Chapter 46
Glyf stared out into the night, but it was not the forest glade in which they camped she saw. Her mind turned inward as the presence of the dragonkin she had watched taken in Windy Cove flowed in and about her. It was not so much that she spoke to Glyf, but more like the hatchling overheard a prayer or plea given to the wind so that every breeze, every breath of air, whispered her entreaty.
She heard Jayf slight intake of breath, and Marley grunted, sitting up in his bedroll. Glyf felt the desperation almost vibrating in the wind as Thysl choked back a sob and began putting on his boots.
Chase’s head popped up from where he slept rolled up in his cloak. “What has happened?” He glanced around at the others packing and after a moment, slipped into his boots and stood, waiting for an answer.
Marley glanced up at Chayse as he rolled his ground blanket and stuffed it in his pack. “A dragon hatched from the thieved egg and High Councilman Urilith Ta’Sarith is dead. I don’t know how they did it and I don’t want to know. The cult and their new pet must be stopped.”
“How…,” Chayse started to ask, but Glyf answered him before he spoke more words.
“Hefldeep told the wind what happened this night. And the wind has taken up this tale to give to any who would hear.” She scurried about the fire pit, collecting the stray utensils from their earlier meal.
“Is she still alive? How long will it take us to get there? Will we still wait for Drogan and Mek?” The questions flew from Chayse’s mouth in rapid succession as he picked up his pack.
“We cannot wait for Drogan and Mek to meet up with us,” Marley said. “Tell Mek what has happened and that we journey upon the Paths to Sorrows Heart.”
Glyf glanced around the group, noting Chayse’s faraway look and figured he spoke with Mek."Has anyone any idea of how far it is to this place from here?"
Marley cleared his throat, stroking his beard. “Jayf, you have traveled the Paths with Hefldeep into the Terijar on a couple of Urilith’s yearly trips, haven’t you?
“I have never been there,” Glyf said, fidgeting with the packs.
Neither Jayf nor Thysl had spoken aloud since hearing Hefldeep’s call upon the wind. Their companions giving them the time to mind-speak with each other as Hefldeep was to both of them the closest thing they had to a mother. Now he came away from his silent conversation. “I have.
The province of Terijar is a wild place,” Jayf said, helping Glyf with the food and equipment packs. “It is filled with all manner of things that will send a shiver through your soul and put the fear of the Seven into your heart. But none so much as those that dwell within the reaches of the Vale at Sorrow’s Heart.”
Glyf grimaced and said, “I think we have an idea what has taken up residence in Sorrow’s Heart now and it is a malignancy that we must somehow stop before it spreads. How long do you think it will take us on the Paths?”
“It should not take more than a day upon the Paths, but we will have to push.”
“Let us hope the fates play us fair this day and our strength holds out.”
A frown creased Jayf’s brow as he asked, “Is there any reason to think we would not have the strength?”
She bit her lip and sighed, realizing how inadequate she felt for the onus placed upon their little group. “Nay, it is just that I have tried to contact Ymarii over and over since my abilities returned, to no avail. None of the hatchlings are strong enough to mind-speak at this great of a distance. Even when I go onto the Paths, it is like, like I stand on the edge of the wind… alone.”
Concern whetted Marley’s words. “What, what’s this you say?”
“I mind-spoke with her a handful of days ago, before Mek found you,” Jayf volunteered, pulling at his topknot tail. “Although she told me there was nothing more either Drogan or I could do, I did not get the sense that she was without a contingency plan.”
“Well and well, let us journey. We shall not discern Ymarii’s whereabouts nor put a stop to the Cult of Sangryl’s Light by standing here chatterwacking.
The last push on the Paths left them on a ridge above Sorrow’s Heart, giving them a serviceable vantage point above the vale. They scanned the vale with a mix of dread and fear. The night of the warring moons ended and the vale echoed with the dying screams of those sacrificed to the atrocity the cult hatched from Ymarii’s egg.
“We’re too late. It has grown to almost Ymarii’s size.” Marley groaned.
Their view, sighting down a narrow ravine left from a bygone watercourse. From there, the large obsidian circle of stone corroded with streaks of green drew the eye, and in the center of the altar, a dragon as black as that stone. It too mottled with virulent green corruption. Neck stretching toward the sky, it stood on its haunches. The air thrummed with spent Tavir and it bellowed its displeasure, spitting acid, it strained at the essence-wove shackles.
Gall rose in Marley’s throat as the beast stretched its sinuous body as far as allowed, snapping up a dragonkin shoved forward by a spear-wielding guard. The dragon seemed to grow right before their eyes. They watched a cart, full of huddling captives, pulled back a few lengths.
Intent upon enlarging his diet, the dragon lunged forward and the guard in the cart pushed another prisoner out the back. The dragonkin fell to her knees, but another guard was there to prod her up and forward, the tip of his spear at her back. As if she sensed them, the dragonkin glanced up toward the ridge on which Marley and his allies stood.
Marley groaned, as did Jayf and Thysl. Jayf tried to hold Thysl back as he darted past him. But Thysl swung around cuffing Jayf on the jaw and using the momentum to push him over a stump.
“It’s Hefldeep!” Thysl cried in explanation, his eyes a maelstrom of desperation. Without a glance back, he sped headlong down the mountainside.
Marley bent down to help a dazed Jayf up. A gash on the dragonkin’s arm dripped blood where a branch caught him on the way down and a lump on his head attested to his greeting when he got there.
“Does that need tending?” Marley pointed at Jayf’s blood-soaked sleeve with a nod of his head.
“Nay,” Jayf said, holding his injured forearm with his other hand. “Our tending needs to be down there.” He pointed toward the center of the clearing below and their friend’s brash descent. As they watched, Thysl stopped about halfway down the ridge.
“Oh Thysl, no, no, no.” Jayf yanked at his topknot, shaking his head in frustration, then Thysl began his song.
For a moment… just a moment while the song gained power, everything in the vale seemed to hold its breath and listen to the song and the wind. And then lightning lanced across the sky, thunder rumbled and the black dragon roared.
The sky seemed to split open, and Ymarii appeared. She glided high across the valley, banked before the ridge where the small troupe stood, and skimmed back toward the center of the vale and her waiting son.
A movement on a raised dais behind the altar turned Marley’s eyes from the sky. Someone stood upon the platform limed in lurid green. His arms stretched toward the dragon, he clapped his hands and the clap was as the thunder and the chains of corrupt essence fell away from the malevolent dragon.
Like a curse upon his breath, Marly spoke. “Zamphere.”