Chapter 6

Chapter Six

All was quiet for a moment before I lowered my arms. I was coated in a sticky film of filth and my companions were equally covered in the muck. Will didn’t heed the disgusting layer but knelt by my side and lifted me so my side leaned against his chest.

“Are you alright?” he asked me as he looked me over.

I smiled and nodded. “Just fine, thanks to you.”

He looked me over. “Can you stand?”

My expression turned a little sheepish. “With a little help.”

Will grasped my arms and helped me to my feet. Our companions were just waking from their surprised stupor and some of them weren’t too happy.

Vargas stretched out her arms and the filth dripped from her limbs. The woman’s face slowly turned a bright shade of red and steam almost flowed from her ears. Her body trembled and she clenched her teeth.

She rolled her eyes around all of us before they landed on Will. “Lord Thorn,” she growled as she lowered her arms. “If this is some sort of joke then I am not amused.”

“Would that it were,” Will replied as he grimly looked around.

“Then what is the meaning of this?” Ware snapped as he stomped over to him. He puffed out his chest and his stomach bounced against Will’s front. “What was that creature? Who was that girl?”

“If I had the answers to those then I wouldn’t be standing here listening to you,” Will told him.

Ware’s eyes bulged out of his face. “Y-you dare speak to me in such a manner! You insolent hatchling! You faithless fiend!”

Will spun around to face his guest with a fury that surprised even me. “Lord Ware, you arrived at my home and brought with you a dark storm, and now you have the temerity to shout at me dropping blame into my lap.”

Ware stared dumbfounded at him. Allard cleared his throat and stepped into the midst of the men. “Our tempers are running quite high due to all of us being very confused.”

“I am not confused!” Ware growled.

Allard clapped a hand on his companion’s shoulder and met his gaze. The intense stare cowed the hefty dragon lord. Allard’s smile returned and he swept a hand over the area. “Would you please use your clean mind and even clearer nose to try to find the little girl? She may be in danger and I believe only your prowess in the hunt will be able to locate her.”

Ware puffed out his chest at the preening words and nodded. He strode forward to stand near my side and a few feet off. The old dragon inhaled and his nostrils flared. He took in so much air that I swear I saw dust and bits of needles vacuum up into his nose.

Ware exhaled and lines creased his brow. He tried again. And then again.

Vargas stomped her foot on the ground. “Quit your stalling and start tracking her, you old fool!”

Ware frowned at her. “I cannot track her without a scent and I cannot find her scent.”

Allard lifted an eyebrow. “Not at all?”

The old hunter took in another deep inhale and exhale motion before he shook his head. “Not at all. The only two women I smell are Lady Vargas and Lady Thorn.”

Will folded his arms over his chest and studied the spot where we had discovered the girl. “Can you smell anything of our attacker?”

Ware wrinkled his nose. “Plenty. It’s a most putrid scent. I could track that if you desire.”

“I would,” Will replied as he looked over our group. “But I think only a few of us should follow the trail. That will make us faster so we won’t lose the trail.”

“I disagree,” Allard spoke up as he nodded at the scorch marks of the creature. “This thing is completely unknown to all of us. The larger the group the greater chance we have of fending off any attacks.”

Will shot his old friend a disapproving look even as my thick skull finally understood the gist of what Will was trying to do. I latched onto his arm and frowned at him. “You’re not leaving me behind, not when I know I can help you against this. . .whatever it is.”

His eyes flickered down to my stomach. “I would rather you returned to the house with Lady Vargas.”

“Oh no!” Vargas spoke up as she flapped her arms. The bile on her limbs flew in all directions. Will wrapped his arms around me and turned his back toward her to protect me against the incoming projectiles. She swatted most of the gunk out of her hair before she straightened. “I will not allow myself to be covered in filth and not attempt some sort of revenge on whoever or whatever controlled my attacker.”

“Then you believe it didn’t act alone?” Allard asked her.

She sniffed which caused her to wrinkle her nose as the stench of the black goop invaded her nostrils. “How can one think otherwise? The creature appeared to be nothing more than that. A mindful thing without purpose except through the will of a master.”

Ware bobbed his head. “I must concur. It appeared to be nothing more than a worm doing the bidding of some hidden fiend.”

Allard caught Ware’s attention and swept an arm in the direction from where the worm had slithered. “Then see if you might find its master so we can interrogate him.”

“Or her,” Vargas added. Allard indicated acceptance of the addendum by bowing his head to her.

Ware stuck out his chest and held out his arms on either side of him. “Very well! We shall find the source of this fiend and interrogate-” A look of warning came from Vargas. “And interrogate them!”

The old dragon lord marched forward but all his dignity came to an end when he reached the spot in the bushes from where the thing had emerged. He stooped and sniffed, and his eyes lit up before he dove headlong into the mess. His claws flew and so did branches and bushes as he carved a path through the thick mess.

We followed behind him with Allard cleaning up what little survived Ware’s merciless carnage. Vargas followed on his heels still trying to remove the pungent muck from herself. The one thing the men couldn’t remove, and which caused Vargas the most trouble, were the countless nuts that lay scattered over the ground. They resembled walnuts in their rough tan shells with the two halves pressed closely together. I glanced up and saw some of them hanging from the silver-barked trees above our heads.

Will kept one arm wrapped around my waist and both eyes on the forest as we headed deep into the interior. I leaned toward him and lowered my voice to a whisper. “You’ve never seen that little girl around here, have you?”

He kept his eyes staring ahead but shook his head. “No.”

“Do you have any humans living around here?”

“Outside of Raines, the closest human settlement is some ten miles off through dense forest. A girl such as that might be able to traverse it but it isn’t likely,” he told me.

I furrowed my brow as I thought back to her appearance. “And she didn’t look like she’d gone through ten miles of forest.”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

“And she has no scent,” Ware chimed in with pursed lips. “There is something very wrong with a child that cannot be tracked.”

Vargas gave a very affirmative nod. “Very very wrong! Perhaps it has been corrupted by the influence of the shadow you thought you had destroyed.”

“That is a very wild accusation,” Allard scolded her with a sharp look in his eyes. “We have no hint that the child is at all related to that incident, nor do we know that anything we have experienced has to do with the creature if it survived.”

She scoffed. “Something as old as that could not be defeated by a young dragon and his hatchling wife.”

This hatchling wife was ready to give our ‘guest’ a good talking to but Will drew me tighter against his waist and gave me a look of warning. However, I noticed the corners of his lips were pursed tightly together.

“Is that your design in coming to us?” Will spoke up as his eyes flickered between Vargas and Ware. “To accuse us of having failed in protecting the woods?”

Vargas lifted her nose. “The council was concerned about the reports and wishes to know what exactly transpired there.”

“We killed something that was bothering the elves and the-hey!” Will squeezed me even tighter against his side. I whipped my head up and glared at him. “What?”

Ware stopped his burrowing through the brush and turned to study us with his dark eyes. “You two are doing a poor job of hiding secrets. What else have you not told us?”

“Only that we should continue onward or we may not have this problem resolved before nightfall,” Will commented as he nodded at the way forward. “Would you like me to lead while you rest?”

The suggestion that Ware needed a rest irked the old dragon. He puffed out his chest and scoffed. “I am not at all tired!”

“Then perhaps we should continue onward,” Allard spoke up as he lifted his clawed hands and flexed the long dagger-like fingers. “I am ready whenever you are willing.”

Ware scowled at us one more time before he returned to his work. We traveled through the woods a little longer before I noticed a dark shadow had fallen on Will’s brow. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re headed for one of the roads that traverses my realm,” he told me.