Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (45 page)

They pushed.

“In a moment,” the cloud’s voice encouraged, “Nunn will think twice about eating any of us ever again.”

Mary Lou’s head was clearing at last. For the moment, the smoke and the dragon were gone. They had been replaced by any number of wizards.

“Mary Lou,” a gentle voice said at her side. The prince had returned. “Good heavens!” Obar whispered. “It’s you!”

The prince nodded his head. “Your brother and I have already been introduced.”

Mrs. Smith floated forward. “Mary Lou, I think we should get out of this place.”

“I’ve been sent here to tell you to stop this,” the prince said to all the wizards floating about. “All your interference.”

“Interference?” Obar asked with a frown.

“With the People’s Ceremony,” the prince explained. “They want you to know that if it is not completed, the results will be regrettable.”

“So you
are
working for the People,” Mary Lou said. Somehow she’d feel so much better if that was the case.

The prince glanced down at her again. “In some ways, I suppose I am. Frankly, I just don’t know anymore.”

“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Nunn remarked curtly. “I think I’ll destroy all of you.” He lifted his hands toward the new jewel in his forehead. “Except for dear Mary Lou.”

“Mary Lou,” Mrs. Smith insisted. “We have to get out of this place now.”

“Mary Lou,” the prince said. “The People need you here.”

“Mary Lou,” Nunn smirked. “You’ll be coming with me.” Mary Lou quickly looked from face to face. All of them wanted her for different reasons. But not one of them, not even dear Mrs. Smith, asked her what
she
wanted.

Nunn giggled as green sparks flew from his fingers. He was the real danger here. He was the one who had to be stopped.

Suddenly, surprisingly, Mary Lou thought she caught a glimpse of the dragon. Not in any of the wizards, but behind her eyelids when she blinked, as if the great beast hadn’t left, after all, but was waiting there to burst forth and destroy everything around it.

She sat up. The image of the dragon gave her strength. She knew she had to stop Nunn. He was keeping her from her destiny.

Nunn floated toward the platform, his eyes daring any of the others to stop him. He had spread his arms wide now, and his fingertips glowed as if they were lit from within. Mary Lou’s gaze was drawn to the new gem in his forehead, which seemed to pulse with light. She wanted to touch that light. She felt almost like she had to, like the dragon ordered her.

The gem moved slightly, as if it had somehow worked itself loose.

Why not, she thought, if it was part of the dragon?

“I’ll kill the rest of you now,” Nunn said as he hovered above her. “Mary Lou and I will have a much better time in private.”

Not with that gem, you won’t. She reached up and plucked it from his forehead.

It came out easily.

Nunn screamed, his hands flying to his forehead. “What have you done to me?”

“Only taken something that wasn’t yours,” Mary Lou replied, surprised her voice could sound this strong.

Nunn groaned. The green fire now lived in his eyes. “You’ll give that back to me.” Green flame burst from his mouth.

Mary Lou felt like she had been punched in the stomach. The platform of sticks rocked beneath her.

“Mine now,” Nunn cried as he grabbed for the gem. “Mine forever!” A black bird swooped between him and his prize.

“Raven owns all shiny things!” the bird announced as he grabbed the dragon’s eye with his claws.

“No!” Nunn screamed, unable to stop his forward momentum. He fell heavily on top of Mary Lou.

The platform of sticks collapsed beneath them.

T
odd and the others had almost reached them when Mary Lou disappeared.

Raven flew away as Nunn fell toward the smoking pot below. The kettle disappeared a second later. Nunn spun about in the air, whirling around as if his sorcery now controlled him. The wizard made a shrieking noise, so hard and high it sounded like metal scraping metal rather than the sound of some living thing.

Then the wizard, too, was gone.

There was a moment of silence as if no one could believe what had happened before them.

Then the Anno all erupted at once, not with a call of “Merrilu” or any of their other chants, but with a great cry of anguish and loss.

Thomas led the group forward again, so that the Volunteers surrounded Mrs. Smith and Obar. Todd and Nick rushed to join them.

Mrs. Smith leaned against the steps that once led to the platform above the kettle. She looked as if she had just run a mile. Obar was on his knees, breathing heavily. Todd had never seen either of them look so drained.

