"Chalize was young, and I was distracting her," Gavin explained. "Camarat wasn't pushing us very hard. Dragons can deliberately exert their will to dominate us. The older ones are better at it. With Nafia, you got a full dose of dragon terror. But when you were holding hands, it didn't seem to bother either of you."
"I felt fine after we held hands," Seth said. "But I was still worried she would eat us."
"She might have," Gavin confided. "There are no guarantees with dragons. Flattery is good for the young ones. The older ones prefer spunk and personality. Most of the time."
Trask came up to them. "You three all right?"
"We're good," Kendra said. "Except it's hard to make my brother feel as guilty as he deserves when he saved my life."
Trask nodded. "Seth will have to deal with the consequences of joining us. I can't say he made a wise choice, but there's no way to undo it, so we'll make the best of his presence. Tanu has Warren stabilized. We better load him in the bag and move out."
Kendra tossed Trask the knapsack.
"There's a hermit troll in there," Seth said. "I think he's lived in there a long time. He seems pretty nice. His name is Bubda. We've played a lot of Yahtzee. He wouldn't pose a threat to Warren, would he?"
"Thanks for the tip," Trask said. "Hermit trolls aren't usually much trouble. They're scavengers. They mostly want to be left alone. I'll have a chat with this one, size him up. Bubda, you say?"
"Could he be spying for the Sphinx?" Kendra asked. "I got the knapsack when I left Torina's."
"Doubtful," Trask said. "Hermit trolls are the vermin of trollkind. They work no harmful magic. They make no allies. They have a talent for worming into cramped spaces and hiding--little else."
Getting Warren into the knapsack proved to be tricky, since he had lapsed into medicated unconsciousness. Trask clung to the ladder while Tanu handed Warren down. Dougan and Mara waited at the bottom.
Seth wanted to be down there to hear the conversation with Bubda. He hoped they wouldn't hurt him. The troll might be grumpy and aloof, but Seth felt sure he posed no threat. Bubda just wanted solitude. When Trask emerged, he told Seth not to worry. Bubda had been everything he had expected, and in return for some food he had vowed not to go near Warren.
The hike that day took them across increasingly rocky terrain. They navigated through and around tumbled boulders and other detritus. They hiked up a steep slope covered with stunted trees, half walking up the incline, half using the wind-warped vegetation to climb. For a time, they walked along a ridgeline with a sheer drop-off at either side.
Seth enjoyed being outside--the smell of the pines, the cool thin air, the ice-fringed streams full of smooth, glossy pebbles. He relished the glimpses of circling griffins, and the sight of a monstrous, bearlike creature devouring a recent kill, stringy scraps of meat dangling from a curved beak. The others seemed generally accepting of his presence, although Tanu gave him some disappointed looks.
With dusk coming on, the scant trail they had been following ended at a tall crack in a stone cliff.
"Sidestep Cleft," Mara recognized.
"Cuts through the rock for almost half a mile," Trask said. "Agad said a couple of sections are barely wide enough for big humans to squeeze through. Sidestep Cleft is only a few miles from our first destination. We should reach the shrine tomorrow."
"Do we camp on this side?" Dougan asked.
Trask checked the sky. "Starting at the far side of the defile, we'll be on ground claimed by Thronis the sky giant. No place is safe at Wyrmroost, but I take it this side might be a tad more hospitable than the other."
Backtracking a little, they set up camp in the midst of a grove of short, thickly needled evergreens. The long, irregular clearing had just enough room for them to build a fire and lay down their sleeping bags together. They dined on canned chili, corn bread, and baked potatoes, finishing the meal with chocolate bars.
When they bedded down, Seth used Warren's sleeping bag and bivouac. Mara had the first watch. Tucked into his sleeping bag, Seth gazed up at the stars, amazing himself with how far away they were. It was so easy to shrink the distance by thinking of them as little pricks of light on a black ceiling. But if peering off a cliff could make his knees a little wobbly, why not staring out across billions of miles of empty space? When he thought about it, the jaw-dropping vastness of the gulf separating him from those stats almost made him dizzy. How strange to think that the whole universe was arrayed above him like his own private aquarium.
He considered climbing out of the sleeping bag and helping Mara pass the time. Living inside a knapsack had thrown off his sleep schedule. Telling himself that he would regret staying awake now when his watch came later, he closed his eyes and forced himself to relax.
* * *
Kendra had the third watch that night. Dougan woke her gently and reminded her that she was to awaken her brother next. Nodding, she slithered out of her sleeping bag, wrapped herself in a blanket, and moved closer to the small fire.
Sitting alone, she wondered why they bothered keeping watch. No matter who was awake, Mendigo would raise the alarm first. And once he did, it would do little good. They had all been awake when the puppet had warned them about the perytons, and that had still turned into a mess.
Wyrmroost was not Fablehaven. The creatures here were huge. If a dragon like Nafia wanted them dead, they would die. They had escaped the dragon only because Gavin talked her out of killing them. He could not force her. They had relied on her generosity, and she had opted to let them go. What did it matter if they kept watch for creatures they had no chance of defeating?
She stared up at the sky, searching for satellites moving among the stars. The moon was up and getting fuller, its light making the stars look dimmer than they had of late. But after a few minutes, the slow, steady motion of a dim pinprick of light caught her eye.
Her gaze returned to the earth when she heard the jangle of Mendigo approaching. He was not coming fast, but he was coming. She had neither heard nor seen him the last time she was on watch.
The puppet strode into view through the evergreens alongside a tall, beautiful woman. The lovely stranger had aristocratic features--chiseled cheekbones, flawless skin, imperious eyes. A flowing, gauzy gown hung from her lithe frame, and golden sandals clad her feet. Most striking was her hair, a lustrous cascade of silvery blue. Aside from her air of casual confidence, nothing about the woman suggested that she should be roaming a dangerous mountainous sanctuary in the middle of the night. Her age was hard to gauge. Despite the silver in her hair, at first glance Kendra would have estimated mid-twenties, but the stranger carried herself with a stately grace well beyond those years. Mendigo walked beside her, holding her hand.