Page 24 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

brITT

Denerfen nudged her neck early the next morning. “I know.” She pressed a hand to his back. “You don’t like this, but it’ll be okay. Henrik and Einar are meeting with the Ladylord, and we have wyverns to find.”

A coo replied. He gripped her shoulder, without painful claws in her skin. The top of his head nudged her jaw, a silent promise to cooperate.

Off to the side, a sleep-ruffled lubber stared at her as she strolled by, moving fast. She had a lot of ground to cover.

Her typical Kapurnickkian pants drew his attention.

They tightened against her legs, shielding her from the morning chill.

She’d worn a shorter skirt, which stopped around her knees, and wore high boots that would protect her feet from the long walks.

Einar and Henrik had already split the opposite direction, so she hurried across the worn cobblestones. The calm streets were a quiet meditation of closed shops, empty stalls. Tangles of weeds grew in between stones, twining toward the sunshine.

Up, she walked. Crossroads populated the cliffs, loping along a main road leading into the farmlands and orchards. Once she crested the heights, the steady flap of wyvern wings filled the air, pounding like her heart.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Sun cracked the horizon and light changed the sky.

Dusky tones gave way to a flush of peach.

Lighter yellow brushed through the clouds, emphasizing their reaching forms. The sun changed everything in its path.

Britt paused to gaze over the sapphire waters, still as a mirror.

Waves crashed at the shore, spraying foam and whispers.

“Can you see Pedr, Den?”

Denerfen fluttered his wings. He peered in the right direction.

“We’ll return tonight, with any luck,” she murmured. “Might as well travel in the cool of the morning, eh?”

Her explorations would take her to new adventures in the mainland. She’d never visited the vales surrounding the port city. Though proudly not considered Klippornon, the farmlands official territory remained under Klippornon jurisdiction.

She spun on her heels. The road turned to crumbly dirt as she left Klipporno behind, striding into verdant hills that led to distant, purple-black mountains.

A wyvern flew overhead. Only one.

She walked for an hour.

Two.

The sun rose with a sticky heat. Denerfen soared ahead, and returned. He popped in and out of brushes, chasing birds and chittering rodents. When hot, he plastered himself across the back of her shoulders, snout sticking through her hair to smell.

Wagons and other lubbers dotted the road, but offered no greetings. Roots ran deep in these hills, and strangers had no place. She passed vineyards first, then farmlands, heading closer to the now not-so-distant mountains.

Britt had never ventured to Wyvern Hills, as the lubbers called it, which was a collection of small mountains. Their jagged peaks formed an oval, with steep ridges impossible to climb. The daunting heights and shale fields kept vagrants out. An ideal place for recalcitrant and wild creatures.

As she approached, the shrieks and unhappy screams of wyverns grew with punctuated strength. The raw, visceral sounds sent chills through her bones and blood.

Head bent, she pressed on.

The flourishing fields became rocky places. Rich soil turned to time-worn dirt trails. The road petered into a foot trail, and the sun beat hot overhead. Her throat ached with thirst. Bursts of dirt and guttural sounds stirred behind the rocks, interrupted by screams and low-toned growls.

Wyverns.

Seeing them in the air was one thing. Finding them here?

Another, far more serious. At the base of a giant rock, Britt paused in a sliver of shade.

An archway stretched overhead, funneling her into a carefully curated cave.

The well-worn footpath split to the left, angling around the mountains and into hills and valleys along the north.

She should take that route, clearly more trodden.

The other led to a black hole with a skull and an X drawn over it. The message was clear.

Don’t enter.

Another roar sounded from within the interior of the broad oval, tapering to a purr. The warning noise reverberated through the rocks. She froze. Did the sound come from directly overhead?

When nothing snapped her up with powerful jaws, she dredged up the courage to look around.

Nothing in sight accounted for the roar.

Whatever made the noises was behind these mountains.

Or, perhaps, within? Presumably, this cave led to tunnels that wound throughout the behemoth structure, changing the sound environment entirely.

It would be disorienting, but necessary.

Britt continued into the cave. The winnowing doorway led into a dark passage so small she had to crouch.

After inching her way forward, it widened considerably.

Hesitating, she strode within. From what little light fell inside, she saw tunnels branched to all sides.

