‘What did the Shadow Lord promise you, that you would betray your king?’ asked Lief dully.
‘You are not my king, Lief of Del,’ Rolf spat. ‘What did you know of me, before I threw myself in your way in the Os-Mine Hills? What did you know of Rolf, eldest son of the clan Dowyn, heir to the lordship of Capra?’
‘I knew nothing,’ Lief said quietly. ‘But how could I have known, Rolf? You kept yourself secret and apart, even from the people of Broome.’
‘Do not argue with him, Lief,’ murmured Jasmine. ‘Truth does not matter to him. His mind feeds on pride and anger, nothing more.’
‘You cared nothing for me, king,’ Rolf said. ‘But the Master knew me, and knew my worth. The Master’s voice came to me one night at sunset, as I huddled alone in the Mountains, looking down at Capra. The Master understood my greatness. He gave me precious gifts, in return for my service. And much more will follow … so much more …’
His breath was coming in shallow gasps now. His beautiful violet eyes were glazed.
‘I serve the Master,’ he whispered. ‘For the Master, I will protect the Sister of the East. And in return he has made me a great sorcerer. I can do things of which my ancestors never dreamed. I can change shape. I can fly through the air. I can tear and burn my enemies, and hear them scream, as they deserve.’
Barda cursed under his breath. His fists were clenched. But he said nothing aloud, and made no move.
‘When the Master triumphs, I will be the ruler of the East, as is my birthright,’ Rolf rasped. ‘Capra will rise again, and the vile strangers in my land will be dust and ashes beneath my feet.’
Again he smiled. And then his gaze grew fixed, and the restless twitching of his hands stilled. He was dead.
The companions turned away, sickened.
A wave pounded on the rocks. Spray pelted down. Water foamed between the stones.
And in the brief quiet before another wave struck, they all distinctly heard a low groan.
They scrambled towards the sound.
Lindal had rolled into a deep cleft between two rocks. The left side of her face bore the raised scarlet mark of the dragon’s pounding wing. Her clothes were blackened and her left arm was blistered. Her eyes were glazed and blinking. She was drenched to the skin.
But she was alive!
‘Help me out of this accursed hole,’ she slurred, holding up her uninjured arm. ‘Every time a wave breaks, water flows over me like a stream. I am freezing!’
‘Stop complaining,’ shouted Barda, joyfully hauling her upright. ‘The last we saw of you, you were burning like a torch! The wave must have put the fire out.’
Lindal stood swaying and shivering, looking around her blankly. Plainly she could not understand what had happened.
She saw Rolf’s body lying on the stones and frowned in puzzlement. Then she looked up, and her face twisted in alarm.
‘The dragon is returning!’ she shouted. ‘It is coming straight for us!’
And the dragon was coming, indeed—flying back from the sea, its scarlet body wet and gleaming, brilliant against the sky.
Filli began chattering frantically. He had had quite enough of dragons.
Lindal felt for her spears, remembered they were gone, and lurched forward, her eyes desperately searching the ground.
‘My spears!’ she mumbled. ‘I must find—’
Barda took her arm and gently drew her back. ‘Be still, Lindal,’ he said. ‘We will explain everything later. Just be still now, and wait.’
They backed against the nearest rock. There was nowhere else to go.
A huge shadow swept over them. They bent beneath the wind of mighty wings. And then the wind abruptly ceased and they looked up.
The dragon had landed at the edge of the Nest. It was watching them calmly.
Speak to it, Lief told himself. It is waiting.
But his mouth was dry, and he felt as though his back had become part of the rock. He summoned up his courage and forced himself to step forward.
The ruby dragon looked down at him and seemed to smile.
‘So!’ it said, its voice soft and whispering. ‘So you have come, king of Deltora, wearing the great ruby of my territory. It is just as Doran promised.’
‘Yes,’ Lief said. ‘I searched for you, and at last I found you.’
‘Or I found you,’ said the dragon. Its eyes flashed, and its forked tail twitched.
‘There is evil here,’ it said. ‘Evil and poison. You allowed an intruder to enter my land, while I slept.’
Lief felt a chill of fear, but forced himself to hold the dragon’s blood red gaze.
‘Not I,’ he said. ‘It happened long, long ago. Can you destroy the evil? As you have destroyed its guardian?’
He glanced at the limp form of Rolf, lying on the stones.
‘We will see,’ said the ruby dragon. ‘Come closer. You alone.’
Lief did as he was bid, though his knees were trembling so that he could hardly stand.
‘And closer still,’ the dragon said.
Lief moved so close that if he had stretched out his hand he could have touched the glittering red scales of the beast’s neck. The scent of the dragon filled his nose. It was like the smell of hot metal mixed with burning leaves.
The ruby on the Belt of Deltora blazed like fire.
The dragon spread its wings and closed its eyes.
For a long moment it seemed to bask in the ruby’s radiance. And when its eyes opened once more, it seemed to Lief that they were deeper and darker than they had been before.
‘Now,’ the dragon said.
Its wings still spread, it plunged into the hollow called Dragon’s Nest. With its mighty claws it began to rake away the stones in the centre, scooping them out by the hundreds, by the thousands, flinging them up and away.
19 - The Sister of the East
Stones pelted the companions like giant hail. Covering their heads with their arms, they stumbled away from the edge of the Nest.
From a safe distance they stood and watched in awe as stones showered from the hollow to pile in great drifts around its rim. But gradually their excitement died, and a feeling of foreboding took its place.
As the dragon dug deeper into the pit, as the heaps of stones grew larger, the air was becoming thicker and harder to breathe. The light was dimming. And a strange, low ringing sound was growing louder.
Giant waves pounded on the shore, now sometimes foaming over the tops of the tall rocks and streaming down like a waterfall to run in rivulets between the stones.
But even the waves could not drown out the terrible song of the Sister of the East floating up from the hollow.
It was a song of barren despair, of ruin and misery, of dullness and death. One low note, haunting, penetrating, relentless.
And worst of all, strangely familiar.
Filli was whimpering beneath Jasmine’s collar. Jasmine herself was hunched and frowning as if in pain. Lindal sat slumped on the stones, her head bowed, her hands pressed to her ears.
‘I did not know,’ Barda murmured. Lief glanced at him. The big man’s face was gleaming with sweat.
‘I have been hearing this sound all my life,’ Barda muttered, his lips scarcely moving. ‘Not like this. Not so that I was aware of it. But now I realise that faintly it has always been there, like the sun on my face, or the air I breathed. I did not even think of it as sound. I thought it was the sound of silence.’
‘Yes,’ said Lief.
And then they both realised that the stones had stopped falling, and they could hear no movement inside the hollow.
‘Where are you? Come to me!’
Lief did not know if the dragon had called in his mind, or aloud.
It does not matter, he told himself slowly. All that matters is that I must go.
He forced himself to move forward, pushing through the dull, thick air, scrambling up a towering heap of stones. He crawled to the very edge of the heap, and peered down into Dragon’s Nest.