“Watch it!” Stanley called.

The Anno, so still for a minute, then so full of grief, had begun to run. Most scurried away from them, but a few raced in their direction, as if the humans weren’t even there.

As they rushed forward, Todd could see recognition in the Annos’ eyes. Their foes were before them, the ones who had taken Mary Lou. The first among them rushed toward Todd with a shriek, not even bothering to draw its knife, all snatching claws and snapping jaws.

Todd managed to catch the thing by the head, flipping it around. He cut its throat with a single slash.

“These things have gone crazy!” he said as he saw most of the other attackers fall under the Volunteers’ arrows. One last Anno rushed forward to impale itself on Nick’s sword. The metal glowed as somehow the impaled Anno seemed to shrink.

Todd looked around quickly, to see if any more were coming, but all the Anno were gone or dead.

“They’re acting like berserkers,” Wilbert agreed. “Like they just don’t care.”

“Without Mary Lou,” the ghost-man said, “their lives have lost their meaning. You have taken away their reason for being.” Todd stared down at the bodies littering the log flooring. “We have?”

“So the People think.”

Stanley looked at the suddenly silent world around them. “So what are they doing now, hey?”

The ghost-man shrugged his shoulders. “What else can they do? They’ve gone to look for Mary Lou, no matter what it takes. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll find her anyplace—not on this world, anyway.”

This time Mrs. Smith stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“There was a great deal of power used here today. It caught everyone with sorcerous ability, draining them.”

“Except you,” Mrs. Smith pointed out.

“I’m not quite on this world myself,” the ghost-man replied with a slight smile. “It would take something very special to drain away the magic like that. I think we’ve just witnessed the first visit of the dragon.”

Not the first, Todd thought. But he didn’t want to say anything to this stranger.

“So the dragon took Mary Lou?” he asked instead.

“It is the only sensible explanation,” the ghost-man answered. “We can only hope that someplace, somewhere, the dragon brings her back.”

“Then Mary Lou is that important to the dragon?” Mrs. Smith considered.

“We are all important to the dragon,” Obar said, looking as if he had caught his breath at last. “That is why we’re here.”

“At the dragon’s whim, hey?” Stanley said caustically.

“Unless we can find a way to turn the dragon’s whim around,” Obar replied.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Stanley demanded. “Now do you see why I can’t trust wizards? They don’t talk with two tongues, they talk with a dozen!”

“Just because we can make magic,” Obar answered a bit defensively, “doesn’t mean we can explain it.” He coughed, a bit nervous to be the center of attention. “When you have a dragon’s eye, as I now do, you control a small piece of the dragon’s power. Because of this, these eyes are invaluable, but, despite their worth, many of them have remained hidden, beyond our grasp. Until now, that is.”

“Now?” Maggie asked. “What do you mean?”

“Now,” Obar continued, “these eyes are surfacing, pulsating with power, so that those who have had contact with one of these eyes might be able to find the others. Who knows why this is so? Perhaps the power comes from the proximity of the dragon. Or perhaps they are another sort of signal. Maybe the dragon wants someone to collect all seven eyes. Maybe this time, instead of controlling the world, the dragon wishes for someone to control it.”

“Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, hey?” Stanley scoffed. “I think the magic’s seeped into your brain.”

Obar smiled at that, as if Stanley’s comment was nothing more than a joke. “As far as we know, the dragon has risen and the world has been destroyed countless times, an endless cycle.” He paused, lifting a finger to point at the sky. “What if, this time, the dragon wanted to put an end to the cycle?”

“You mean that he’d want to destroy everything once and for all?” Maggie asked.

“Perhaps that,” Obar agreed. “Perhaps something else.”

“But how are we supposed to figure out something like that?” Stanley called in frustration. “How can we know something about the unknowable?”

“Maybe,” Todd said, surprised at the thought, “even the dragon doesn’t know.”

“But we’re forgetting about our friends, the Anno,” Wilbert called out with a frown. “What will happen if the Anno can’t find Mary Lou?”

The prince also frowned for an instant before replying. “They’ll do what they’re used to, kill things and eat them. Before, though, they were cautious. Now I half think they’ll kill anything that moves.”

