10. Pursuit
Astra finds herself running out of one danger into another...
The Lost City continues the journey of Astra, respected Head Librarian of the Tiered Library in the renown monastery Qordashi deep in the Balashilar mountains, after an attack on her home destroyed everything she knew and took the lives of people she loved. Her childhood companion, Traz, has returned after 25 years for mysterious reason, and along with the Am’Ayat warrior Xavai they are on the run from the attackers: snow dragons and the dreaded tribe of Yosoi warriors.
Previously: Astra and Xavai tried to make an escape......
“Fire!” Xavai shouted, leaping up and hauling Astra with him. She was getting ready to say something about his ridiculously late observation, but then saw what he really meant: the dragon had not only incinerated the straw men, but the hangings and rugs all around them. “Wall!” Xavai pushed her forward.
Then they were flying, or it felt that way. Xavai was screaming, pounding at the dragon’s talons, which were wrapped delicately around his torso. Astra realized she was likewise trapped in the dragon’s other claw. With a hop of its back legs, it was back up on the wall, then another hop sent them well into the cover of the jungle. Xavai had not stopped screaming and yelling, but Astra did not see the point. The dragon had saved them, first from the city’s absurd protectors and then from the fire it started, and that was fine with her.
After another hop onto the large lower branch of a massive tree, the dragon carefully set them down, uncurling one talon at a time as they got their feet under them. As soon as he was free, Xavai sprinted for the trunk and slid his way back down to the forest floor, where he turned and waved his sword angrily at the dragon.
“Stop complaining!” Astra scolded. “It saved our lives! Twice!”
“Mankind was not meant to fly like dragons!” Xavai shouted back. “It is an affront to God!”
“Your god is silly!” Astra yelled back. “And we weren’t flying! It was hopping!” She waved her hands at the dragon, whose damaged wings were out and spread, probably for balance. It looked back at her, blank-faced, blinked once, then turned its gaze to the sky. Or, at least, the canopy of the forest above them.
Xavai paused, his brow creasing as he thought that over. His expression cleared and he casually sheathed his sword. “That is true.”
Astra rolled her eyes for good measure before going about descending the tree herself, which turned out to be impossible to do gracefully.
There were some crashing sounds from the forest nearby, causing Xavai to reach for his sword again. Astra paused where she was, debating going back up the tree toward the dragon.
“Ashtrakur!” Traz jumped down from a tree and ran straight at her, yanking her off her feet and swinging her around. “I’m going to kill you with my own two hands!”
“Let go of me!” She batted at him until he let her down. They stood, glaring at each other.
“I saw the pyramid collapse! And those straw people! Everything appeared from nowhere suddenly and then all six hells broke loose! I thought you were dead!” He wagged a finger in her face.
“You call yourself a thief? You deserted us when we needed your skills!” She shook the shawl at him. “We nearly died to get this!”
He opened his mouth to yell some more, but stopped and looked closely at the shawl. He whistled. “That’s pretty special.”
She let it fall loose and open in her hands. She could feel the power more than she could see it, since it was not being constantly rewoven with stolen soul dust. “I thought so too.”
“We could sell that for a pretty penny up in Khimashk.” He reached out and let the fringe sweep over his fingers.
“What? No!” She yanked it back. “It’s the protection spell. The one that kept the city hidden.”
He frowned for a moment before realization dawned. “Huh. Will it protect us?”
She shook it out and held it up. “Maybe? The stolen soul dust was powering it, but the spell is locked into the weave. Or the embroidery. I don’t know.” She sighed and draped it over her shoulders, mostly because it was convenient but also because it was pretty. “I’m not a wizard, Traz.”
“Neither am I.” He looked over at Xavai. “How about him?”
“He’s a dowser.”
His eyebrows shot up and Xavai, who had no idea what they were talking about, glared at him. Traz grinned. “That’s convenient.”
“Not when it comes to doing anything with this spell.” She held up the end of the shawl.
Traz grumbled and crossed his arms. Then he looked around. “Where are the dogs?”
“Last I saw, they were in the city. I’m not worried. They can take care of themselves.”
“Can they?” Traz sighed and rolled his eyes. “It’s not like temple dogs were ever meant to live outside of Qordashi.”
That was true enough, but Astra was resolved not to worry about Ruby or Emerald. She was sure they were fine. She suspected, in fact, that she would know if they were not, and chose not to dwell on why.
