were staring directly at him, and he knew he had found what he was after.
“Oarly,” Hyden called out. The dwarf had crawled up and was peeking over the edge of the rock, but was too stunned to respond.
“Oarly,” Hyden yelled again, thinking that the dwarf was still down with the others. Hyden suddenly remembered the words of the White Goddess from his dream. When you recover the Skull of Zorellin, you’ll find great danger with it.
“What is it?” Oarly responded as he pulled himself over the edge.
“How long does it take one of those spiders to spin its web?” asked Hyden as another thought occurred to him.
“The turn of a glass, or two,” Oarly answered absently. “There’s no need to worry about them webbing us in, lad. I can tell ye firsthand that our fire was plenty hot.” He held up his charred sleeve as proof.
“I’m not worried about the spiders,” Hyden said in a voice that carried his fear with it. “I’m worried about how soon it’s coming back.”
“How soon what’s coming back?” Brady asked as he joined them.
Phen crawled up, followed by Master Biggs who answered for Brady. “Whatever was eating that godsmackerel?”
“It’s, it’s… It’s still fresh,” the seaman stated the obvious with a whimper.
Phen was too excited to be afraid, and as soon as he’d finished speaking, he realized he should have kept his mouth shut, but it was too late.
“Hyden look,” he pointed at the huge half-eaten fish. “Look at the size of the bites that’ve been taken out of it!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hyden investigated the teeth marks in the dead fish and decided they were left by a dragon. Luckily it wasn’t an older one. He judged by the size and spacing of the marks that this wyrm would be around sixty feet from tip to tail, with a head the size of a mule cart. Claret’s hissed warning from his dream the night before echoed through his head. Not all dragonss are scapable of understandingss. Do what you mussst.
She was telling him that their friendship was between the two of them, he decided. He thought he understood. Just like she might destroy a village and its inhabitants, he might have the need to kill this young dragon. She wouldn’t hold it against him if he did. He was glad for this insight, for without it he might try to find a way to spare such a beast, if it could be done. He was glad that it wouldn’t matter in this case, not if they got what they were after and hurried out of there.
“Grab the Silver Skull, Brady,” he ordered. “It’s there in that chest.” He pointed at it. “Get it, and let’s be gone before our host returns.”
“Are ye daft, lad?” asked Oarly. “Here is freedom for all of King Jarrek’s folk.” He indicated the treasure. “There’s enough to buy all of the slaves back, and then some.”
“Aye,” Hyden agreed. “And what are you gonna do with it? Are you going to swim it off of this island? Grab a handful each of you, then come on.”
“He’s right,” Master Biggs agreed, as he shoved jewels and coins into the water bucket he was still carrying. “The Seawander’s not the ship to haul this load. We’ll have to come back for it.”
Since Phen made no move to pick anything up, Brady handed him the Silver Skull. The boy didn’t seem to care about the value of the treasure around them at all.
Brady waded through a pile of gold and silver coins over to the gleaming sword that was jutting majestically out of the pile. Grinning ear to ear he pulled his old blade out of its sheath and slid the pristine piece of well-forged steel into its place. It fit well enough, he decided, and he tossed the old weapon away. Then he went for a decanter full of diamonds. These he gathered not for himself, but for the people of Wildermont. Each one he shoved into his pouch was freedom for two or three of his countrymen, and it appeared that he was trying to get them all.
“Enough!” Hyden finally yelled. He was getting an uneasy feeling. “Let’s be gone before it returns.”
Reluctantly they agreed. Oarly let Hyden lead the way to the lip they’d climbed. The dwarf was burdened with the jewel encrusted statue of some strange looking animal that he had heaved onto his shoulder. It looked as if it weighed as much as Phen.
The seamen were no better off. The water buckets they carried were overflowing with sparkling gems and heavy gold coins, and Phen was struggling with the weight of the wicked looking jade-eyed skull he held cradled in his arms.
Hyden and Brady had their weapons out, but Brady’s sword wasn’t being held at the ready. He was just using the light from Hyden’s magical orb to study its jeweled hilt. Had he been ready to defend himself with the priceless blade, he might have been alert enough to avoid the young black dragon’s streaking blast of sizzling breath. As it was, the Wildermont fighter was caught off guard and lashed out awkwardly in terror and pain. The clothes and skin of his left arm quickly foamed into a soupy pink froth, exposing meat and gore. Only the quick instinctual swipe of his sword, that barely nicked the creature’s nostril, saved the others from a similar fate.
The dragon withdrew its head back into the darkness, but it hadn’t fled. Its angry growl filled the tunnel like a rumbling quake.
“Back!” Hyden screamed, as he loosed arrow after arrow at the shape looming in the darkness. “Go back. Run!”
He kept loosing arrows until the sound of feet behind him had retreated. Then he turned toward Brady and winced at what he saw.
“Go,” the Wildermont King’s Guard managed to say through gritted teeth. His left arm and shoulder were nothing more than dangling sloughs of sinew and bone now, but he still stood with the fancy sword held out before him. “Help my king, Hyden Hawk,” he said as he stumbled off toward the beast.
Hyden felt a deep pang of sympathy and respect as he charged back toward the others. Brady was a good man. He couldn’t let the loss overwhelm him, though. He had to think.
An idea began forming itself even as he ran, and when he burst into the treasure cavern, a glance at Phen’s tear-streaked face strengthened his resolve. He snatched something from the nearest pile of loot and began calling out orders like a battlefield general. Out in the tunnel, a primal battle cry arose from Brady, but it was cut short with a sickening crunch and a growl that shook the rock around them.
It was all the others could do to keep up with Hyden’s sharp commands, but they somehow managed it. Hyden only hoped that everything Claret said was true. If the magic of her teardrop dangling from his neck didn’t protect him, then his plan was a waste, and his life would be over.
As the growling hiss of the angry dragon came near to the entrance of the treasure cave, Hyden realized that it was far too late to wonder about it now. Already, the dragon was peeking in to get a good look at its next victim.
Off to Hyden’s right, the terrified deckhand shifted, causing a golden goblet to tumble down a pile of coins and clank into an ornate candelabra. Hyden’s anger flared at the fool as the dragon lunged its head into the room and blasted the area with its corrosive breath. As if the man had been made of sand, and the dragon’s spew merely jet of water, the gurgling seaman melted away into a grisly pool of gore.
Hyden’s eyes darted around the mess. He was terrified for his young friend. Phen had just been over there. Hyden couldn’t see him, or anything that might have been him, but it was no relief. He knew that if the boy had been near that blast he would have at least been spattered. Even the jewels and precious metals that had been doused by the black dragon’s breath were now hissing and bubbling away. Tears welled up in Hyden’s eyes at the thought of losing the boy.
“Over here you little black wyrm!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
Oarly and Master Biggs were in position by the door, but the dragon’s head was still too far into the chamber for the plan to work. Seeing this, Hyden threw his arms up as if to cast some powerful spell and started striding at the dragon fearlessly. As he had hoped, the beast pulled back and started sucking in the breath that it would use to melt him into the floor.
Before the dragon finished inhaling, Hyden yelled, “Now!”
