'Maybe he's occupied as I was,' Onyx suggested, looking to the woods.
'Could be,' said Led a bit dubiously. He kicked the ashes to life in the fire pit, adding a handful of twigs to the smoldering pile. 'If I have to fix my own grub because of it, he'll pay the price. Say, you're a woman. Don't you know how to cook?'
'Uh, no. I've never had to, actually.'
'You probably just magic it up.' Led sat on a boulder, pulled off his boots, and held his toes to the fire. 'Nothing like a bath in a fresh mountain stream. Leaves you with cold feet, though.'
Led shrugged on a tunic over his damp, curling hair. He glanced with disdain at the ogres across the clearing. 'Wish I could get them to bathe once in a while. They think if 11 make 'em sick.'
The human's head snapped around toward the forest. 'Toba! Where in the Abyss are you, man?'
After a few moments of awkward silence, Onyx sat on the boulder next to his and reached toward Led's own pack. 'I'm starving. Do you have any more of that jerky?'
'Yeah, sure,' Led said. He plunged his hand into the leather sack and retrieved a strip of the blackened meat, as well as a wineskin. He offered both to Onyx. 'If s not breakfast, but if s better than nothing.'
Onyx took the wineskin and drank greedily. 'Thaf s it,' snarled Led abruptly, slapping his knees. 'I'm gonna take a look around for Toba's bony yellow hide.' He pulled his leather armor from his horse and strapped it on, adding stiff leather cuisses to his thighs. Next, he gingerly slipped a chain mail coif over his head and adjusted it into position. Over that he placed a massive metal helm that dropped to his shoulders in the back, and came low over his brow and swept in from the sides to cover both cheeks. Last, he strapped his girdle around the chain mail at his waist and settled his sword so that the hilt was within easy reach.
Onyx gulped wine nervously as she watched him dress. She tried to slow her breathing to calm herself in the qhen way, but couldn't seem to focus as completely in her human form as she had as a dragon. Her breathing remained shallow, her pulse racing. Led walked the perimeter of the clearing, calling Toba's name into the trees. The human stopped and spoke to a green-skinned ogre who sat idly with the others where Toba had left them.
Onyx looked wide-eyed into Led's stormy face when he returned to the fire. 'No luck?'
'It's just not like Toba to disappear for this long without telling me what he's up to. The ogres say they saw him head shy;ing this way. Didn't you see him?'
'No. I was probably still sleeping. Maybe he went out look shy;ing for food and wandered farther than he thought.' 'Doubtful. He knows we have enough stores to last…' Onyx idly traced a seam in her boot, unable to look Led in the eye. 'Could he simply have run off?'
Led scratched his head. 'I can't see it. He knew how much we stand to gain when we deliver the wagon. No, Toba's too greedy to just up and abandon his share.'
Onyx took a long pull on the wineskin. 'The fact remains that he's gone. How long are you willing to wait for him?'
'That depends.' Led rubbed his chin. 'Say, do you know some kind of spell that can find a missing person?'
Onyx stopped in midgulp, the crimson liquid splashing her lips. She handed him the skin and wiped her mouth on the cuff of her batting. 'Yes,' she lied. 'I don't have all the things I need to cast the enchantment, though. But I can probably find the right kinds of roots and funguses in the woods. I'll go into the forest and give it a try.'
Led watched her finger the odd choker. 'Whatever. Just be careful. We don't know what happened to him, so keep your eyes open. In fact, maybe I should come along, too.'
'No,' snapped Onyx. 'I can concentrate better if I'm alone. I can protect myself, if you're worried. I know magic, remem shy;ber? Besides, someone needs to watch the ogres.'
Led couldn't argue with that logic. He helped Onyx put on her brigandine armor. Pulling her horse around by the bit, Onyx put her left toe in the stirrup and swung her other leg over, then set the horse's head downhill.
Led tossed the wineskin to her. Sunlight streaked across his brilliant green eyes, and he snarled with annoyance. 'With or without Toba, we've got to get back on the trail quickly. Come back as soon as you know anything.'
