Dragon Bonds (Return of the Darkening Series Book 3) (18 page)

Chest puffed up, Beris nodded. “It’s incredible up there. Pure dragon territory!” He pounded Gaxtal’s side. Gaxtal gave a pleased-sounding snort, and Beris said, “Rock forms a perimeter wall, but on the inside there’s flat land and a small lake that looks as if it could be made of crystal. Seems like there is a cave next to the lake, and that has to be the tomb, right? There is just enough room for a dragon to land, but I went down on a rope to make sure the ground would hold.”

Syl swung off his saddle and shook his head. “Place isn’t safe. Doesn’t feel right,” he muttered.

Thorri nodded and crossed her arms. “Of course The First Rider’s magic is still strong.”

Were we all feeling uneasy because of the King’s Dragon Stone? That seemed possible, but why didn’t this stone give me odd dreams as the others had? Was it because this stone was more powerful—or more dangerous?

I glanced over at Seb. He seemed to have perked up at the mention of a cave—maybe he was hoping the King’s Dragon Stone would help us control the black dragons without leaning on his affinity so much.

Looking back to Beris and then to Thorri, I said, “So, we need ten dragons to roar at once, and then a dragon can land?”

Beris shrugged. He hadn’t really believed that part of the legend—I wasn’t sure I did either—but he said, “You better hope that roar unblocks the entrance to the tomb.”

I turned on him, frustration chewing up my insides. “What do you mean?”

Resting one hand on Gaxtal’s shoulder, Syl shook his head. “There’s what looks like the skeleton of a dragon but it’s encased in rock.”

Varla and Merik had drifted over when Beris and Syl came back. Now she looked up, eyes bright. “What? Why, that’s just how Hroth said how the body of the First Dragon was left. The waters of the lake were said to turn bones to something harder than rock.”

Throwing my hands wide, I asked, “How do we tunnel through a stone skeleton? Why does there always have to be one more hurdle?”

“Wait,” Varla said. She hurried away and came back with a scroll in one hand. The edges had been burnt and looked ready to crumble into dust. Carefully unrolling it, she pointed to three runes that looked like scratches of black lines. “You speak these words, that’s what Hroth wrote. The stones will crumble to dust if you say them at the same time as the dragons roar on the full moon.”

I groaned. “And how did Hroth know all this? What if someone was just telling him a story?”

Thorri glanced over Varla’s shoulder. “I know those words—
fuathur pleathur dracon
is the old tongue. It means dragon rise first one.”

Cold sank into my bones. Did we really know what we were doing here? What if we unleashed something we couldn’t control? To me, it seemed as if everyone was uneasy here. I didn’t know if that was because of the cliffs or because of magic that made you want to get away from here as fast as you could.

Seb broke the silence that had fallen. “Look, all of us here have felt or seen the effects the Memory Stone has…and some of us have felt how it is to use the Armor Stone or the Healing Stone.” He shot me a look and turned back to face the others. “We know an ancient spirit or sorcerer that the Wildmen know as the Ghoul and we call Lord Vincent has called the Darkening back. If a few magical words can help us defeat that evil, we need to do exactly as legend says.”

He was right. I had come to believe in a world of magic spells and strange powers. But I kept thinking of the cost of such magic.

Falling through the layers of darkness forever, of dying with no end.

I jerked back from the memory of that horrible moment when Lord Vincent had struck me a mortal blow. It was only Commander Hegarty’s use of the Healing Stone that had saved me. But it had also changed me forever. I could sense things now—I was different.

I knew the King’s Dragon Stone would demand something from one of us—perhaps from all of us.

I don’t want any of that to be true, but it is.

But we had a kingdom to save. And the lives of those I loved were worth any price.

Looking up to where clouds still shrouded the top of the plateau, I put back my shoulders. “Tonight is the last of the full moon.”

“Tonight,” Seb said. His hand rested on my shoulder, and I wished it gave me more comfort.

* * *

H
anging suspended
from a dragon was curiously peaceful. I hadn’t been expecting it to be easy, but I was surprised when I had a few moments to relax and enjoy the view. But Syl was right—this place would leave anyone uneasy.

We had argued over who would be the one to say the words and go inside the cave first.

Beris said he should; Syl kept shaking his head over that. Merik stepped back, swapping an uneasy look with Varla. She offered herself as the person to do this, but I could tell she wasn’t really happy with that idea. Seb said he should do it, and Kalax grumbled over that idea. Thorri said she would—if she didn’t have to climb on the back of a dragon. Dar and Temmi each offered to try, but we all told them we couldn’t really trust their blacks not to spook and fly off.

Finally, Beris said we should draw lots, and I told everyone we should see who could actually say the words that had to be spoken.

That ended up being me.

Seb, Beris and Syl had the worst accent known to the Wildmen as they struggled over the words. Varla managed them very well, but I told her we needed her ready if this didn’t go right to dig into the scrolls at once. Merik agreed with that and offered to help her. And Thorri turned white at the thought of having to get onto a dragon’s back. But I could copy Beris’ idea and get ready to land by swinging down from a rope—that way Seb and Kalax could remain in the sky, ready to swoop down and rescue me if I needed it.

Now, hanging suspended from a rope that attached on the other end to my saddle, I was hovering over a sea of silvered white. The lake. It covered almost all the top of the plateau, and if it really did turn your bones into rock, I couldn’t afford to touch it.

Clouds rode the sky, covering the moon and then parting to revealing the pale, silver light and the sudden glinting lake. Above us, high in the sky, a sea of strange, northern stars glittered. I was really hoping that the moon didn’t have to be both full and fully visible.

Kalax dipped a little as she hovered, and I yelled up at Seb, “Don’t drop me in that lake! I don’t want to find out if it’s poison or not!”

