From the western side, the Dragon’s Tooth Spire looked more like a fish fin than a fang. It made sense to Gerard, when he remembered Shaella’s explanation of how the water had been flowing past the formation from north to south, eroding at it for ages upon ages. He looked up and could see rays of the morning sun shining through the Dragon’s Wormhole. He studied the spot, letting the location firmly imprint in his mind.
The idea of standing up, and maneuvering from the canoe to the rock face, sent a ripple of nerves through him. He found himself scanning the water, along the base of the spire, for any sign of the ferocious looking snappers that might be lurking there. He didn’t see any, but felt little relief for it.
“Get us directly under the dragon’s hole,” he said quietly to Flick.
He went about checking the backpack that was sitting in the floor of the canoe between his feet. It was fairly heavy, and going through it again helped him forget about the water, and the things swimming in it.
The pack contained over a thousand feet of thin, but strong cord, a makeshift sling cradle to put the dragon’s egg in, a few pieces of dried and salted snake-meat, and two skins of water.
The plan was simple enough: get up there, locate the eggs, and lower one down. Cole would be waiting for it on the eastern side of the spire, where the curve of the formation caused the Wormhole to open up over nothing but air and water. It was simple. The climb down would be easy, because the pack would be empty, and he would be using the western face again. It seemed that the whole thing was going to be too easy. Something Berda had once said, a saying, was floating at the back of Gerard’s mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.
“We’re below the lair now,” said Flick.
From the moment Gerard had fought alongside the group on the riverboat, they had begun to treat him as one of their own. They respected him, and seemed to trust his abilities. The look on Flick’s face was a mixture of reverence and worry, as he eased the little boat up close to the base of the formation.
“Are you sure you can do this?” he asked Gerard. “It’s a long way up to the lair.” His voice was hushed, as if speaking too loudly might bring the dragon’s wrath down upon them.
“Just make sure that Cole is there to take the egg, and that you’re here to get me when I come back down,” Gerard chuckled nervously. “I can make this climb in my sleep, but I don’t know how to swim.”
“I swear I’ll be here,” Flick said, with an honest grin on his face. “You’re a brave young man. Shaella chose well.”
Gerard wasn’t sure what Flick meant, so he didn’t reply to the man’s words. Instead, he stated the obvious, in a hesitant tone that betrayed just how tense and high-strung he was feeling at the moment.
“I guess…w…we just wait for th…the dragon to leave now.”
Shaella, and her troop of lizard men, were using two of the big four-legged gekas to drag their bait into the dragon’s feeding ground. The gekas’ riders were having a hard time keeping the big creatures calm. The harsh smell of rot coming from the uncooked remains of the dragon’s previous meals was thick in the air, and the fresh meat they were dragging was far too close to them. Every creature in the deep marsh understood who the highest predator of the area was, and the dragon almost always carried its kills to this clearing, to roast and consume them. Had the gekas not been as afraid of the zards’ whips as they were of the dragon, they would have been nowhere near the area.
Greyber, and his detachment of Zard, stood alertly by, ready and waiting to do their part. Once Shaella’s troop had the giant snapper they were dragging in place, he and his Zardmen would be responsible for skinning the carcass. Shaella had been adamant: blood, plenty of blood, and exposed meat. The Zardmen all knew the drill. They had been feeding the dragon here for months in preparation for this very day.
Shaella had been on edge all morning. Those around her assumed that it was because of the danger her lover was putting himself in, that or the pressure she would be under to keep the dragon distracted long enough for him to do his deed. It was more than that though. She had tried to get Gerard to let Greyber climb with him, but he had refused her, saying he could manage far better on his own.
“The man might be strong and handy in a sword fight,” Gerard had said, “but, on the side of a rock face, he would be nothing more than dead weight.”