Race for the Dragon Heartstone Read online

  “What more do we need to know?” Mele asked. “We already know where the river is, which way is east, once we’re cleared to go that direction, and that all the smart mountain creatures are hunkered down for the season. Unlike us.”

  Silver would not be convinced. Every day she ducked out into the ice-and-granite world to explore a little more, a little farther, a slightly different area. She was eager to return to one spot in particular: a dark hole in the ground on the edge of a glacier field. Where did that hole lead? She hoped it might be an escape route if Queen Imea ever found them. Even with the promise of King A-Malusni’s protection, the path to the Island Nations would be dangerous, leaving them exposed for long stretches. If she hadn’t been alone, Silver would have entered, but the moment she’d crept up to the edge of the hole, she heard Brajon’s voice in her head: Only you would slip into an ice world of the unknown. Be sensible, Silver!

  But Brajon wasn’t here. Her cousin was back in Jaspaton, and Silver had to figure things out on her own. She was determined to persuade Mele to come with her. Surely two explorers, plus Hiyyan, were safe enough for even Brajon’s approval.

  Silver plucked an errant bit of fur out of one sock. “What if we found a new place to hide … one where we could safely have a fire?”

  Silver could almost see the way Mele’s ears pricked up. “Fires are too dangerous.”

  “But if we found a place that hid the smoke?”

  A shrewd expression played across Mele’s face. “Would it hide, say, the smell of hot food?”

  “It might.”

  “There is no such place,” Nebekker said. “We are safest right here. I feel Kirja … She is well. Tending to the task we set for her. She’ll be back soon, and this is where we’ll wait.”

  As if to emphasize her point, Nebekker replaced the meager supplies, pulled a blanket to her chin, and slumped so deeply into the side of Hiyyan that she practically disappeared into his sky-blue scales.

  Silver hid a smile as she pulled her boots back on. “You stay. I’m going out there. Hiyyan?”

  Let’s adventure! Hiyyan got to his feet so quickly that Nebekker went sideways. She grunted and glared.

  “Mele?”

  Silver’s Calidian friend paused, working her fingers in her new mittens. Silver watched doubt spread across Luap’s face. If Mele went, her Shorsa would remain behind. Luap may have been as fast on ice as Brajon’s hand reaching for sweets, but she struggled through snow. The possibility of a hot meal was too great a lure, though, and Mele finally nodded. “I’m coming.”

  Nebekker had never been one to keep Silver from going off, so the old woman merely said, “Be back before nightfall.”

  THREE

  Luap took Hiyyan’s place, wrapping herself around Nebekker for warmth, as Silver, Hiyyan, and Mele faced the winter world once more.

  “When Hiyyan and I were exploring, we found a hole on the far side of the glacier field. I’m hoping it’s a cave entrance. A safer hiding space, or maybe even part of an underground network that could get us off this mountain without being seen.” Silver said, leading the party down the sloping rocks from their cave, through the river valley, and north to where dirty ice met the last of the tundra soil. The girls worked their way slowly up the glacier, steadying themselves on Hiyyan, who could dig his claws into the ice. After every few steps, they paused so Mele could sweep away their tracks with evergreen boughs.

  Silver shaded her eyes against the sunlight that bounced off the ice and blinded her momentarily. Hiyyan sniffed, sussing out the trail they’d taken days before. That way.

  Silver had never known a quiet like the one in the mountains north of her desert home. Jaspaton and Calidia were loud, bustling cities, and even her solitary moments on the dunes outside Jaspaton were met with a gentle symphony of wind, desert beetles, and shifting sand.

  But snow had a way of absorbing sound, even muffling the exhale of Silver’s breath. The only thing reaching her ears was the crunching of their boots and paws as the three approached the spot where Silver had seen the dark hole.

  A snowflake landed on Hiyyan’s nose, and he paused, lifting his face to the sky. Smell … people.

  Silver stopped. People that aren’t me and Mele?

  Strangers, he responded.

  The hairs on Silver’s neck rose. She turned a slow circle. Objects were easy to spot in the world of white, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Should they go back to the cave? The glacier hole wasn’t much farther.

  Close by?

  “Mrrooungh.” Hiyyan shrugged.

