The Emerald Dragon (The Lost Ancients Book 3) (23 page)

“Thank you again, we will be in contact.” The mayor followed us out into the hall, shook my hand distractedly, and then popped back into his office. Had I not moved fast enough the door would have smacked me.

“Your companions are outside.” The voice sounded like the first guard who had been at the gate. That was interesting. Either they’d only been at the gate for us, or they switched guards regularly.

I quickly got outside. Once they saw me come out, the few stragglers still outside their wagons got inside. Each driver’s seat now also had a non-armor wearing, but still armed, guard with our drivers. Two were syclarions; the one with Tag was human. Six more guards on horseback waited to ride out behind us.

I was the last one getting to the wagons when Covey came running up.

“Thank you for waiting for me.” She pitched her voice loud enough for anyone who wanted to hear to do so. “I was unable to catch Grimwold. I’m afraid he’s left us for good.”

I nodded and motioned for her to climb in the wagon, and then I followed.

“Harlan said the mayor wanted to talk to you separately. Is everything all right?” Orenda leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Is he one of those vile syclarions? They did nothing but stare at me the entire time you were all inside.”

“No, he’s some sort of gnome-breed. As to what he wanted, I’m not sure. He mentioned some prophesies and a finder of some sort who would put a fearsome weapon back together.” I gave a quick lowdown of his brief conversation, including the fact I believed there had been something more, but he ended it suddenly.

“Did you find your friend?”

Covey’s face, which had drifted into her ‘scholar thinking about prophesies’ expression, dropped into a deep frown. “No. Worse than that, many of their top minds are also missing. The ones left are docile and stupid and are too afraid to talk about their missing peers.” She held out a small square puzzle box. “I found this tucked away under a floor board in his empty office.” She flipped it around a few times. “I have no idea what’s in it, or if it has any bearing on why he vanished. But I’ll figure it out eventually.”

She was just putting it in her bag, when Orenda reached out. “Can I see that? It looks familiar.”

Covey narrowed her eyes, and then slowly handed it over.

“Yes, this is from my people.” Orenda tapped on one scuffed panel that held faint markings. “You see right here is where you’d enter the combination to open it. These are very rare; no one has made them since before the Breaking.” She reluctantly handed it back. “Be careful when you do try to open it. Many of them had spells attached that could explode in your face, release toxic air, or at the least, destroy whatever is in there if the code wasn’t entered correctly.”

Covey took it and finished putting it back in her bag. However, I noticed she did it with more caution now.

All three of us were silently lost in our thoughts as Tag called the horse to move and the wagon continued its journey. Any excitement I’d originally felt about this adventure got stomped into dust. Alric, and whatever Glorinal did to him, took it down a few notches, and the syclarions and the cryptically creepy mayor wiped out the rest. I hadn’t said anything, but I had a bad feeling about what they were doing in town. Covey’s missing friend and the other vanished intellectuals just made it more solid.

Covey broke the silence with a pointed look at me. “That rib of Carlon’s must be getting worse. He doesn’t look good.” The look in her eyes worried me more than her words. Alric must be in bad shape for that look. I knew even with whatever help he was able to draw from my magic, that spell breaker ball had been hard on him. If something was about to go weird out here, we definitely needed his fighting and his magic. I didn’t care that Carlon didn’t have magic; if things went sideways, I’d expose Alric myself. Except he wouldn’t be much use if he collapsed before something happened.

Since I couldn’t say anything really about Alric/Carlon with Orenda here, I just nodded and fiddled with one of the scrolls Covey had brought from Beccia.

Scroll. I patted my vest pocket to confirm the scroll Alric gave me was still there. I needed to look at it, and so did Covey. But I couldn’t see a way to exclude Orenda. I had intended to wait until we set up camp at the dig site; since we were traveling in, we’d camp at the site. However, the way things were moving I wasn’t sure if we could wait that long.

“I think I found one of your scrolls.” I pulled out the one Alric gave me and leaned toward Covey. She knew that I knew she wouldn’t misplace a scroll. Hopefully she’d guess where it came from.

She shot a quick look in Orenda’s direction, but the elf was lost in thought.

Covey unrolled the scroll. “Ah yes, I must have set it down at our last camp.” Her eyes darted back and forth as she tried to scan it quickly. I hadn’t done anything more than glance at it, but it was elven, and very old. Not good for a quick read.

Covey’s face went pale. She rolled it back up and was about to tuck it inside her cloak, when she shot me a look, then nodded to herself. And held the scroll out to Orenda.

I had grown less annoyed by the elf woman’s high and mighty attitude over the last three weeks. And I sort of trusted her. Well, with Harlan’s heart anyway. I wasn’t sure I trusted her with a scroll. Especially one that made Covey go pale like that. It took a hell of a lot to freak her out, and she was currently extremely concerned and heading toward freaked out.

