Emily Rodda - Dragon's Nest

With a roar Barda sprang to his feet, drawing his sword, scattering the remains of his meal into the fire.

But Lindal was up just as quickly, a spear already in her hand.

Glowering, the two giants faced each other over the fire, their weapons gleaming, their bodies dyed scarlet by the light of the glowing coals.

‘Barda!’ thundered Lief. ‘Lindal! Stop!’

But neither Lindal nor Barda moved a muscle.

‘You are fools, both of you,’ cried Jasmine in disgust. ‘You are shocked and grieved, so to relieve your feelings you turn on one another. Oh, very good!’

Lindal’s eyes slid in her direction. The hand holding the spear tightened. For a terrifying moment Lief thought that Jasmine had spoken her mind once too often.

Then the hand relaxed, and the spear was lowered so it pointed to the ground.

‘I was staying the night in Ringle because Ringle is on the way to the Os-Mine Hills,’ Lindal said, looking straight at Barda. ‘I had heard reports of a disturbance in the Hills. Screams and bursts of fire.’

The Dragon hunting the Granous, Lief thought numbly. Of course.

‘I have travelled the Hills many times,’ Lindal went on coldly. ‘I thought I would do my king a service by investigating the disturbance, so I could report when I met him in Broome. I am a loyal Deltoran—whatever others may think.’

Barda put down his sword and bent his head.

‘I beg pardon for doubting you,’ he muttered. ‘I just—cannot take this in. We thought we were the ones in danger. An enemy had been setting traps for us. That is why we entered the Forests. We never dreamed our escort would be attacked.’

He shook his lowered head, his face grief-stricken. ‘Those guards were hand-picked men—fine fighters, fine soldiers! How could they have been destroyed?’

‘They had no chance,’ Lindal said grimly. ‘No chance, without the Belt of Deltora to protect them.’

The words stung Lief like a lash. His eyes blurred as Lindal dropped her spear and bent to the leather bag that lay beside her, pulling out a roll of what looked like stiff, brown parchment.

‘It must have been a sudden, terrible attack,’ Lindal said, straightening slowly with the roll in her hand. ‘The whole camp was blackened, smoking, blasted by flame. The horses were running wild in the fields, mad with fear. The men—had been torn to pieces. The shreds of their bodies were in a heap, and the heap was burning.’

Lief’s throat tightened. He knew the truth now. His childish wish to be free had killed twelve brave men.

And Rolf, the Capricon.

You will be perfectly safe, Rolf, I promise .

His own words came back to haunt him. Had Rolf remembered them as he died—died, as long ago the people of Capra had died? Torn, burning, screaming …

Lindal’s mouth twisted. ‘It was a terrible sight,’ she said softly. ‘Even in the time of the Shadow Lord, I saw nothing like it. I wish I could forget it.’

Barda groaned softly.

‘Somehow, one man had escaped the fire,’ said Lindal, glancing at him. ‘A man with the Shadow Lord’s brand on his cheek.’

‘Brid,’ Jasmine murmured. ‘Brid …’

‘He was terribly burned,’ Lindal said. ‘There was a great wound in his chest, and his leg had been torn off at the knee. But he was valiant. Still he managed to crawl to a tree and write—write a message, in his own blood.’

She held out the stiff, brown roll. ‘I peeled off the bark with my knife. I thought it best that the people of Ringle did not see it.’

Lief took the bark from her hand and unrolled it.

Lief stared at the scrawled words in horror. ‘It—it is impossible,’ he said haltingly. ‘Brid must—have been seeing visions, because of loss of blood. Perhaps—bandits … ’

‘No bandits could do what I saw,’ said Lindal. ‘And some of the people hurrying with me to the camp said they had seen a huge shadow in the sky, flying east. It looked like a dragon of old, they said.’

She shrugged. ‘I told them they were dreaming—that there had been no dragons in Deltora for hundreds of years. Then I reached the place, and found the message on the tree. And now I do not know what to think.’

‘I do,’ muttered Barda. ‘I know very well what to think.’

Lindal’s face did not change, but she watched him closely.

Barda swung around to Lief, his fists clenched.

‘Lindal of Broome may as well know the truth, Lief, for soon everyone will,’ he said bitterly. ‘We have roused something we cannot control. The golden dragon lied to you. It deceived you utterly, with its talk of borders and oaths. As soon as it had regained its strength, it came after us, hungry for blood.’

Lief’s heart was pounding. Lindal’s words as she described what the people of Ringle had seen were still ringing in his ears.

… a huge shadow in the sky, flying east .

Why would the topaz dragon fly east? Why, its hunger satisfied, would it not return to its lair in the Os- Mine Hills?

He forced his stiff lips to move.

‘I may indeed have roused something I cannot control, Barda,’ he said. ‘But I do not think it is the topaz dragon. I think … I fear … it is something worse.’

15 - Fears and Visions

The next few days, trudging across the barren plain with Lindal, were among the worst Lief had ever spent.

That first night, he had told his companions of his fear. He had seen the lines deepen on their faces as they listened and understood. He had sat and talked with them for many hours, making decisions, forming plans.

At dawn the next day, Kree had set out for Del with a message for Doom. The companions knew that news of the tragedy at Ringle would spread quickly, and that Doom would soon hear of it. A description of Brid would alert him to the fact that the dead men were the royal escort, far from the coast road where they were supposed to be.

And unless he heard otherwise, he would certainly think that Lief, Barda and Jasmine had shared the guards’ fate.

Lief had written the note with a heavy heart, using a simple code that he and Doom had used several times before.

It was strange to be walking without Kree wheeling ahead of them. Jasmine was very quiet. She was concerned about Filli, who was bruised and listless, and Lief knew she also feared for Kree, because the skies were no longer safe.

Bitterly he regretted that his actions had brought them to this.

All the talk, all the planning, had not relieved his guilt, or his anger with himself.

Jasmine, Barda and Lindal had not breathed a word of blame, but he knew he had failed them. As he had failed the guards, and Rolf, and all the people of the east, who now faced terror as well as famine.

Time and again, trudging over the rough, bare ground by day, lying beneath the canopy of stars by night, he remembered riding on the narrow path beside End Wood Gap, his fingers pressed to the great ruby.

He had tried to summon the ruby dragon. He had been quite sure that he had failed.

But what if he had not failed?

What if the ruby dragon had stirred indeed? What if it had woken in some dank hiding place nearby and lain still for a time, gathering strength?

What if it had remained hidden until Lief and the Belt were long gone into the Forests of Silence, and only then crawled into the light, its belly gnawed by the hunger of centuries?

Never had Lief considered, when he called to the ruby dragon, that it might not come to him at once, as the topaz dragon had.