If she did, maybe she could grab Aunt Tibby and have her unmount the shielder so they could move it to another location. At the least, she could get troops to the salt mine to guard the entrance. Maybe she would get lucky, and her allies were even now retrieving the weapons platform from the bottom of the river. Too bad the salt mine was more than five miles inland—beyond its range.
You should have told me your precise location earlier. The Freeborn Faction dragons searched all along the coast where they believed a stormer camp might be.
I don’t know where we are on a map, but they were close when they encountered the stormer dragons.
So they assumed. Those dragons drove most of them far away, and they’ve dared not return with the storm raging. Only Igliana managed to evade them and nest on the mainland, but she had to travel far down the coast so her enemies wouldn’t sense her.
Can Igliana senseme?
Your magic makes you easier to sense than most humans but not from great distances. Tell me when you escape, and I’ll ask her to look for you after the storm abates.
Syla frowned. She had to escapebeforethe storm abated.
I’ll do so,she said, hoping Igliana could find her in time once she did.
Since nobody had reacted when she sat up, Syla dared ease away from the fur.
Vorik didn’t stir at her movement. Nobody did. A man who’d been ordered to stand guard near the entrance was slumped down across a rock mound. At leastsomeonehad eaten enough soup to be affected; she assumed the vigilant stormers wouldn’t otherwise take naps while on guard duty.
Syla picked up her medical kit and rose to her feet. If someone confronted her, she would claim to need to pee. With no toilet facilities in the cave, the stormers went outside for that. Earlier, she’d seen a few venture out into the storm, but it had been some time since anyone had gone.
As she picked her way past camps and toward the back of the cave, she expected someone to yell at her at any moment. She kept glancing back, certain Vorik would rise and stop her. But nobody stirred, and she made it to the tunnel. The guard who should have been alertly keeping anyone from reaching the shielder components lay slumped across a rock, similar to the one out front. She squeezed past, careful not to brush him.
Little lantern light penetrated the nook, and it went back farther than she would have guessed, but she soon sensedthecomponents. They were all magical, after all. She could detect all three, the teal ore, the desiccated moss-bulb powder, and the orb from the storm god’s laboratory.
Unable to see anything, she groped and prodded her way toward them. When last she’d seen the items, the ore and orb had glowed, but someone must have wrapped them up.
When she reached them, fingers brushing fabric, she realized the orb and ore were still in the pack she’d put them in. She was tempted to untie the flap and look inside to verify with her eyes that they were there, but she didn’t want the light to wake the guard. She slid the pack over her shoulders, then patted around and found the ceramic amphora, the lid secured. She hefted it with one arm and shifted the medical kit on its shoulder strap so that it rested against her hip, then headed out, wondering how by the eyes of the moon she would run and hide while carrying so much. She certainly couldn’t fight. Would she even be able to ride on a dragon?
Praying that she would somehow slip away without anyone noticing, she returned to the main portion of the cave. Reminded that Vorik hadn’t consumed any of the soup, she picked a route that stayed away from him. He lay on his back, the same as he had when she’d departed, but she couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed.
Closed, surely. If he’d been awake, he would have stopped her.
Heart beating in her ears, Syla reached the entrance and stepped past the sleeping guard. She resisted the urge to quicken her pace. If she tripped and dropped one of the items—or made any noise at all—someone who hadn’t consumed the soup would hear her and waken.
A gust of wind nearly knocked her into the wall before she reached the mouth of the cave. Rain blew sideways, cold eventhough it was only the beginning of fall, and spattered her spectacles.
I’m out, Wreylith,she thought.Will you tell Igliana to look for me?
More wind blew, and Syla could hear the roar of the sea, waves crashing into the cliff under the bluff.
I will tell her, but if it yet storms there, she may not be able to search for you.
You might mention that I’m thinking of starting a horn-hog farm so that I can always have delicious livestock for my dragon allies.
You wish me to bribe her?Wreylith asked dryly.
Yeah, will it work?
Probably. She is young and naive.
I’ll reserve some horn hogs for you too.
Iam not young or naive.
But you’d accept offerings of horn hogs if they happened to come your way.
Certainly. Sheep and goats as well. And the pesky but delicious venomous sword iglets that hug the sea floor and are difficult for dragons to catch.
