Beside him, Syla threw her weight against the orb as assiduously as he. Perhaps more than the others, she was well aware of how close they were to disaster. If they didn’t get this onto a ship soon…
Except that wouldn’t be the end of it. Even if a sturdy cargovessel waited for them, they would still have to sail for hours to reach the harbor on Castle Island. The memory of the dragons flying over the sea between the islands and attacking them came to mind. Even if they avoided Vorik, how, by the eyes of the moon, would they get past loitering dragons?
“Trouble coming.” Tibby, who’d been adjusting her spectacles again, pointed to the north.
A powerful blue dragon was flying in their direction.
Syla swore. “How far are we from the cove?”
“Another mile,” Fel said.
The dragon, its great wings flapping hard, was flying fast. They would never reach the cove before the creature arrived.
“We have to hide this.” Syla looked around bleakly.
Other than a stunted tree no taller than she, there was nowhere to hide anything, certainly not an orb eight feet in diameter. Thanks to its dormancy, it didn’t exude magical energy, the way it had when she first walked into the chamber, but with that beautiful iridescent exterior, the dragon wouldn’t miss seeing it. Nobody within three miles would.
“Where?” Fel kept pushing, but he looked at the oncoming dragon.
Good question.
Syla removed her robe and tossed it over the top of the orb. She ran around it, tugging the material to hide as much as she could, but, as large as the loose healer’s robe was, it only covered the top of the big orb.
Fel stared at her making adjustments as if she were daft. The dragon flew closer.
“Maybe if we lean casually on it, as if it’s an interesting rock formation,” Syla suggested and did so, resting her shoulder on the orb. She crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling foolish for standing naked in her shoes.
A dragon probably didn’t think anything of human clothing,but what about its rider? She imagined Lesva staring condescendingly down at her.
“Lean casually,” Fel grumbled, then stepped out in front of the orb with his mace in hand and glowered defiantly at the dragon.
“You’re a brute,” Tibby told him. “Weapons can’t solve all problems. They can’t even solvemostproblems.”
“You’re still angry because I beat up your nefarious tractor, aren’t you?” Fel asked without taking his gaze from the dragon.
Blue scales gleaming strikingly in the sun, it had reached the shoreline and kept flying in their direction. It didn’t have a rider, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t allied with the stormers. Even if it was a wild dragon, like Wreylith, it would probably pluck up the orb and maybe even destroy it. All the dragons wanted access to these islands, the same as the stormers.
“I’m perturbed about that, yes.” Tibby joined Syla in casual leaning, trying to use her body to cover up another portion of the orb.
The dragon looked down at them, slitted yellow eyes cold and intense. A chill went through Syla as she feared defeat had already found them.
But the dragon didn’t slow down as it flew over them. After that look—that dismissive look?—its gaze returned to its route ahead. Further, the dragon shared a telepathic vision, that of a furry gray animal the size of a horse but with an elephant’s trunk that snuffled at mushrooms on the forest floor. That was an eliok, wasn’t it? In the vision, the dragon was swooping down between the trees to obtain the creature.
A gleeful thought accompanied the imagery:Delicious prey!
“Did you hear that?” Tibby wondered.
“Yes.” Syla looked toward the sea. “But I don’t think the message was for us.”
The dragon might have been calling to others of its kind, inviting them to join the hunt.
“If that one sensed the barrier is down, others will too, and they’ll be here soon.” Fel hung his mace on his belt and pulled down the robe, handing it to Syla. “We need to get out of here before one working with the stormers shows up and knows the significance of this giant orb.”
They returned to pushing, Fel alternately grunting and directing them. He pointed toward the cove they were angling for, the lava-rock field sloping downward around it. They would have to be careful not to let the orb start rolling of its own accord. A vision of trying to pluck it out of the ocean came to Syla’s mind.
“I forgot to ask earlier,” Fel said, glancing at Syla and scanning the area around the cove, “what happened to the enforcers? Are they still out here? Do we have to worry about them jumping out at us?”
“Oh. Yes.” Tibby blinked and looked at Syla. “How did you get away from them?”
