The Hungering Flame (9 page)

“
I’m sending Garrett off to take that Astorran boy that he rescued home.
”

“
The prince?
”
Serepheni said, a cross look on her face,
“
Max, I wanted to talk to him!
”

“
What kind of fool do you take me for?
”
Max said,
“
I am far too jealous a suitor to leave any pretty young princelings lying around for you to compare me against. So I told Garrett to put him back where he found him.
”

“
Max!
”
Serepheni said,
“
I really wish you would have discussed this with me.
”

Max flashed a crooked smile.
“
All right,
”
he said,
“
I’ll appoint you my ambassador to the Astorrans. Then, when my army reaches their border, you can negotiate the terms of their surrender.
”

“
Your army?
”
she laughed.

“
Our army, my dear,
”
he said,
“
our army.
”

“
Max!
”
she said, swatting him.

“
Well, you’d better get going,
”
Max said, looking to Garrett.

“
Bye, Max!
”
Garrett said,
“
Goodbye, Miss Serepheni.
”

“
Goodbye, Garrett,
”
she said,
“
be careful on the road.
”

“
I will.
”

Garrett’s wolf turned at his urging and stretched its legs in
a
steady run, carrying him out of the temple and into the twilight forest beyond.

The old elven road stretched like a length of white rope, adrift on the swells of a dark sea. The smooth alabaster paving stones curved around the hummocks of black earth, broken in places as though the ground had heaved up beneath them. In other places, the road disappeared entirely beneath stagnant pools. Brown leaves swirled on the surface of the water as wolves’ paws and horse’s hooves sloshed by. The thick canopy of trees stretched above the riders’ heads, and only thin beams of sunlight sifted through, playing on the edges of falling leaves in the muffled stillness of the deep forest. Garrett made a point of riding through every sunbeam that he could, tilting his head back to feel the warmth of it on his face.

Warren kept to the shadows as much as possible. He stretched his neck
back.
H
is eyes squinted
as he watched
a gap in the canopy above
that
they passed beneath.
“
We aren’t supposed to be traveling in the daylight,
”
he whispered.

“
We went two whole nights without running into any trouble. I’m tired of riding in the dark,
”
Garrett said,
“
besides, nothing can see us down here.
”

“
My knights and I never saw any sign of the dragon,
”
Prince Cabre said,
“
and we were riding in the open field for nine days. It’s the Chadiri we should be worried about, and I’d much rather see them coming than stumble upon them in the dark.
”

Warren let out a low growl and mumbled,
“
Between you, me, and the redjacks, only one of us can see in the dark, and I’d kinda like to keep the advantage.
”

“
I understand,
”
Cabre sighed,
“
I suppose I’m being selfish really. My heart longs for the sunny fields of home. All this shadow is a sickness on my soul.
”

Garrett laughed.
“
I know what you mean.
”

Cabre smiled.
“
How did you come to be a necromancer, Garrett?
”

Garrett was silent for a moment before speaking.
“
The Chadiri burned my town... and I got separated from my family. That’s where I met Warren, and my uncle.
”

“
Your uncle?
”
Cabre asked.

“
Well, not my real uncle,
”
Garrett said,
“
His name is Tinjin, and he rescued me and took me back to live with him in Wythr.
”

“
A necromancer?
”

“
Yeah,
”
Garrett said,
“
he’s the one who taught me about it.
”

“
And you have raised the dead like your friend
Max
?
”

“
Yeah... well one zombie, Caleb,
”
Garrett said,
“
but the Templars took him from me.
”

“
The Templars?
”

“
Guys that work for the church back in Wythr,
”
Garrett said.

“
Real nice guys,
”
Warren grumbled.

“
So the church doesn’t approve of what you do?
”
the prince asked.

“
No,
”
Garrett said,
“
I don’t know... I think they do things differently, and they don’t really like the way we raise the dead, but I don’t know why.
”

Cabre’s face darkened. He brushed a dead leaf from the shoulder of his green doublet and stared off into the shadows of the woods.

Warren started as a shadow passed over him, and he looked up, cursing at a blackbird
that
sat, watching them from a branch overhead.

Garrett snorted, but the laughter froze on his lips.

The thin shafts of light on the path ahead winked out as a vast shadow fell across the road. An old fear seized his heart, and his eyes went wide. Ghausse and Hauskr sprang from the road, hiding themselves and their frightened riders in the tangled brush. Inglefras, however, went stiff-legged, his nostrils flaring as the shadow of the dragon fell over him. Cabre lifted his arms to cover his face as the beat of the dragon’s wings shook the trees above, showering the road with dying leaves. A sound like stones rattling down a clay drainpipe marked the beast’s passing.

Warm dampness spread across the front of Garrett’s trousers, and his face grew hot with fear and shame.

Warren sniffed, glancing at his friend, and Garrett saw the look of sympathy in the ghoul’s eye before he could quickly look away.

Inglefras snorted and shook his mane. The prince looked wildly around, his face pale.

