Ember's End Read online

  Dragon voices.

  She crept to the edge of the tunnel mouth and peered around the side. The cavern was vast, likely ten times the size of the one she and Smalls had been cast into. Torches ringed the hard rock walls, illuminating a terrifying scene.

  A vast throng of dragons was packed inside the immense chamber, lined up in staggered columns like an army, all facing a central pavilion, round and raised above the rest. There on the stage stood a cadre of black-robed dragons, and the murmuring crowd grew silent as the torch-bearing dragon she had followed rushed to the stage and whispered urgently with the black-robed leaders.

  Heather swallowed hard, gazing in alarm as the dragons huddled, then turned to face the gathered army.

  “Looka han drevbo goonsala bancha vose dey!” a dragon chieftain cried. Then all the dragons stomped six times, ending in a unified cry. The shout was a gargling terror, low and haunting. She did not know the words, but she felt their meaning in her gut. And it terrified her. The room shook. Every dragon bent and hissed, filling the space with a noxious stench, a hint of which drifted toward Heather.

  Swiping a torch from the wall just inside the large chamber, she dashed back into the tunnel, retracing her steps till she emerged into the small hall with three tunnel doors on both sides of the room. She sprinted into the near side tunnel’s leftmost opening and wound around until she came again into the long rubble-covered chamber where the low triangular thirteenth tunnel structure stood. She ran for it, dodging past debris and leaping over wreckage until she finally reached the door.

  She lodged the torch between two leaning rocks, where it hung, somewhat precariously, illuminating the scarred door. Reaching out once again, she felt the elaborate indentations in the triangle center and knew for certain it was a lock. And what would every king and heir of Natalia, making regular visits to confer with the conquered dragon’s keeper, possess? What token could also be a key? She knew. And she knew where it was.

  “Little doe ran off.”

  Heather spun to see the keeper, and he was ominously close, exhaling as he spoke. Heather coughed and squinted.

  “The keeper has been searching for you.”

  “I followed another dragon,” she said, somehow unable to lie or stay silent. “I followed him to the dragon hall and saw the army. I saw the dragon horde.”

  “A part of the horde, you saw,” the keeper said, blowing noxious fumes in her face. “These are only hatchlings of the year. There are more. Many more, in the caverns of the so-called dragon tomb. We are rising. We are ready. But the keeper must get through this gate!” His split tongue extended, nearly touching Heather, as his yellow eyes hardened. “You will open this gate.”

  “I will open the gate,” she said, but stupidly. Automatically. Meanwhile, another part of her mind, a part so dull she almost couldn’t access it, warned her not to cooperate. But the compelling power welling within her felt too strong. She was choosing. “I will open the gate, for I have the key.”

  Heather reached inside her satchel, snagging the battered old purse where she had long stowed her treasures. She drew out Aunt Jone’s pouch and reached inside.

  She would surrender the way to the dragons. She would use the heir’s most precious token to release the dragon horde to rampage across Natalia once again.

  Heather would let them win.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THE PRINCE’S END

  Heather, compelled in a way she couldn’t understand, was digging in her satchel, reaching for the emerald gem she knew was the key to this ancient vault. She was going to give it to the keeper.

  But the Green Ember was gone.

  She looked up at the dragon, eyes wide. Heather saw recognition there that she had failed. His face grew angry, and she heard a low, aggressive growl growing in his throat and then tearing out of his wide mouth in a furious cry.

  “Rakafon doo day hoon! You fail me, little doe?” he roared. “You dare fail me?” He raised his head and bellowed a deep, watery call that echoed in the dank halls of the islands. “Bayfooo mon sacha roooo!” Heather covered her ears.

  An answering call, from hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dragons, came to Heather’s ears through the myriad of tunnels all around. Then footfalls, like the pounding of an army.

  “The dragons will break out anyway,” the keeper said. “They grow closer every day.”

  “What will you do when you are out?” she asked, straining against her almost unstoppable need to comply.

  “You are strong,” the keeper said, coming closer and gripping both her arms. His razor claws bit into her arms so hard they bled. “If there are many like you, then this conquest will at least be sporting. But the dragons rise, little doe, to do what dragons have ever done. We rise by lies and live to slaughter. We subjugate and sacrifice. We tyrannize and torture. We break rabbits’ necks for sport and feast on rabbit young in our devotion.”

  “I thought,” Heather said, squirming against the dragon’s painful grip, “you were the keeper. I thought you awaited the conference and kept the old treaty?”

  “I killed the keeper years ago, ate him early after my waking,” the dragon said. “I am the prince who was to come, the self-waking one destined to lead the rising of our kind. I assumed the mantle of keeper to see if I could entice you to open this gate. But since you cannot, your Small Prince shall be saved to serve at our victory meal. You? I will split you with a swipe of my tail and divide you for the first of my fellows who answer my call. And,” he continued, as the sound of footfalls grew and Heather glanced over at the tunnels now teeming with rushing dragons, “here … they … come.”