Broad, thin, small. They angled and changed at random, leading to the central spot of exit through which she had entered.

So many tunnels.

Tentatively, she ventured toward the closest and wandered inside. After twenty steps, it stopped. Dusty, wrinkled blankets and a shelf with a stubby candle waited at the end. A bedroom, was it? She returned to the starting point and followed the next trail. It ended in nothing.

Others winnowed to arches she couldn’t fit through. Another stretched into sheer black, moving sideways. Denerfen flew ahead of her, returning with a low mewl that indicated it, too, was impassable.

Frustrated, she returned to the main passage and continued her exploration through each option. Day continued on, filled with intermittent wyvern sounds as she attempted, fruitlessly, to find her way through. Denerfen, more disheartened with each stop, drooped on her shoulder.

“If it were easy, Den,” she murmured, comforted by the sound of her own voice, “then anyone would do this.”

What felt like hours later, they found a passageway tall enough to walk upright. No dripping water escorted them or sloshed at her feet, like others. Denerfen sprawled across her shoulders, making a feeble, annoyed sound.

“I know,” she muttered. “This is a lost cause. We’ve been here for hours already.”

A very distant pinprick of light was her only connection to the outside. If they ventured much farther, the mountain would cover it. She’d have no orientation. Britt hesitated, heart in her throat. What was she doing here?

This was pointless.

General Helsing asked for answers about the wyvern presence in Kapurnick, but the wyverns couldn’t speak. Unless she planned to track down and meet with a wyvern Keeper—which she didn’t—then this had been a waste of time.

Denerfen’s feet kneaded into her shoulder, a sure sign he meant to jump. She put up a hand to stop him.

“No, Den. It’s not safe.”

He ignored her, leaping over her hand and fluttering away. Britt rooted to the spot for a moment, reassured only by a funnel of air that swept deeper into the tunnel. It would send her smell to him. He’d be able to guide by that. Besides, draguls could see in the dark.

She waited, growls and rumbles trembling in the air.

One minute.

Five.

“Den?” she called. Her voice sounded feeble.

He chirped.

Britt caught her breath. “Den?”

Another chirrup came from farther down the path. She shuffled toward it, abandoning the light. He wouldn’t have sounded this cheery, wouldn’t have called to her, if it wasn’t safe. Taking heart, as she trusted him.

His energetic cheeps led her further down the path. Fingers brushing dusty rock on her left, she kept it as an anchor and ventured slowly. The pinprick of sunlight vanished into black when she rounded a corner, but Denerfen continued his eager encouragement.

For the most part, the path remained clear. Only occasional stones she accidentally kicked and pebbles under foot. Britt palpated her way around yet another bend to find a pinprick of light on the other side. She gasped.

“You did it?”

The illumination winked out as Denerfen flew in front of it. He collided with her chest. She caught him as he squawked, flailing.

“Den!” she whispered. “You found the way through!”

A wyvern bellow carried far louder with cave acoustics transmitting it through the passage. They sounded livid. Though it felt like the wyverns breathed down her neck, they must be far away.

Denerfen mewled at the back of his throat. A tinny sound, indicating apprehension. But his wings didn’t droop, and he didn’t draw his tail close, so she continued.

As they approached the distant light, it expanded.

Other noises joined the rumbly ruckus. Shouts.

Cries. The ground shook. Britt pressed her back to the sidewall and waited for the chaos to calm.

Denerfen coiled close to her neck and hissed.

No trickling rocks preceded a cave in. No giant shudder indicated the world was about to fall.

Outside, an indignant whip snapped like a reprimand. She shuddered at the memories the whip conjured. Utter silence followed.

Such terrible quiet.

Britt shoved away from the wall and crept forward until sunlight fell onto her toes. The tunnel to the outside narrowed to a circle as long as her arm.

Sunlight dazzled her as she peeked out. She’d been in these caves for most of the day.

She peered out on rock faces. Hearing nothing nearby, she crawled up and outside a step at a time.

Over the top of a stone that hid this hole from sight, she stared down on a giant arena.

An oval ground, formed by the steep mountains with skirts of loose rock, held many wyverns.

No.

All the wyverns. A quick count revealed fifteen, but overhangs made it likely that some hid inside. Pedr told her to expect nineteen. Males, he said. No females.