The Ritual (14 page)

CHAPTER SIX

We were all up at daybreak, too nervous and excited to sleep any longer. Since our intention was to move on as soon as possible, we packed up all our gear and relocated to our dragon ambush spot, where Zash went over the details of the plan with Shani and Mior whilst I kept an eye on the sky. Once he was happy that they knew exactly what to do he placed the flask in the middle of the clearing, and we all retreated into our respective hiding spots.

From the mouth of the cave the flask was about thirty yards away and barely visible, so I memorised the precise spot and fixed it into my mind so that I would not waste precious moments locating it when the time came to retrieve it. What we were doing was both tricky and extremely dangerous, and I did not intend to be the one to screw it up. When I had tested that I could find the spot again without delay I gave a quick nod to myself, then settled down into a comfortable position to wait, the flask’s stopper clasped in my sweaty palm.

Zash crouched beside me. “Here,” he said, holding out several strips of cloth. I looked at him in confusion and he smiled. “Wrap them around your hands, that flask will be hot when you pick it up.”

“Oh, of course,” I said stupidly, and looked down to hide my blush, wondering whether I’d ever be able to fully understand him. I wrapped up my left hand, covering my thumb separately as if wearing a mitten, then suffered him to wrap up my other hand after struggling with the fabric for a few heartbeats.

“There, that should stop your hands from burning,” he said.

“It’s not my hands I’m worried about, it’s the rest of me,” I muttered.

He chuckled softly, then stood up and settled down a few feet away from me, his eyes to the sky and his face intent. Our cave mouth was low rather than narrow, so that we had to duck to get inside but didn’t have to sit on top of each other to still be under cover. It meant that we could keep our distance from each other, and deep down I was grateful for it – today I could not afford to let myself be distracted by his proximity. I granted myself one last look at him, then transferred my attention to the dragon watch.

On the clearing in front of us a sheep had appeared; the agreed lure. It looked real enough, but as with all illusions it had an almost glittering quality to it, as if this were a sheep that had spent several measures in a bath house to get shampooed and manicured. Mior was making it move a little, but he kept it close to where the flask lay, just in case we got an overeager dragon.

Time flowed past, measure after measure, and the only sound was the occasional scuff of boots on rock as one of us shifted to a more comfortable position, or the odd cough, sniff or clearing of a throat. Once I saw a dragon fly overhead, but it was so high up that it was no more than a speck in the sky, and Shani had obviously decided that it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to lure it down.

Then, when the sun was almost at its zenith, I spotted another dragon, this one much closer. It was a breathtaking combination of black and cobalt blue, and it moved lazily through the sky, coasting on an updraft and only flapping its wings occasionally. Since its position was behind the cave where Shani and Mior hid, I whistled the signal we had agreed on as a warning.

The illusory sheep raised its head and jumped aside in a reasonable imitation of fear, and up in the sky I saw the dragon turn its head and bank in our direction. Beside me Zash whistled again, and I crouched into a running start position, my heart now beating in my throat.

The dragon coasted overhead, quite low, and suddenly a fireball exploded up towards it. I could feel the heat on my face even from this distance, and the dragon trumpeted a call which sounded remarkably like startled surprise. In the clearing the sheep disappeared, and from Mior’s direction a large red and gold dragon appeared, quickly moving to where the sheep had been. It reared up on its hind legs in challenge, and as the real dragon twisted in the air to turn around another fireball exploded in its face.

This was the trickiest part for Shani and Mior, because while they could conjure up a dragon and fire, illusions made no sound. We had to hope that the dragon was enraged enough by the fire alone not to realise that its challenger was silent.

It appeared we had gambled correctly. The black dragon tucked in its wings and dived, and on its downsweep it breathed such a huge jet of fire that it made my heart almost stop in my chest and elicited a startled, awed curse from Zash beside me. The heat soared past us, whipping my hair back, the flames engulfed the illusory dragon and the flask underneath it, and I realised it would be my turn very soon, so raised myself up a little.

When the flames disappeared Mior’s dragon reared up further and launched into the sky while the real dragon pulled up from its dive, wings beating furiously, and I sprinted off with my eyes fixed on the spot where the flask was, knowing it was now or never.

I reached it in seven heartbeats and felt the scorching heat of the rock through the soles of my boots as I snatched it up and turned around, running back while fumbling with the stopper. Three more heartbeats and it was in, the flask sealed, and my heart soared in triumph.

And then I stepped on a loose rock.

My ankle twisted with a stabbing pain, and I could not stop the cry that escaped me. As I fell down I turned, my only thought on stopping the flask from shattering, and I landed painfully on my upper arm and shoulder. I caught movement from the corner of my eye, above me, and realised with sudden, paralysing terror that my shout had caught the dragon’s attention, and it was now dropping from the sky to investigate.

I tried to scramble up, but the pain in my ankle was too great, so instead I started crawling back to the cave in desperation. Zash darted towards me, then stopped short, his eyes wide with fear when the dragon landed behind me.

The dragon growled, a low, menacing sound that held annoyance, as if it was irritated at having been fooled. Without volition I looked back, then curled into a terrified ball as it reached out a claw and raked it across my leg almost casually.

Agony exploded in my thigh and I screamed before returning to my foetal position, whimpering and waiting for the fire that would sear me and finish me off. I could feel heat, heard the dragon growl again, but the fire felt strangely weak and distant. Thinking it was toying with me I curled up tighter, wishing it would just get it over with, but then someone grabbed my arms and started pulling at me, dragging me forward.

“Come on!” Zash snarled, and I clamped on to him, trying as best as I could to use my good leg to help him. He managed to get us both into the cave and to the sheltering outcropping we had found, and dropped down behind it, pulling me against him.

