In fact, he told himself when they were hours into their march and the first suggestion of real twilight crept over the land, she would announce it that night.
And then they saw the dragon.
It was flying out of the south, coming toward them in that unmistakable looping, undulating fashion, great wings spread wide, legs tucked up close to its body.
“Mistress!” Pleysia hissed, bringing them all to a halt.
They crouched down at once, doing the best they could to blend into the terrain as the dragon approached at an oblique angle that would carry it just west of them. Redden knew it at once for the dragon that had carried off Oriantha and Crace Coram—unless this was an exact double—thanks to the strange striping along the trailing edges of its wings.
When it flew past them, heading north and west, they could see clearly that it carried no passengers.
Pleysia climbed to her feet slowly in the wake of its passing, her face twisted and grim. “It’s left them somewhere,” she declared at once.
“If it’s the same beast,” the Ard Rhys answered.
Pleysia wheeled on her. “No two Drachas share the same markings! You know that as well as I. All the histories say so. Drachas are unique. You, boy!” She turned the bright glare of her eyes on Redden. “Was it the same beast or not? You saw it clearly when it flew off. Were the markings on its wings a match?”
Redden nodded reluctantly. “They were.”
“There! Even the boy agrees. It is the same beast. Oriantha and the Dwarf have escaped it. We must go on!”
The Ard Rhys gave her a brief smile. “No one ever said we wouldn’t, Pleysia. Please take the lead.”
The other woman did so, striding out with grim determination. Within seconds she was twenty yards ahead of the rest of them.
Redden moved up alongside the Ard Rhys and whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I should lie.”
“Don’t apologize for telling the truth. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. I know it’s the same dragon.”
“But you think they’re dead, don’t you? Crace Coram and Oriantha. What’s going to happen when she finds out?”
“I’m not so sure either of them is dead, Redden. But knowing is necessary before she will agree to give up the search.” She gave him a long look. “I know you want to go back. I know you worry for your brother. I worry for him and for the others, too. But until we know there is nothing more we can do for our missing friends, we can’t quit looking. We owe them that.”
They marched on through the twilight until Khyber Elessedil brought them to a halt on a broad, open rise that gave them a clear view of everything approaching from all directions.
“We’ll spend the night here. Three on watch, three asleep in four-hour shifts. We won’t be caught by surprise again. Pleysia, I can see by your face that you want to continue on. But it is too dangerous to go farther this day. We don’t know enough about what’s hunting out there. We’ll wait until morning.”
“Waiting is a mistake,” Pleysia snapped. “Morning may come too late for us to be of any use to my daughter or the Dwarf.”
“We won’t be of much use if we are dead or crippled, either.”
Pleysia stared out at the sweep of the land south. “I could go on alone. You could catch up to me in the morning.”
The Ard Rhys shook her head. “We agreed to stay together. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
They sat down on the rise and ate their meager dinner, their eyes scanning the horizon, watchful of shadows, uneasy with the growing dark. In the lengthy silences, they tightened their resolve and prepared themselves for how they would confront the hours ahead. No one had put the events of the previous night entirely in the past, and no one expected to sleep well.
When the meal was finished and the darkness was complete—the sky so overcast with haze you could barely see in front of your nose—Pleysia and two of the Trolls rolled into their blankets while the Ard Rhys, Redden, and the other Troll took the first watch.
In the distance, something cried out—a long and mournful wail—and the echo seemed to linger through the hours that followed. Time drifted. Redden’s eyes adjusted to the dark, and he found he could see better than he had imagined as he sat with his knees pulled up to his chest and his blanket wrapped about him to ward off the chill. Once, a small creature approached, getting close enough to him that he could just make out its features. It looked like a lizard—maybe a foot long, covered with spikes. Its body was supple and lean, its eyes gleaming as it studied him. It was there and then gone again, vanished as if it were a ghost. He stared at the space it had occupied for a long time afterward, waiting for it to reappear. He had a faint memory of having seen it—or one just like it—the night before. He had caught a glimpse of it just after the attack by the giant insects, and then it had skittered away, a flash of movement in the darkness. He remembered it now and was certain his memory was not playing games with him.
When his watch ended and he lay down to sleep, he knew the effort was a waste of time. He was too awake, too nervous. He could not possibly sleep this night.
But then he did, and when he woke it was morning and something was prodding his leg. He glanced down and found the lizard nudging him with its horn-encrusted head. It would move close, poke at him once or twice, and then withdraw, waiting a moment before repeating the action. When it saw it had succeeded in getting his attention, it backed off just a little farther than he could reach and crouched down, watching him.
That was when he saw the second creature. This one was bigger and had the look of a Spider Gnome, although it was clearly something else. It was sitting cross-legged about a dozen yards away, its elongated arms folded in like wings, its body hunched forward with its head cocked. Patches of coarse black hair sprouted from leathery skin, and its face was crisscrossed with wrinkles. It wore plain clothing decorated with colored thread; clusters of feathers and knots of what appeared to be bones were sewn to the fabric. Even sitting, it seemed disproportionate, as if its arms and legs were too long for its body and its head too small.
Redden raised himself up on his elbow and looked around. The others were all asleep—even those who were supposed to be on watch.
Except for Pleysia. She wasn’t even there.
The Spider Gnome look-alike made a short hissing sound and the lizard prodding Redden bolted away—a blur of motion until it reappeared at the watcher’s side. The creature reached down with bony fingers to pet the lizard, then looked up at the boy and smiled, revealing a mouthful of sharp white teeth.
Redden sat all the way up, eyes locked on the creature and its pet lizard. The creature didn’t appear threatening, and a quick look around revealed that it was alone. Redden didn’t miss the curved, serrated blades it carried—two shoved in a leather belt at its waist and a third, much longer knife slung over one shoulder on a strap—but it showed no interest in using either.
“Mistress,” Redden called softly to the Ard Rhys.
She came awake at once, pulling off her blanket and sitting up, her eyes looking where he was pointing. She took a moment to count heads, obviously noting the absence of Pleysia, and then she moved over to sit next to him.
The creature said something to them, but it was in a language the boy didn’t recognize. She shook her head at it, and the creature’s smile broadened.
“You are not Jarka Ruus?” it asked her in broken Elfish. “You are not of the free peoples, the ca’rel orren pu’u?”
Jarka Ruus. The name given to those imprisoned by the Forbidding. She shook her head. “No.”
“Then you don’t belong here. Why are you come?”
“We came by mistake. Through the wall of the Forbidding. What are you?”
The creature shrugged. “An Ulk Bog. What do you think I am?” The sharp eyes brightened. “Do you know of us?”