Dragonquest - Donita K. Paul [36]
Dreading the answer, Kale asked, “Who quickened the egg, Toopka?”
“You did.”
“Me?”
“Yes, it’s under your pillow.”
With a flutter of leathery wings, Gymn and Metta raced out of the room.
Toopka sniffed and ducked her head. “I thought you’d be mad at me if I held it until it quickened. I was right, wasn’t I? But you’re mad anyway, so I guess all that figuring out how to do it without getting into trouble didn’t work. I won’t bother figuring next time.”
“There better not be a next time,” warned Kale. “Why didn’t I feel the egg?”
“Because I put it under your pillow after you went to sleep and took it out before you woke up. Only last night, when I came back in here, I saw the cakes on the counter, and I was just going to have one piece, but it was so good.”
“And this morning,” said Dar with a shake of his finger, “you were too sick to retrieve the egg.”
The chittering of excited minor dragons interrupted Dar’s lecture. Gymn entered the room doing aerobatics accompanied by wild, shrill whistles. Metta followed more sedately. Her wings whooshed the air in a steady rhythm. Between her front legs she held the missing egg.
Kale stretched out a hand. Metta landed on her wrist and placed the egg in her upturned palm. For a moment the egg lay cool against her skin, then it began to warm. A slight tingle raced up Kale’s arm, and in her hand, the egg began a gentle thrum.
Metta scampered to Kale’s shoulder, singing a song of joy in her soft, cooing voice.
Kale smiled. Yes, the egg has quickened. And it already connects to me. I can feel its life.
She rummaged through a hollow in her cape and came up with the same red pouch Mistress Meiger had given her to carry the first dragon egg she’d found. She slipped the egg into the safety of the soft cloth and hung it around her neck by the leather thong. She tucked it under her blouse.
“Attention! Attention!” Wizard Fenworth’s voice boomed from behind his bedroom door. “Does no one around here pay attention to details? We could be surrounded by the enemy, overwhelmed by evil, blasted to smithereens by ravagers of utmost depravity. Attention to your surroundings, that’s what’s needed. We could be undone!”
Bardon, Regidor, and Librettowit barreled into the room from one of the corridors just as Fenworth’s door banged open.
A frisson of apprehension raised bumps on Kale’s arms and shivered her spine. She looked around the room at the faces of her companions. Bardon glared, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Librettowit looked annoyed. Regidor had a silly grin on his face. Dar scowled, and Toopka dove beneath the covers again.
A knock brought all eyes to the massive front door.
“See?” Fenworth whispered. “Didn’t I tell you?”
Bardon drew his sword and approached from one side of the room as Dar armed himself with two bejeweled daggers and came at the door from the other side.
Kale reached with her mind to discern who stood on the other side. She gave an exclamation of surprise. “It’s Leetu Bends and Lee Ark!”
Librettowit threw the old wizard a look of disgust.
Fenworth bristled, shaking his robes around him and clasping his beard. “I never said the enemy was here. I merely noted that no one was on guard. Our guests have arrived, and they very well could have been a troop of bisonbecks. Intentional attention to detail is essential in all quests. All quests at all times!” He raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at the occupants of his common room. “Someone open the door.”
Librettowit stomped across the wood floor and threw open the door.
“Greetings,” he said and promptly stepped aside to allow the two soldiers of Paladin’s forces to come in.
Lee Ark entered the room with Leetu following. His brown uniform covered a short, bulky body typical of the marione race. His forthright stride proclaimed power of muscle and confidence in leadership.
Leetu’s slight feminine form was likewise clothed in