The voice called out again. The words were Goblin, the tone imperious, like it expected that dragon to obey.
Oh, freaking hell.
Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin.
I stood there for a few dumbfounded seconds trying to figure out what Chigaru was doing in a cave with a sea dragon. Did he annoy the Khrynsani so much that they chucked him down here?
“You know these caves,” Imala snapped at Kesyn. “How do we get out there?”
“Out there?” I thought the old goblin’s eyes were going to bug out of his head.
“Prince Chigaru’s safety is my responsibility,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ve fought for years to keep him alive, and I’m not losing him to an overgrown lizard. I’m saving him.”
From himself.
Imala’s words came in a cool rush. “Kesyn, if Chigaru dies, we have no one to replace Nukpana. The old-blood families will slaughter each other to get to the throne. It’ll be a civil war bloodbath.”
Tam jerked his head at the ceiling. “Mychael, boost me up there.”
I was incredulous. “You’re going to stick your head through a hole into a dragon’s lair?”
Mychael made a stirrup with his armored hands and boosted Tam the extra foot he needed to see into the lair. Tam took a look and immediately popped back down.
“Sea dragons,” he said. “Adults.”
“Plural?” Piaras asked.
“You got it,” Tam confirmed. “Two, possibly more. We need to move. From what I saw, Chigaru only has a sword; he isn’t going to last long.”
“Follow me,” Kesyn growled. “One way to die isn’t enough for you. No, you have to have more.”
The roars became louder and even more pissed, if that was possible. Apparently Prince Chigaru didn’t limit his high-bred obnoxiousness to people; he was an equal opportunity offender. I completely understood why the dragons would want to bite his head off.
The tunnels distorted the roar’s echo and I had no clue which direction it was coming from. Kesyn seemed to know exactly where he was going, even though he was going there under extreme—and continuous verbal—protest.
“I don’t want a king who’s too stupid not to pick fights with sea dragons,” he snapped.
“If he gets eaten, we’ll have a worse problem,” Imala shot back.
The roaring stopped. Chigaru’s yelling stopped, and so did Kesyn and Imala’s bickering.
“Shit!” Imala hissed softly.
The beast obligingly roared again. Now it was Kesyn’s turn to swear. His string of good old Goblin profanity was a lot more colorful and descriptive.
“Sounds like The Pools, the deepest part of the tunnels,” he said.
We ran toward the roars. If the sea dragons didn’t kill Chigaru first, the noise would bring every Khrynsani that the dragons’ roar and Chigaru’s yelling hadn’t already alerted. Mychael stopped and I plowed into him from behind. Only his size kept us both from ending up in a heap on the floor.
I saw what had stopped him. We were at an intersection. Five tunnels radiated out from where we were. Piaras increased the globe’s glow. Two of the tunnels went down; the other three sloped upward. That meant nothing. The tunnels were natural, not man-made. Just because they went downhill now didn’t mean down was their ultimate direction.
“Which one?” Imala asked urgently.
Kesyn pointed. “It’s either that one or that one.” He was pointing in opposite directions. “The others go up. Eventually.”
Tam went over to the entrance to one of the tunnels Kesyn said led down to The Pools. He took a deep breath, and repeated the same in the opposite tunnel.
He drew an evil-looking wavy blade. “This way.”
I got a blade in my own hands. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. Old carrion and fresh blood. A goblin nose knows.”
The brightened lightglobe danced in front of Tam. He squinted and hissed in pain, his fangs bared. His pupils were enormous. “Dim that thing!”
Piaras looked at Tam like he’d lost his mind. I wasn’t sure I disagreed with him.
“All due respect, sir, but I’d like to see the dragons before they take my legs off,” Piaras told him.
“The boy’s right, Tam,” Kesyn said. “Chances are that second one you saw was its mate, and chances are even better that those two big ones have little ones—a lot of little ones. We’re down here a couple months on the wrong side of mating season. The little ones grow and eat a lot in the first few weeks.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I can follow the blood,” Tam said. “But if I’m going to lead, I need it almost dark, not that thing blinding me.” Apparently the light bothered Tam more than the idea of hungry baby sea dragons.
Piaras complied.
The walls were glowing with a pale green luminescence.
“Dragon breath green,” Kesyn whispered. “Douse the globe,” he told Piaras. “We won’t need it.”
He did and we didn’t. The entire tunnel was speckled with the green light. Farther down the tunnel the glow increased, as did the stench. We were definitely going in the right direction.
Piaras looked around at the sickly glow. “What is it?”
“Some say residue from a dragon’s breath,” Kesyn said. “I’ve also heard it’s from scales scraping against rock. I don’t think anyone’s asked a dragon and found out.”
We were moving fast down a nearly dark, wet tunnel, toward a nest of dragons. Hungry little ones, overprotective big ones. All we needed now was someone running ahead of us ringing a dinner bell.
We hadn’t heard any roars in the past few minutes—or screams, either.
“We need to go faster,” Imala urged Tam.
In response, Tam tripped over something. It was a body. A goblin with eyes wide open and staring. Judging from his clothing and armor, he was Khrynsani. So much for where Chigaru had come by that sword.
“Did a dragon do this?” I asked.
Tam knelt and did a quick inspection. “Chigaru’s been putting that sword to good use. This one took a blade through the heart.”
Just a few feet farther down the tunnel was another crumpled figure. Also not Chigaru, likewise dead, same cause. It appeared that the sea dragon was only the latest of Chigaru’s problems that had just become ours.
Another roar blasted through the air around us—angrier and closer.
It meant Chigaru was still alive. Imala shoved Tam out of her way.
“Imala!” Tam bellowed.
She ignored him and bolted for the end of the tunnel. The green glow was brighter here, and I didn’t need a lightglobe to find my way.
The tunnel emptied into a vast chamber. Really vast. I skidded to a halt on something both slimy and crunchy. I didn’t look down to find out. The green glow illuminated black water and a soaring ceiling, with the green flecking scattered above us like sickly stars. The air was sea fresh and graveyard fetid at the same time. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me, but I could sense the hugeness of the sea cave. I was on the edge of a vast lake. My boots hit something solid. I looked down. I wasn’t standing in gravel.
Eggshells. Dragon eggshells.
And the remains of more than a few recent meals.
I was standing in the middle of a freaking sea dragon nest. It was empty, but empty probably just meant that the kids were big enough to be out and about on their own.
Hunting for their own food.
Prince Chigaru was trapped on a narrow shelf of rock, the tip of his sword following the head and sinuous neck of a sea dragon weaving cobra-like within striking distance. Chigaru had nowhere to go and the dragon acted like it had all the time in the world. The sight of us didn’t even make it bat an eye, though maybe it didn’t have eyelids.
It was a young dragon, about half the size of the one that had flown over Phaelan’s ship. This one was old enough to mate, but too young for cunning. Rage had made it clumsy, and the cuts on its throat were evidence that Chigaru had taken advantage. If it’d been any older or craftier, the prince would have been dead.