  For all the beauty of the still and silent mountain air, it held challenges, too. Silver suspected that Hiyyan’s senses were altered, the cold dulling his receptors, the thin air throwing off his judgment of time and space.

  “We’re almost to the hole,” Silver said aloud, as much for Hiyyan’s benefit as for Mele’s.

  “These are amazing.” Mele was occupied with nuzzling her face into her mittens. “I could be out here all day.”

  Silver’s heart swelled at her friend’s delighted tone. “Let’s find you a place to make a fire instead.”

  With another step, Silver felt her skin tingle. She squinted across the bleak landscape. No one was there, but it felt like there was. Should she call out and ask them to show themselves? Did she want to face whatever was out there? If it was nothing, would Mele think Silver had one too many frozen brain cells?

  She kept her lips closed tight against the cold and marched on. When they reached the hole, Silver said with relief, “The entrance has grown. You’ll fit now, Hiyyan.”

  “It’s dark.” Mele scrunched her cheeks doubtfully.

  “That’s good for hiding. Careful, the floor of the ice cave is a tiny jump down. Come on.” Silver pushed through the opening. Her feet landed on slippery ground and shot out from under her so quickly that she ended up on her backside despite throwing her arms out to catch herself.

  Hiyyan pinched his eyes closed as he snorted a laugh at Silver, sprawled in the snow. “Hyuunkkaa!”

  “Always so graceful,” Mele teased, entering behind Silver. She had no trouble staying on her feet.

  Hiyyan followed last, his wings just scraping through the hole.

  Above Silver, early afternoon spilled a thin line of yellow sun rays through the hole. A muted blue glow came through the ice field ceiling. There was enough light to see that they’d entered a wide space with tunnels branching out, but not enough to see where those tunnels led. The farther into the tunnel, the deeper the blue color, from pale cerulean to startlingly vibrant turquoise to deep, rich navy. All around, sharply cut edges of ice and slowly dripping icicles glittered.

  “Beautiful,” Mele breathed.

  “And big enough for smoke,” Silver added. “But we’ll still want to move in farther, away from the entrance. Let’s explore.”

  Without Silver’s needing to ask, Hiyyan crouched so that Silver and Mele could climb aboard his back.

  See, things, high, the Aquinder bond-said.

  Yes, the view from eight feet in the sky was encompassing, but even more than that, Silver was glad for a rest. Her stomach rumbled.

  “Smell any food close by?” she asked Hiyyan hopefully.

  The Aquinder shook his big mane free of icicle droplets and raised his nose high, sniffing the air. Then he swiveled his neck to face Silver.

  “Well?” she asked hopefully.

  Hiyyan sneezed.

  Silver flinched against the snot that flicked across her face. Hiyyan shook with laughter.

  “Hiyyan!” Mele protested, even though she’d ducked behind Silver and barely got hit.

  “Gross.” It was so cold in the cave that Hiyyan’s snot froze on Silver’s skin and fell off in flakes.

  “Caar-shaar-shaar!” Hiyyan laughed again, tucking his wings close to his sides to cover Silver’s and Mele’s legs for extra warmth.

  “I don’t think there’s any food down here,” Silver said, “but I did pick
up the scent of one promising thing: salt.”

  “You think these tunnels lead to the sea?” Mele asked.

  “Either that or there are salt deposits down here. I’m hoping for the first option, though, because that means we could travel all the way to the coast without being seen if we need to.”

  “Fire and safe travels? I feel like I’m floating on a happy cloud.”

  “Nah, just on a lumpy Aquinder back.”

  “Harrrmph!” Hiyyan shook his head.

  After their laughter faded, Hiyyan moved into the tunnel with the highest ceiling. The way was open and clear, each dark section lasting only seconds before the ceiling thinned out again, letting enough light through that they could see a good ways ahead of them. At one point, the tunnel began sloping downward, and rock replaced as much as half of the glacial ice.

  “I think we’re getting closer to a space that would be safe for a fire,” Silver said. She dismounted and ran her hands along the smooth, cold walls. The ceiling was mostly stone, too. “Not much chance of melting the cave in around us here. And far enough in that we could fan the smoke into the tunnels so it won’t go out the main entrance hole.”

  “It won’t be easy getting Luap down here,” Mele said.

