DragonKnight - Donita K. Paul [111]
Bardon patted her arm, not knowing how else to offer sympathy. “I need your help.”
She looked up at him sharply. “You do?”
He nodded. “I can’t pry Granny Kye away from the picture she’s painting. I have requested on numerous occasions that she pack up and get ready. Her only response, if she answers at all, is, ‘My landscapes are getting so much better.’”
The younger emerlindian laughed. “Yes, I’ll come and help.”
“He’s coming,” yelled Ahnek. He pointed to the mountains.
Bardon shielded his eyes with his hand across his brow. In the sky, flying toward them from the mountains, a shape like a large bird approached.
Greer, is that Regidor?
Instead of hearing his dragon’s droll comments, he heard Regidor’s voice.
“It is, indeed, I.”
You can mindspeak over such a great distance?
“No, I can’t. I’ll talk to you when I get closer.”
Bardon paused for a moment and digested the sarcastic reply. How like his friend to tease him in the midst of a crisis.
Regidor?
“Yes?”
So it was a stupid question. I deserved that jab at my intelligence.
“Stop, Bardon, you are driving me to the end of my patience.”
I was merely acknowledging that my remark was spoken without first considering.
“You are being a boring, sanctimonious academician. Just laugh and ask me what I found out.”
Bardon didn’t laugh. What did you find out?
“That these grassland grawligs dig holes like rabbits.”
You found where they have taken the tumanhofer?
“In a manner of speaking. I found their village, which is a warren of burrows in the foothills of the mountains you see to my back.”
This isn’t going to be a simple rescue, is it?
Regidor laughed. “You are correct. ‘Simple’ is not the right descriptive word. Try ‘interesting.’”
38
GILDA
“Carry this.” Regidor handed Bardon a blue glowing globe and pulled another out of an inside pocket of his cape.
“You’ve got hollows,” Bardon said as he balanced the palm-sized light in his hand. He tossed it to the other hand and back. “Are you sure of your translation of Glas’s diary?”
Regidor nodded. “This warren has burrows crisscrossing under the land for miles in any direction.”
“I’ve always thought of burrows as small, housing rabbits and badgers and the like. These are huge.”
“Yes, but what else would you call them? They are tunnels with small chambers dug out for sleeping.”
Bardon nodded in agreement but still marveled at the size.
Regidor continued. “This particular tunnel leads to a central meeting place of the local grawligs, a watering hole inside the first range of mountains. It seems reasonable to assume Bromptotterpindosset’s captors would take him to this location to show off their prize. The diary describes just such activities when Glas explored the territory.”
Bardon nodded. This does seem to be the most logical place to start our search. However, there is something inherently wrong with using logic to predict the actions of grawligs.
They sat in the entrance to one of the many burrows that riddled the hills. Out of the wind, Regidor had opened the top of a shapely bottle made from thick glass.
“Do you like it?” he asked. “I think it suits Gilda much better than that clay jar she used to inhabit. I got it at an open-air market in Vendela.” He held the blue vessel in front of him. “Blue is her favorite color. And the silver…well, the silver is because she is precious to me.”
A wisp of smoke floated out of the opened top. It formed into Gilda, and the female meech dragon sashayed over to sit on one of the boulders lining the side of the tunnel as if placed there for a purpose. Neither Regidor nor Bardon had figured out the purpose.
This entrance to the warren showed little sign of use, which seemed odd. The map showed this large tunnel to be the most direct route to the grawligs’ celebration site.
Bardon had firmly refused Ahnek’s plea to come along. And he’d left instructions with Captain Anton to return the questing party to Dormenae if he and Regidor did not return in a day’s time.