  He threw her hard against the door. She struck the immovable stone, then rebounded to collapse on her knees. Looking up, she saw his claw strike out at her face. She ducked, shielding as best she could, and the claw cut across her arms and mangled her left ear, knocking her over again. This blow hurt, but it had also shaken her free of the strange compulsion she had. She sprang up, her back to the dragon, then turned slowly, determined to make the best end she could manage. She saw the army of dragons pouring into the room, bearing torches and flocking to their destined prince, the leader of their dark uprising. Tongues flicked and glossy black-scaled armor glinted from the horde. The dragon prince’s tail rose slowly, poised above his head. His tongue flicked out, and a malicious smile, venom dripping from his jaws, spread over his face.

  “Now, the end,” he spat, his tail arcing round.

  A sound of a turning lock sounded from behind, and the dragon’s tail struck against something hard. Heather watched the dragon prince’s expression change from malignant mirth to stunned surprise.

  Smalls sprang through the open triangular door, light pouring from behind him as he shot out with a black glowing sword, which reflected light like it was made from a star. The starsword!

  “Kill and conquer,” the dragon prince cried, “the gate is open at last!” and he swiped at Smalls with a razor claw while behind him the dragon horde surged forward.

  Smalls ducked the claw strike and, spinning in an agile sweep, brought the sable blade around to cleave clean through the neck of the dragon prince. His head fell among the soldiers, who paused in shock. In a moment, their enraged cries of anguish rose and they surged ahead with a desperate frenzy.

  “Get inside!” Smalls called, rushing back toward the light-filled triangular room, urging Heather on. She dove through the door as he dashed inside behind her, closing it just before the first of the horde arrived.

  Heather sat in the small room, shaking, her eyes wide and heart racing.

  “Are you okay, Heather, my dear?” Smalls crouched before her, taking her face in his hands. “You’re hurt.”

  “I don’t think it’s bad,” she said, rising to embrace him. She gazed around the room. There was a bright light she couldn’t explain and several crates bearing old inscriptions.

  “I’m sorry it took so long. I had to figure out how to unlock the door from the inside.�
��

  “You didn’t come through the front?” Heather asked, turning back.

  “No,” he said.

  “But that means—”

  “—that they can get in. Yes,” he said, sighing. He pointed to a gash in the back side of the vault, near the second gate. “They can. They don’t know it yet, but they soon will. I was sent to work on that side in a long tunnel, pounding away with a massive maul, and, after the last quaking, rocks tore apart and I found the way in. I think the keeper came, but he couldn’t get to me right away because of the fallen rubble behind me in my cave.”

  “He wasn’t the keeper.”

  “I heard him,” Smalls said. “I was trying to figure out the door, but I could hear everything. I was so afraid I’d lose you.”

  She gazed across at the second door. “The way out?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It must lead through another tunnel to the surface.”

  She smiled, rushing to hug him. Then she broke away and ran to the door. She bent to examine its small triangle shape. It looked the same as the other door.

  “Oh no, Smalls. I’ve lost the Green Ember,” she said. “We’re trapped!”

  “No, my dear,” Smalls replied, sheathing his sword and reaching into his shirt. “I have it.” He drew out the emerald, back around his neck on its golden chain. “I took it with me the last time I left you. I wasn’t sure why. It may have been the dragon himself, compelling me in his strange way. But I didn’t know it was a key. Not yet. Maybe my subconscious was working on the problem. I’m afraid the dragon prince had quite a sway over me. I was almost in his thrall. That breath. It’s poison and … far more.”

  “He had me in his grip too. I nearly gave everything away. What an awful beast. I’m so glad you took off his head.”

  “I was happy to do it,” he growled.

  “So, we are free to leave?” she asked, almost not believing it possible. She gazed at the door leading outside. Their hopes were on the verge of being realized. They could be together. They could rejoin the resistance and strengthen their side with the return of the prince. She could see her family again. Smalls would be … what he was destined to be. “Smalls! We’ll be together and free. It’s what we’ve dreamed might be!” She turned back to him.

  But he was not smiling. He looked down. “What is it, Smalls? What’s wrong?”

  “If we leave,” he said, “we’ll be leaving the way open for them to follow. They’ll clear the cave in an hour at most—perhaps much sooner—and then they’ll be in here. I’ve had time to examine the tunnel’s wall. It won’t take them long to get past this last barrier. The last quake broke open a way. The old barriers my ancestors built held a long time, but no more. We might make it to the top of the island, and maybe we could swim to First Warren’s dam or out to the banks leading into the forest. But by the time we reached either, the dragons would be out. They would be unleashed, in their thousands, into Natalia once again.”

  Heather closed her eyes. No noxious breath confused her now. She had no doubt about what they had to do. Tears came at the death of her dream, at the loss of their own hopes. She inhaled deeply, then nodded to Smalls.

  “Unsettle the foundations,” she said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We have to finish this. We have to end them all.”

  “Even if it means, as it certainly does, that we will die doing it? My dear Heather, I wanted us to be together. We could get away. Get away from everything.”

  “You can’t do that, and neither can I. Our love is a treasure, but it’s not the house we keep the treasure in.” Heather smiled through tears. “There is a bigger world we fit inside, and we can’t say yes to our love right here without saying no to that world. I can’t. I know you can’t either, or you wouldn’t be the one I love so much.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE LAST BATTLE IN DRAGON TOMB

  Heather smiled. Smalls looked at her with an admiration and affection she had never known before.

