There was a blur of black in front of him. It was Kree, screeching, wings beating on his face. And now Jasmine was in front of him too, pushing him, screaming at him. Confused, he stumbled back, back to the edge of the clearing.
And only when he found himself pressed against the tree to which the Capricon had been bound did he realise why Jasmine had wanted him to move. Only then did he raise his head, just in time to see the vast beast land, settling onto the dust, curling its tail around its huge body, completely filling the clearing with a blinding shimmer of gold.
The dragon turned its massive head and fixed him with a golden eye. Lief felt himself captured, held. He could not look away.
‘You wear the Belt of the ancients,’ the dragon said. ‘The great topaz shines for you. I feel its power flowing into me, like new blood in my veins. You are the king who was promised.’
The words vibrated in Lief’s ears, hollow and echoing as if rising from a deep well. He could see his own reflection in the dragon’s eye, drifting there like a small, lonely creature drowning in an ancient sea.
In his mind there was no thought. Everything he had planned to say had vanished from his mind.
The dragon blinked, and the spell was broken. Suddenly freed, Lief gasped and staggered.
‘I have slept long, and in my sleep I dreamed,’ the dragon said. ‘My dreams were good dreams of times as they once were, when the skies were free and the air of my domain was sweet. Now you have awoken me—to this!’
Its black, forked tongue flickered out, tasting the air. ‘The land is not well. I feel an evil presence, poison leaking into the earth from some dark centre. Who has done this, while I slept?’
‘The Enemy from the Shadowlands,’ Lief said huskily. ‘The Enemy whose creatures destroyed your race, long ago.’
The flat, golden eye regarded him coldly. ‘My race was not destroyed,’ the dragon said. ‘Am I not here? Do you think I am a dream?’
Lief stared, not knowing what to say.
Thoughtfully the dragon raised a claw and picked a small piece of bone from between its sharp, white teeth.
‘The topaz you wear has given me new life, but my long sleep has left my body weak,’ it said. ‘One Granous has done little to satisfy my hunger. But when I have fed well and gathered strength, I will search out this evil thing that lies in my land like a worm in a bud, and I will destroy it, if I can.’
Lief’s heart leaped.
‘There is more than one,’ he said eagerly. ‘There are four—called by the Enemy the Four Sisters. And we already know where one of them lies. It is on the east coast, in a place called Dragon’s Nest.’
The dragon’s eyes seemed to glaze. ‘The east coast is the territory of the ruby, and not my concern,’ it said.
The blood rushed to Lief’s face. ‘But surely the whole of Deltora is your concern!’ he exclaimed. ‘As it is mine!’
The dragon’s terrible jaws gaped wide. Jasmine cried out in warning and reached for her dagger. But then it became clear that the beast was only yawning.
‘The territory of the ruby is not my concern,’ it repeated at last. ‘Even if I wished to enter it, I could not do so without breaking the oath I swore before I slept. And I cannot break my oath, for I swore it by my blood, and by my teeth, and by my young as yet unborn, to the man called Dragonfriend.’
Hearing Lief’s cry of astonishment, it seemed to smile. ‘Do you know of Dragonfriend?’ it asked. ‘The one your people called the Dragonlover?’
‘Of—of course!’ Lief stammered. ‘But—’
‘Seven savage enemies prowled our skies in those days,’ the dragon said. ‘Together, they hunted us. They killed and killed again till at last it came to pass that I was the only one left of all my tribe. Dragonfriend came to me in my loneliness. He said that each of the other dragon tribes had suffered the same fate.’
‘You mean—only one dragon remained from each of the seven tribes?’ Lief burst out.
The dragon moved restlessly. ‘So Dragonfriend told me, and so I believed, for I had known him of old, and he had never lied to me.’
The golden eye flicked in Lief’s direction. Lief swallowed, and nodded.
‘Dragonfriend had made a plan to preserve our lives,’ the dragon went on. ‘He was wise in our ways. He knew that dragons can sleep for centuries, if they must. He said that I, and the other six, should hide ourselves from the Enemy and let sleep embrace us until it was safe to wake.’
‘But how—how would you know when it was safe?’ Jasmine asked. ‘What was to stop you sleeping forever?’
The dragon turned its cold gaze upon her. Lief saw the flat, golden eye dwelling with interest on her flowing hair, and wished she had not spoken.
‘Dragonfriend said that one day each of us would be called by the great gem of our own territory,’ the dragon said. ‘He said the call would only come when the heir of the ancient king Adin was near us, wearing the Belt of Power. For that would mean that the Shadow Lord had been defeated and his creatures banished from our skies.’
‘So the seven of you slept,’ Lief breathed. ‘And—you each swore not to take advantage of another’s sleep to invade its land.’
‘That is so,’ said the dragon. ‘And I will not break my oath. If you wish to seek the evil at Dragon’s Nest, you must rouse the dragon of the ruby to help you.’
‘But what if the ruby dragon cannot be found?’ Lief asked desperately. ‘What if it is unwilling? Or dead? Will you come to me then?’
The dragon closed its eyes. After a long moment it opened them again. ‘If it cannot be found, or if it is unwilling, the oath to Dragonfriend must stand. If it is dead … then we shall see.’
10 - A Change of Plans
Night was falling by the time Lief, Jasmine and Barda half-carried Rolf the Capricon out of the Os-Mine foothills and back to their camp.
Even on the plain, the howls of Granous being hunted by the ravenous dragon drifted on the air. The companions were not surprised to find the horses snorting and restless and the guards huddled together over a huge fire, weapons and torches at the ready.
From the shelter of the trees around the clearing, Rolf had caught a glimpse of the dragon. From that moment he had retreated into shocked silence. The pain from his wounded hand, and the ghastly cries that had rung in their ears on their downward trek, had made matters worse.
Now his eyes were glassy, he trembled continually, and his legs seemed to have lost the power to support him. He paid no attention at all to the curious stares of the guards as he was helped into the camp.
‘Put him by the fire,’ Jasmine said in a low voice. ‘I will make a brew to ease his pain.’
‘If it will make him sleep too, all the better,’ Barda muttered. ‘I do not want him babbling of dragons to the men. They are nervous enough as it is.’
The guards, mightily relieved to have their chief and their king back safely, and satisfied with Barda’s mutterings of noisy wolves in the Hills, settled to preparing their meal.
The Capricon drank half a cup of the herbal tea Jasmine held to his lips, and fell into an exhausted sleep. And at last, the sounds from the Hills died away.
‘Our scaly friend seems to have decided it has eaten enough for one day,’ Barda said, slumping down in front of the fire with his companions.
‘It is just too dark for it to see its prey,’ Jasmine said. ‘That beast did not look to me as if it would ever have enough of feasting.’
‘What will happen, then, when it has eaten all the Granous in the Hills?’ growled Barda.
Lief felt a chill, but shook his head determinedly. ‘There are many Granous,’ he said. ‘They bred to plague proportions while the dragon slept.’
‘Perhaps. But who is to say it does not like to vary its diet sometimes?’ said Jasmine. ‘Remember the story of Capra. And I did not like the way it looked at me in the clearing. If you had not been present, with the Belt, I am sure it would have made short work of me.’