~ 14 ~
“Do you hear that?” I asked Ami.
She cocked her head, listening intently. “I hear the surf beyond the walls, and the howl of the Mornai winds. But nothing from the volcano. Did you feel it move?”
“No. It’s a sound on another level. I thought you might sense it, like you did the shadow guardians on the pass to Annfwn.”
She shook her head, the tail she’d tied her hair into bouncing. “I lost pretty much all of that once Stella was born. The only pieces I have left seem to be tied to her. What does it sound like?”
“Like when I hear what the horses are feeling.” I studied the branching tunnels. This far down they weren’t as even, not neatly carved out for human use. These were made by the flows of lava and venting of steam. Sweat beaded at my temples and ran down my back. At the edges of my senses, the dragon roared, flaming through nightmares. “You go on back up,” I told her.
“Sure!” she said brightly. “If you’re coming, too.”
I growled in frustration and she only beamed at me, all innocent amiability. “Fine, but pull your knife. Torch in the other hand. Stay behind me.”
“Yes, sir.” Snippy, but she complied.
I drew my sword, sorely wishing I could have a blade in each hand. Following the siren call of the dragon’s pain, I led us through a series of tunnels, descending through air that grew more sere, stinking of gases from beneath the earth, and of decay on a psychic level. It stung my nostrils, burned in my brain, and heated my lungs, making me want to breathe out the fire again.
Or that was the dragon, muttering in my mind.
More than once I started to say we should turn back, if only for Ami’s sake. Her face was flushed, sheened with sweat, but every time I looked back to check on her, she returned my gaze with fierce determination. She wouldn’t go back without me. And I couldn’t make myself stop.
The dragon drew me onwards, a compulsion below thought. I could no more resist than I could if this were one of the nightmares. I had no idea what I hoped to find, what I expected to do about the dragon, but I had to go on.
Something lunged at me out of the dark tunnel ahead, launching from some ledge above. My sword met it, spearing it through the chest with its own momentum. Though I’d cleaved it cleanly through the heart, it continued to flail, swiping and scrabbling with its claws, fangs snapping. I stomped a booted foot on its lower jaw, shoving its head back, then cleaved the head from the body in one clean stroke.
I took a moment to listen, to survey the shadows ahead for movement, then checked Ami. She’d crouched behind a rock outcropping, but straightened when I nodded all clear. Gripping her knife, she held out the torch, studying the creature which still scrabbled about aimlessly, teeth snapping at nothing.
“That’s like those wolf things that attacked us,” she said.
“I thought so, too. Not exactly a wolf. Some kind of cross with a reptile. The fur is nearly like the armor plating of scales.”
“It’s not alive, is it?” she whispered.
“No. No more than any of Deyrr’s creatures are.” Its presence here explained some of the psychic stink.
“We have to burn it.”
“Easily enough done, down here.” I sheathed my sword and grabbed one of the flailing hind legs. “Watch my back, would you?”
“Always,” she replied as if it were a vow, with a smile that warmed my heart.
Kicking the slavering head ahead of me, I dragged the carcass back to a rent in the tunnel that opened onto a pit with a radiant pool of lava below. I kicked the head into it, watching it sink with some satisfaction, then pushed the carcass after it. I’d have liked to hurl it in there, but a one-armed man had to take what he could. If only I could destroy the demons of my past as easily.
“Ash!”
I pulled my sword and put Ami behind me. Two more of the creatures charged us. One took a stroke to the throat but kept coming, latching onto my leg. I cleaved the head off the other, then did the same to the one biting me.
“Foul creatures,” I swore. “Good thing they’re slow.”
“Slow? It bit you!”
“Not badly. Nothing like the one that got my arm. The leathers took most of the damage, so I’m glad you helped me get them on.” Ami didn’t smile back this time, looking furious and afraid.
“They’re slow,” I repeated, shoving the carcasses into the pit to follow their comrade. “That’s what Deyrr’s magic does. It animates them, but nothing like a self-willed creature has. They don’t have the intelligence to fight together. I noticed that when they attacked the sleighs.”
“Oh, you noticed that, did you?” She sounded coolly incredulous. Better annoyed than afraid though.
I tossed her a grin, wiping my hands off on my thighs. The bite wound oozed a little blood, but was solidly in the meat of the muscle. It hadn’t had time to chew down to the bone. “I don’t know how or why these creatures are here. They stink of Deyrr, but don’t have a clear mission.”
She gazed down the tunnel. “Except maybe to keep us away from the dragon.”
“Maybe that, yes.”
“Then how are we going to let it out?”
The dragon wasn’t much farther down, but I’d come close enough to learn all I needed to. It thrashed in nightmares, no closer to escaping them than I was to mine. Getting closer to it wouldn’t do any good and would only put Ami at risk. “I don’t think we can.”
“What do you mean? Dafne let the one at Nahanau out.”
“Yes—through the top of the volcano. Castle Windroven is in the way here. Like a cork in a bottle. I thought maybe if the dragon was awake enough, we could coax it out a side vent. But I can feel it in my head. It needs someone else to fully waken it, to show it the way.”
“How awful.” Ami’s gaze searched the passage behind me, glimmering with her natural compassion. A sensitive and generous heart in my Ami.
“I’ve sent it some healing energy, to soothe it.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Our secret.” I smiled at her wearily. That effort had taken the last of my remaining energy. I might heal faster than non-Tala, but not that fast. Especially not with what I’d given the dragon. I had to admit that I couldn’t fight off many more of the creatures.
“Then have you seen enough—can we go back?”
“Yes.” Shadows smudged the hollows under her cheekbones and around her eyes.
Ami led the way and I followed, sword drawn and walking backwards to keep an eye on any attackers from behind. “I’ll write to Andi and Ursula about it. Dafne, too,” she said. “Maybe they can send someone to help the dragon.”
“Good. In the meanwhile, I want to wake some of the men to close off access to these tunnels. We’ve been lucky so far, but I don’t want to risk it.”
“Agreed,” Ami said with some fervency. “I don’t want those creatures getting into the castle proper.”
I grunted agreement. Slow as they were, they could do considerable damage, especially to the children.
“I still have the building schematics Dafne found in the library here,” she said when we reached the kitchens. “We can use those to direct the men where to close everything off. I’ll get those while you rouse the men.”
“You should go to—”
“Not until you do,” she cut me off crisply. “And I’m queen here. This is my castle. I’ll oversee the work, see to your wounds, and then we will go to bed. If we’re lucky, we’ll sleep for an hour or two before Willy and Nilly start getting into trouble.”