“Hold still,” the anchorite said, “and relax.” She held the section of brown, woody vine close to Cayce’s head. The braid twitched and slithered from Kula’s hand to Cayce’s scalp, encircling the girl’s forehead like a crown. When its ends met on the far side of her head, the wood tightened, pulling Cayce’s long white hair away from her face and pinning it tightly to her skull.
A tingling sensation spread out from the wooden band. Cayce could feel it sizzling through her skull and down her spine. It radiated out toward her damaged hand and her swollen knee. Her crushed fingers straightened with cracking sounds that were even louder in Cayce’s ears than the original breaks. The knee popped violently back into place, and the swelling deflated like a punctured bladder of air.
The pain of Kula’s healing magic was also more intense than the original injuries, but when the searing agony faded Cayce found herself with two good legs and ten working digits. She resisted the urge to flex them, as Kula was clearly waiting for her to do so.
“Consider that a gesture of good will,” Kula said. The giantess’s face darkened. “And a friendly warning: Don’t betray us again.” Kula raised and lowered her thick eyebrows, and a rich green glow shone behind her eyes. In response, Cayce’s new headband contracted painfully around her skull but quickly eased off to leave a dull throbbing ache.
Overwhelmed and almost numb, Cayce shook her head. Kula had made her point: Cayce was now thoroughly obliged to help them reach the dragon. Master Rus had been correct in his dislike of military and religious fanatics. As clients they were like pixies—best avoided.
“If I do this for you,” Cayce said. “If I lead you there and you get in position before he comes back… will you let me go?”
“That’s a big ‘if.’ And even if, I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Anything is possible,” Kula said.
Cayce sighed. It wasn’t much, but it was the only option she had. “Let’s go, then.”
With Vaan hovering close behind, Cayce took the lead and began marching up the ridge. Never work with pixies, she thought, or fanatics. Not following his own good advice had cost Rus his life, but Cayce was determined it would not cost her hers as well.
Vaan stopped her just before she reached the top of the ridge to give the others time to gather behind them. As planned, the dour pixie then soared up and over the ridge to make sure the way was clear.
Huddled on the rock between a soldier and Kula, Cayce felt a rush of confidence that had nothing to do with her fellow party members. She had seen how high the dragon had flown after killing Rus, how fast and how far he went without so much as a glance back for his mountain home. Cayce was sure Vaan would find nothing—right now, this was where the dragon definitely wasn’t, and that was always the safest place to be. Whatever was going to happen to her, to them all, wasn’t going to happen here.
Indeed, Vaan’s “all clear” signal came whistling over the ridge in a matter of moments. Hask ordered two of his soldiers to stand watch over Cayce, then he, Kula, Boom, and the other soldiers went over the ridge. They were silent as they moved, quickly surging across the rocky ground. Boom fell behind, and one of the soldiers eased up to keep pace, but the others moved straight to the pile of rubble the dragon’s exit had created. Cayce watched as they climbed to the smoking crater halfway up.
Kula dived into the crater with her fists clenched straight out in front of her. Hask quickly pushed his soldier clear just as a massive boulder flew out of the pit. Kula whooped triumphantly from the rocky mound’s interior. Soon more great stones and more loud whoops flew from the hole as Boom and the other soldier finally rejoined their comrades.
Hask stood and peered down into the hole. Nodding, he turned and signaled the men guarding Cayce. Without hesitation they each took hold of her and hoisted her into the air. Vaan’s strong arms hooked under hers, and Cayce was borne up toward the mound, her feet barely skimming the tops of broken stones as she went.
Without pausing at the lip, Vaan carried Cayce through the hole and into the darkened interior of the mound. The dragon’s body and Kula’s magic-enhanced might had cleared a wide path through the pile of rocks that led straight back to the original tunnel. Marching feet followed Cayce as she soared along, but they fell far behind as Vaan took her back into the intact section of the tunnel.
The pixie brought them up short, furiously beating his wings to hover just shy of Kula. The anchorite blocked most of the path just by standing in it, deep in meditation with her hands folded. She had smeared some sort of luminescent moss on the cave walls, which bathed the entire tunnel in a low, emerald-green light. Tendrils of the moss quickly spread along the tunnel walls, stretching deep into the labyrinthine depths of the mountain itself.
Cayce spoke. “What are—”
Vaan tightened his grip on her, and Kula grunted warningly. Annoyed, Cayce tried to shrug herself free and earned an angry hiss from the pixie.
“He is not here.” Kula opened her eyes and grinned. “Or perhaps his unnatural life is so alien that even I cannot sense him. It hardly matters which. We are going in.”
The soldiers’ feet were very close now. Vaan let Cayce go, and she stepped up to Kula.
“You don’t need me any more,” she said. “I want you to let me go.”
“Not yet. Not until we reach the dragon’s nest and you yourself have triggered any traps.”
“What? Why? I mean, why me?”
Kula closed her eyes again. “You still have an aura of secrets about you, my dear. You’re afraid, as are we all… but there’s something else in you, too.” The huge woman opened her eyes. “You smell like scheming to me.”
“Is that how Master Rus smelled before he put you all to sleep? How is it you didn’t smell that?”
Kula shrugged, unperturbed. “Your wretched master always smelled of trickery and deceit. It was hard to separate the lies he told us from those he continually told himself.”
“Look.” Cayce lowered her voice, rasping like a cauldron hag. “I smell like scheming because I am scheming. I’m scheming to get away from here alive. That’s all.”
Kula laughed, her deep voice musical and rich. “Now that I believe. There’s no lying in you when you say that.”
“Then why won’t you let me go?”
“Because you have secrets.” Kula’s tone was patient, implacable. “And my life—all our lives—might depend on what those secrets are, if and when they are revealed. It’s only right that you help reap their bounty. Ah, here’s Captain Hask.”
The officer and his squad came over the jagged rocks into the tunnel. The stones almost gave way under Boom’s weight but the golem was easily able to keep his balance and take his position among the soldiers.
Kula gestured at Cayce, and the apprentice’s headband squeezed her temples.
“After you,” the anchorite said. Vaan floated up, his white eyes wide and intense, and he hovered alongside Cayce.
Cayce screwed up her courage and faced the interior of the mountain. The tunnel looked very different with a green glow illuminating it, but the way was clear. There weren’t that many branches in the main path, and it was a simple matter to backtrack the dragon’s course. They truly did not need her to lead them anymore, and Cayce cursed the anchorite’s suspicion. No matter how well-founded it was, it was still going to get Cayce killed.