“What…?” I gasped, unable to comprehend why I was still alive.

“They distracted it with another fireball, shh.” I heard the jingle of metal as he unbuckled his leather jerkin and started shrugging out of it, and tried to push away from him.

“Lie still,” he snapped. “You’re bleeding badly.”

I obeyed, and had to swallow hard when he also peeled off his shirt so that I came to rest against his naked chest, with my head on his shoulder. Then I heard a scrabbling noise and an angry bellow from the cave’s mouth and whimpered again as a jet of fire rushed past. We were shielded from the brunt of it by the outcropping behind Zash, but the backwash was still uncomfortably hot and left me breathless, and I frantically tried to scramble further away from it.

“Hush, lie still I said,” Zash berated me as a rush of cold air blew in from the back of the cave, making me shiver. “We’re safe here, it can’t get this far inside.” He wadded up his shirt and pressed it against my wounded thigh so that I hissed in pain, and soothed me again. “Shh, I have to staunch the bleeding. Just lie still, I’ve got you.”

For several heartbeats I lay there, panting from the burning agony in my thigh yet acutely aware of his proximity. My hand was resting on his chest, the hair curling underneath my fingers, and I could feel his heartbeat racing against my palm. He smelled of sweat and fear, and I wondered whether that was fear for me, or of the dragon.

“I thought you said… you wouldn’t bust my arse… out of trouble,” I gasped, trying to distract myself, and he responded with a short, nervous laugh.

“I said I wouldn’t bust your arse out of jail. Dragons are a different matter.”

Another jet of fire washed past, and I cringed. “Yeah, more dangerous.” I paused, then added, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, his arm tightening around me. “I didn’t think I’d get to you in time. I thought you were a goner.”

“
You
thought that?” I gave a nervous giggle which sent another stab of burning pain through my leg, and emitted a gasped, “Ow!”

“Hold still!” he admonished me again, then added with regret, “I guess next time I’ll have to do it.”

The dragon sent another fireball into the cave, but this time I was too busy dragging my arm out from underneath me to cringe from it. “Why would there be a next time?” I asked, and held out the flask to him, still intact and giving off a muted glow.

“Trakan’s Teeth, how did you manage to keep hold of that?” Zash said, letting go of the balled-up cloth on my leg for a moment to take it from me.

“You think I was going to let go after all that? Ow!” I hissed again when he put his hand back.

“We need to treat that, but Mior has the medicines,” Zashter said apologetically.

“So who fucking… organised that then?” I brought out. “Brilliant planning.” My head started to swim, and the pain was settling down to a dull throbbing sensation. I tried to steady my breathing, and found that it barely took any effort to do so. There was still the occasional jet of flame or angry trumpet as the dragon tried to get to us, but although it left me breathless every time until the rush of cold air returned, here I was safe and out of reach, protected by Zash. A strange sense of peace came over me.

Then a gentle slap to my face startled me from my reverie. “Hey, stay with me,” Zash said urgently. “Don’t go into shock, please, you need to stay awake.”

“Awake?” The word was familiar, but its meaning escaped me.

“Yes, awake. Come on, stay with me, please,” he repeated, and I dimly registered that he sounded scared. “Come on, make an effort, think of something… Tell me how much you hate me.”

Why would you think that I hate you?
“I don’t hate you, Zash. I…”
love you.

The thought cleared my head for a moment. It would have been so easy to say it, and I didn’t know how I managed not to. I just knew that if I got too close, he’d clamp shut and draw away from me. He wasn’t going to break the rules again, and I understood now that the rules meant no intimacy, though I didn’t understand the reasons behind it. It made me want to scream, but it also gave me an acceptable answer for him. “I find you exasperating,” I mumbled.

“You do? Explain. Come on, talk to me.” He still sounded scared, and his fingers squeezed my arm.

“You’re nice one moment and horrible the next,” I croaked. “I never know how you’ll react to something. One day I say something and you smile, then the next time you’re dripping with sarcasm. And sometimes when I expect you to be nasty you’re so, so sweet…”

My world had contracted to him, to the sound of his voice, the warmth of his skin, the scent of his fear and the steady drum of his heartbeat under my hand. At my words I felt it leap, surging faster before settling again, and I felt a warm glow that I did affect him, that I could get through to him after all.

“When you’re nice you’re all velvet,” I murmured. “Your eyes are velvet, your voice is velvet… Dark, soft, smooth, strokeable…”

He gave another short, nervous laugh and I felt his heart leap again. “My voice is strokeable? You’re delirious.”

“No.
” I tried to explain. “When you’re nice your eyes are soft and warm, and your voice is so smooth… You always make me think of velvet, so strokeable.” I probably
was
delirious, telling him this, but his heart was still beating faster.

“I see. No one’s ever called me strokeable before.”

“Why can’t you always be nice?” I whispered. “I’m nice to you, why can’t you just be nice back?”

He rubbed his cheek against my hair and gave a deep sigh before he answered. “I don’t know, Little Firelocks. I don’t know.”

It was a lie. I knew it was a lie. He knew very well why he acted the way he did to me, and
I
was as good as certain that it was because of their Godsdamned plan. For a moment I toyed with the idea of confronting him with my knowledge, but then I discarded it. Sure, I would get an explanation from him, but that would be a lie too. I couldn’t even blame him for that. To people like us, lies came more easily than the truth, and I would learn more from him by not letting on what I knew.

If I lived, of course. Much as I tried to stay awake, it got harder and harder to keep my head clear, to form a coherent thought.

Well, if I had to die, I could think of no better place to be, held tight by the man I loved, even if he didn’t love me back.

“Zash,” I
whispered, and felt him raise his head.

“Yes?” His voice was gentle, so gentle, and I wanted to cry.