  “We’ll manage it together. Let’s go back and tell Nebekker.”

  Silver pressed her cheek to Hiyyan’s shoulder. Was there anything as miserable as cold food in a frozen landscape? The promise of fish roasted over a fire made her head dizzy and her mouth water.

  Hiyyan turned to face the way they’d come, but he stopped halfway, his head snapping up and his muscles tensing. A low growl rumbled in his belly. Silver sat up, on alert, but it was Mele who saw it first.

  “We’re not the only living things down here,” she whispered, pointing urgently at something over her shoulder.

  FOUR

  A huge, gray-furred mass slid into the chamber on its belly, just as Silver and Mele had slid down the frozen stream days before. It was twice as large as Hiyyan, but with a similarly shaped head, the scaled face clean of fur. Its mouth slowly opened to reveal a row of wide, flat teeth.

  Is that a water dragon? Silver bond-asked Hiyyan. Other than its size, it didn’t look particularly intimidating.

  Ice. Screw. Claw.

  That’s when the dragon grinned its curious smile and spread its paw meaningfully. The digits were webbed, like any water dragon’s, but the claws were viciously long, dagger-tipped, and cut in a swirl like one of Rami Batal’s jeweling screws. Saliva gathered at the edges of its mouth.

  Silver gulped. To the Screw-Claw, there was plenty of food in the ice caves.

  “Those claws are green,” Mele said. “Do you think—”

  The Screw-Claw curled its finger joints and stiffened, ready to attack.

  “I think we should run!” Silver cried. “Go, Hiyyan!”

  Silver gripped Hiyyan’s mane tightly, and Mele flung her arms around Silver’s waist as the Aquinder bounded back through the tunnel from where they’d come.

  “Vvoooorrrrhh!” The Screw-Claw wasn’t pleased with their departure. Its deep rumble shook the very foundations of the ice cave, loosening a shower of icicles. One sliced across Silver’s forearm. Three tiny blood drops appeared on her skin and immediately froze in place.

  “It’s gaining!” Mele shouted.

  Silver glanced back, and her heart leaped into her throat. The Screw-Claw was shooting forward on its oily belly, using its claws to propel itself. It was moving much faster than Hiyyan, whose claws slipped against the icy ground as he ran.

  “Why … can’t cave beasts … ever be friendly?” Silver’s blood pumped hotly in her ears as she struggled to keep upright on Hiyyan’s bouncing back.

  “Why … are you always running … into cave beasts … in the first place?” Mele shot back.

  “We all have talents! Just a bit farther, Hiyyan,” Silver panted, her voice growing thin with panic. “There’s room in the first cavern to spread your wings and fly us out—aggh!”

  The Screw-Claw clipped Hiyyan’s rear leg with one swipe of its paw, sending the trio careening to the side. Hiyyan slid and rolled, throwing Silver and Mele off to slide across the chamber.

  “Duck!” Silver screamed.

  The girls flattened themselves on the ice just as the Screw-Claw swiped where their heads were a second ago. The iridescent green in the claws glowed as the dragon raised its paw again, ready to strike.

  Hiyyan snarled and rushed the Screw-Claw, ramming his head against a furry flank. The Screw-Claw tumbled back but didn’t lose its footing.

  “GnnAAAArrrrllll,” the Screw-Claw roared.

  “It’s too big!” Mele said.

  “And too agile and too hungry.” Silver patted herself all over, but the dagger Nebekker had given her more than a month ago, before her quest to Calidia, was back in the mountain cave. Daft as a desert beetle.

  Her eyes swept the cavern, desperately searching for some weapon or tool that could help them. Icicles glinted menacingly above, but how to reach that high? “We have to distract it.”

  She scrambled to her feet, sending a message to Hiyyan as she ran: Icicles. Fall.

  Silver didn’t know if Mele followed her or not; she only pressed her boots into each step she took, pumped her arms, and with a breathless movement that swept all thought of danger or terror from her mind, flung herself at the belly of the Screw-Claw.

  A desert fox would have had an easier time knocking down a full-grown Jaspatonian. Silver got a face full of rancid-smelling gray fur before bouncing off the side of the Screw-Claw and landing hard on her shoulder with a crack of pain.

