It was tighter yet. He couldn’t inhale. It hurt. He fought to keep the panic down. His fingers felt something. An edge of the opening, maybe. Maybe the opening to the hole he was in. He squeezed even more air out of his lungs. The thing gripped his leg painfully, urgently. He heard an angry, clicking growl. He pulled with his fingers, seizing the edge, and pushed with his toes. He moved ahead. His elbows were up to the edge. Something sharp along the length of the thing on his leg, sharp like little cat’s claws, sank into his flesh. Richard couldn’t cry out. He squeezed ahead. Fire burned into the flesh of his leg.
The torch, cane reeds, and his sword fell away. Clattering, the sword slid down the rock. Using his elbows for leverage, he squeezed the upper half of his body through the opening, gasping for air in deep draughts. The hooks pulled his leg. Richard wriggled the rest of the way out of the hole, sliding, falling headfirst down steep, smooth rock.
The torch burned on the curving bottom of the egg-shaped chamber. His sword was just beyond it. As he slid headfirst, his hands out in front, he stretched for his sword. The hooked claws in the flesh of his leg brought him up short, holding him upside down. Richard screamed out in pain, the sound echoing around the chamber. He couldn’t reach the sword.
Painfully, slowly, he was dragged back up by claws in his leg. They tore the flesh. He screamed again. Another appendage slipped up the other pant leg, feeling his calf muscle with its hard tip.
Richard pulled his knife and twisted himself in half to reach the thing that held him. Over and over he drove the blade into it. From deep in the hole came a high-pitched squeal. The claws retracted. Richard fell, sliding along the rock, coming to a stop next to the torch. Grasping the scabbard in one hand, he drew the sword as snakelike appendages came out of the hole, wriggling about in the air, searching. They probed their way down the rock toward him. Richard swung the sword, lopping off several of the arms. With a howl, they all whipped back into the hole. There was a low growl from the depths of the blackness.
In the flickering light of the torch that lay on the stone floor, he could see a bulk squeezing out of the opening, expanding as it exited. He couldn’t reach it with the sword, but he knew he didn’t want to let it into the chamber with him.
An arm whipped around his waist, lifting him. He let it. An eye peered down, glistening in the torchlight. He saw wet teeth. As the arm pulled him toward the teeth, he drove the sword through the eye. There was a howl, the arm released him. He slid to the bottom once more. The whole creature pulled back into the hole, and the arms whipped about, yanked in after it. The howls faded back into the distant darkness, and were gone.
Richard sat on the floor, shaking, running his fingers through his hair. At last his breathing slowed and his fear settled. He felt his leg. Blood soaked his pants. He decided there was nothing he could do about it right now; he had to get the egg first. Dim light came from across the chamber. Following the large tunnel on the other side, he came at last to the opening of the cave.
Faint light of dawn and the chirping of birds greeted him. Below, he could see dozens of gars prowling about. Richard settled behind a rock to rest. He could see the egg below, with steam rising around it. He could also see that the egg was far too big to carry back through the cave. Besides, he didn’t ever want to go into a cave again. What was he going to do if he couldn’t carry it back through the cave? It would be light soon. He had to think of an answer.
Something bit his leg. He smacked it. It was a blood fly.
He groaned to himself. Now the gars would find him. They were being drawn by the blood. He had to think of something.
A second fly bit him, and he had a thought. Quickly, he took the knife and cut off strips of the wet, blood-soaked pant leg. He used them to wipe the blood off his leg, then tied a rock on the end of each.
Richard put the Bird Man’s whistle between his lips and blew hard as he could. He blew over and over. Picking up a strip of cloth tied to a rock, he swung it in a circle over his head, letting go, letting it sail out and down. Among the gars. He threw the blood-soaked strips farther and farther to his right, into the trees. He couldn’t hear them, but he knew the blood flies were roused. That much fresh blood would have them in a feeding frenzy.
Birds, hungry birds, a few at first, then hundreds, then thousands, swooped and dived down on Fire Spring, eating flies as they went. There was mass confusion. Gars howled as the birds swooped up and pecked flies off their bellies, or snatched them from the air. Gars were running everywhere; some took to the air. For every bird a gar caught out of the air, a hundred took its place.
Richard ran down the hill in a crouch, from rock to rock. There was no worry of being heard; the birds were making far too much noise for that. The gars were frantic, swinging at the birds, chasing them, howling and screaming. The air was thick with feathers. If only the Bird Man could see this, he thought, smiling.
