Darcy stiffened. “How?” Were Elizabeth and Jenny in danger?
“No idea,” Roderick said breathlessly. “We must go to the gates and find out.”
“It is not at the gates,” Darcy responded without thinking about how he knew this. “It is over there.” He pointed towards the northeast, to the moorland at the edge of Pemberley, nearly four miles away.
“Your land sense? I will tell Rowan. What is the fastest way there?”
“Riding cross-country. There is no road; the moors are only used for sheep grazing.”
Roderick nodded sharply, his eyes still blurred as he conversed with his dragon. “Rowan has ordered that all available iron be brought to Miss Darcy's chambers.”
Then the significance finally hit him. He was no longer in France, where he and Elizabeth were being hunted. It was Georgiana who was endangered by the wards breaking.
Still, as he raced out the door, he shouted to a footman, “Guard Mrs. Darcy with your life.”
Chapter 3
“Damnit,Hercules!”Darcyswore at his horse. “What is wrong with you?”
The land was injured. Its pain stabbed at Darcy as they trotted onto the moor, crying to him for help. And Hercules, normally so responsive to the slightest touch, was fighting him as if the devil were after him. Could the smoke rising ahead have spooked him?
Once again the horse swerved away, pulling at the reins and ignoring the bit and harness the groom had hastily thrown on him before they left Pemberley House. Darcy had refused to wait for him to be saddled.
Darcy uncharacteristically yanked at the reins. Hercules reared, forcing Darcy to clench his thighs and grab the horse's mane to keep his balance. But it was not enough. Suddenly he was flailing in mid-air, and then his backside struck the ground.
Not hard, for he had landed in a clump of heather that cushioned his fall, even as it poked him through his overcoat painfully with twigs. In shock, he stared after Hercules' inexplicably fleeing form, galloping back towards his stable. What could have made him behave so badly? Admittedly, there was something spooky about the smoky moor, something that made Darcy want to run away, too. He had no choice, though.
He could solve the mystery of Hercules later. First he had to heed the call of the land. He pushed himself to his feet and began to make his waythrough the uneven clumps of bracken and heather, towards the place where the earth was injured. It was hard to push himself forward, almost as if something was resisting him. Something that made him want to run away, that made his heart pound with utter terror, to want to be anywhere else. But the land argued back. This was his land, his birthright, and he belonged here. It needed him.
Roderick called from behind him, “Darcy, come away! It is not safe!”
Unsafe? It was an empty moor. Even the usual population of sheep was oddly missing.
“Now, Darcy!” The Welshman's voice sounded frantic. “She is starting her run!”
What was he talking about? Darcy shook his head and kept forcing himself forward, pulling strength from the land even as it silently screamed in his ears.
Then a voice, unnaturally loud and inhuman, boomed over the landscape. “Fly or face the flames!”
Someone grabbed Darcy's arm, almost making him trip over a hummock of sedge. “Get out of here! This instant!” It was Roderick.
Darcy shook him off without a second glance. The earth was calling out for him, and he would not fail to answer.
And then something hit him from behind, knocking him face down onto the ground. He wanted to struggle against the body atop him, but the breath had been knocked out of him.
“Can you create a hole - make the ground sink under you?” Roderick's voice hissed in his ear. “Quickly, if you wish to live!”
What was wrong with the man? But on the chance the Welshman knew what he was talking about, Darcy told the land what he needed. The dense ground sank only half a foot, enough for a slight enclosure.
Darcy raised his head just in time to see a wall of flame racing towards him. A wave of dizzying terror dried his mouth. This small cavity could not protect them.
He summoned every ounce of Talent he had as he dug his fingertips into the grass, sending his power spiraling down through the thick mat of roots. Help me, he urged the land. Or the fire will kill me.
And Pemberley, so recently watered with his blood from Jenny's bonding ritual, answered. The land under him crumbled away, and he fell several feet. A double blow, as he hit a layer of rock, and Roderick's body landed on top of him.
Icy water poured over him, apparently coming straight from the disturbed soil around him. Several inches of it, so he had to turn his head to breathe. And then a searing flush of heat as the flames passed overhead.
Roderick swore as he pushed himself off Darcy. “That was too close. For God’s sake, never ignore a dragon when they tell you to run!”