  “Owww!” she howled. Her voice echoed back at her a hundred times. Silver raised her hands to cover her ears, but she could move only one arm. The other was twisted under her shoulder, popped out of place.

  With his wings outstretched, Hiyyan roared, and a shower of icicles fell around them. Silver rolled onto her side and blocked her face, letting the ice bounce off her cloak. Hiyyan shook his mane angrily, and the Screw-Claw shook its fur, too. It hollowed its chest and screeched over Silver, dripping saliva onto her face. With one sure motion, the Screw-Claw kicked Silver across the floor and into a frozen cavern wall.

  “Ungh,” Silver moaned, curling up.

  Through slatted eyes, Silver watched Mele snatch up one of the fallen icicles and charge the Screw-Claw. Instead of sinking in, the tip merely bounced off the ice dragon’s arm. With another screech and swipe, Mele also went sliding across the cavern to land in a heap next to a rock. She did not move; her eyes remained closed.

  When Silver tried to push herself up to help Mele, pain sluiced through her ribs and into her shoulders. She collapsed, useless.

  The Screw-Claw advanced on Hiyyan. The beautiful Aquinder erratically took flight, ramming his head against the cavern ceiling and releasing more icicles, but that did little to stop the Screw-Claw. It skulked toward Hiyyan, glossy black eyes flicking from Mele to Silver.

  Warm. Food. That wasn’t Hiyyan’s thought reaching Silver’s mind. It was an altogether different-feeling voice. The Screw-Claw.

  “We’re not your dinner,” Silver yelled.

  Hiyyan’s ramming became more desperate. His wings slashed the cold air, his jaw clenched, his body shuddered as he hurled himself against the ceiling. On his next pass, he hit the ceiling so hard that it cracked; a thin-but-widening black line snaked greedily across the aquamarine glow of ice. The splintering sound echoed through the cavern, but it couldn’t drown out Hiyyan’s distressed mewl as he fell to the ground and shook his head, disoriented. Silver’s vision went cloudy, as she knew Hiyyan’s was at that moment.

  The Screw-Claw loomed over Hiyyan. It raised its front leg. The sickly green claw flashed before it cut quickly downward and sank into Hiyyan’s wing joint. The nasty talon turned once, then twice, before ripping free.

  “Noooo!” Silver screamed. “Hiyyan!” Her shoulder pain intensified until fireworks dotted her vision. The
Screw-Claw became a shadowy form that then started toward limp Mele.

  “No,” Silver said again, weakly this time. She stretched her good arm out blindly, fingers grappling for something, anything, that would slow the salivating beast. She found a large pebble, barely lifted it off the ground, and tossed it pathetically in the direction of the hulk.

  Hiyyan lashed out with his hind legs, which slowed the Screw-Claw slightly, but the beast kept going. Silver let out a cry of frustration and prepared to launch herself in front of Mele …

  Until a grand crash sent heavy, jagged blocks of ice plunging down into the cave, followed by an extraordinary burst of white sunlight. Outlined in the light was another winged beast, roaring with its mouth open to the sky, rows of razor-sharp teeth blazing.

  Kirja was back!

  She shook her mighty head and screamed defiantly, a battle-ready glint in her onyx-black eyes.

  “HuuuGGGHHAAARRRR!”

  You may not have them!

  No dancing festival scarves or flapping racing banner could ever raise Silver’s spirits like the majestic fluttering of Kirja’s wings.

  Hiyyan, too, was buoyed. He got to his feet with a snarl, dragging the injured wing to his side, ready to join his mother in battle with whatever energy he had left.

  Kirja didn’t wait for the Screw-Claw to react. Like a sand hawk with prey in sight, she tucked her wings close and dove. Her jaws clamped onto the Screw-Claw’s shoulder, and the two tumbled to the ground, bouncing over rocks and rolling into one of the tunnel entrances as a tangle of screams and growls.

  Silver had never seen Kirja fight. When Sagittaria Wonder had come for Kirja in the deep desert, Kirja was forced to stand down. Sagittaria threatened to harm Nebekker, and Kirja wouldn’t risk the life of her beloved bond-human.

  Now, though, Kirja had a son to fight for and nothing to hold her back. And as even Silver knew, you don’t mess with mothers.