Richard broke from the rock and ran toward the egg. In the chaos, gars began falling on one another, ripping and tearing. One saw him. He ran it through with the sword. The next he only cut off at the knees. It fell to the ground howling. Another came and he took off a wing, and yet another, both arms. He deliberately didn’t kill them, but let them flap around on the ground, howling, screaming, to add to the mayhem. In the disorder, gars that saw him didn’t even attack. But he did.
He killed two by the egg. With his forearms, he lifted the egg from its resting place. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn. The egg was heavier than he expected, and it took both arms to carry it. Wasting no time, he ran to the left, toward the gully between the hills. Birds flew in every direction, some crashing into him. It was chaos. Two gars came for him. He set down the egg, killed the first, and took the legs off the second. He ran with the egg as fast as he could without risking a fall. Another gar came. He missed with the first swing, but ran it through when it leapt for him.
Breathing hard with the effort, Richard ran between the hills. His arms were painfully weary from the weight of the egg. Gars landed about him, their green eyes enraged. He set down the egg and swung at the first gar to come, taking off part of a wing and its head. With howls, the others rushed him.
Trees and rocks all about lit with bright light as flame incinerated several of the beasts. Richard looked up and saw Scarlet hovering over his head, beating her giant wings and raking everything around him with flame. She reached down with one claw, snatched up the egg, reached down with the other, gripped his middle, and lifted him away. They took to the air as two gars came for him. One he caught with the sword, the other burst into flame and fell away.
Scarlet roared in anger at the gars as she lifted into the sky with Richard hanging from her claw. He decided that this wasn’t his favorite way to fly, but it was still better than being back with the gars. Another gar came up from underneath, reaching for the egg. Richard whacked off a wing. It spun, howling, toward the ground. No more came.
Scarlet carried him high into the air, up and away from Fire Spring. Hanging in her claw, he felt like a meal being taken back to the young. Her grip was hurting his ribs a little, but he didn’t complain. He didn’t want her to loosen her hold on him; it was a long way down.
They flew for hours. Richard managed to rearrange himself and get a little more comfortable in her talons as he watched the hills and trees pass below. He saw streams and fields, even a few small towns. The hills grew, becoming rocky, as if the stone were sprouting from the landscape. Jagged rock cliffs and peaks rose up before them. Stroking the air smoothly, Scarlet lifted them higher, over rock Richard thought would scrape his feet. She took them into a desolate land, barren of life. Brown and gray stone looked to have been haphazardly stacked up by a giant, like coins on a table, into thin columns, some singular, others clumped in bunches, still more having toppled.
Beyond and above the columns of rock stood massive, craggy stone cliffs, riddled with splits and cracks, shelves and projections. A few clouds drifted past the face of the cliffs. Scarlet ban
ked toward a wall of rock. It seemed to Richard that they would run smack into it, but before they did, she brought them up short with a fluttering of her huge wings, setting him on a ledge before landing herself.
At the back of the ledge was an opening into the rock. Scarlet squeezed her bulk through. In the back, in the cool darkness, was a nest of rock, where she placed the egg, then breathed fire over it. Richard watched as she stroked the egg with a claw, turning it gently, inspecting it, cooing to it. She played fire gently over the egg, turning her head, listening, watching.
“Is it all right?” Richard asked quietly.
Her head turned to him, a dreamy look in her yellow eyes. “Yes. It is well.”
Richard nodded. “I’m glad. Scarlet. I really am.”
He started toward her as she lay down next to the egg. Her head came up in warning.
He halted. “I just want my pack. It’s hanging on a spike, on your shoulder.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
Richard retrieved the pack and went to the side, against the wall, a little closer to the light. He glanced over the ledge. It looked to be thousands of feet down. Richard fervently hoped Scarlet was a dragon of her word. He sat down and pulled out a fresh pair of pants.
He found something else, too: the jar from Denna’s room. Inside was some of the aum cream he had made when Rahl had hurt her. She must have taken what was left over and put it in his pack. Looking down at the Agiel, he smiled sadly at the memory of her. How could he care about someone who had done those things to him? He had forgiven her, that was how, forgiven her with the white magic.
The aum cream felt wonderful. He let out a little moan. It cooled the burning of his wounds, soothed the pain. Richard said a silent thank-you to Denna for putting it in his pack. He took off the shredded remnants of his pants.
“You look funny without your pants.”
Richard spun around. Scarlet was watching him.
“Those are not reassuring words for a man to hear from a female, even if the female is a dragon.” Turning his back to her, he pulled on his fresh pants.