Deathcaster (Shattered Realms) Read online

  “There he is!” one of them cried. “I told you he was here.”

  Instantly, two of the girls launched themselves at Shadow, while the last two held back, restrained by the dignity of age. Shadow grinned and embraced the two of them. Then said to one of the younglings, “Flicker! How did you skin your knees?”

  “I was walking up the waterfall with Harper,” the girl said. She pointed at one of the older girls, and Lila realized that it was Harper Matelon, clad head to toe in clan gear.

  We were only gone two days, Lila thought, and Harper has shed the flatlands like a too-warm coat.

  Shadow looked over Flicker’s head to the other older girl. “Sparrow—how is business?”

  “Too many orders to keep up with,” Sparrow said. “So many that we asked Harper to help us.”

  Harper laughed. “They let me sweep up the leather scraps,” she said. Pointing at the food table, she said, “Let’s get something to eat before it’s gone.”

  And all four girls rushed off.

  All at once, it connected. The other three girls are the sisters of Shadow’s dead fiancée, Lila thought. She felt more out of place than ever.

  “Let’s go to Sparrow’s hearth,” Shadow said. “We can talk there without interruption.”

  12

  HATCHLINGS

  Lyss stood, a kit full of supplies slung over one shoulder, a coil of rope over the other, watching Jenna Bandelow run up the side of a dragon the size of—well, she couldn’t think of anything that compared. Her father always said that courage wasn’t lack of fear—it was doing what needed doing in the face of it. By that measure, this had to be one of the bravest things she’d ever done.

  “Captain Gray?” High above her, Jenna was leaning down, extending a hand to help her up.

  She thought of the girl she’d once been—the one who loved to paint and play the basilka. If she survived this, she’d have images to paint and songs to sing for the rest of her life.

  Fortunately, the spines that prickled the dragon’s back offered Lyss some footing. She literally walked up Cas’s side until she could put her foot in the stirrup.

  “You sit in the saddle,” Jenna said. “It will give you a more secure seat. Besides, Cas gives off a lot of heat. I’m more resistant to it.”

  Lyss swung her leg over and settled into the saddle in front of Jenna.

  “Stow the gear in the panniers,” Jenna said, “along with anything else that isn’t strapped down.” Lyss slid the rope and medical kit into one of the heavy leather bags.

  Lyss was tall, but the dragon’s back was so broad that it felt like her legs were sticking straight out.

  “Bend your knees and hold your lower legs nearly horizontal for a better grip,” Jenna said. “Lean forward along his neck. That will make you feel less awkward.”

  Lyss wasn’t sure awkward was the word for it. Jenna was right—she could feel the dragon’s heat through a thick blanket and the leather saddle. Her eyes stung a little from his slightly smoky breath.

  Cas swung his head back so that he could look at the two of them. The message was obvious. Ready?

  Lyss looked forward along the dragon’s neck and saw no bridle, nothing to direct or control him. She looked back at Jenna. “Um, are there reins, or—?” She had time to hear Cas’s soft snort of derision before he leapt forward with a rattle of claws on rock. It was only Jenna’s body behind her that kept her from pitching head over tail off the back as Cas literally ran off the ledge.

  Jenna reached forward, steadying Lyss with her arms. She took several hitching breaths, and Lyss realized that she was trying to suppress laughter.

  “Cas doesn’t need reins,” Jenna said, “and he’s a little miffed that you brought it up. We communicate mind-to-mind. Anyway, in this case, he’s the one who knows where we’re going.”

  “Oh. Ah, tell him I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t have to. He hears and understands you. You just have to learn to hear him.”

  Remembering Jenna’s directions, Lyss pressed her body forward against the dragon’s neck, sliding her arms loosely across his chest, careful to avoid the wicked spines that stippled his hide.

  In her winter gear and gloves, Lyss found that the dragon wasn’t scorching hot, just a roasting warmth that was pleasant, given the cold night.

  “It can be uncomfortable in summer,” Jenna said, nearly into her ear. “That’s one reason we like to fly high in the sky, where it’s cooler.”

