“Come,” he ordered, walking past Kachka and Gaius to the pub’s front door. “I already know what you’ve come for.”
Aidan stared at his father. “Do you care at all about what’s happened to your family?”
Lord Jarlath continued to drink his ale, showing no interest in much of anything.
Brannie tapped her friend’s arm. “Come on. Let’s get this done. So we can get you back to your mates and your sister.”
He nodded and walked out, the rest of them following.
The Dwarf King led the way, a few of his warriors bringing up the rear. As they moved, Kachka asked, “How do you know what we are here for?”
He glanced back at her, smirking. “A god told me.”
“You know,” Brannie explained, “once you’ve been around Annwyl for a while, you’ll realize that information is not as shocking as you’d think it would be.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ainmire, eyeless, stared at his old home, but he felt nothing as he watched the True Believers use catapults. They weren’t trying to take the castle down. He’d warned them nothing would take it down. But the attack was keeping his father’s armed forces quite busy and that’s all they wanted.
It had hurt when they’d taken his eyes from his head, but his commitment to his god had given him vision he hadn’t had before. Now he could truly see.
And hear.
They came in without words or battle cries, but Ainmire heard the flutter of their wings, the tiny clacks of their talons.
A female came down onto the dragon beside Ainmire. That dragon had not fully committed to Chramnesind. He still had both his eyes. So he never saw the She-dragon until she’d landed on his back and slammed her broadsword into his spine.
It took a lot to fully commit to their god the way Ainmire had, so many of his brothers and sisters didn’t know they were under attack from behind until it was too late.
Moving quickly, Ainmire backed away from the battle, which was now much closer. And, as he did, he prayed to his god. Not for salvation, but for what was happening inside that mountain to be a success. Before he’d walked into his old home earlier that evening, both his eyes still in his head, he hadn’t been worried. But then he’d seen Aidan and his Mì-runach chums. And the Cadwaladr bitch.
That’s when he’d become worried.
The Dwarf King led them out of his city but deeper still into the Western Mountains until they came down a long passageway to a narrow crevice protected by a small battalion of dwarf warriors.
The king moved them aside with a gesture and pointed. “In there.”
“You must be joking,” Gaius said to him. “We can’t fit through that crevice.”
“Neither can we. But what you want is in there, Iron. Placed there by the gods an age ago. How you get it out is your problem.”
Gaius shrugged. “Fair enough.” He gestured to the crevice. “Zoya.”
The dwarves moved farther back as she approached, then faced the crevice. Doubling up her fists, she began to pummel the stone face. They all turned their heads as chunks of rock began to fly.
After about five minutes, Zoya stopped and faced them all, raising her hands with their now bloody knuckles. “Now we can all enter, comrades!” she crowed.
“Thank you, Zoya.”
“You are welcome, Rebel King.” She slapped her hand against Gaius’s spine as she walked past him and Gaius looked to Kachka.
“Owww,” he whispered to her.
Then Kachka did something rather remarkable. She rubbed his back before entering the battered opening. An effort to ease the harshness of Zoya’s hearty backslaps.
He doubted that Kachka had any idea what that small move meant to him. More importantly, he doubted she understood what it meant to her.
Gaius followed behind Kachka, but she stopped before he could go into the crevice with her.
“Stay here.”“Kachka—”
“I am the one they sent, Gaius. Not you. Me. Stay here. Watch my back.”
She disappeared inside and Gaius began to pace back and forth, his gaze constantly straying to the Dwarf King and his soldiers. Finally, he stopped.
“What haven’t you told us?”
“You Irons. You don’t trust anybody.”
“Have you met my family? Oh. That’s right. They destroyed half your people! So, yeah . . . I don’t trust anybody.” Gaius stepped closer. “So what haven’t you told us?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
The king studied him a moment. “I’m sorry, Rebel King, but I can never risk what happened under Thracius’s rule happening again to my people.”
“Why would I attack your people?”
“Not you.”
Gaius frowned. “Then what are you talk—”
“Gaius.”
Gaius turned toward the voice behind him. Kachka stood in the opening, a small leather bag in her hand. She held it up for him and smiled.
Letting out a breath, Gaius started toward her, but he stopped when something wrapped itself around Kachka’s waist. She looked down at what appeared to be something living. By the time she looked back at him, she was yanked out of sight.
“Kachka!”
The slimy tentacle dragged Kachka back through the small passage, through the tiny cavern where she’d discovered the eyes of Chramnesind and into a larger cavern filled with a lake.
“Hello, dear,” a beautiful woman said to her. She reached down to grab the bag from Kachka’s hand, but Kachka yanked her dagger from her belt and stabbed the tentacle around her waist.
The woman roared and the tentacle released Kachka. She rolled backward and got to her feet.
The woman shook off the pain. “Foolish bitch. Now give that to me.”
“I give you nothing.” Kachka looked down and realized that the woman stood in water that covered her from the knees down. And whatever was going on under that water was . . . unnatural.
There was more than one tentacle down there.
“What are you?” Kachka had to ask. Had to know.
“Blessed,” the woman replied. She held out her hand. “Now . . . give it to me.”
Kachka didn’t reply, she simply crouched down to avoid the arrows shooting past her and into the woman’s neck and shoulder. Marina’s aim, true as always.
And that’s when the woman exploded, her rage shaking the walls of the cavern, the water she stood in bubbling as if it boiled.
Flames suddenly erupted around her and she went from human to She-dragon.
“Vateria,” Gaius gasped from behind Kachka. And Brannie ran up, abruptly grabbed Kachka by the back of her neck, and yanked her out of the way just as he shifted into his natural form.
“Vateriaaaaaa!” he bellowed.
The She-dragon grinned, showing row after row of fangs. “Cousin.” She held open her forearms. “It’s been so long. Come! Greet your kin!”
Gaius charged across the lake, and Brannie pushed Kachka toward Zoya just as she and Aidan shifted to dragons.
Kachka thought that was so they could all attack Vateria, but the She-dragon wasn’t alone. Two more steel-colored dragons ran in from another entrance. One had two axes, the other a sword and shield.