Emily Rodda - Dragon's Nest

DELTORA QUEST 3

Dragon’s Nest

Emily Rodda

For Reuben Jakeman

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Map

Deltora Quest 3

1 The Voice in the Crystal

2 Tales of Dragons

3 The Full Moon Meeting

4 Act of Faith

5 The Four Sisters

6 The Upstart

7 Dragon Hunt

8 Deadly Games

9 The Golden Eye

10 A Change of Plans

11 Signs of Trouble

12 End Wood

13 Sweet and Sour.

14 A Message in Blood

15 Fears and Visions

16 Dragon’s Nest

17 Fire and Water.

18 Fight to the Death

19 The Sister of the East

Preview

Copyright

Map

DELTORA QUEST 3

1 * Dragon’s Nest

2 * Shadowgate

3 * Isle of the Dead

4 * The Sister of the South

1 - The Voice in the Crystal

Unwillingly, Lief joined the crowd flocking up the sweeping stairs to the palace of Del. His legs felt heavier with every step. The sweet morning air was cool, but his hands were slippery with sweat.

The other people on the stairs stood back respectfully to let him pass. Some bowed low. Many smiled and waved, thrilled to see their king among them. All whispered and pointed at the glittering jewelled Belt he wore—the magic Belt of Deltora.

Lief forced smiles and waves in return, but his heart sank as he saw how thin the people were, how shadowed were their eyes.

He looked up. The great carved doors of the palace yawned wide above him. Through the doorway he could see only darkness. And from the darkness …

I am waiting for you, little king .

The voice of the Shadow Lord struck, hissing, in his mind. He had been prepared for it but still he froze.

Are you greeting your miserable people, little king? the jeering voice whispered. Fools! They look at you and think, King Lief and his brave companions Barda and Jasmine rid Deltora of the Shadow Lord’s tyranny, and drove him back to the Shadowlands. King Lief rescued the prisoners the Enemy was keeping in slavery, and returned them to their homes. Now, surely, King Lief can make us live happily ever after …

The voice trailed away in mocking laughter. Lief gritted his teeth and kept climbing.

He could not let the voice drive him away, back to the blacksmith’s forge that was now again his home.

Tonight it would be full moon, and that meant that today was the day of the monthly public meeting. People had come from far and wide to speak to their king. He could not disappoint them.

At the top of the stairs he looked back, as if to catch one last glimpse of the morning before the cold shadows of the palace closed about him.

A black bird was swooping down towards him from the pale blue sky. It was holding something in its claws.

Kree! Lief thought, his spirits lifting. Kree, bringing me word from Jasmine! Perhaps Jasmine has decided to leave Mother and Doom in the west, and return to Del sooner than expected. Perhaps she is here now!

Eagerly he looked towards the road. But he could see no familiar black-haired figure among the people streaming towards the palace. And as the bird plunged downward he realised that it was not Kree at all.

He stood motionless, watching it. The bird wheeled above him, its yellow eye marking his position. Then a tiny package dropped at his feet with a muffled clang.

He picked up the package and raised his hand. The bird gave a harsh cry and soared away, towards the north-west.

The people on the stairs eyed the package nervously. Jasmine had begun training messenger birds not long ago, so they were still an uncommon sight in Del. And black birds had not always meant well in the days of the Shadow Lord.

‘It is just a message from Dread Mountain,’ Lief called as casually as he could. He pulled off the package’s outer covering and showed the note wrapped tightly around an arrow head and tied in place with twine.

You have stopped again, coward. Very wise. Now turn and run, like the snivelling blacksmith’s son you really are .

Lief moved quickly through the palace doors, into the vast, echoing space of the entrance hall.

The hall was already crowded with chattering people. Lief knew that the noise must be great, but to him it seemed nothing more than a low drone. It was as though he was trapped inside a bubble.

Every sound outside the bubble was muffled. Only the evil whisper inside it seemed real.

Ah, you are closer to me now. Do you see your people before you, swarming like starving rats?

Lief looked down at the jewelled Belt. The ruby was pale. The emerald was dull. The gems felt danger. Evil …

‘Lief! What news?’

The voice rang out, confident and strong, shattering the bubble, setting him free.

Lief looked up and saw Barda striding towards him, dressed for the meeting in his uniform of chief of the palace guards.

The pale blue uniform trimmed with gold was very different from the rough clothes Barda had worn when Lief first met him. But Barda’s brown, bearded face was the same, though his broad grin was a little forced, and he looked at Lief closely as he clasped his hand.

Wordlessly Lief showed him the arrow head.

Barda glanced around the crowded entrance hall, then jerked his head towards a roped-off hallway at one side. ‘We will get some peace in the new library,’ he murmured. ‘Old Josef is still at breakfast.’

Lief nodded and together they stepped over the rope barrier and hurried down the hallway. Soon they were standing in the huge, box-filled room that was Josef the librarian’s despair.

Josef had not wanted to move the library down to the ground floor. The old library on the third floor of the palace had been his pride and joy. He wanted it to stay exactly as it had always been.

But Lief had insisted. The third floor of the palace was not safe. It had to be closed, and never used again. For on the third floor, at the end of a sealed hallway, in the centre of a bricked-up white room, was …

You will never be free of me, Lief of Deltora. Whenever I wish I can speak to you—and to others, when I am ready. Ah, I look forward to playing with those weaker, flabbier minds. They bend and break so easily. So easily …

Lief felt Barda’s hand grip his shoulder.

‘Do you hear him too?’ Lief asked dully.

The crystal is the window through which my mind and voice can reach you. You will never be free of me. Never …

‘Not as you do, I think,’ Barda said. ‘For me, there is only a feeling. A bad, bad feeling …’

Lief looked at his friend. Barda’s face was grim.

‘You should not be sleeping at the palace, Barda,’ he said. ‘This is getting worse.’

‘Far worse for you than for me,’ Barda said. ‘You should not have come.’

‘Even at the forge the whisperings enter my dreams,’ Lief muttered. ‘And, in any case, the palace is the only place big enough for the monthly meeting.’

‘Then stop the meetings for a time,’ Barda said. ‘Until we can build—’

‘No!’ Lief broke in. ‘That is what he wants , Barda! He is trying to make me break faith with the people. Things are bad enough as it is. I should not be holding these meetings only in Del, leaving all the travelling to Mother and Doom. But I cannot take the Belt away, leave Del unprotected from that—that thing upstairs!’