Garrett held his breath, listening to beat of vast leathery wings recede into the distance. Then, the sound stopped.

A bowel-shaking roar tore through the forest, and Inglefras reared, nearly throwing the stunned prince. The dragon’s roar drowned out the warhorse’s frantic whinnying.

“
This way!
”
Warren shouted. His wolf Hauskr plunged deeper into the darkness of the forest, and the others followed him.

Garrett’s wolf powered through a twisting mass of vines and branches, leaving behind gray tufts of fur and the corner of Garrett’s cloak. Garrett dared not look back, but heard Inglefras’s massive hooves trampling the brush behind him.

The groaning crack of ancient trees, splintered like kindling, filled the air, and, with it, the ground-shaking thud of the dragon landing on the road. Garrett whined in fear as he clung tightly to Ghausse’s back, willing the wolf to run faster.

The dragon sucked in a rattling breath.

A blast of heat washed over Garrett’s back. He buried his face in Ghausse’s fur, his scream drowned out by the roar of fire among the trees. He opened his eyes, blinking at the steam of singed hair and burning leaves. He felt the heat mostly on his knees, just above the protection of his boots where Marla’s old cloak did not cover his legs. He looked back in wonderment to see the woods ablaze behind him, and Inglefras vaulting a fallen tree with Cabre clinging tightly to his mane.

Garrett let out a wild, manic laugh as Ghausse carried him deeper into the dense forest, dodging nimbly between the vast tree trunks.

“
This way!
”
Warren called out. Garrett could not see him through the trees, but Ghausse followed the ghoul’s sound and scent unerringly.

Garrett looked back
again
,
cold fear in his heart as he caught a glimpse between the trees of a great scaled head and a single golden eye, its gaze locked on him. The dragon pushed through the trees, uprooting them and roaring its frustration.

A branch across the side of Garrett’s head broke the spell of terror, and he dared look back no more.

“
Watch out!
”
Warren cried.

Ghausse skidded, his claws scraping on stone beneath a thick carpet of dead leaves. Warren sat astride Hauskr at the edge of a wide sinkhole cavern. Ghausse checked his slide at the very edge of the pit, leaving Garrett to sway, sickeningly close to falling in. Beneath them yawned a cavern, nearly a hundred yards across and deeper still. Sunlight through the gap in the trees above revealed the remains of the cavern’s roof, a little island of rubble in center of a great black pool at the bottom of the pit. The damp tumbled stones glistened, heaped with mounds of glimmering white bones.

Inglefras thundered to a stop behind them.

“
What are we doing?
”
Cabre shouted, his face contorted in fear,
“
He’s right behind us!
”

“
Follow me close!
”
Warren hissed,
“
If you slip here, you die!
”

Ghausse whined, sniffing loudly at a blue cloud of
wood smoke
that belched out of the woods and rolled over them. The big wolf paced anxiously, his ears pricking up at the sound of splintering timbers growing louder by the moment.

Hauskr gingerly stepped to the edge of the pit at Warren’s urging and then pounced down to a small ledge below on the rim of the cavern wall. Ghausse followed his
pack mate
without hesitation. They looked up at the prince astride the mighty warhorse above them.

“
Can you make it down?
”
Warren asked.

Cabre nodded and pressed his heels into Inglefras’s flanks. The horse leapt, shattering chunks of
lime
stone beneath his hooves when he landed beside them.

From there, it seemed that a narrow path curved downward along the rim of the great crater. They made what haste they could. Garrett’s eyes again and again lifted to the ridge above. Fervent, whispered prayers slipped from his lips that he would see nothing there each time he looked.

They were almost to the floor of the cavern when the dragon found them. Garrett looked up and froze. The great, black-scaled beast stretched its neck over the rock ledge and stared down at them. Heat shimmered from its half-opened jaws, its reptilian eyes narrowed.

“
No,
”
Cabre said, but his voice was no more than a squeaking whisper.

With a lurch, the dragon heaved the bulk of its body to the edge of the pit, and Garrett saw the armored Chadiri rider astride the dragon’s saddle. Silhouetted against the sky, the man’s horned helmet lent him a demonic appearance. In that moment, Garrett had no doubt that this was the same man who had destroyed his home and burned Brenhaven to the ground.

The dire wolves growled and Inglefras neighed his defiance. There was no place left to run. The dragon’s jaws opened wider, the cherry-red glow of its inner throat visible now within.

Then the dragon stopped. Its jaws closed. Its burning, golden eyes widened and rolled, studying the cavern floor. Garrett looked down as well. Great piles of bleached bones lay heaped upon the mossy rocks and gleamed like pale stones beneath the dark, still waters. Garrett realized with horror that these were not animal bones.

A croaking groan came from the dragon’s throat. Its head thrashed,
side-to-side
. Its eyes grew wild, rolling frantically, as the creature drew its head back out of the pit. The rider astride its back grunted as the dragon reared, pulling away from the mouth of the bone-strewn cavern.