Shadow Of The Mountain (39 page)

Well, death and wet boots was what he had actually said. She imagined no one enjoyed a bout of foot rot.

Natalia breathed in the cold air. The evening was growing late and she had hoped to reach Landis Lake by sunset. Argos would certainly benefit from a bath in the chill water and some rest, but it was looking as though they were running behind schedule. Caution had a way of slowing things down, she mused.

Cutting between valleys was quicker then traversing the high slopes that created them, but Natalia knew the Gallan hunting parties would likely feel the same, so the easiest path must, of course, be avoided at all costs. Instead she kept to the high trails. It resulted in rougher terrain and a lengthier trek but lessened their chances of being discovered.

She was paying for it now, however. If they didn’t reach the Gambit soon, then Argos would surely pass through the Veil. How many days remained with the young soldier before the poison’s grip fully closed on him? she wondered. How many hours before his weakening pulse went still?

Her heart begged the land to open up and show her that glimmering lake. Once they reached it, she could orient herself and know which mountain to head toward. From the lake, they’d be less than a day’s hike to the Gambit. Less than a day from safety, from help.

Their trail dropped suddenly, continuing on a bending course to the east. Loose soil and rocks made the descent more challenging, and Natalia had to take the mare’s reins and lead them through the occasional spot of difficulty.

Another hour passed before their path leveled out and the slope they had traveled all afternoon rose up behind them so steep and treacherous that it almost looked impassable. They had done it, though, the three of them. And Dusty, of course.

Short minutes later she was rewarded with the glistening sight of Landis Lake.

Natalia could see it in the distance, growing larger through gaps in the trees and reflecting the warm colors of the sunset. For the first time in many days, her heart lifted with hope. Perhaps they would reach it before night after all.

She broke into a run, hearing Dusty’s hoofbeats drumming in pursuit.

***

It took the both of them to haul Argos to the lake’s edge. He was far heavier than he looked, and the young man looked heavy to begin with. Fully clothed, they sat him in water past his hips and made him drink until he hacked it back up. She wedged another of the dry Axian leaves into his mouth against the gums, the last of the remaining herb, hoping the potent leaf would continue to keep his murderous fever at bay. The warrior’s breath was thin and weak as an old man’s and she dared not open his bandages to check his wound again. The last time she’d done so, he had screamed so loudly it had startled the birds in all directions for miles. There wasn’t much to be done for him out here but keep him cool and hydrated.

Dusty’s reins were tied to a dry thorn bush nearby, though she looked to be perfectly happy in their company, taking long drinks of the cold water in between nibbles of grass. Natalia drank slowly, feeling the water revive her aching muscles. The sky was painted a vibrant blend of pink to purple—not a mottled spread of warm sunset colors but a near-solid canvas, as if the heavens only had time for the two shades tonight that slowly melted to one.

She stripped her sweat-soaked clothes off and looked across the still water. It was an L-shaped lake, and the three of them were at the lip of the shortest stretch. Tall trees of pine and spruce lined the water’s edge, with the occasional gathering of rocky overhangs to give its shoreline an uneven contour. Deep in the wilderness, the mammoth Amorian mountain ranges enclosed them from the west, north, and east. Whenever she thought of Amoria, this was the view that came to mind—thick forests and grand mountains.

“The water feels good,” Karin said. Her boots were off and her trousers rolled up to the knee, her feet in the water.

Natalia stepped naked into the cold lake. “You should go in all the way,” she said, feeling a shiver course through her body.

“Oh, no, my dear. Such a pursuit belongs to more slender and graceful beauties such as yourself. Dipping my toes is fine enough.”

She nodded, offering no further argument. Karin had been exposed to enough outside a handmaiden’s level of comfort over the past several days. Her friend could do as she pleased for as long as it suited her.

Natalia walked out the few steps to Argos. The man’s eyes were closed as he sat, his face the pallor of death. Coming up behind him, she dipped her hand in the water and pressed it against his forehead. He was still feverish and unresponsive. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head before walking further out.