  “Oh, Heather. You would have been a magnificent queen. Let’s live like we are king and queen—just for now, here among our enemies—and finish an old task together.”

  Heather nodded. “Defeat the dragons, at last.”

  “Yes!”

  Heather smiled, shaking her head. “We were so close to getting out.”

  Smalls sighed. “And if we succeed, they’ll never know out there what happened down here.”

  “But we’re doing it for them,” she said. “We know what it means. We know it’s protecting them from adding another enemy to those already out there, another unstoppable foe bent on destroying our kind.”

  “Would these dragons ever fight against Morbin?” he asked, doubtful.

  “They would reach an agreement and divide our kind between them,” she answered, “as they no doubt always have. I know it. I see it. We have to do this, Smalls. I’ll fight beside you till—”

  “—the end of the world.”

  A sound of clawing came from the door, followed by a series of bashing crashes.

  “They can’t get in that way,” Heather said.

  “No, but it won’t take long,” Smalls replied, eyeing the side breach.

  “What wonders are here?” she asked, gazing around the vault at the crates. “Where is this light coming from? Is it wrong for me to look? I’m not a royal, you know.”

  “You would have been,” he said sadly, pointing to a strange lantern in the corner. “I was going to marry you, Heather Longtreader, when the wars were all over. We would have ruled together, you and I, and been happy in the mending.”

  “It was my dream, too,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I’m glad, at least, that we fight and fall together.”

  “For the Mended Wood,” he said.

  “For the Mended Wood,” she echoed, and they embraced again.

  A noise of hard crashing came from the torn gap in the side of the vault, and Smalls rushed over to look. “We have only a moment, my dear.”

  “Are there any weapons here?” she asked, “other than … than the starsword?”

  “My maul,” he said, bending to pick up, then pass to her, the long hammer with a spike on its back side. “How does that feel?”

  “It feels good,” she said, testing its weight in her hands, “and it’s just what I need. Can you make a path?”

  “Back home?” he asked, and she knew he meant the spot where they had reunited by the mossdraft pool.

  “Back home.”

  “Let’s take what we can. We’ll need more weapons.”

  She peered into an open crate at her feet and saw not a weapon but an ancient book, bound round many times with a rough cord. She picked it up and stuffed it inside her satchel. Breaking open another crate, she saw a small black bag. She stuffed it inside her satchel and secured the satchel tight against her. Heather felt an ache at leaving other treasures, but they had to act and act fast. Finally, she saw a silver knife and secured it in her belt. Smalls donned a steel breastplate, gold-plated with the double diamond etched in its center. Heather fastened the straps in back while he threw on gold-plated armguards that extended to his elbows.

  He was rooting through another box when a shattering close by sounded and heavy footfalls filled the nearby cave.

  “Let’s go!” Heather cried, raising her long-handled hammer.

  Smalls crossed quickly to the door and placed the Green Ember inside the inner lock, then twisted right. The door sprang open and, with a cry, they rushed into the darkness.

  The dragons were blinded a moment, and Heather saw them flinch back at the intense light. She had a moment to evaluate the dragons and estimate their own slim chances of success. The hall teemed with enemies. They roiled in an eager frenzy to fall upon their prey. Smalls surged ahead, swinging his blade. Heather followed in his wake, staying just out of range of the scything swipes.

  She readied the maul, eager to aid in the task. Smalls leapt into the fight, blade singing as it met their ene
mies with terrible effect. Heather’s blood was up, and she rushed into the wake created by his driving charge. A slender dragon sneaked beneath Smalls’ stroke and rose up, tail poised to destroy him from behind. Her maul met the dragon’s head as she released a wild cry. The enemy fell, senseless, as others rushed in to replace him. On and on they came, met, every one, by Smalls’ flashing starsword. It appeared almost weightless in his hands but bit into the seemingly unbreakable scales of the dragons in scores. Heather had almost no time to assess things in the center of the storm, but she could not help marveling at what she was witnessing.

  Surely this had never occurred in the history of rabbitkind, such a hero in such a fight. Oh, to have been allowed to tell this tale. These malicious beasts had meant to slaughter rabbitkind, but Smalls had reversed this course and was destroying them with awful efficiency. Up they came, rows of killer brutes. And down they fell, each and every enemy meeting the same unstoppable blade. He blocked a dragon pike strike with his left wrist, half-shattering an armguard, then brought his blade back like lightning to strike down the attacker. And so the dragons fell, piled in heaps on either side of Smalls’ slashing path. Again and again Heather protected his back and swung her maul to ward off more.

  Soon they had reached the edge of the hall, and Smalls called back to her, “Are you clear?”

  “Not yet!”

  He beat back a sudden attack of several dragons, taking many blows on his chest plate, then pushed ahead, clearing space for Heather. She saw her gap, won by hard-fought heroics on Smalls’ part, and she strode into it. Swinging her powerful maul around, she spun and delivered a strike of astonishing force to the support beam they fought beside. The wood split as her heavy hammer tore through it, and the wall tottered and began to come down.