The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (7 page)

floor, using the arch of the bow as a shield. A paw flashed forward, eager to

shred any part of my face. Several times I felt the draught as its claws passed my throat. If I had been in any doubt about the sharpness of those hooks I had only to look  at  my  weakened  bow   string, shredded at one end to a spider line. The katt hissed and showed me its fangs. They

were  as   terrifying  as   anything  I’d imagined on a dragon. I knew I could not hold this creature off for long. But as it lunged once again I saw a slim chance to gain an advantage. I moved the bow and let the katt’s head come between the arch

and the string. The stink of raw meat from its gullet was foul, but in less than the time it took to blink I had the string around the katt’s neck, looped in a twist. I paid for my courage with a claw that ripped a

stream of hot blood from my arm. But as I pulled on both sides of the bow string, snapping it, the creature squealed and I was able to roll with it. I had it on its back

and I could strangle it at will. The other katts knew it. They stopped their advance.

“I wish you no harm!” I cried out. “But I have no desire to die here today!”

The katt grizzled in fury and kicked a leg. I tightened my grip. It gurgled and rested its body in surrender. The other skogkatts,  I  noticed,  exchanged  hurt glances.

They are intelligent
, said the Fain.

“What does
 
that
 
mean?” I hissed. In the

short time I’d had these beings in my head I had come to know how to be irritated by them. Were they my ally or just interested

spectators? That question seemed to have been fearfully answered when, in the next instant, my mind went blank and I realised the Fain had gone.

But they had not deserted me. I saw one of the skogkatts throwing its head from side to side and leaping about as if all its fleas had bitten at once. The spectacle lasted just a few moments. Then with a sudden zing of awareness, I felt the Fain come back.

They recognise your victory. They donot wish to see a sacrifice. The katt youare holding down is a favourite. Its matewas killed by Voss. This is why it aloneattacked. Hold up your wrist. The onewithout the blood.

“Why?”

Let them scent Grella.

The Taan lotion. I did as commanded

and waved my wrist. My arm tingled and I sensed  that  the  Fain  had  loosened

Eleanor’s potion right across the clearing. Every skogkatt nose began to twitch. “Iseek this girl!” I shouted. “Where is thisgirl?”

The katts sniffed on.

They do not understand your words
 
,said the Fain,
 
but your intent is mixedwith the auma of the scent. They knownow that you are not like Voss.

But there was a better way to prove it. Iglanced down at the ailing skogkatt andreleased it.

It jumped to its feet with more energythan I would have credited. It, too, had got

the scent from Taan in its nostrils. As

more katts swarmed to it to gratefully rub cheeks, it looked me up and down and burbled at me.

“Can we speak to it?” I asked the Fain.

We will adapt your voice
, they said.

I felt movement in the muscles of my

throat.

Speak again
 
, said the Fain,
 
tell themwho you are
 
.

“I am Agawin,” I said to the katts,though it sounded to my ears like ameaningless rasp.

Every one of them pricked their tuftedears. Dozens of green eyes grew in size. Arare and rather beautiful sight.

The katt I had battled with paddedforward. It tilted its head and observed me

carefully. Then it switched its gaze to my arm and ran its tongue all along the wound. It cleared the blood, but left a trail of syrupy fluid behind.

Do not cleanse it
, said the Fain.
 
There are healing qualities in its saliva. This is a mark of respect
.

“I am Tryst,” said the katt. It raised a proud head. “You fought well – for a human child.”

But I was more than a child. I was

Premen   now.   Human   and   Fain,commingled together. I felt the Fainswarming around my wound. Examining. Learning. Spectating again. The entirescratch was burning like fury. Even so, Iresisted the temptation to wipe it. “I wasbetrayed, as you were. We are not

enemies.”

I heard the skogkatts growling one

name: Voss.

“How long ago did he pass through

here?” I asked.

“He did not,” said Tryst. “The dark one you speak of came into the forest, slaying at leisure. His men attached thread to the

trees. Then they left.”

A trap. A simple trap. To draw pursuers in. To be slaughtered by the katts while Voss took a leisurely ride up the mountain.

He is cunning
, said the Fain, comingback to my mind.

And Hilde too. In league with him,surely. “Did you fight Voss?”

Tryst shook his head. His fur, I noticed,

had thickened up again around his neck. “He has the wits of Premen and the

magicks of a unicorn. Nothing but a dragon could defeat him.”

But the dragon was weak. I put the thought aside. “Will you lead me through the forest?”

Tryst looked uncertainly at some of the

others.

“I must reach the dragon ahead of

Voss.”

A few whiskers twitched. “Can youtame it?” asked Tryst.

“I must try,” I said. “Or the girl will dieand Voss will spread his evil over Skogaand Taan.”

Tryst and three more went into ahuddle. After a short round of intense

chatter, during which one of the katts pulled away with a petulant hiss, Tryst turned back to me and said, “We will guide you to the Skogan Stones, which stand in plain view of Kasgerden’s peak. The stones are not far, but the way to them is steep.”

You must rest
, said the Fain.

The soft patter of water drummed the forest floor. I looked up at the sky. A patch of marshy rain clouds were drifting south. The skogkatts were slinking back into the trees, already searching for warmth and cover. I was exhausted and

wanted to be out of the rain as well. I said

to Tryst, “I need time to sleep.”