  Lyss stiffened, and the hairs rose on the back of her neck. “Hang on,” she said. “Did you just read my mind?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Jenna said quickly, as if she was used to this reaction. “When I touch someone, images come to me. It’s not always clear what it means, but in this case I got an image of a woodstove, so it was pretty obvious.”

  The thought was terrifying. How could she hope to keep any secrets from this girl that she was just beginning to trust? Lyss tried her best to empty her mind.

  “That doesn’t work very well,” Jenna said. “What happens is that you think of all the images you don’t want to think of. It’s better to conjure up a really strong image and try to stay with it.”

  Well, then. Lyss immediately envisioned Hal Matelon, as he’d been that day in his cell, fending off Lyss and her bitter drinking game. Wearing only his breeches, his hair mussed from sleep, green eyes shadowed with wariness. She saw herself reach up, cradle his stubbled chin in her hands, and kiss the last drops of blue ruin from his lips.

  “Getting a little steamy in here,” Jenna said, fanning herself.

  “You asked for it,” Lyss said. “Deal with it.”

  They’d been flying through a layer of icy cloud, so that it was hard to tell up from down. Ice glazed the dragon’s hide, melted, and then sizzled away into vapor. Finally, Cas slowed, dropping his head as if to search the ground, though Lyss could see nothing but a sea of white. When he folded his wings and plummeted toward earth, Lyss’s stomach was left behind in the sky.

  “Jenna!” she croaked. “Is this—?” Safe? Intentional? Suicidal?

  “Don’t worry,” Jenna said. “This is how a dragon stoops on prey.”

  Lyss swatted at her ears, which felt like they were stopped up.

  “That happens when we lose altitude quickly,” Jenna said. “Keep swallowing and it will go away. Don’t look down.”

  Of course, Lyss had to look down, in time to see the ground hurtling toward them. Just as she squeezed her eyes shut, they landed hard, a little awkwardly. Lyss’s breath exploded from her lungs and she bit her tongue.

  “Not his best,” Jenna murmured to her. “He’s getting better every day, but the extra weight probably didn’t—”

  Again, Cas thrust his big head toward them, smoke and flame bleeding from his nostrils, one baleful eye fixed on them. What was the word Jenna used? Miffed? Lyss found it amazing that a dragon with such an effective suit of armor was so thin-skinned.

  “I’ll get down first,” Jenna said, already sliding down Cas’s wing, then leaping lightly to the ground. Lyss tossed down the panniers, then climbed down herself. She tried to mimic what Jenna had done, but managed to remove a layer of skin on her forearms sliding down the dragon’s scaly side.

  “Not my best,” she muttered. They looked to be perched high on a ledge on the side of a mountain. When she looked off the edge, all she could see were layers of cloud below.

  Jenna pointed. “Cas says the hatchlings are this way.” Lyss shouldered the saddlebags and followed.

  They seemed to be walking toward a sheer cliff, but as they got closer, Lyss could see that it was pocked with fissures and cracks, studded with the scrubby alpine shrubs that were the only vegetation that could grow at this altitude, this far north. They circled around in back of a massive rockfall. Jenna pulled aside a twisted juniper to reveal an outcropping. Behind it was the mouth of a cave. It looked just barely large enough for Cas to squeeze through. Beside the cave, a waterfall spilled into a pool. In the
mud around the entrance were mingled tracks—wolf and reptilian prints that must have been made by dragons.

  Lyss scanned the skies and the peaks of the surrounding mountains, wondering if dragon parents were going to come flaming down on them. “Do dragons stay with their young?” she asked.

  “I believe they do, until they can fly and hunt on their own,” Jenna said. She turned toward Cas, body canted forward, speaking without audible words. Then Jenna motioned for Lyss to follow and ducked through the opening.

  Just inside the entrance, the walls and ceiling seemed to disappear as they stepped into an even larger cave. Lyss reeled back, all but overpowered by the stench of rotting flesh, burnt flesh, and what might be dragon scummer. It smelled like the worst-kept field hospital ever.

  The reason for the stench was immediately apparent. At the rear of the chamber lay a dead dragon, with eight dead wolves in a circle around it. Obviously, the dragon had gone down fighting the wolves. The wolves’ bodies were charred, their bodies broken, lips pulled back in frozen snarls.

