Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [128]
“Whyever did you think that?” asked Shimeran.
“You were so still.”
“We were waiting.”
“Your lights weren’t shining.”
Seezle giggled. “You saw our underwear.”
Shimeran gave his sister an impatient look.
Kale wrinkled her brow, trying to remember what the stonelike figures of the two kimens looked like. “Uh, I don’t remember seeing anything but a lot of hair.”
That sent Seezle into another round of giggles accompanied by acrobatics.
Shimeran sighed. “Kimen skin is very much like a covering, like a finely knitted stocking without seams.” He scowled at Seezle. She quit prancing and stood in one place but continued to quiver with glee. Shimeran focused on Kale.
“Where are the others?”
Kale pointed across the room behind her. “Gymn and Metta are waiting over there. Fenworth and the others are in a prison cell.”
“Can you find them from here?”
Kale took a moment to get her bearings and locate Leetu. She tilted her head toward the tunnel behind them. “They should be down that way. But half these tunnels end abruptly, and you have to backtrack.”
The kimen leader nodded. “Do you need help fetching the minor dragons?”
“No.”
“Then do so quickly.”
He could have said thanks.
The thought startled her. Had Risto said that? No, it was her own thought. Where was Risto all this time? Why was he so quiet and not pestering her?
Kale dove into the room and swam across as easily as if she were swimming to the opposite shore of Baltzentor’s Pond. The dragons would not fly in the room, but rode back across on Kale’s head. Their clawed feet dug into her scalp. They jumped off into the opening just as they reached it and stood huddled together looking fearfully at the now-deserted chamber.
“Why do they find that place so dreadful?” Kale asked.
“The heavy air would have clogged their tiny lungs,” said Shimeran.
“I didn’t feel anything.”
“No, you probably could have lasted an hour or more before you realized you were drowning.”
Kale looked back into the clear air and wondered what other hidden dangers they would encounter on this quest.
She shifted the sling on her back and turned to follow the others down the passageway.
The meech egg thrummed. A loud thrum. It vibrated her shoulder blades. It could be heard distinctly in the stone tunnel. It echoed and grew louder with each beat. Surely every bisonbeck in the region could hear the meech egg’s contented thrum.
47
WHICH WAY OUT?
As Shimeran, Seezle, Kale, and the dragons approached the dungeon cell from one end of the long tunnel, four bisonbeck guards approached it from the other.
“We heard you coming,” said Dar when they reached the cell.
“So did they,” Kale answered, nodding to the burly men out of the prisoners’ sight.
Shimeran dropped to one knee beside the locked door and placed his hands in a cup to receive his sister’s tiny feet. Seezle stood on this makeshift boost and reached a hand inside the keyhole. In a moment the door swung open. Lee Ark, Brunstetter, Dar, and Leetu jumped into the corridor with their weapons ready. The bisonbecks charged.
Leetu slew the lead soldier with an arrow. Dar let fly two small daggers and downed another. Though Lee Ark and Brunstetter were massive, they moved with quick precision. The marione and urohm dispatched the remaining two warriors in a brief flurry of hand-to-hand combat.
“Is there any way to quiet that egg?” Lee Ark asked as he cleaned his blade before sheathing it.
The egg’s monotone thrum, drowned out in the din of battle, now sounded loud in the rock corridor. It hung against Kale’s back, gently vibrating.
The marione commander looked straight at Kale, and she suddenly felt guilty. “No, I mean, I don’t know.” She looked at Leetu and Dar. Both shrugged and looked to Fenworth. He shook his head and turned to his librarian.
“Well?” The wizard cocked an eyebrow.
“I believe,” said Librettowit, “Kale is carrying the book containing a reference to meech eggs in her cape.”
Kale slipped the sling off her back and quickly located the books. She pulled out a heavy brown volume.
Librettowit frowned and