He licked a paw and said, “Katts sleep

often, but not for long. Shelter where you

can. Be ready when we come for you.”

“Why were you arguing?” I looked at the katt that had walked off in anger.

But Tryst simply repeated his last command. “Be ready when we come.” And with a flourish of his bushy tail he

was gone.

I found a place where the canopy of branches was thickest. I slept for what seemed like the second it took to lay my head on my backpack and yawn. I dreamed of Brunne. Over and again I witnessed the moment just before the fishbone was drawn across his throat and

his voice was still able to croak about

time. What wisdom had he not been able

to speak? How did it connect to the dragon with the parchment? His final

words swept through my mind.
 
Keep Galen in your sight.
 
And then Galen pushed his fearsome head into my dreams. His jaw unlatched and I raised my arms to welcome his fire. Everything I knew about myself was burned. But out of my ashes rose a new form. I was Agawin, the boy. And then I was…

… woken by bark chippings tickling my cheek. Spluttering like an idiot, I leaped to my feet, brandishing my knife at empty space. One of the katts was clinging upside down to the tree I’d been under. It spread a set of claws and idly licked them.
 
N–yeh
 
, it went, in a belittling tone. It looked a little pleased with itself.

Tryst was sitting on a root nearby, his thick tail wrapped across his stout front

paws. The rain had stopped, but the ends of his fur were glistening still. His bright green eyes were wide and alert. “I bring news of Voss.”

I rubbed the tiredness away and asked

what he knew.

“The eagles have seen him, halfway up

the mountain.”

“You commingle with eagles?” It

occurred to me then that I had heard no

sound of birdsong in the forest. Winged creatures were too afraid to roost here, perhaps?

“During winterfold we leave them mice,” said Tryst. “It pleases them – and keeps them out of the forest.”

“They hunt you?”

“They try.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Voss is making no attempt to hide his

presence.”

“But Galen will see him.”

“He already has. He sent two eagles to challenge Voss. Voss captured them and roasted them over a fire. Kasgerden weeps with their scent.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “What kind of man would dare taunt a dragon?”

One that is confident of victory
, said the Fain.

Tryst stood up and groomed his fur. “Galen has yet to retaliate. It’s not clearwhy he waits; the eagles refuse to say. Butno dragon would turn away from thisthreat.” He looked me in the eye. “You,however, still can. Go back, Agawin. Wewill lead you to safety. You cannot hinder

Voss. And you have no hope of defeatinghim.”

“I defeated you,” I said, as more katts drifted into the clearing. Tryst raised his head   proudly.   I   added   at   once, “Sometimes even the finest warriors meet

with unfavourable luck. Voss has a

weakness. Why else would he take an innocent girl and drug the men of three tribes so they could not follow him?”

An interesting argument
 
, the Fain replied.

“Take me to the stones,” I said to Tryst.

The katt stared at me as if I had a wish

to be dead, but he did not question my bravery further. “Six of us will escort you. We cannot pass beyond the edge of the forest. Once the way through the trees

becomes clear, you must face Voss and the dragon alone.”

I nodded and picked up my backpack. A hole had been gnawed in the bottom. Out of it tumbled an apple core. “Mice,” said Tryst. I heard the katts snicker. I sighed and picked up my bow. I feared for the cheese I had brought, but hopefully the tiny thieves had left me some meat.

Making the slightest of chatteringsounds, Tryst flipped his tail and spranginto the forest. I followed him directly,though it wasn’t easy. He was nimble andoften bathed in shadow. I saw the other

katts too but only in snatches, so well did their fur blend in with the trees. A small

squeak now and then, followed by a fierce territorial growl, would alert me to the

fact that one of them had caught a careless rodent. Always, they were ruled by the need to hunt.

Before long, I felt the Fain working mymuscles to assist me up the gradients Trysthad warned about. For most of the climb

my feet were able to gain good purchase and I kept to the katts’ unerring pace. But as we approached the limits of the forest the plain brown bracken thinned like the hair on an old man’s head and Kasgerden began to show itself, mainly in patches of loose grey shale that slid or broke away from my grasping hands. With little earth for their roots, the trees petered out. The light grew stronger. The ground, firmer. As we approached the final pine, several katts scampered up into its branches. Only

Tryst came to the very edge.

He sat and dipped his head forward. The mountainside had become quiteshallow, an escarpment of shale and roughearth and grass. Well beyond it were theharsh grey slabs of rock that soared upinto the mountain proper. I saw a look ofdeep longing enter Tryst’s eyes, as if hewould like to go bounding up there. “Whycan’t you leave the trees?”

“Look at the stones,” he said.

Among the shale were a number oflarge, weathered stones. They were not, as I’d imagined, tall fingers of granite, but ajumble of strange, misshapen bouldersscattered over a widespread arc. “Whathappened here?”

Tryst was about to reply when we both

heard the clip of hooves. I dived for cover, behind the same tree Tryst had quickly climbed. He laid himself flat on the branch above me. I reached for my bow and primed it.

Two men
 
, said the Fain, sensing their

auma.

Voss?

No.

Grella?

Just men.

“What’s in it for us?” I heard one of

them say. Dull. Disillusioned. Not too bright. I saw the first horse come into view. It was finding it hard to stay steady on its feet. The rider cursed and slid out of

the saddle. He looked of Horste stock.

Wild-haired and bearded. The colour was

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