He waved and guided Kalax a little higher and over toward the opening of the cave. I could hear the wing flaps of the other dragons; Feradima, Gaxtal, and the squabbling hisses and cries of the wild dragons as they swept into position. We had ten dragons, spaced fairly evenly around the plateau, with Kalax in the middle and me hanging from a rope.

Ten dragons to roar at once.

That was what the old legends had said. I was really hoping this would work.

The rope cut into my underarms a little—it was tight and rough. I had a knot I could pull loose quickly.

Kalax started to glide forward, lowering me as my thoughts whirled. We were crossing the lake and, even in the cool of the mountain’s night, I could see steam or something else rising from it.

By the First Dragon, it stinks.

No wonder Beris had been cautious about getting too close.

Up ahead loomed the cave. It seemed only a break in the rocky surface of the plateau, and stark, white bones rose up, blocking the opening like huge bars.

Kalax hissed deep in her throat. To be honest, I agreed with her. Goose bumps popped up on my skin. The shape became clearer and clearer. It was indeed bone, the vast calcified spine, shoulder blades, arms and wing stubs of a dragon of immense size. It looked as if the dragon had curled up and died right here.

I gasped. I had seen the huge, mutant dragon created by the Darkening, but I had never seen any other dragon of such a size as this. Kalax, who would one day grow to huge proportions if she lived her full life span, would only be two-thirds this size. And she was a large dragon indeed.

Seb’s gasp carried to me. I knew he’d wanted to be the one to explore this site, but he had to coordinate the dragons and keep them in position with his affinity. I also wasn’t really sure it would be wise for Seb to get too close to the King’s Dragon Stone. His affinity was costing him enough as it was.

There was indeed just enough room for a dragon to land, but Seb and I had both agreed that we should not risk Kalax. It made more sense for her to be above me and able to sweep down to carry me to safety if need be. Whatever magic protected this spot allowed me to touch my boots to the smooth slate. It crumbled under my feet and I scrabbled for purchase. I steadied and stood still, heart pounding and my breath quick and uneven. I pulled on the rope to let Seb know I was secure and untied the knot.

Kalax gave me a gentle nudge of reassurance.
We won’t be far.

“I know,”
I whispered, waving as they swept back toward their location and turned back to the wall of bone.

My heart kept pounding. I wanted to be back in the air on Kalax’s back and flying away from here. I tried to tell myself I couldn’t feel the magic, but I could. It shimmered on my skin and seemed to seep into my bones. It whispered to me that I wasn’t welcome. That I should go. That I should run.

Gulping down a breath, I kept telling myself it was just the magic making me feel this way—someone had wanted to keep everyone from this spot, and they had done a good job with making it seem uncanny and unsafe.

Glancing up, I watched the moon peek out from the clouds. I swallowed, but my throat was dry and raspy. Would I even be able to say the words with my heart pounding like this, leaving me sick?

None of us were sorcerers—we were Dragon Riders and fighters. We would just have to hope for the best.

And hope this magic had no hidden surprises waiting for us.

The dragons croaked and hovered in their own positions. It seemed to me that the blacks were getting tired of waiting. They kept sweeping away and back up into the sky.

I edged a little closer to the skeleton to get a good look at it. I didn’t’ want to touch the bones to see if they were really made of stone, but in the moonlight they seemed an odd, yellow-white type of stone, heavily pitted. But the old legends were true—this had once been a huge dragon.

The dragon’s large and complicated knuckle joints stood out in the silver moonlight. I could see the long, connected rods of bone and talons that ended in cruel points. Something like a rust stain glinted between the knuckles. I stepped closer and saw the distinct shape and pattern of dragon scales.

Crimson red. Just like Kalax.

Arkady had said the First Dragon had been a red. Suddenly chilled, I stepped back and then checked the move. I couldn’t afford to back into that lake. I knew now it really did change bones to rock.

A roar split the air, making me spin and grab for my sword hilt. The light that had been shining down dimmed as clouds slipped between me and the full moon.

Kalax gave a roar—it was time.

One by one, each dragon started an echoing roar that sent chills up my spine. Seb was having trouble getting them to all roar at once.

I had never heard so many dragons trying to call out all at once. It was terrifying, deafening, but also strangely musical, almost a cross between lion roars and the lonesome ululations of swans. The calls echoed around me, seeming to travel to the ends of the earth before coming back multiplied. It was time for my part in this.

“Come on, Thea, get it right,” I whispered to myself. Straightening, I stood before the dragon bones.

“
Fuathur pleathur dracon
,”
I called out, the Wildmen’s old tongue feeling awkward and heavy on my lips.

The roaring continued around me, the full moon shone down and the skeleton didn’t move.

Teeth gritted and tears stinging my eyes and nose, I shouted the words again, “
Fuathur pleathur dracon
!”

The dragons fell silent.

For a long second, I held my breath, fearing we had failed. The world seemed very cold, and the old stories and scrolls seemed just that—dusty tales and nothing more.

But then, something started to happen.

A tremor started up in the very bones of the rock—small at first, and then growing louder. It was as if the dragon skeleton had taken up the dragons’ roar.

I crouched, one hand on the hilt of my sword, the other ready to reach up, the signal to Kalax to come and grab me and carry me away.

The ten dragons above roared again, this time calling out in one voice, and the old words burst out of me as if some ancient force had closed around my chest. “
Fuathur pleathur dracon!
”

With a crack like the fall of a great tree, the bones snapped and fell inward in front of me. Dust choked the air. Coughing, I waved at it. The clouds parted and moonlight flooded the plateau so it seemed as bright as day. As the dust settled, I saw oddly shaped rocky pillars—and a clear path into a glowing clamber.

“I’m in,” I shouted to the others. Drawing my sword, I headed into the cave. Or what had to be the tomb of the First Rider.