A very large, very black dragon. Its head shimmered iridescently in the strong sunlight, the blackness of its armored plates sparkling with all the shades of a midnight opal: blue and gold and fire-red.
He’d seen dragons before, but only in visions, and then only from a distance. They had seemed vaguely lizardlike, but borne as much resemblance to the lizards of the forest as Shalkan did to a horse, and as little. Long sinuous necks, tails twice the length of their bodies, ending in a broad flat barb to help the creatures steer in the currents of the upper air—for most of all, dragons had wings.
This one was only a few feet away. Its head alone was the size of a boat, and took up so much of Kellen’s field of vision that he couldn’t see any of the details he remembered from his visions. It blinked golden pupilless eyes the size of large melons at him.
How had it gotten so close without him knowing? Why hadn’t he at least heard it? The thing was the size of a building—and not a little cottage, either—it should make some noise!
And now what was he going to do? He certainly didn’t dare attack it…
“Wildmage. You are a friend to the other Wildmage.”
It was not a question. Its voice was deep, and surprisingly soft for its size.
He hadn’t known they could talk.
“Idalia! Do you know where she is?” Kellen demanded eagerly.
“Yes. She is hurt, and needs help.” The eyes blinked. “I will take you to her. The way will not be easy: the Tainted mock-Elves that infest the caverns were roused by my exit, and search for me now. To reach your Wildmage, we must return the way I came. They may discover us, and they are eager to take me prisoner.”
“Leave them to me,” Kellen said, touching his sword.
For a moment, he would have been willing to swear the dragon smiled. It hesitated for a moment. “My name is Ancaladar.”
“I’m Kellen. Idalia’s my sister. We’d better go quickly.”
He glanced at Shalkan.
“I’ll wait here,” the unicorn said. “Somebody needs to explain things to Jermayan—and sit on him if necessary.”
Kellen nodded, and scooped up the tarnkappa. He’d need its spells to see once they got into the caves—he’d have to explain the cloak to Ancaladar, so the dragon didn’t worry that Kellen had deserted him.
A dragon…
“Come, then,” Ancaladar said. The dragon spread his wings—blotting out the sun for a moment—and launched himself into the sky in an eerie silence. He flew low, obviously intending Kellen to follow.
“Better wear that,” Shalkan said, nodding at the tarnkappa. “Just in case you run into Jermayan on the way.”
Kellen nodded, swirled the cloak around himself, and took off after Ancaladar at a run.
His training under Master Belesharon served him well—before he had entered The House of Sword and Shield, Kellen would never have been able to run almost half a league uphill over snow to the foot of a cliff without falling flat on his face at the end of it. But though he wasn’t able to keep pace with the dragon—even though he could tell that Ancaladar was gliding very slowly—he reached the spot where the dragon circled very quickly, and flung back the tarnkappa as Ancaladar dropped down to a neat—and silent—landing.
“Here I am,” Kellen said, looking up at Ancaladar. “Idalia made this so she could sneak around in the caverns.”
“I could see you quite clearly,” the dragon said.
Now that was interesting. Ancaladar could see through the tarnkappa’s spells?
“I’ll need it to see underground,” Kellen said, wrapping it around himself again.
“Then it is good that you should wear it,” Ancaladar said. “Humans find these caverns very dark.”
The dragon turned his attention to the cliff face. Several yards up the icy rock wall, Kellen could see a wide slit in the stone. Ancaladar stuck his head into the gap and squirmed in, furling his enormous ribbed wings tightly against his sides. And that was possibly the strangest thing that Kellen had seen in—well, a long time. The dragon shouldn’t have been able to fit in there. What could it do, disjoint all its bones?
My turn. Kellen flexed his gauntleted hands, and began to climb.
Elven armor, it was said by its makers, was flexible enough that its wearer could dance in it, and certainly the combat form practiced by the Elven Knights was very much like dance. Kellen also knew, from previous experience, that you could climb in Elven armor, but he’d never tried climbing a vertical ice-covered wall in it.