There was a loud explosion and they all dove to the ground. The dragon dropped down on top of them and spread its wings out, shielding them with its body. After a long moment of complete, unnatural silence, Astra heard exactly the thing she had been dreading: the high pitched trilling calls of the snow dragons.
“By the three devils, I think the city drew them down,” Traz whispered.
“I’m sure that was the fall of the downstream pyramid. The dragons would be drawn to such destruction, now that the city can be seen by outsiders.” Xavai stood up and uneasily crab-walked his way out from under the dragon. “They will know we are close by.” He jerked his chin toward Traz, indicating the Dragon’s Grail that was still tied securely to Traz’s back.
The dragon sat back on its haunches, still looking spooked and uncertain as it scanned the forest.
Traz looked over at Astra. “We need to head downstream again.”
She nodded, crawling to her feet. She was not sure how Traz knew which direction to go, but he walked off with purpose, so she followed. Xavai took up the rear and the dragon simply hopped back up into the heavy lower branches and skipped along from tree to tree. The snow dragons were out in greater numbers, by the sound of it, and sweeping in close to the city behind them. Traz got them to a small clearing that was almost familiar, and pointed at both Astra’s and Xavai’s travel packs hanging from a branch. His own was on another branch, and they were soon loaded for travel again as they picked their way through the forest. It still felt undead and unreal to Astra, but she could sometimes see out of the corner of her eye the glorious colors of soul dust flitting around through leaves and following the flight of bugs. She was certain the forest would recover eventually, but she was also certain that it would take generations of trees being born and dying, over and over, until true life returned to the blue forest. She wondered it if would remain blue throughout, whether that was the intrinsic nature of the forest, or a side effect of the sour magic that had been stealing its collective soul-dust from the water that ran through its roots.
She was lost in those thoughts when the fire dragon roared and a tree near her was nearly pulled up out of the ground. She stumbled to the side as the earth under her feet shifted. Above them, two snow dragons were yanking at the tree, trying to pull it up out of the ground to make a hole in the canopy. She watched, mesmerized, until Xavai grabbed her wrist and dragged her away. She heard the fire dragon scrambling up trees to get at the snow dragons, for what good it would do she had no idea. They were each twice as big as it was.
“They are not using their ice storm!”
The breath of snow dragons could freeze a man solid in a moment, and it could easily freeze the forest canopy enough to make it break like glass. But, Astra shook her head as they ran. “They cannot afford to risk freezing the Grail!”
“Ah!” Traz agreed, leaping over a log. “Then we must all stay close together!” He slowed enough for Astra and Xavai to get within arm’s reach of him. Astra quickly explained the Xavai why they had to travel so closely, and he nodded in agreement.
The real problem, though, was that there was a flight of snow dragons up above them, trilling at each other and honing in on the Grail. Eventually they would tear their way through the dense canopy of the blue forest and simply grab them. Astra ran blindly on Traz’s heels as she had not done in years, running around and over massive tree roots littering their way.
Despite what seemed to Astra unchanging scenery, Traz was leading them confidently through. She hoped he was somewhat parallel to the river, but she could not see it through the gloom of the forest or hear it over the sounds of them plowing through what amounted to the carpet of underbrush.
Astra’s feet were pounding against the ground and it hurt, because she was not used to running in the first place and certainly not over uneven terrain in the near-dark. She knew there was a gully or ravine to her right, but she focused on Traz ahead of her and kept going. In the blink of an eye light flooded everything around them and the shock of it blinded Astra just enough to make her misstep and trip over a root or vine. She threw her arms out and one of them caught Traz, grabbing at his tunic instinctively but only serving to pull him backwards. Astra had a long, clear moment of shock as realization of what was happening dawned and then they were crashing down the side of the ravine in a tumble. She slammed to a stop up against a hard surface and lost her breath.
Dizzy and uncertain of which was was up, she settled back to take inventory of herself. In front of her was a wall of white and she wondered if she had fallen through a snow drift, her mind going fuzzy as she tried to remember where in the monastery she currently was, and why a snow drift would be there.
Her memory rushed back as she looked up—and up—at the snow drift and came eye to eye with the dark blue, nearly black eyes of a snow dragon.
NEXT: Cornered
Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕
Find KimBoo: Notes • Bluesky • Tumblr • Facebook • House of York