“Which mountain is it?” Karin asked. “This place we’re heading to?”

Natalia was in water up to her knees. Taking a few breaths of courage, she dropped flat, submerging herself below the icy water.

Surging back up with a sharp breath, she slicked her hair back. “There,” she said with a gasp, pointing north to a mountain taller than the rest. “The one with the most snow.”

The Gambit was framed by smaller peaks of gray that sat behind its shoulders like ancient sentries. From where they looked the mountain seemed to sit on a bit of a slant, as if it were a sack of rocks that had been hit with a mighty hammer and shifted to the side. Its edges were dagger-sharp, pressed against the fading light, and the western side of its snowcap was lit up purple-pink in the sunset.

“It’s beautiful,” Karin said quietly.

“Yes. Truly is, isn’t it?”

Argos let out a hacking cough that shook his body, sending him backwards to splash beneath the water. He hadn’t the strength to pull himself up.

“Oh, this poor man,” Natalia said glumly, scrambling toward him. She grabbed an arm and hauled him above the surface, spitting out water.

Argos’s eyes were open now. “Tighten this shit up,” he muttered, teeth chattering from the cold.

She sat down next to him in the water, an arm around his shoulder to keep him upright. The fever had been making him say things, hallucinate. It was impossible to tell what sort of delirious dreams were churning through his mind, but they were usually of the martial sort—the mumbled snap of a commander to his men or a frantic scramble to his side for a weapon that wasn’t there.

She rubbed his shoulder, resting her head against him and saying nothing.

Argos’s dreary eyes glanced north toward the mountain peaks. Turning to Natalia, he gave her a questioning look. “How did we…”

As he spoke, his severed arm came out of the water and the leather stump moved to her face as if to touch her with a hand that was no longer there. He looked at the stump for a moment in confusion before it fell back below the water with a splash. His head slumped low and he let out a thin breath. The sadness within him nearly crushed her.

“Come now, soldier.” She rose, trying her best to remove the worry from her voice. Karin walked out into the lake to help her. “Back on your feet. That’s it.”

In a moment they had him standing, one on either side to keep him upright. Already she could smell the rotting wound, now free of the lake’s cool touch. Man of iron or not, he wouldn’t last much longer.

Just as they sat him on dry land, they felt it pass above.

The silence of it was enough to chill your blood.

***

It cast no shadow in the twilight, but they could feel it sail over them, as if something that large and dangerous triggered an alarm in their bodies just by being near. Dusty whinnied in fear, pulling at her tied reins as she tried to back away from the lake. The roots of her thorn bush stretched and pulled, but the dry brush in these parts was anchored deep within the soil. There was nowhere for her to go, nowhere for any of them to go actually.

Natalia froze at the sight of it. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. It was so big! Long as a city block and nearly half as wide at the thickest part. The dark dragon dropped like a rock toward the opposite side of the lake, banking sharply to the left before landing, its great gray wings broad as the canvas sails of Prazi Guardships.

Its landing was so sudden that she thought it was wounded or maybe even dying, but the dragon’s wings adjusted and it slowed briefly before its hindquarters touched down at the lake’s edge, followed by front claws that sank into the muddy shore.

There was a tremendous crashing as its long tail swung out behind it, turning thick trees to splinters as the creature edged its way backward for more space. The gray membrane of its wings disappeared as they folded against its upper back.

Natalia could see now that it was black, far larger than any she had ever seen and most certainly not of the Amorian fleet. Even Draxakis would be dwarfed by such a terrifying beast. It could only be a Volrathi dragon.

Its large head was crowned with three horns—two that curved back and up on either side, and one that was centered just above its eyes to slide back between the others. While all were bone white, the final horn was broken off somewhere near the halfway point, though the remaining two were long and sharp as spears.

“Natalia…” Karin’s voice was a tiny whisper, heavy with fear.

“Shhh,” she returned, watching the beast carefully.

It dipped its head to drink from the lake, and only then did she see that the eye nearest them was a dreadful mess of rent tissue and sinuous strands of flesh. There were also terrible gashes that ran down its flank, disrupting the smooth onyx-like scales of shiny black that armored it from nose to tail. The beast had seen battle.