Todd thought of his mother on the forest floor.

“They’ll attack the neighbors!” Maggie said at the same instant. “Down below.”

“God, what are we thinking of?” Thomas added.

The Volunteers were already headed down. For once, Todd hoped he wasn’t right.

T
he trees warned him a minute before the attack began.

“From above!” the Oomgosh warned the others. “Get to the middle of the clearing. As far from the trees as you can!”

Jason called to Charlie as the rest of the neighbors gathered around the Oomgosh at the dead center of the clearing. Mrs. Furlong had to be led by a couple of the others. They placed her so that she was the closest to the Oomgosh’s broad back.

He heard the first high shrieks as they formed a tight circle. “It’s the Anno!” Jason called over the rising noise.

“They are not happy,” the Oomgosh replied. “The trees tell me they’ve lost someone they love.”

There were maybe a hundred voices, filling the trees all around, voices filled with anger and pain, voices that wanted someone to pay for their grief.

“Watch out!” Jason called. Arrows flew from the nearer trees. But the clearing was too large. All but two of the tiny arrows fell far short, the others far wide of their little group. The Oomgosh saw that someone had shot one of those spears as well; those poison sticks. But the Anno had little experience with them, and the spear had not even made it as far as the arrows.

“They can’t touch us,” Mrs. Blake said softly.

“Not unless they are very lucky,” the Oomgosh agreed. “Or they decide to venture forth from the trees. And the Anno are cowards. The trees give them their advantage, and they seldom venture far away.”

The arrows stopped for a moment, and the screaming began anew. The sound doubled, and doubled again, causing the humans to cover their ears.

“I have never heard the Anno mourn this way,” the Oomgosh said.

When this was over, he would ask the trees what they had lost, “Oh, God,” Mrs. Dafoe whispered.

The Oomgosh saw them, too, then. The Anno were dropping from the trees. More than a dozen of them hit the ground and began to run toward them. They had left their bows behind, but they still held their knives.

“Now,” the Oomgosh said, “we will have to fight.”

He was ready, if he must. His strength was far more than that of humans, and even greater than the Anno. He could bat them away, break their necks, and crush them, even with only one arm.

Their knives would do little more than scratch his bark-like skin. With the luck of the dragon, maybe he and his companions could escape this unharmed.

One of the Anno paused in the attack and pulled the poison stick from the ground. The Oomgosh would have to be careful with that one.

All of the Anno screamed again as they rushed the neighbors. Some of the neighbors screamed back.

“T
hat was a bit more successful than even I had imagined,” the cloud wizard admitted.

Mills simply couldn’t believe it. “Did we really push the jewel out of Nunn’s forehead?”

“Well, indirectly,” the cloud replied. “The pressure from you and Zachs set it free. I just slightly redirected the energy. Sort of the magic version of levers and pulleys. All simple machines, really.”

Mills imagined that made as much sense as anything.

“But what will Nunn do now?” Zachs insisted. “Nunn gets angry.

Very angry.”

“Yes,” Mills added. “How do you plan to negotiate?”

“Nunn has to deal with us now.” The cloud’s voice was so reassuring, almost anything it said sounded sensible. Or at least it did until Mills started thinking about it. “We’ll talk as soon as he awakes.”

From somewhere in the distance, Mills heard a distinct snore. “But Nunn will be angry!” Zachs insisted. “Nunn will destroy us!”

“How can he destroy us?” the cloud’s oh-so-reasonable voice replied. “After all, we’re a part of him.”

“W
atch the spear,” the Oomgosh said to the others in the circle. “It is tipped with poison.”

The tree man remembered how the last poison stick had felt, how that simple scratch beneath his skin had burned as his arm had withered before him. He wouldn’t let that happen to him again, either to himself or to any of the humans he was protecting.

The Anno formed a wider circle around the tight-knit group of neighbors. They advanced slowly and silently, as if all they wanted to do was kill. All of the neighbors except Mrs. Furlong had weapons, too; knives mostly, although Jason had picked a hatchet, which he held with both hands.

“Be ready,” the Oomgosh further warned. “They will attack all at once.”