He managed to get halfway up, though, before a long black-scaled arm tipped in golden talons appeared out of the darkness and plucked him into the cave.
“You take too long,” Ancaladar said.
Oh.
“Um. Sorry. I’m a lot smaller than you are. It takes me longer to get places.” Kellen squirmed past the dragon’s body—fortunately this entrance to the cave system was fairly wide—and moved forward until he was in front of Ancaladar’s head. Even though he was technically in front, the dragon was so enormous that it was still in the lead—it had only to stretch out its long sinuous neck to put its head several yards in front of Kellen.
The passage here was fairly straight, without any side passages, and the tarnkappa’s darksight spell ensured that it was as bright as day, even though Ancaladar’s body blocked all the light from the outside. Kellen started forward confidently.
Soon the passage opened out into a cavern. It was so large that he could not see the far side of it, even with the aid of the tarnkappa’s magical sight. He could feel a faint steady breeze blowing over him—from deep in the earth toward the outside air.
The path ended in a drop-off, but fortunately it wasn’t a sheer drop. There was a slope—steep, but manageable. Kellen gritted his teeth and started down it.
It was steeper than he’d thought, and he ended up making most of the journey to the bottom on his rump. Behind him, he saw Ancaladar step neatly to the cave floor—the dragon’s size made the drop-off no more than a single step for him.
Kellen was about to ask which way they went now, when Ancaladar’s head suddenly shot up. He saw the dragon’s nostrils flare—just like Shalkan’s when he smells something bad—and then, without a word or a sound, Ancaladar gave a great bound and launched himself at the nearest cave wall, climbing quickly and silently until he’d vanished into the shadows.
That was good enough for Kellen, even though he heard nothing. He scrambled quickly to his feet and looked around for a place to get out of the way. He saw a niche between the edge of the cliff and the cave wall—not much, but it would have to do. He quickly moved toward it and pressed himself back into the corner.
Just in time, it turned out. He’d barely settled himself when he began to hear faint noises, as of a large group of people moving quietly, but not entirely silently. A few moments later they came into view.
There were eight of them. Six were male, the two bringing up the rear were female. It was easy to tell, because none of them was wearing much more than a hip wrap. All were barefoot as well.
The two females were both carrying large bundles of netting. The nets were made of some substance Kellen had never seen before—a shiny, silvery-grey substance that looked something like silk.
All of the males were armed, both with long spears balanced for throwing— Kellen’s Knight-Mage gifts told him that—but also with a variety of looted weapons. Kellen recognized swords and daggers that had belonged to his friends from the House of Sword and Shield, and felt a dull surge of anger.
These must be the Shadowed Elves Idalia mentioned—what Ancaladar calls “Tainted mock-Elves”
They were horrible in their own right, but to anyone who counted Elves as friends, they were especially horrible. There was no doubt of their Elven blood, but just as Idalia had said, somehow it had been mixed with Goblins to produce those fanged muzzles, receding jaws, and pale bulging eyes. Their hands and feet had talons, not nails, as well.
No wonder Vestakia had been able to find this place. And Idalia had said there was a whole colony of these creatures here.
They were obviously searching for Ancaladar. Every few feet the one in the lead would squat down and sniff the ground, then speak to the others in a strange guttural barking language. He was not the leader, apparently, for the leader urged him onward with blows, causing a dispute to break out among the hunting party. During all of this, the females cowered back, hissing.
At last they moved on. They passed right by Kellen’s hiding place without stopping to look, and Kellen blessed the Wild Magic that had gone into the tarnkappa’s making. Even when he could no longer see them, he stayed where he was, waiting for Ancaladar to return.
At last the dragon reappeared, gliding down to the floor of the cavern to land soundlessly. Even now it did not speak, merely swiveled its great head and pointed in the direction they should go.