dawn, they shouldered their considerable gear and began the ascent. Aiko was yet distressed that Arin's role in this mission was to be the lure to draw the Kraken out of the pool and into the sea beyond, out to a place where the Drake could take his pleasure, yet she could think of no reasonable alternative to the plan as conceived: only she and Burel and Delon had the skills to rappel down the long stone of the sheer cliff, and even though someone said that Dwarves claimed the inside of a mountain needed more climbing than an outside ever did, still, Ferret, who also had considerable climbing skills, would lead the team down through the mountain within. Too, Ferret could not be one of the rappellers nor be the Kraken bait, for she had to unlock the chains securing the silver chest. Egil's strength was needed to bear that same silver chest back to the surface, for they could not simply bring the Dragonstone alone, else the Drake above would discover what they had retrieved. Likewise, all three of those on the sheer face of the cliff were needed to increase the chances of a successful rescue, else the Kraken bait would either be snared by the monster if not hauled up swiftly to safety, or would be swept into the Great Maelstrom if they missed her altogether. There were many other reasons why the teams were split as they were, yet those were the prime concerns, and Aiko could think of no acceptable alternatives.

As to Alos, he had no role to play, and why he was along at this juncture was anyone's guess. Yet the old man struggled up the steep pathway, the oldster a whining burden every step of the way, for he had to be helped at even small obstacles and hauled bodily over the larger ones, and soon the freight he carried was shared out among all the others. But although Alos was entirely unweighted of even a minor load, still the old man needed unflagging help as he struggled and gasped and wheezed and whined and wept his way up the steep path, rotely muttering all the while, "Unlike before, unlike before, unlike before…" as if it were a mantra… or a devoutly held prayer.

Slowly the path wended upward, at times rising, at other times falling, seldom running level. 'Round tall crags and through deep, hemmed-in slots they fared, the way strait, constricting, with frowning, cold stone to left and right. And still the way went onward, over upjuts and downfalls and strews of rubble, the passage hard, and they stopped often to rest. Finally they came to where the path led along a narrow outer ledge, dark stone rising high above to the left, a plunging fall to the right, the somber grey waters of the Boreal hammering against the rocks far below, brine flinging in spray. The path itself clung precipitously to the sheer mountainside, and from somewhere ahead 'round its twists and turns and borne to them on a chill wind, they could hear an unending low rumble, as of ceaseless thunder afar.

They linked themselves together with ropes, Delon in the lead, Burel next and then Aiko, Alos in the center, followed by Egil, then Arin, with Ferret coming last. And onward they went, ineffectual Alos weeping and chanting and clinging to the stone as far from the lip of the precipice as he could get.

They rounded a turn on the pathway, and ahead and below and churning in the sea they could see the wheeling waters of the Great Maelstrom, the spin fully five miles across, a vast twisting funnel, and in the very center gaped a dark rumbling hole, spiraling down and down and down into a black, unplumbed abyss, dragging their hearts down within.

Above Alos's sobbing, Arin remarked, "I once said the green stone was like the eye of a maelstrom, and here I look down upon one."

Ferret took in a deep breath, then said, "Oh, my, speaking of eyes, I just had a thought."

Arin looked back at her. "A thought, Ferai?"

Ferret gestured out at the thundering gape. "Perhaps, Dara, perhaps this is the one eye in dark water."

It was midafternoon when they came to the vast shelf cloven back into the face of the mountain, a great mantel a thousand feet up from the twisting swirl in the ocean below and four miles from where they had started. And as they rounded the final shoulder to come to the wide, stony ledge, a monstrous rust-red Drake turned its flat, scaly head and fixed them with a yellow ophidian eye and hissed, "Why should I not kill you now?"