Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) (6 page)

Pancras hadn’t thought about food
for the lizards, and he was afraid the other hoof would now drop. “We need to
buy food for them?”

“Well, we’ll be passing through a
lot of farmland. We’ll probably need to buy some sheep or other livestock from
farms along the way for the nailtooths. Otherwise, we might get a mob after
us.”

Edric snorted in his ale. “That’s
all we need. Leave a trail of sheep parts from here to Muncifer!” He snorted
again, threw back his head, and guffawed.

That was exactly the kind of
attention Pancras wanted to avoid. “Maybe Delilah can conjure enough boggins
for them to eat.”

Kali cocked her head. “Those
glowy, blue things? I don’t think they can live on stuff that isn’t real.”

Delilah waved her fork at Kali.
“Oh, they’re real. Not the glowy, blue ones. Those are just messengers. We got
real ones aplenty down under the mountains. Nasty, furry, bitey things.” She
shrugged and turned her head toward Pancras. “It’s worth a try, I guess. Even
the golguthrons won’t eat them, though. Didn’t Gluggon eat a couple of boggins,
and they ate their way out of his stomach?”

Kale smacked the table with his
palm. “That’s right! They chewed their way right out. He died moaning and
groaning about how we should always chew our food thoroughly.” He shook his
head and poked at the meat on his plate. “Poor Gluggon. He was funny.”

As he dined, Pancras thought back
to the old days in Drak-Anor. He hadn’t heard about the particular incident to
which Kale and Delilah referred, but he had heard even stranger tales than that
one. “We’ll give it a try, but it if doesn’t work out, I can buy sheep or cows
for them. Does anyone need to do anything while we’re here in town?”

Only Kali had anything of import.
“I wouldn’t mind taking an hour or so in the morning to see if there’s anyone I
know to say farewell to. Do you mind?”

Pancras shook his head. He didn’t
object to that. “Just be careful, and don’t dawdle. I want to arrive in
Muncifer as far ahead of Spring’s Dawning as we can.”

Chapter 4

The next morning, Kale
accompanied Kali as she made her way around town. He couldn’t help but marvel
at the buildings built by drak hands for draks. In Drak-Anor, drak homes were
glorified caves, all tunneled out of the lava tubes running underneath
Bloodplume. Doors were scavenged wood if the drak was affluent enough, though a
curtain of cloth or strips of leather sufficed for most draks.

In Honeywater, however, the buildings
were made of stone and wood, like small versions of the buildings he’d seen in
Almeria, but with drak touches like the arched doorways and round windows.
Humans seemed to like angles, and draks curves. Kale wondered why that was, and
Kali had no answers.

“I’ve never built a house”—she
laughed as she took his hand—“or anything, for that matter.” They walked along
a worn trail on the outskirts of the village, encircling Honeywater Lake. She
pointed toward an overgrown island in the center of the lake. “The biggest
apiary was over there. Run by a funny old man called Matvei. He was long dead
by the time I was hatched, of course. My grandsires told me stories about him.
I wonder if someone will clear all that brush away and start raising bees
again, now that our draks are free.”

Kale’s eyes followed her hand. A
fringe of frost surrounded the island like a crown of ice. The cold grip of
winter seemed reluctant to loose its grasp on the world, and again, he was glad
the transformation he underwent kept him warm. Kali seemed to appreciate his
warmth, too, wrapping her arms around him as they gazed across the lake.

“Come on. We should get going.
There are people I want to see before we leave.” Kali freed herself from Kale’s
embrace and led him toward the village. Some of the draks to whom she
introduced him were familiar faces from the salt mine. Others were strangers,
yet they all fawned over him as if he were a hero.

Kale tried to deflect the
compliments. “Delilah did most of the work. She’s the one with all the magic. I
just tried to keep the bad guys from squishing her long enough for her to blast
them.”