“Orenda, what do you make of this?” Covey’s tone was neutral and she’d schooled her face, but she was watching Orenda like a snake with a mouse when the snake feared the mouse might bite back.

Orenda blinked as she pulled her thoughts free. She looked genuinely grateful to be offered a diversion and took the scroll.

That gratitude only lasted a minute. “What is this?” She held the scroll back to Covey, but Covey shook her head. “Why do you have this? These are the monsters who almost destroyed my people.”

I took the scroll from Orenda’s hands. I wasn’t sure if Covey was hoping she’d tell her more about it, or was simply testing Orenda’s alliances.

I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t make out much at first. However, a closer look let words like ‘world’s end’, ‘destruction’, and ‘dark death’ pop out for me. I had no idea why some elven words seemed to translate themselves for me, when the rest of the language seemed beyond my ability to learn. “It’s a manifesto from the Dark, isn’t it?”

Neither said anything, but they both nodded slowly.

Great. What in the hell was Alric doing with a scroll from Jovan’s band of homicidal maniacs?

Chapter Forty

“I think I might need to check on Carlon when we stop,” Covey said as she watched me put the scroll away.

I had no idea why Alric gave me something he knew I couldn’t read. Unless he was counting on Covey or Orenda to read it. “That might be a good idea.”

Orenda looked ready to step in with a comment, but I beat her to it. “Covey was a trained healer before she became a professor. Broken bones were her specialty.” I wasn’t lying really. Covey had certainly caused enough broken bones in her lifetime. And I didn’t know why Alric’s weakening glamour seemed to be affecting Orenda, but I needed to keep those two apart.

I might not be sure he and I belonged together, but I knew I wasn’t ready to let some elf girl take him.

It was a short ride to the ruins. Providing we were at the ruins when Tag yelled for the horse to stop. It had been less than an hour since we left the city and we’d been going down an incline the entire time. Covey had peered out the back curtain at least a dozen times, but I wasn’t sure if her scowls were because of Alric looking bad or the guards we had trailing behind us. Probably both.

I pushed open the wagon door as soon as we stopped and blinked at the bright late afternoon sun. I might actually be grateful for Locksead’s weird hats. Unlike the ruins in Beccia, which were being devoured by huge trees at a rapid rate, these were almost completely bare. Well, relatively so. The trees were far narrower than the ones back home and more spread out. If the gapens in Beccia were the giant mob, the tall, thin pines up here were the aloof academics of the tree world. It was colder up here, so that was maybe why each tree seemed intent on having enough space around it to get all of the sun itself.

“If you want to go climb one, you could while we get set up,” Covey said as she came out of the wagon behind me.

“Funny.” I walked back past her and got my bags from the top of the wagon. Covey and Orenda had weapons and, in Covey’s case, scrolls with them, so they kept most of their belongings in the wagon. I didn’t have much of value aside from my dagger and digger kit, both of which stayed on me. The rest of my belongings I had stuffed on top of the wagon along with Tag’s small bags.

Usually, Tag would climb up first and toss down my bags with his, but he was locked in a deep discussion about the wagons with our ride-along guard, a tall skinny man, so I climbed up the side. Which gave me a perfect view of the faeries and Bunky as they came tearing into the site at full speed. Jackal’s wagon raced in right behind them. He threw the reins for the confused horse at the syclarion guard sitting next to him, then jumped off the driver’s seat as he came into the clearing.

The faeries zipped by me, and Garbage started pounding on the wagon door.

“Stop them!” Jackal yelled as he skidded to a halt just as Orenda opened the door and let the faeries in. Bunky stayed outside and buzzed fiercely at the irate man.

“Why are you chasing my faeries?” I folded my arms but kept one hand on my dagger. I didn’t think he would be able to hurt them, but his face was bright red and he looked ready to choke something.

“I’ve been losing ale this entire trip. Carlon kept saying I was drinking it and forgetting.” He spat toward Alric’s wagon. “But it weren’t that at all. They been taking it! They slipped in and took it while I was driving.”

I made a show of looking inside the wagon. Yup, twelve little faeries all sitting there nice as could be. I noticed that Garbage, Leaf, and Dingle Bottom all had familiar looking tiny black bags in their hands.

I shot them a stern glare, and then turned back to Jackal. “You’re welcome to look for yourself, but they don’t have anything.”

He shoved Orenda and I out of the way and leaned into the wagon. I could still see the faeries and they were still holding perfectly still and looking as innocent as a bunch of newborn baby deer.

“What’s in them bags?”

Orenda and I both looked inside, then back to Jackal. “How small is your ale? Those bags are smaller than the faeries and only meant to hold twigs and small rocks.”

Orenda gave him her extremely well practiced ‘you are an idiot’ stare. She wouldn’t know what those bags could do, but on the surface it did look like Jackal’s accusation was a bit crazy.