Nodding, Onyx slipped the strap of the skin over her head and shoulder, then dug her heels into the black mare's ribs. They shot off down the rough-cut trail at a gallop. Onyx gave the horse its head. It stayed with the narrow trail that paral shy;leled the same stream by the clearing.
Khisanth was grateful the lie had succeeded. She didn't use components to cast spells, but she was desperate to get away and think. She seemed unable to control her own actions as a human, particularly with Led's penetrating eyes on her. What had happened to her qhen training? Though it was causing her no end of problems now, she was not sorry she had-well, done whatever she'd done to Toba. It had been rash, definitely not qhen, but even Kadagan would have agreed that she'd had no choice.
The problem was what to tell Led that would make him abandon his lieutenant? Worse still, now that she was almost certain Dela was in the wagon, how was she going to free the captive nyphid? That was the point of this whole foray as a human, after all. She seemed to have lost sight of that goal recently, along with her qhen training.
Onyx closed her eyes for a moment and pressed her hands to her temples, as if the posture would silence the barrage of questions. If only she could reason now as clearly as she'd done as a dragon. Her eyes popped open. Why not? Onyx felt an overwhelming longing to assume her dragon form. Then she could think the problem through without the distractions of human emotions. It would calm her to feel like herself again, even for a moment. To not have to concentrate on every gesture or word. To be herself. The more she considered it, the better the idea sounded. But did she dare?
Onyx cast a glance over her shoulder. She was some dis shy;tance from the clearing where Led and the ogres waited. She concentrated to drown out the noise of the babbling stream. Beyond it, she heard only chirping birds and other forest sounds. No one had followed her.
Onyx looked up the trail, then back over her shoulder again. Nothing in either direction. Just to be safe, she prompted the mare to continue at a canter uphill for a short time, putting a little more distance between herself and possible discovery. Tugging the mare's head to the right just after a tall boulder, she quickly dismounted, looping the mare's reins through the branches of a young tree.
Onyx stepped away from the horse and into the protection of the enveloping pines. She pulled off her armor and clothing and stuffed them into the leather bag that had hung behind the saddle. Reluctantly she untied the thong holding the swords and the maynus; if she left it on during the transformation, the choker might well live up to its name before she could enlarge it with sorcery. Looking closely at the maynus once more, she was convinced anew that Toba, or at least some part of him, was trapped inside. Deciding she could do nothing about him right now, she added the whole necklace to the bag.
Onyx was joyful at the thought of doing something so reck shy;less; every minute as a human was an exercise in self-contain shy;ment. The woman's slanted, tawny eyes closed. When she opened them again, she was a black dragon.
Immediately she felt a stab of pain. Hunger. The little strip of jerky may have filled her tiny human belly, but it wasn't even a mouse to a dragon's enormous stomach. She hadn't feasted recently enough to satisfy her voracious appetite, and it was demanding something big.
Khisanth's dragon senses pricked up. Beyond her protective hedge of pines, she heard the mare wicker softly. Slaver rose in her mouth. Her heavy dragon body answered the call. She felt almost as if she watched herself lumber through the trees, crushing shrubs beneath her enormous feet. Blood pounded in her head, narrowing her field of vision until all she saw was the black mare ahead. The horse's eyes widened with terror when it spotted the dragon crashing through the underbrush. It leaped up and pawed at the air, straining at the reins that bound it to the tree.
The mare's wails were high-pitched and steady. Afraid of the attention the noise would surely draw, the black dragon swung her tail around in a vicious slap aimed at the mare's head. The strike snapped the horse's neck, silencing the beast in midscream. The creature dropped lifeless to the ground. Khisanth's jaws opened wide. She closed her sharp teeth around the mare and lifted it high, joyously shaking it.
Khisanth abruptly spat out the mangled corpse. Something about it tasted wrong, bitter. She espied the leather saddle and bridle. Snatching at them with a claw, she flung the offending morsels far into the woods. Then she returned her attention to the dripping horseflesh. Ravenous, exhilarated by the kill, the dragon sank her pointed teeth into the corpse. Tearing with abandon, she stopped only to gulp down whole chunks.
