Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [134]
The mountain quieted. The ground grew still. Kale hauled herself to her feet and plunged through the shifted snow. She stumbled but fell forward, and her hand caught the smooth moonbeam fabric. Crawling forward, she pulled with all the strength she had left. The tangle of winter branches held on like bony fingers.
A shriek reverberated through the rocks beneath her, like the death wail of some hideous monster. The earth surged beneath her one more time, a rift opening right at her feet. The momentum of the mountain pitched her backward, wresting the cape from her hands. Cape and bush flew through the air in the opposite direction.
Kale lay on her back, staring at the brilliant blue sky. A lone white cloud peacefully floated above the tortured mountain.
Turning away from the mockingly tranquil sky, the o’rant girl sat up and crawled to the edge of the newly formed chasm. She reached with her mind to Gymn and Metta.
Emptiness.
She tried to connect to the meech egg.
A void.
Tears streamed down her face. Voices brought her head around to stare at the misshapen entrance to the old tumanhofer mine. Dar and Leetu sat with a singed Fenworth propped between them. Librettowit lay stretched out with Brunstetter kneeling over him. Curls of smoke rose from his charred clothing. His fancy mustache and beard were stubble. The kimens examined the librarian with their usual speed and efficiency. Lee Ark, bloodied and weary, limped toward Kale.
“You saved our lives, o’rant girl.”
“I lost the cape.” She looked away from him and down the jagged sides of the gorge.
Lee Ark did not respond. She couldn’t say she had lost the minor dragons, the meech egg. The words stuck in her throat behind a lump that cut off her breathing as well as her voice.
A sob broke the stranglehold. She bent forward, weeping.
The marione’s calm voice washed over her. “We will build two litters for the wizard and the tumanhofer. Aid will come from the o’rant valley soon. They will have noted the disturbance and sent help.”
He left her and went back to take care of practical matters. Kale saw him leave through a blur of tears.
They should go on without me. I don’t want to go any farther. I don’t want anything. I failed. Oh, Gymn and Metta, I failed you. Paladin, I’m sorry.
49
HOME
O’rant hands lifted Kale out of the snow. Someone wrapped an o’rant robe of fleecy wool around her bruised body. More o’rant hands passed her with tender care onto the back of a blue and gold dragon. O’rant arms carried her in the flight down the mountain into the valley.
A citrus smell clung to the clothing of her rescuers. The sharp, slightly sweet fragrance had always been a part of Kale’s bedding at home. Mariones had an earthy odor clinging to their bodies. Kale had noticed when she was quite young that her skin smelled different from the babies she rocked for the village mothers.
Kale nestled against the strong chest of the o’rant male who cradled her wrapped in soft, citrus-smelling blankets. The sorrow in her heart wanted to bury itself in this sensation of being surrounded by something curiously familiar. Kale didn’t want to figure it out. She didn’t want to think too much. She closed her eyes and shut out the world.
She awoke in a soft, warm bed in a room with painted walls and a rug that covered the floor. Warmth radiated from a crackling fire in a brick fireplace. A landscape painting in a gilt frame hung above an oak mantle. Curtains draped the windows. Sunbeams danced through multiple beveled panes of glass set in a finely carved sash.
The room smelled of citrus.
Kale sat up and looked out the window. Thick snow blanketed the countryside. Two stone walls topped with frothy caps marched down a straight country road. Bare-limbed trees in an orchard held aloft puffs of frosty snow. The sun sparked reflections on a myriad of tiny ice crystals covering