A hunched drak, his orange scales
dull and thickened with age, shook a crooked, clawed finger in Kale’s face.
“Your stripes burden you with glorious purpose. Your wings tell of a draconic
heritage unseen in generations. You should be proud. You should embrace your
heroism and not be ashamed of it.”

Kale doubted his wings were
connected to a draconic heritage, especially since they developed because of an
accident with a chaos rift. He saw them as a useful aberration and nothing
more. Kale kept quiet and let Kali do most of the talking as they made their
way to the stables. The anticipation of seeing his nailtooth lizard mount was
more than enough to push the old drak’s admonishment to the back of his mind.

Pancras assisted Edric with his
pony while Delilah directed her lizard in tentative, looping circles around
them. The nailtooths’ green scales glistened in the morning sun, and their
hissing and snapping rose above the din of the busy city market. A smile spread
across Kale’s face. The nailtooths were unlike any of the cave lizards his
sister and he encountered on Deep Road or in any of the other caves and caverns
near Drak-Anor.

“They’re so small!” Compared to
Pancras’s horse, they seemed pint-sized, though they were still larger than any
of the draks. Leather saddles and saddle bags were strapped to their backs, and
a petite drak cooed at them as she held them in check.

Kali took the reins of her lizard,
placed a foot in the stirrup, and hoisted herself into the saddle. The lizard
hissed and stomped its feet, but it made no move to throw her. She tugged on
the reins and spun it in a circle before stopping in front of Kale.

“The trick is to not hesitate and
be confident. Show them who’s boss. They’re less skittish than horses, and
despite all their hissing and snapping, they won’t eat draks.”

Kale took her word for it.

* * *

As trepidatious as she was
earlier to ride a hissing, toothy lizard, Delilah found her backside hurt much
less than being at the mercy of the wagon. After a few hours of riding, she
became confident it was a superior form of travel to walking.

When Chana first told Delilah the
nailtooth was named Fang, she bit her tongue to prevent sarcasm from spilling
forth. The lizard had two teeth that had grown together as one, making it
appear as if it had one giant fang when the others did not, but Delilah thought
it was a mundane name, like a too-obvious one invented by her brother.
At
least his lizard has an intimidating name: Blackclaw
.

Although she was loath to admit
it, Kali’s instruction in the finer points of lizard riding proved helpful. By
the third day, she and Kale appeared as comfortable in the saddle as they did
walking. The rolling plains of Etrunia took them through barren farmlands.
Patches of hard dirt peeked through the dusting of snow that would soon melt
and be replaced by splashes of green as the weather warmed and life returned.
As they rode, the isolation of being surrounded by austere fields almost
convinced Delilah they were the only people in the world. She distracted
herself by conjuring boggins for their lizards to enjoy chasing down and
devouring.

An advantage to crossing Etrunia
over the open plains instead of following the trade roads meant they
encountered no patrols and no brigands. Frankly, Delilah worried more about the
patrols than thieves. She could fight a marauder, but Pancras frowned upon
blasting random patrols of guards and soldiers, like the ones they encountered
at Bramblevale Keep last year.

“As long as we keep the mountains
to our right and head toward Greyhawk Point, we won’t have to worry about
becoming lost.” Pancras wheeled his horse about as he addressed the group. They
rode abreast for now, though most of the time they proceeded single file. The
sun hung past its zenith and slipped behind a bank of wispy clouds high in the
sky. Each day was longer than the previous. Even to Delilah, each felt a little
warmer than its predecessor.

“What kind of gambling do they
have in Muncifer?” Edric shifted in his saddle. For all his earlier protests
about how he disliked horses, the dwarf seemed fond of his pony, Yaffa. An “old
girl,” according to the dwarf, she seemed to doze most of the time if their
mounts loped along. Delilah didn’t think that was actually possible, but she
would be the first to admit she knew nothing about horses.

“The last time I was there, there
were no public gambling houses.” Pancras shrugged. “Maybe times have changed.
Let’s all try to stay out of trouble this time, eh?” He spurred his horse and
trotted away from the group.

