“I’m not going to take any chances,” the elf said, gripping the handle of his sword tightly.
Just then Ivan’s head emerged over the horizon line of the cliff. He had climbed the same chute Anders had to get to Zahara. Anders and Zahara rose back to their feet.
“What happened to us?” Anders asked him. “Were we attacked by Merglan?”
“In a way,” Ivan said, walking up to them and brushing the dirt and pine needles from his body. “We must have hit some form of an airmine.”
“An airmine?” Anders asked confused as to what exactly that meant.
Rubbing more dirt and needles from his hair, Ivan said, “Yes, an airmine. It’s a technique only the most skilled sorcerers can use to knock their enemies out of the sky. He must have placed one here when he was being pursued by the other riders.
“You can create a sphere of energy around a particular location that will disrupt the minds of other sorcerers. A trained magic user can see them coming from a mile away and avoid them. It is a desperate attempt to shake your pursuers or attackers.”
How come you didn’t see it coming? Zahara asked, her voice sounding in both Ivan and Anders’ minds.
“As I have told you before, after the loss of my dragon, my abilities diminished greatly. The only things I can still do fairly well are sense and locate people, not traps laid by powerful magicians. You two are not yet at the level of training that you would have noticed it. It was lucky that we weren’t severely injured in the crash.” As the words came out of Ivan’s mouth, he noticed the blood covering Anders’ face and gave him a strange look.
Anders noticed Ivan’s reaction and said, “It looks worse than it is. Head wounds bleed a lot, I guess.”
Is it safe to continue searching for the others? Zahara asked.
“Yes, I don’t feel Merglan’s presence in the immediate area. I think we’re safe to continue our search,” Ivan said. “How are you holding up?” Ivan asked Nadir, noticing he was still clutching his sword.
“I’m fine. A little slower than you, but I’m enduring just fine,” Nadir said, placing his sword back into its scabbard on his back.
“Good. Well, if we have all recovered, then we should continue our search. Given the airmine, it seems we are on the right path,” Ivan said.
Anders nodded, “Yeah. I just hope there aren’t any more airmines around.”
“If Merglan’s near, airmines are the least of our worries,” Ivan said cautiously.
Zahara crouched, letting Anders and Ivan climb up onto her back. Once they’d properly seated themselves as best they could without a saddle or ties to hold them on, she pounced, spreading her wings as she leapt over the edge of the cliff. Gravity did most of the work as she took flight while Anders tried to keep himself from sliding forward as she gained speed.
Glancing behind them, Anders caught glimpses of Nadir as he ran below, rushing in and out of the forested mountainside. Carefully and with a very short, one-directional advance, Anders used his mind to search for any signs of the missing dragonriders. Zahara circled high over the mountaintops, forcing Anders to expand his reach when he thought he felt something. Homing in on the large object, Anders thought it wasn’t a part of the natural landscape, yet it wasn’t living either.
“I think I found something,” Anders said, calling to Ivan over the roar of the wind.
“Where?” he asked.
“Directly in front of us and down below the midpoint of the mountainside,” Ander replied.
Zahara dipped toward the location Anders had described. Ivan soon acknowledged that he felt it too.
“Do you have it?” Ivan asked Zahara.
Yes, I do, she said as she angled herself over the spot.
“Land us close, but not directly on it. It could be another trap,” Ivan said to her.
She did as he asked and landed in a close gap among the trees, just wide enough for her body to slide in. Climbing off Zahara’s back, Anders nearly fell under the ache of his body. He caught himself on a tree and gave Ivan a nod to assure him he was okay to continue. Ivan led as they crept quietly through the forest.
Do you think I should stay here? Zahara asked Anders with their mental link.
Yes, you stay here and wait for Nadir. I’ll let you know what we find and if it’s safe to continue. Okay, be careful.
Anders continued to focus his senses on whatever thing lay in waiting among the trees before them. As far as he could tell, it was massive and motionless. As they drew closer, Ivan stopped, putting his arm out to the side and motioning for Anders to do the same. Anders watched Ivan’s face as he squinted through the darkened forest. His eyes widened and mouth slackened, opening with horror.
“What is it?” Anders whispered.
“It’s not a trap,” Ivan said, trying to remain stoic, but Anders could tell whatever he saw shook him to the core.
Anders stepped closer and peered into the shadows where Ivan was gawking. He could see a large ominous shape, somehow darker than the blackness of the forest, slumped in a pile on the ground. Taking longer than Ivan, Anders slowly recognized what it was. His heart sank and he called to Zahara.
It’s safe to approach, but you should prepare yourself mentally.
What is wrong? Zahara asked, sensing his sorrow.
You’ll see when you get here, he thought as he and Ivan approached the dark mass.
Anders walked slowly alongside Ivan, approaching the wilted body of a dead dragon. The dragon was much larger than Zahara, indicating the creature was more advanced in age. Lying on the ground next to the dragon was its rider, who also seemed to be lifeless. There was no blood on the ground as he’d seen in his dream or back at the initial point of attack that they found in the crater. Anders thought that this dragon and rider pair couldn’t be the ones from the crater or his dream. That meant the other was still out there and most likely wounded, or he or she, too, was dead. Given the lack of blood at the scene, Anders speculated that Merglan had killed them using some kind of spell or curse. He and Ivan came to a halt just short of the bodies, staring at the gruesome scene.
The dead dragon’s body lay mangled and contorted in a terrible way. Zahara shielded her emotions from Anders when she came to stand at their side.
After sniffing the ground and air around the lifeless body, she once again opened the line of communication between them, I didn’t know them very well, only from our short venture from Cedarbridge to where Merglan attacked them.
I’m sorry, Zahara. It’s not what we were hoping to find, Anders said, trying to bring both of them some comfort. “What do we do now?” he asked Ivan. “Should we bury them?” As the question left his mouth, he regretted asking it when he thought about how long it would take to dig a grave for the enormous dragon, and, to add to the ill-thought-out question, they didn’t have a shovel.
“We should burn them,” Ivan said shortly. “When a dragon dies, you shouldn’t bury it. Burning them transfers their magic back into the form that flows within the earth. Once their energy is restored to the natural force of the earth, they’ll be allowed to rest in peace. We should clear out the trees around the body, however. We don’t want to set the entire forest ablaze.”
