Aric sat near a window, so that he could stand occasionally, stretch his legs, and look outside. For the first several days he had reveled in the new and different scenery, but these last days on the trail had knocked that enthusiasm from him. Each new vista was just like the last. Sand, low hills, a few determined plants. The occasional birds flew past overhead, and every now and then they caught a glimpse of an animal, insects, lizards and snakes, sometimes larger beasts. Most of those would no doubt have gladly eaten Aric or any other member of the expedition, but didn’t dare prey upon such a large group.
He would not have said that he missed Nibenay—chaotic, frenetic Nibenay, so often unfriendly to half-elves—but he did miss his little home, and his shop. The only piece of metal he had on this trip was his coin medallion, and he found himself handling it often, taking solace in its familiarity and in the enduring solidity of metal, worn down from his touch but still there after all these years.
A whisper yanked him from unhappy contemplation. “Hsst! Aric!”
Aric reached for the window’s edge and pulled himself to his feet. The argosy rocked, a wheel rolling over a large stone, Aric guessed, and almost threw him back down, but he held fast. Damaric walked beside the window. “What news, Damaric?”
“Kadya says we’re close!”
“We are? How close?” He had no idea what hazards the lost city might hold, but anything would be better than another day in this damnable wagon.
“I’m not sure. There are low, rocky hills ahead. According to the undead man’s map, beyond those lies another short stretch of desert. Then Akrankhot!”
Ruhm had overheard, and now he stood as well, his back hunched over to get his head out the window. “Did you hear it from her?” he asked.
“Everybody’s talking about it. She’s up front with a glass, so she saw it first. She told someone, and that one told someone else, and so on.”
“Are you sure it’s true?” Aric asked. “You know how rumors spread.”
“Aye,” Damaric said. “Sure as I can be. The closer to the front of the caravan, the more people are talking about it. She would never tell a slave soldier anything, but people I trust confirmed it.”
“That’s great,” Aric said. “I think I’m already a head shorter from the way this trip is crushing my spine.”
He leaned out the window and peered ahead. The rocky hills were visible, two rows of them slanting toward each other at the end. As if they tasted the end of the long trek, the mekillots seemed to be pulling harder, hauling the wagons along faster than ever.
The excitement was palpable. Everyone knew they were approaching their goal. Shouts and curses buzzed through the air. The attitude of the travelers had changed, in the space of an hour, almost back to where it had been at the journey’s start.
Aric wasn’t immune to the change. For now, their goal was his goal. Find the metal, load it up, and get home.
After that, no one knew what would happen. But if all went well, he could end up the wealthiest half-elf he had ever known.
There were worse things to hope for.
He was still thinking about it when the creature attacked.
It happened while the entire caravan passed between the two rows of hills, which, Kadya assured them, would direct them straight toward the city’s front gates.
Aric obeyed the templar’s order and stayed in the wagon, although he would have preferred to be walking. Ruhm had got out to walk. Damaric took two steps for every one of Ruhm’s, while for Amoni, who had also joined them, it was closer to one and a half.
They were closer to the set of hills on the argosy’s right side—the window Aric was hanging out of—and he watched the rocky slopes, noting the different textures. The hills were rounded, studded with stones of various sizes, some of them nestled in patches of green.
And then one of the hills moved.
Not the entire hill, but a large section of it. It shifted, as if the ground itself had just awakened from a long nap. Then it separated from the hillside around it, its camouflage almost perfect. “Ruhm!” Aric shouted, pointing.
Ruhm and the others followed Aric’s finger. People around other wagons had seen it too. “Earth drake!” someone cried. “It’s an earth drake! Soldiers, to arms!”
The beast revealed its full size, peeling away from the rocky surface into which its scaly, pocked, bulbous hide had blended it. It must have been thirty feet long, or more. Its head was massive. When it let its jaw swing open to release a bloodcurdling roar, its mouth looked easily large enough to swallow humans whole. Aric had heard improbable tales of earth drakes eating entire mekillots. Seeing this one, however, he no longer had reason to doubt. A bony ridge protected the drake’s brow and eyes, and behind those its head flared back in a fan shape, probably to make burrowing easier. Its limbs were gigantic, as big around as some of the old agafari trunks in Sage’s Square.
Having revealed itself, the drake lost no time in attacking.
It lowered its head and glared at the caravan. But what looked at first like it was studying them intently proved to be something more, as a wave of pure energy struck the wagons and those on foot around them. Soldiers reeled against the argosies’ armored walls. One wagon, unbalanced because one wheel was rolling over a large rock its drivers should have avoided, tipped over sideways with a crash. Those on the far side, pinned under its crushing weight, screeched in pain. Aric’s wagon tipped but didn’t fall; he was dashed against the far wall and barely managed to shield his head.
He made it back to the window in time to see soldiers, some of them with blood pouring from noses and mouths, trying to right themselves, and mekillot drivers frantically trying to keep their beasts on track.
But the earth drake was on the move, head down, charging on all four clawed feet. The caravan could not escape it—the drake had caused boulders and debris from the hillsides to float in the air before and behind the wagons, hemming it in—so the best they could do was to fight it.
And fighting an earth drake, stories said, was usually a losing proposition.
Aric turned toward the soldiers assigned to keep him in the wagon. They were anything but friendly at the best of times, and now they looked positively grim. “I’ve got to get out there and help!” he said.
“You don’t leave this argosy,” one of the soldiers said. “For any reason.”
“But—”
“For any reason,” repeated the other. “You looking for adventure?”
Aric cringed at the word. “No. But my friends are out there.”
“Maybe fortune smiles on them today,” the soldier said with a shrug. “Maybe not.”
Aric wanted to rush past them, or to climb out the wide but shallow window. What could they do to him, after all? They wouldn’t kill him to save him.
They could, he supposed, maim or cripple him. Kadya didn’t need him whole in Akrankhot, after all, she just needed him alive.
From their posture, the tenseness of their jaws, and the way they kept casting quick, darting glances at the wagon’s door, he suspected they were glad to stay inside, “protecting” him.
He returned to the window, from which he could watch the action. If there seemed to be something he could do to help, he would try squeezing through it.
Arrows from the bows of a dozen archers rained onto the drake, most bouncing harmlessly off its rocklike hide. Cast spears had somewhat better success. One lodged in its back, another hit the hard ridge over its brow, glancing off but opening a cut there.