DragonKnight - Donita K. Paul [96]
Bardon shook his head. The cave-dwelling mammals skittered at high speeds through caves and tunnels. This creature sounded large and slow. Druddums would be no problem. He suspected this beast to be deadly.
Critch critch. Critch critch.
Whatever made the light sound could not be more than a few feet deep into the tunnel. Bardon waved Pont to the other side. They stood waiting with their weapons ready.
Critch.
Bardon took in a breath and held it.
Critch.
He concentrated only on the dark mouth of the underground passage.
Critch critch.
Black, snakelike tentacles waved out of the opening.
Critch.
The body of a huge spiderlike creature stepped into the light.
One more step, you beast.
Critch.
Bardon plunged his sword into a soft spot directly behind the creature’s bulging, compound eye. A second later, Pont’s knife speared one of the other eyes. The creature thrashed once and collapsed.
Bardon let out the breath he’d been holding and heard Pont do the same. He looked up at the rider-warrior.
“Now, what do you suppose a Creemoor spider is doing in Wittoom?”
32
A LEGEND
Bardon sent a message by waistcoater at first light: Killed Creemoor spider in Caves of Endor. B.
Three of the riders hauled the carcass of the spider onto the flats amid the mud holes and set fire to it. It took most of the morning to burn the body to ashes so that none of the creature’s poisonous fluids remained to kill some unsuspecting animal.
Even with the late start, the flight north that day covered more ground than the previous day. Bromptotterpindosset estimated two more days before they would reach the northern foothills of the Kattabooms. The mountain range petered out one hundred miles south of the Finnicum Gulf. From there, they would veer to the east and follow the coast to the northern border. Unless they dallied along the way, they should reach their destination before a week was out.
The mapmaker and Granny Kye sat together in the evenings. She poured out all the bits and pieces of information she had gleaned over the years. He made notes and examined his maps and charts and the diary of Cadden Glas. The doneel’s crude maps compared favorably with the more-expertly drawn cartographer renditions of the Northern Reach. However, the adventuring doneel had explored areas that were blank on Bromptotterpindosset’s scrolls.
“I’m trusting Glas’s recordings to be accurate,” he told Bardon as he pointed with a stubby finger to a high mountain valley. “This is recorded in the diary but not on the official charts. Cadden Glas proves close to the mark on the places we can compare. Why should he be imprecise on the areas only he has drawn?”
Bardon examined the map in the diary. “And Granny Kye thinks that this high valley is the location of the fortress where the knights are under a spell?”
The mapmaker nodded with conviction. “It matches the snips of information—a tiny, round lake at the southern end. Two towering peaks to the west. A break in the eastern wall of mountains, as if some giant had pulled out one of the mountains in the chain like a sore tooth.”
“Is there a name for this valley?” asked Bardon.
“Cadden Glas called it Broken Cup Valley.”
The squire contemplated the peculiar markings on the small page of the diary. “Why do you suppose he chose to write his diary in an obscure language? No one that I know of converses in meech. Except perhaps those dragons of the missing sect.”
“Why are they missing?” asked Ahnek as he walked up with Sittiponder.
Bardon and Bromptotterpindosset jumped.
The tumanhofer scowled at the boys and fussed. “I thought little boys were loud, noisy, rambunctious. How is it you two are always lurking about without a squeak between you?”
Both o’rant and tumanhofer child grinned. Ahnek answered, “We’re practicing for when we’re in enemy territory.”
“I know,” said Sittiponder.
“Know what?” asked Ahnek, his forehead wrinkled.
“About the meech colony. A small group had lived in seclusion in the Kattaboom Mountains. They kept a distant friendship with