  A lesson for all wolves, Lyss thought, kneeling next to one of them, fingering the blood-matted fur. Don’t go up against a dragon.

  From behind them came an earsplitting cry of grief and fury. They turned to see Cas just inside the entrance to the cave. Jenna ran to him, placing her hands on either side of the dragon’s head and resting her forehead between his eyes. Her shoulders shook with weeping.

  Lyss could feel something pushing at the edges of her thoughts. Not words, but—images? Images of the dead dragon, alive again, lifting her head in greeting.

  Stepping over the dead wolves, Lyss examined the dragon’s corpse. Though the carcass was relatively untouched, one of the dragon’s wings was missing, and the wound where it had been torn away had obviously festered.

  “It looks like it was this older wound that killed it, and not the wolves,” Lyss said.

  Jenna spoke, her voice muffled. “Cas says her wing was torn off in the flight through the Boil, and she crashed into the mountainside. She found this cave, and laid a clutch of eggs, which hatched. But she’s been unable to hunt to feed them. Cas has been hunting for them.”

  “Where are they now?” Lyss said. “The hatchlings, I mean?” She paused, listening. “Is that them?” Now that she was next to the dead mother, she could hear faint cries coming from somewhere close by. She scanned the ceiling, the walls, the floor, but saw no obvious source.

  There was a brief pause, while Jenna asked, and Cas answered.

  “They’re in a smaller cave behind their mother’s body. She wanted to prevent the wolves from getting to them. But now that means that they are trapped.”

  “So we’ll need to move her,” Lyss said.

  “That’s why Cas asked us to bring a rope,” Jenna said.

  It took all three of them, working together. Lyss fashioned a rudimentary harness that they fastened around the dead dragon’s body. They threaded the other end of the rope out through the entrance to the cave and around Cas’s front quarters. With Cas pulling from outside, and Lyss and Jenna guiding the carcass, they managed to pull the body a few yards away from the wall, creating an opening large enough for Lyss and Jenna to squeeze through.

  Inside the smaller cave, the cries were shrill, earsplitting, even. They seemed to be coming from one corner, from a kind of fortress made of piled rocks. The area around it was blackened with soot, and a reddish light flickered and danced on the ceiling as if coals were smoldering down inside.

  Lyss heard a scrabbling sound inside the cairn, and something clambered up from inside, balancing precariously on the top. It was a baby dragon, armored in scales in all the colors of gemstones. It was painfully thin, its wings as frail and delicate as spiderwebs. One of its legs appeared to be broken. It flapped its wings, hissed at them, and toppled onto the cave floor.

  Lyss’s heart melted. She strode toward the nest, unshouldering her pack of supplies as she went. The injured hatchling screamed and sent a gout of flame roaring toward her. Jenna stepped in front of Lyss in time to catch the brunt of it. Still, Lyss could smell her own hair burning, and the skin on her face felt seared. She shifted her backpack full of medical supplies. It wouldn’t do much good if she couldn’t get close enough to examine their patient.

  “I should have warned you,” Jenna said. Her skin glittered as scales surfaced.

  Lyss tried not to stare. She resisted the temptation to reach out and touch them.

  “That hiss is a warning to stay back,” Jenna said. “Even when they’re that little, they can be dangerous. Their flaming capabilities seem to develop at a very early age.”

  So. In addition to being small and adorable, it was a pissed-off, dangerous baby dragon determined to defend its nest.

  “What do we do?”

  “I’ll try to talk to it.”

  It looked more like a standoff than a conversation, with Jenna trying to make eye contact, the dragon hissing and screaming, flapping its wings. “It would help if I could touch him,” Jenna said, edging closer.

  Just then, another head popped up, over the side. And another, accompanied by more hissing. Jenna took a quick step back.

  “How many are there?” Lyss said.

  Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. Four, maybe?”

  “They look like they’re starving.”

  Jenna nodded. “At this age, they seem to require constant feeding. Cas says he hasn’t been able to get food to them since their mother died.”

  “What would they eat at this stage?”

