Linsha felt her heart sink. Gods, she had tried so hard to save those eggs. Now they were gone again. She heard movement upstairs in the throne room and ducked back down into the tunnels. If the guards were returning or the thieves were still out there, she didn’t want to face them. She was not sure she could fight a four year old for his toy horse. The cat sagged back into her arms and fell asleep.
Still holding the warm shape of the cat, she made her way back to the hidden entrance in the palace ruins. Late afternoon sun peeked through the vines shielding the doorway when she and Crucible came to the exit. Linsha staggered out and collapsed on the grassy patch near the door. She hoped no one was nearby, for she did not think she could walk another step. She curled her body around the cat and let her awareness sink.
Her rest lasted long enough for her eyelids to fall shut and her muscles to relax. She was drifting on the tide, gently slipping into the darkness of sleep when hoofbeats trotted through the undergrowth. She woke to dappled sunlight and the distant rumble of thunder.
Varia’s voice called, “There she is!”
She looked up through bleary eyes to see the stubbled, dirty face of Sir Hugh and the young, whiskery face of Leonidas looking down at her in obvious relief.
“Lady Linsha, thank Paladine!” said Sir Hugh from his horse. “I hate to be waking you, but there are guests coming you don’t want to meet.”
She rolled to a sitting position and tried to focus, tried to swim back against the tide.
Varia flew down and landed on her bent knee. “Please hurry, Linsha. The Brutes ransacked the palace during the battle, and the mercenaries are furious. They’re searching the entire grounds.”
“Where is Azurale?” Leonidas said. “I thought he was with you.”
Linsha looked at his face and noticed how much he had aged in just a short week. The boyish immaturity of his features was gone, replaced by harder, more tempered lines wrought by stress, fear, and loss. Her eyes glimmered with tears, knowing she was about to add to his grief.
“Azurale was killed by Thunder.”
The centaur’s expression sagged with sadness. “Phoulos is dead, too. Do you know that makes me the last of my company? The newest and the last.” He turned away, too proud to show his tears.
Sir Hugh dismounted and helped Linsha to her feet. She lifted the sleeping cat and held him in her arms. It was amazing, she thought. All that size and power concentrated into a small, furry animal. The injuries were there, too: the bloody, torn neck, the broken wing bone disguised somewhere in his ribcage, the wounded foreleg, the burned gash across his back leg. Dragons were truly a marvel.
“Look who I found,” Sir Hugh said. He tugged on the reins of his horse to move him closer, and for the first time Linsha took a closer look. It was Sandhawk. The Knight grinned. “I found him in a pen with other horses the mercenaries stole.” He cocked his head to listen as another rumble of thunder growled somewhere to the west. “Time to get moving. You can tell us what happened while we ride.”
He jumped into the saddle. He would have offered Linsha a hand onto Sandhawk’s back behind him if Leonidas had not lifted her in his strong arms and placed her on his back, cat and all. Varia flew to her shoulder.
Linsha looked at the cat, the owl, the centaur, and the Knight and felt oddly comforted. She was surrounded by friends who cared for her, who looked after her, who thought enough of her to risk their own lives to help her. In spite of what might happen in the coming months, she would at least have that.
They rode westward through the gardens and toward the open plains. They evaded several mercenary patrols and slipped through a gap in the incomplete city wall that had been abandoned when the defenders fled. The mercenaries had not bothered to put up guards, and the Brutes were still consolidating their hold in the city proper. The two Knights and the centaur, cat and owl in tow, were able to escape without difficulty.
The overgrown gardens fell behind, and the small party circled their way north through the edge of the decaying ruins and out into the hills of the open plains. The centaur and the horse broke into a canter.
Linsha leaned back and gazed up at the huge sky. To the west a thunderstorm drew dark clouds and veils of rain over the grasslands, but it was a normal storm with steel blue clouds and lightning that flickered without malice. Overhead the sky was still blue, and the wind that kicked up toward the storm was cool with moisture from the ocean. She drew a deep breath of clean, salty air and told her companions about the deaths of Azurale, the unhatched brass dragonet, and Thunder.
They in turn told her about the militia, the slaves, and the battle of the Artisans’ District.
“Varia brought word of your plan just after dawn,” Sir Hugh said. “We attacked the mercenaries north of the palace. They came in hordes to drive us off, but there were no Brutes. They did not help at all.”
Varia hooted a note of amusement. “They were too busy ransacking the palace while the mercenaries were drawn off. I saw them.”
“Did they take the eggs?” asked Linsha.
“I don’t know. They had many chests and crates. The eggs could have been packed in there. But why would Brutes want dragon eggs? What are they going to do with them?”
What indeed, Linsha wondered. In her mind’s eye, she saw again the masked general and the dark figure in the storm. Were they the same man? Who was his informant who knew so much about her? Why had the general told her so much when he held her prisoner? “We, however, have other plans,” he had said. Did those plans include using someone else to kill the blue dragon so the Brutes could have complete control of the city and the treasure without the interference of such a vicious, unpredictable partner as Thunder? Exactly who manipulated whom into attacking Iyesta’s realm? Linsha stroked the cat on her lap and shook her head. She and Crucible and the militia may have won their battle this day, but she could see it would be a long time before they won the war.
It occurred to her, rather belatedly, that she should have destroyed the Abyssal Lance while she was in the chamber. Well, it was too late now. They would have to send someone in there to get it. Maybe the carrion beetles would eat it.
“What about the slaves?” she asked Leonidas. “How did you get free?”
The centaur slowed to avoid a thick patch of sage then sped up again to a canter. The wind had dried the moisture in his eyes and the companionship of the woman on his back gave him the strength to smile. “Those knives you gave us came in useful. We fought our way out, and most of the others are on their way back to the Wadi with the militia. When the mercenaries withdrew, Varia found us, and we came to find you.”
“What happened to Phoulos?”
“Took a spear in the neck while we were fighting the guards,” Leonidas said simply.
Linsha lapsed into silence. She didn’t have the strength for more words. Her companions fell into their own thoughts, and the small company rode quietly ahead of the storm to the Scorpion Wadi.
Once in the safety of the canyon, they passed the pickets and the guards and came to the cave where people came streaming out to meet them.
Linsha looked for the faces of Falaius and General Dockett, of Lanther and Mariana, and when she found them she raised her fist in victory and thanks.
“Iyesta is avenged!” she cried. “Thunder is dead.”
The cheering rose up through the canyon and vied with the voice of the storm. For that night, at least, the survivors of the Missing City were able to celebrate.