I was watching him so I saw a quick flash of something, I wasn’t sure what, and for a moment thought he would demand they empty those bags. Then he turned and silently stomped away. As far as I knew, Alric, Covey, Harlan, and I were the only people outside of faery-kind who knew about those bags. Yet Jackal knew there was something odd about them.

I looked at Alric. He was still looking bad, but with Carlon’s appearance, it was hard to tell. Covey had gone over to help him. Why would he have told someone like Jackal about the faeries’ bags?

Orenda had gone back to setting up her area, so I went back into the wagon and shut the door.

The girls were all under my cot and were enjoying the five bottles of ale they’d stolen from Jackal. They might have taken more, but they only had five out now. “That wasn’t smart, girls. To steal it right in front of him?”

Garbage had been working on a bottle all to herself, her right as leader. At least in her head. “Needed. You no bring.” Again the look of accusation of my failing along with a tinge of disappointment. I killed their toys, I misplaced Alric, I didn’t think to bring ale for my faeries on a dangerous expedition. I was a failure.

“Need for fight!” That was Crusty’s contribution before she slid into the bottle she’d been sharing with a few other faeries.

I wasn’t sure if she knew who she was talking about fighting. However, I was all right without knowing. I had enough issues going on without adding faery shenanigans to the mix.

I called Bunky to come inside, and then shut all of them up in the wagon. We normally didn’t lock the doors except at night, but I did this time. I needed those crazed maniacs to stay in one place where they couldn’t get into more trouble. I also needed Jackal to stay out.

“Taryn? You need to see this.” Harlan’s voice came from out of sight, but fairly close. I went around the wagons, and the others who were setting up camp, and found him, Covey, and Orenda all standing in front of a pit.

Crap. When the mayor had said there had been damage to the dig site, I didn’t think he meant a hole bigger than one of the wagons. I walked over, but I could already see some of the damage. The ground was harder up here, and that, combined with less aggressive trees, meant more of the ruins were above ground. That also meant they’d been more exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of years of weather. However, judging by the wide radius of shattered stones and bricks, I had to think whatever caused the huge pit also took out the building before me. Or what had once been a building and was now nothing more than a pile of rocks.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” Harlan stepped back from the edge to let me see.

Whatever had done this had been precise and focused. The hole was deep, but almost perfectly round in shape. I’d seen this before. Swearing under my breath, I dropped to the ground and started wiping off the band of dark dust that was almost out of arm’s reach.

I could barely clear off enough dust to see, but it looked like the same odd band of tile that I’d seen in the wild ruins outside of Beccia. What were those tiles made of, that an explosion, magic, natural, blasting powder, whatever was behind it, could move huge chunks of earth and rock, decimate a large building, and yet leave them mostly intact?

“Covey? Can you see if you can pry one of these up?” I rolled back to my feet and brushed myself off. She looked at me oddly until I pointed out the tile I’d cleared off below us. Once you knew what it was, you couldn’t miss the dark band that circled the inside of the hole.

“What are those?” She quickly dropped to her feet and leaned over the edge.

“Be careful now.” The voice behind us made me jump about a foot. It was the human guard; he had silently come up behind us. His name was Markin and he didn’t seem quite as bad as the syclarions.

He didn’t move any closer, but clearly wanted to make us take note he was there. I wondered what kind of person joined a group of syclarions. I couldn’t come up with any good reasons for it.

“It’s a band of some sort in the rock of the pit. Not a relic though,” Covey said from her position on the ground. “I need to study it closer to make sure the area is safe for Taryn and Harlan to descend. Orenda and I are their academic advisors.” She put just enough snotty professor into her voice to get the point across.

Markin sighed and folded his arms. “I should have known. Academics.” He gave it the same twist most people gave to assassins and from the look on his face that was exactly how he viewed them. “Carry on.” He stalked back to camp. At least that was good. We might be stuck with these watchers, but hopefully they meant a general watching, not hover-over-everything-we-do watching.

Covey waited until he was gone, then flopped back to the ground and scooted closer to the edge. “Harlan, sit on my legs. I need to lower myself down to pry some of these up.”

Harlan sat on her legs while Orenda and I watched. Well, I kept watching for Markin or any of the other guards to come back.

A few very Covey-invented swear words later, and we were all peering down at a pair of tiles. She’d only been able to pry off two before it started getting too dark to see into the pit. All four of us looked at them, but none of us had the slightest idea what the odd script or images meant.

I was pretty sure that Alric still had the one he took from me, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it from him without anyone noticing. I settled for telling the others about the ring of them in Beccia, and adding it to our collection of potentially dangerous mysteries.

***

The next two days were uneventful. The city guards would change out, we’d get up and start working on the pit—an endeavor that took help from most of our people. Lowering me down wasn’t that hard, but Harlan was another situation completely. Then he and I would slowly work our way through the explosion debris to get to the actual ruins. The pit looked to be created by the same actions that had caused the one in our ruins, a fact that really didn’t make the others or me happy.

The morning of the third day started just like the other two, until I found the dragon.