Return of the Exile

I have not eaten, replied Sirenfal in Linsha’s mind. I knew they were keeping me drugged with something, but ate anyway because I had no hope. Tonight I buried my food when they did not watch.”

“Why? Why was tonight different?”

J wanted to see what would happen. I need to know if the drug will wear off quickly or if I need to avoid food until we can escape.

Linsha felt a bud of elation blossom. “Escape? Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

The dragon’s response shot back in alarm, You do not? I thought that’s why you came. To work out a plan.

“Yes, yes!” Linsha hastened to assure her. She leaned against the dragon’s warm bulk and grinned at the shadows around them. “I just want to be sure you are aware of the danger.”

I know more of our danger than you do, Sirenfal told her. I am not well and I never will be again. When the Tarmaks experimented on me with the Abyssal Lance, they left splinters in my back. The splinters are small, insignificant, but they are there, and like the lance, they have the power to kill. One day, the splinters will reach my heart and I will die. If that happens while we are flying -

Linsha interrupted her. “Then we will deal with it then. Do you want to risk it?”

Sirenfal did not move, but her body trembled with her emotion. To be free of this place? To fly with the wind? To see my home and find my mate? I would risk anything. Just help me out of this horrid cave and I will take you anywhere.

“Can you take two? I have a friend who has helped me survive these long days. I cannot leave her behind.”

One or two, it will not make any difference to the splinters. I believe my wings will carry us-at least to the nearest island.

Linsha nodded. “Then before we lose the chance, take this. A healer gave it to me and said it was for you.”

Sirenfal’s light brown eye rolled around to glare suspiciously at the flask Linsha removed from her belt. I will take nothing made by those Tarmaks. I have had enough misery from them.

“This was made by my friend, Afec, a Damjatt, a slave in the Akeelawasee. He is fascinated with dragons and only wants to help you.” Linsha popped off the cork and sniffed the contents very carefully. “It smells good,” she said, surprised.

The one who gave you the belt? Very well, then, agreed the dragon. She opened her mouth just enough to allow Linsha to pour the contents over her tongue. Oh! It does taste good. She licked her lips and sighed. That is the best thing I’ve had to drink in a very long time. Please give him my compliments. Is it meant to do anything?

Linsha tilted her head, perplexed. “I don’t know.”

So what do we do now? Sirenfal asked. How do you plan to get me out?

“What is keeping you here? Why do you not blast them and fly out?”

When the priests and that Akkad-Dar man first brought me here, they broke my wings and kept me asleep. I think my wings have healed now, but I am chained to this wall and my food is always full of their poisons.

Linsha listened to the brass’s words in her head and felt a deep sadness. The Tarmaks had not only broken her wings and chained her leg, they had almost broken her spirit. Most healthy, self-respecting adult dragons would have tried to fight their way out of this cave years ago. But the Tarmaks had kept this young one in such a state of bondage and fear that she believed in her own captivity. Maybe now she and Sirenfal could change that.

“I must be married in three days,” Linsha said.

Yes, I heard. To the Akkad-Dar. Will you go through with it?

“Not if I can change it. He has already told me he will not return me to my home. How much time do you need to regain enough strength to fly?”

Sirenfal thought for a moment or two. A few days would help me.

“Then in two days I will try to come to you. We will get out of here together.”

Voices echoed in the tunnel above, sending shivers down Linsha’s back.

Sirenfal’s mental voice took on an overtone of panic. Get out. Go while you can. I will wait, two days, two hundred days.

Linsha leaned over the dragon’s back, hauled her long nose to eye level and said fiercely, “No. If something happens to me, find a way to get out! You can do it! Go to the Plains of Dust and find a dragon named Crucible. Tell him about me. You have to promise!”

Sirenfal’s eyes gleamed with a sickly light of fear, but she seemed to take strength from the intensity in the woman’s voice. She bowed her head and closed her eyes. “I promise,” she told Linsha softly.

Like a deer before wolves, Linsha broke for the passage opening, sprinting with all her strength as the voices in the stair tunnel grew louder. As soon as she was in the shelter of the darkness beyond the torchlight, she slowed and turned for one last look at the brass dragon. Sirenfal had returned to her former sleeping position, head under wing and tail curled around her body. Voices echoed in the cave around her, and to her dismay, one voice sounded like Lanther.

Linsha did not wait to see if she was right. Fear put speed in her feet and led her back on the path to the small entry cave where the two guards still slept by the embers of their fire. Outside the rain fell in the sheets and the wind howled around the island.

Linsha woke to the sound of the bell calling women to morning exercise. With a groan she rolled over to her back on her damp pallet and stared at the ceiling. She hoped never to go through another night like that again. Climbing down the cliff and entering the dragon’s cave had not been extremely difficult, nor had escaping the cave. The guards had still been unconscious when she slipped by them and hurried out of the cave. Going back up the cliff in the heavy rain had been almost impossible.

The trouble had started when she realized the waves, driven by the powerful winds and incoming tide, washed up against the stony face of the promontory. She’d had to fight her way back through water that sometimes surged up around her hips and threatened to drag her out into the bay. Finding the rope she had left anchored ten feet up the slope had not been easy either. She struggled back and forth along the rocky slope where she thought she had left the rope and finally found it when she saw it flapping loose in the wind.

But if it hadn’t been for that rope, she would never have made it back up the cliff face. Instead of a dry descent in the dark, she had a miserable ascent on steep rocks turned slippery and treacherous from the rain. By the time she reached the top of the promontory, her entire body hurt. Bruised and breathless, she’d had to rest before she could even consider climbing the rope up the palace wall. The driving wind and rain helped shield her from Tarmak eyes and kept the guards huddled down behind crenellations or in the tower, but they also buffeted her against the stone wall and made the rope as hard to hold as a wet snake. Her arms and legs, already tired and sore from the treacherous climb up the rocks, trembled and burned by the time she lifted her head over the wall and flopped on the walkway like a gasping fish. Guards or no guards, she’d huddled in the shelter of the tower to regain enough strength to haul up her rope, stumble down the stairs, and return to the women’s quarters before she was missed at dawn. She’d hid the dark clothes, retrieved her own wet tunic, and hurried cold and wet to her pallet to snatch an hour’s sleep.

Now, like it or not, it was time to get up.

Callista stopped in the doorway. “Thank goodness you’re back,” she whispered. She came in bearing a cup of hot spiced tea and the usual dodgagd juice. Linsha gratefully drank them both.

She groaned and lay back for a moment, her eyes closed. “We will go tomorrow night,” she told Callista in a hushed voice. “Before the ceremony. We will need warm clothes, water, and food if you can get it.”

Callista grinned in delight. “I will.”

Although she was sore and bone-weary, Linsha went out for her morning run with the other women. She wanted to appear as normal as possible and give the Tarmaks no reason to be suspicious. But she received a nasty shock when she came in from her run. Two large Akeelawasee guards waited for her at the dining hall.