Goridai.

She wondered which of their dragons had caused the wounds. Draxakis perhaps? Whichever one it was, she wished it had finished the kill.

The ripples of the black dragon’s disturbance finally reached them, and the water lapped softly against the shoreline. A shiver danced up her spine and Natalia realized she was still naked. Grabbing their belongings, they pulled Argos to his feet and moved back into the darkness of the trees. Karin returned to untie a grateful Dusty and brought her into the woods, running a hand down her side and calming her with a soft tone.

Natalia was pulling her boots on, the rest of her clothes wet and clingy against her skin. She was still shaking.

“Do you think it saw us?” Karin asked in a quivering voice.

“Perhaps in the way a lion sees a beetle, but it didn’t appear to care much.”

Karin hugged herself nervously, rubbing her arms. “It looked to be wounded, but…I’ve never seen anything so large.”

“Nor I. We should leave this place at once. There could be other dragons arriving with it, or soldiers. This may not have been the wisest destination for us. Everyone needs water, and there’s little in the way of it in any direction except here.”

“We‘ll slip away quietly. No one will even know we passed by,” Karin whispered as she scratched Dusty’s neck; her words meant to sound calming but instead had the opposite effect. She glanced back through the trees to the lake. “I’ll not be sleeping well tonight, no matter where it is we make camp.”

“There will be no rest tonight,” Natalia told her, standing upright. “We move through the dark until dawn. We’ll take it slowly and carefully, but I think it best if we don’t stop until reaching the Gambit.”

Karin seemed to breathe a little easier. “That’s fine by me.”

***

The morning mist enveloped them. Natalia didn’t know if it was the coming winter mixing with the heat of daylight that made the forest air so thick and damp, but visibility was more than limited. One could toss a stone in any direction and the mist would swallow it up and burp out the muted sound of wherever it landed. Natalia’s exposed ears and hands were red with cold and her breath could be seen in the air, but she figured that would slip away as morning chill turned to afternoon warmth. It was growing colder each day, though; that much was noticeable.

She kept to what she thought was north, but truthfully could’ve been heading in any direction, so murky and disorienting the forest was.

Cracks and snaps of the woods wrapped around them to occasionally break the quiet tension, hidden from sight behind misty curtains of gray. Birds did not sing and the wind did not rustle the tree branches. The forest watched and waited.

Natalia was not at ease in these northern woods. The land was rocky and sharp, the trees too tall and narrow. And ever upwards it seemed to go, each step a little higher than the last. The elevation was taking its toll on her as well. The air was thinner, making her feel as though she was breathing through an old smoker’s pipe.

She pressed on, limbs tired, heart full of worry.

They had traveled through the night without much incident. Dusty had taken a rough stumble over an exposed oak root early on, but the steadfast beast had righted herself at the last moment, front legs scrambling for footing until finally regaining control. Natalia’s respect for the mare had grown with each hour of travel. She had saved all of their lives, that mount. No doubt whatsoever.

“Shall we take a brief rest?” Karin asked from behind, weary from lack of sleep.

“No,” Natalia said simply, her tone leaving little room for debate.

The mist thinned but lingered, clinging to small depressions and dells they passed like stubborn patches of snow that refused let an approaching spring send it to oblivion. It still hung full in the distance, not letting her see the mountains to make sure they were on the right path. They traveled for another two hours.

She thought of the black dragon they’d seen at Landis Lake—larger than any living thing her eyes had ever beheld. Something in the creature had moved a piece of her, an important piece that sat in front of her heart and tried to protect her as a plate of armor might, tried to tell her that Amoria could not be defeated, that her husband could not be dead.

But everywhere she looked, everything she had seen, was all the result of that which she secretly hoped was untrue.

If an unknown dragon like that could drink from an Amorian lake, then Draxakis was truly gone. And if the great dragon king was no more, then so was the army. And if the army was destroyed, what of the man who championed it? What of her husband?