Delilah cast a glance over to her
brother. “I think he was talking about you.”

“Me?” Kale stuck his tongue out
at his sister. “Tell that to any minotaurs who try to kill me.”

“No one better try to kill us in
Muncifer. It’d be nice for a change.”

* * *

The farther they traveled, the
more dread nagged and gnawed at Pancras’s stomach. Their long days traveling
gave him plenty of time to think about life, death, and not being dead. His
memories of the event were still fuzzy, but he was grateful dark dreams did not
disrupt his sleep. For that matter, he didn’t recall any dreams, however
fleeting, since waking up on that slab, and it disturbed him on a different
level. It felt unnatural to not dream.

The new archmage in Muncifer was
a stranger to Pancras, and he considered the possibility the man might be
cleaning house, a regular occurrence after a change in power. Pancras hoped by
hiding away in a place like Drak-Anor, he might go unnoticed. As it seemed to
have been a successful strategy for nearly a quarter century, he speculated
there was more to this summons than simply paying his delinquent dues.

Greyhawk Point appeared on the
horizon and became the dominant feature of the landscape as they traveled
south. Pancras adjusted their course to avoid traveling too far into the
foothills where they would be more and more likely to encounter giants who made
the mountains their homes. In times of harsh weather and scarce hunting, they
were known to leave their mountain dwellings to forage and hunt in the
foothills. Sometimes, the various tribes of giants were peaceful, if
suspicious. Sometimes, they were not.

The afternoon they passed
Greyhawk Point, Pancras spotted a band of travelers in the distance. Haze
obscured details of what appeared to be a caravan, though he distinguished
wafts of smoke drifting into the sky from the center of its formation. Cautious
curiosity got the better of him, and he maneuvered the group to intercept them.
As they approached, he noticed a variety of wagons covered in bright colored
cloth.

“A tinker caravan!” Pancras
motioned for everyone to slow down and stop with him. “What are they doing way
out here?”

“Are there roads?” Kali stood in
her saddle and scanned the horizon. “They’re not taking those wagons overland,
are they? I don’t see any roads.”

“There weren’t any the last time
I came this way, but that was a long time ago. Maybe there’s a trail.”

Delilah stood up in her saddle
for a better view “We should go around, don’t you think?”

“When I was a lad, the tinker
caravans had a reputation for being open-minded and welcoming of fellow
travelers. They’d gladly share their food and fires in exchange for a tale or
two. Besides, they might know a little more about the current state of our
destination.”

Pancras held up his hand to
indicate his friends should hold their position before spurring his horse into
a trot and closing the distance. He slowed his pace again as he drew closer,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the travelers. The cavalcade was stopped, the
wagons set up like makeshift buildings or a mobile village.

One of the caravaners waved to
him as he approached. Pancras returned the wave and dropped his hand to the rod
kept in a loop on his belt, his arcane focus. The human continued to wave as he
approached and was soon joined by several others, but they scattered when
Pancras drew close enough to see their faces, leaving the lone man standing.

“Hail travelers! Come to trade?”

“Trade? We were just passing
through and saw you. What is this?” Pancras surveyed the area for signs of a
road. “We saw no roads; we didn’t expect to run into anyone out here.”

“No roads, no.” The man stepped
up to Pancras’s horse and offered the minotaur his hand. “We farm the land for
miles around here. We meet every spring thaw to swap tools, trade, repair,
things like that. We’re preparing a feast. Travelers are welcome. Join us?” The
man’s visage was weathered from years of constant exposure to the elements, and
the wind blew his sandy hair into his face with each gust. Pancras saw no
deception in his ice-blue eyes, however, and waved for the draks and Edric to
approach.

The man crossed his hand over his
chest and rocked back on his heels. “Nailtooths! And draks! Goodness, we
haven’t seen those in a while. The children will be thrilled.”