  “Dragons eat meat from the time they hatch,” Jenna said. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere until they get something to eat. Right now, they’re hungry enough to eat the two of us.”

  That was a thought to ponder. “Should I go see if Cas can bring some fresh meat?”

  “He’s on it,” Jenna said. “In fact, I think I hear him. He’s already back with a kill.”

  I’ve got to quit underestimating this dragon, Lyss thought. “I’ll go out and meet him.”

  Lyss squeezed past the dead female, passed through the outer cave, and burst out into the fresh air. Cas had a sheep’s carcass pinned to the stone ledge and was ripping at the flesh and spitting out wool. For a moment, Lyss thought he was eating it himself, but then realized that he was tearing it into portable chunks. As if in answer to that thought, the dragon nudged a large shoulder joint toward her.

  Lyss slid her arms under the raw meat, cradling it to her body, wondering how she would explain the state of her uniform if she ever made it back to the palace.

  As soon as Lyss entered the rear cave with the mutton, five heads popped up from the nest, all screaming the dragon equivalent of “Meeee!” The injured hatchling must have returned to the nest.

  Lyss dropped to her knees and used her belt knife to cut the meat into five pieces.

  “Maybe you’d better feed them,” she said to Jenna. Truth be told, she was worried that the baby dragons wouldn’t be able to distinguish friend from food.

  “No,” Jenna said, “you feed them. Nothing wins a dragon over like food. I’ll go get more.” When Lyss still hesitated, she added, “Don’t worry. It’s not like they’ll flame you. Dragons prefer their meat raw.”

  That was marginally reassuring. Lyss approached the stone nest, and the hatchlings thrust their heads toward her, their open mouths displaying an already-impressive array of teeth. She went down the line, giving each little dragon its portion. By the time she’d finished, Jenna was back with another helping. They ran a kind of relay until the entire sheep was consumed. By now, the hatchlings were nudging at Lyss’s bloody fingers, begging for more.

  Jenna put her hands on either side of the injured baby dragon’s head. A silent message passed between them. She turned to Lyss. “I told him that if he’ll hold still while you fix his leg and wing, there’ll be more to eat after that.”

  Laboriously, the little dragon climbed back to the top of the nest, teetering on the edge. Je
nna and Lyss made a kind of cradle with their arms and helped him down to the cave floor.

  With that, the other hatchlings set up an earsplitting clamor. Either they were worried about their brother, or they were convinced that their nestmate was getting some sort of special treats.

  “They’re saying another one of them has a torn wing,” Jenna reported.

  “One at a time,” Lyss said. “Let’s carry him out to where the light is better and it’s not quite so noisy.”

  When they reached the outer cave, Cas was halfway in, blocking the light from outside. He pulled back from the entrance, and Lyss and Jenna passed through and set their patient down on the ledge outside. When the hatchling saw Cas, it cried out a greeting and tried to scramble closer. Cas lay down, forming a kind of scaly boundary with Lyss, Jenna, and the little dragon at the center.

  Lyss unbuckled her backpack and pulled out bandages and splints. “Can you ask Cas if this one has a name?” she said. When tending soldiers in the field, she’d found it helped if she kept talking.

  After an exchange, Jenna said, “He likes to be called ‘Slayer.’ That’s the closest I can come.”

  “Slayer?” Lyss eyed the hatchling dubiously.

  Jenna laughed at Lyss’s expression. “Don’t worry, he’ll grow into it faster than you think.”

  “Do dragons get to choose their own names?”

  Jenna shrugged. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? If you have to answer to something all your life, you might as well choose, right?”

  Lyss had to admit, that did make sense. “Where I come from, you receive a new name at sixteen, after you’ve figured out who you are.”

  “Even better,” Jenna said.

  “Now. Here goes. Could you translate for me?”

  Jenna laid her hand on Slayer’s back. “Just speak to him like you would a peer. Cas understands human speech, though not as clearly as direct communication mind-to-mind.”

  “All right, Slayer,” Lyss said, feeling a little foolish. “I’m going to fix your leg if I can.” She tried to picture the process in her mind. “But you’ll have to hold very still. Once we’re done, there will be more meat.”