Chapter 4

Wind hissed through the sere grasses and moaned among the lintels of the barrow mounds. Chayse ducked into one of the larger ones. He knew his mother’s tomb was close, but the vicious bite of the wind allowed him only a double handful of steps before he needed to seek shelter and breath.

Lightning slashed at the sky as if it would bring down the stars. And although the wind howled and the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, there was not a cloud to scar the night. Chayse pulled his hood close, tucking his head before moving back onto the path.

“Two more mounds, then turn right, one mound over and face the light.” Mumbling to himself the end of the rhyme he’d made up as a child to the gestured directions of Mek.

The angry intensity of this strange storm ripped his hood out of his hand as he squinted into the wind. Ahead of him, Mek stood before the mound, his back to the gale. The half-giant’s large cloak whipped around him, but he stood firm and soon Chayse was close enough to use his friend’s frame as a windbreak.

Mek didn’t wait for Chayse to speak, but gestured for him to follow. Most thought the big man daft or at least unable to communicate, but Chayse knew whoever cut out Mek’s tongue as a child only sharpened his intellect. An intellect that saved both of their lives on more than one occasion.

Their course staggered through the remaining stone and earth tombs, using them to break the wind as they struggled toward the temple ruins sitting above on a rocky ridge. By the time they stood before the buff, the promise of dawn shown on the eastern horizon. Safe from the wind here, Mek pointed out a cave entrance sheltered by a screen of brambles and large shaker-wood bushes.

Entering the dark interior, Chayse reached for the torch Fayln gave him, but remembered he left it in the torch bucket at the end of her exit tunnel. He glanced around, his eyes near blind in the dark grotto, when he heard a sharp scraping sound. Orange sparks fell from the flint grasped in Mek’s meaty hand and soon a torch flared, giving light to their surroundings.

One very large tunnel and two smaller ones opened up in the back of the cave. Chayse wondered if one of them would take them north toward the merchant road and Freeport to the northwest. He turned to ask Mek, using a language of signals and gestures he and the half-giant devised long ago.

His friend’s answering gestures made him realize this was the entry to the temple ruins above and Ymarii mountain beyond. He wondered if Mek really thought they could sneak through the Dragon’s tunnels and find their way out the other side. When he asked, Mek shook his head but still led him toward the back of the deep cave.

They had gone a handful of steps when Chayse pulled up short. He squinted into the shadows ahead. Something felt off. The dust of the cave floor was scuffed with boot prints. He turned to Mek. “I’m getting a bad feeling here.”

His big friend’s chest heaved in a sigh and his shoulders slumped a little as he pointed to a pile of refuse lying in the entrance to the largest tunnel. As Chayse drew close, he noticed fragments of a shell, a large leathery shell, maybe two.

He glanced back at his friend and waited for him to bring the torch closer. “They’re hatchlings, aren’t they?”

Two small bodies lay curled within those ruined casings. Chayse backed away, shaking his head. “Who in the name of Ymarii’s great winds would risk the Dragon’s fury? We can’t stay here. If the Dragon finds us with them, guilty or not, I fear her judgment would be harsh. ”

Mek nodded his agreement and told him he thought they died a handful of days before.

Chayse glanced at the tunnels and turned resolutely back toward the entry. “No wonder the wind carries such a savage lament. I would lay odds this has something to do with the unexpected disappearance of Ymarii’s trade emissary Talf.” He remembered seeing the dragonkin placing an order with Niun one moment and then he just disappeared.

“I hate to leave them like that, but I don’t think now is the time to test the Elemental Portal Guardian’s tolerance for interference by those with human blood.”

Mek gestured toward the cave opening and Chayse nodded.

“We need to find a place to rest or that wind will break us. Do you know of something close?”

With a few gestures, they decided to follow the sheltering rock bluff. Mek seemed certain places of rest were plentiful and with the storm, those hunting them would be few to none. They stepped quickly to the entrance and into a morning scoured raw by Ymarii’s rage.