2. Their Main Problem
Astra realizes that the snow dragons are not the only issue...
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, Traz, and Xavai try to find their bearings in the Blue Forest…
Eventually, Traz scampered back down the giant tree. “It’s the snow dragons, flying down lower, trying to see us.”
Astra related the information to Xavai, who did not speak Deshilli. He nodded thoughtfully. “You were right, they must not have much sense of smell, or even good hearing, else they would be sitting on us by now.”
“They have other senses. I think they are chasing the grail, not us.” She side-eyed the giant horn hanging across Traz’s chest.
“Won’t make much of a difference, once the forest runs out. Their eyesight is sharp enough. I know the valley of which the thief speaks. These woods do not go that far, and we will lose our cover.” His gaze tilted up, for all the good it did him.
“We have to get over Broken Hump mountain first,” she reminded him with a sigh.
“It is unfortunate that the thief’s dragon can’t fly, otherwise it could carry us easily,” Xavai said, looking around.
The fire dragon, whose hide was black with an iridescent yellow sheen, was much better at hiding in the dark than Astra would have credited it. Occasionally, as they fought their way through the forest, it would hop from thick branch to thick branch over them before disappearing again. Traz thought nothing of its behavior, so Astra had not commented on it. The dragon had saved her life and appeared committed to traveling with them, in its own fumbling way, but otherwise it displayed the intelligence of a goat. Astra was less than impressed.
“As if we could ask it? Or do you speak fluent fire dragon now?” She leaned back against the trunk of the tree behind her. Her whole body was sore from the intense magic she had used during their escape from Ice Mountain and all the traveling they had already done, and her soul was weary and sad with the weight of grief—for the deaths of sibling-nuns she knew, Naboch in particular, and the loss of her home. The death-less forest around her did nothing to calm her unease.
“Is he being difficult? We can leave him behind,” Traz offered, indicating Xavai.
Astra sighed. “No more difficult than you are.”
“Hey!”
Astra waved a hand at him. Traz was two years her junior and she was reminded of that often, even so many years later.
“He is worried about what will happen when the cover of the forest runs out. I know enough to know that whether we go over or around Broken Hump, the forest will give way to sparser country.” She was looking forward to that, immensely, if only to get out of the forest itself despite the dangers it brought with it. “And then there is the question of where, exactly, we are going?”
“You said we must go to Firestate. Return the Grail and find the Red Dragon who brought you to Qordashi as a child.” Traz sat down next to her. Xavai, who was sipping water from his flagon, eyed them mistrustfully.
“You do realize that there is a whole great continent between here and there? I was thinking more in the short term. Specifically, how we can continue to evade the snow dragons.”
Traz did not respond, instead swinging the moonstone in its makeshift cradle. “These won’t last much longer. Away from the Hearth Keepers’ magic, they have short lives.”
They sat in silence for a moment, staring at the faded blue light of the stone.
“There is a small river ahead of us. We can follow it down to the valley floor, and then start on crossing Broken Hump.” Traz stood up and looked around. “Have you seen the dragon?”
“No, not recently.”
Traz rubbed at the Grail crossed over his chest, and Astra held back a cringe.
“Come on, we need to keep going,” Traz said with a sigh, and helped to her feet.
It took them another day to get down to the tiny valley that marked the join between the mountains. In the valley, the stream they followed merged with a small river. The forest cover stayed strong, but the foliage turned to a lighter blue and less opaque. Traveling near the water, it was not as impenetrable as the deep forest had been, so they made good time comparatively.
The river was hardly much of one, not that Astra had ever seen any to compare…at least that she could remember. She was kidnapped from her homeland when she was five, and most of what she remembered of that nameless, mysterious land was rich green hills and some very tall, if spindly and blackened trees.
But what the river did carry was death, and Astra was far more relieved by that than she would have ever believed of herself even the day before. It was an artery of death and life, coming down from the mountains in a torrent. While the canopy overhead nearly covered it, the trees and vines reaching out to bind together over the divide, the forest seemed to shrink back from it on either side. It meant that her rag-tag group could not get near the water without breaking cover, and the snow dragons were too close to risk trying.
“A good route around the crest of Broken Hump, if we choose to follow it downstream,” Xavai said, standing on a rock with his hands on his sturdy hips. Astra purposefully looked away from the majestic sight of the foreign warrior.
“Does not solve our main problem,” she said, pointing up.
Just then, the fire dragon flopped down from above, as it tended to do. The holes in its wings kept it from flying or being graceful, Astra supposed. She was beginning to suspect that they might be the scars of bite marks, based on the glimpse of dragon-on-dragon fighting she had seen when the little beast had been trying to protect them in the Temple of Mumum. It stuck its neck out over the water, tilting its shelled head up to peer through the thinner canopy over the river. With a whine, it withdrew and hunched down on the ground, looking almost like a very pretty, glossy, inanimate boulder.
Of course, where the dragon showed up, the temple dogs followed. They burst out of the forest looking like puppies at play and took to jumping on and off the back of the disgruntled dragon. Given that Ruby and Emerald were nearly four feet tall at their withers, their heads almost level with Astra’s own, it was quite a sight.
It also bothered both Traz and Xavai a lot, who seemed united in only two things: devotion to getting the grail out of danger, and complete mistrust of the temple dogs. However, watching the dogs gambol around was the only amusement Astra got out of their whole traumatic experience, starting with the Yosoi attack back at the Gate of Tears that had nearly ended with her death.
But she also knew that one reason the dogs were so rambunctious was because they were no happier about being in the blue forest than she was. It was rumored (to the point of being accepted as fact, by some) that temple dogs did not have souls. Astra knew that was not true, because if it were, then they would be as deathless as the forest around them. Their souls were dark and deep and strange, but she knew they had soulds, and that if either dog died she would see their souldust float out of them just as she did anyone else. She kept all such speculations to herself.
Xavai sighed heavily, hand on the hilt of his sword, his amber-colored eyes dark in the shadows as he watched the dogs with a sour expression. “If the snow dragons cannot smell us, then we can hide in plain sight. But if they are following the magic of the grail, there is nothing we can do.”
Astra nodded. Traz made an inquisitive noise, and she relayed the soldier’s words. They all sat morosely by the narrow river, watching the dappled light from above making the water sparkle. Astra was so tired, she thought she could fall asleep right there, sitting up. As her mind drifted, she watched the water flowing by, the life and death that it held a soothing balm to the disconcerting emptiness of the forest. Everything floated by her in multicolored dust, the deaths of many kinds of creatures captured in the water. She wondered what would happen if someone died in the water—would they have a deathbed at all? Or would their ghosts travel with the flow of the waters? The souldust in the river was bright and strong and beautiful. Without much thought, Astra crawled forward and put her hand out toward the water.
“Astra, what are you doing? Get back under the full canopy,” Traz hissed. Xavai stood up, calling out to her as well.
She dipped her fingers down over the bank and into the water, and started screaming in pain.
NEXT: Going the Wrong Way
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