The Traitor's Heir

Chapter Nineteen

 Quara cried quietly for a few minutes while they walked on. The only sound that met their ears was the crunch of leaves and sticks under the girls' feet. Ausfela's movements were surprisingly silent for a creature of her size. Soon though, the task of concentrating on keeping up with the dragon and not tripping over the roots and fallen branches that littered the forest floor helped distract her mind from the immediate danger that her family, and especially her brothers were facing only a short distance away.

As the sun climbed higher into the sky the day grew warmer. "It's nearly summer." Ausfela was the first one to speak after nearly an hour of silence. Neither girl responded. They were both breathless from the grueling pace that the dragon had set for their small group. When they had begun walking they had stayed for a while on relatively level ground as they made their way between two of the smaller mountains, following what looked to have once been a river bed that had long since run dry, but after an hour another mountain began to rise up in front of them and finally it was time to climb. The mountain itself, like most of the mountains that Quara could see, was not enormous like the volcano, or even as large as the largest granite peak in the Castle Spires. The smaller mountains they were now faced with climbing were nearly all below the tree line and were the sort of hills that likely wouldn't even have names.

Ausfela slowed slightly, because she could tell as she listened to the girls' breathing that they wouldn't be able to keep up the pace for much longer, and it was important that they keep moving steadily towards their goal, for they had weeks of traveling before them, even without taking frequent breaks. As they began to move more slowly up the side of the mountain Lina felt that she had finally found a pace that she could maintain, if not all day, at least for a good long while. Quara was on the dragon's opposite side and while her breathing no longer sounded labored, her face was noticeably pale as she made her way up the steep slope.

The heat of the day grew with each hour that passed. Charcha was a large enough country that many climates existed within its borders, but the far southern reaches of the nation experienced long frozen winters and scorching arid summers. During those summer months not a drop of rain fell from the sky. As they made their way further north towards the tropics, the air would grow thicker and rain would fall year round, but until they climbed over the highest of the mountain ranges the sky would likely remain almost entirely without clouds unless a rare summer thunderstorm blew in from the west.

They were nearly to the top of the ridge when they came to a small, open flat space, hardly larger than Ausfela's body. The dragon turned, looking back in the direction that they had come from. Turning and following her gaze, Quara gasped. They were up above the base of the Castle Spires now and the view, which showed both the enormous granite rock formation and the volcano, was stunning. For a moment she forgot her aching feet and the trembling exhaustion in her legs, and she put out her hand and leaned against the dragon as she let her eyes wander back and forth, between the volcano on her right and the Spires off to her left. For a moment her eyes searched along the bottom of the Spires for the army that she knew must be there somewhere, but they were hidden amid the hills and trees and she could make out no sign of them, even from their vantage point.

Lina sank to the ground, stretching her legs out in front of her body as she finally tore her eyes from the scene below and looked up at Ausfela, who slowly sank into a sitting position, = her head was still scanning from side to side as she gazed up at the sky. "Dragon patrols in these parts are rare. The enemy has dragons, as I mentioned earlier, but not so many that he can cover the entire skies with his patrols and so they're mostly used for scouting in areas where the Emperor has a specific target in mind. Of course they're nearly always sent to any battles that might occur. There is a real possibility that for some reason this area has become one of his targets, whether that's because someone has told him of the prophecy or because he's found some evidence of the stronghold within the Dome itself. Still, I think we should be safe if we pause here for lunch. This open area is not so large that we shouldn't see anyone long before they're able to spot us and move back into the cover of the forest. If you look into the bottom of the second saddle bag on my left hand side you should see several packages of dried meat that should sustain you until I can hunt tonight and bring home something a bit fresher."