It was a gamble born of desperation. She hoped that she could draw the beast’s attention and keep it there. When the dragon cocked its head and eyed her with curious fury, she felt her knees turn to water. Suddenly, she found that she wished it had flown away, that it would fly away now. As it pulled its wings back and lowered its head towards her, the great beast drew in a long, slow breath.
Shaella couldn’t help but ask herself the obvious question. “What was I thinking?”
Chapter 28
The dragon’s lair was a deep, bubble-like pocket which swelled off to one side of the huge wormhole. It was lit by the sun shining into the eastern mouth of the tunnel. The bright rays illuminated over half of the rocky passage’s floor. From the opening in the western face, where Gerard was standing, it was less than two hundred paces across to the gaping sunlit maw on the other side. Piles of bones, from creatures both large and small, were scattered among the rubble. The horrid smell of decaying flesh would have been unbearable had there not been the natural breezeway caused by the wormhole, continually drawing in fresh air while venting the foul.
Gerard started into the dragon’s lair. The only thoughts in his mind were to get in, lower the egg out the other side, then climb back down, and do it all quickly. To keep his fear, or any other distracting emotion from creeping in and getting a hold of him, he repeated those thoughts over and over again. Get in, lower the egg, climb down, and hurry.
He made his way to where the cavern opened up into the actual dragon’s lair. It wasn’t easy. He had to climb over several odd shaped pieces of broken stone, and had to wiggle his way between others. He had to hold down his bile while climbing over a wet, matted tangle of hair, bone and gore.
Some of the skeletons he saw were alarmingly large. Others were undoubtedly human. One was still covered in rusted and crushed armor. A series of fist sized holes ran in a line across the breast plate. Teeth marks, Gerard thought, and then he shivered.
He spotted the eggs easily enough: three of them. They were in a shadowy nook at the back of the lair, nestled in a pile of animal hides that had been crudely thrown over a bowl-shaped pile of bones.
“I guess dragons don’t like to sit on their nests like hawklings do,” he said the thought out loud.
The sound of his voice was comforting. In the back of his mind, he repeated his mantra again. Get in, lower the egg, climb down, and hurry.
On his way across the rank, musty lair to retrieve one of the eggs, he noticed something peculiar. The cavern bottom here wasn’t rough and rocky: it was level like a floor. After further examination, he found that it actually was a floor. It had to be. It was perfectly smooth. It even had a design carved into it. Most of the circular inscription was buried under bones and scree, but he could see its center. The dust filled grooves were a finger’s breath wide, and easily as deep. A circle, twice as big as a wagon-wheel, framed a strange symbol. Around it there were other, smaller symbols, like ancient writing. These went all the way around the inner-ring. There was another ring outside that. It reminded him of an archery target, only with a strange symbol for its Wizard’s Eye. Sure enough, a few feet farther across the floor, he saw yet another ring that shared the same center as the others. He found himself staring at the markings, as if he were momentarily hypnotized.
Get in, lower the egg, climb down, and hurry, his mind screamed, snapping him out of his daze.
“Get the egg, lower it down, then get out,” he said the words aloud, and kept repeating them, as he moved to the nest.
The eggs were the size of summer melons, and when he hefted one into his arms, he realized that lowering this thing wasn’t going to be quick and easy. It weighed about as much as a full sack of grain.
“This is going to take some doing,” he mumbled under his breath.
He had to keep his mind on track. He kept feeling the urge to go back and stare at the strange markings carved into the floor, but his fear of the dragon, and of failing Shaella, kept him from it.
He carefully carried the egg out of the lair. It was no easy task, getting over and around the rough bottom of the wormhole, without the use of his hands and arms to steady himself. More than once, he stumbled and nearly let go of the egg. Absently, he wondered why a dragon would need a floor like that, and if it did, why hadn’t the floor of the whole place been leveled out? It sure would have made getting the egg over to the eastern cavern mouth a lot easier. He was nervous. He had assumed that it was going to be an in and out sort of thing. Now he wasn’t sure at all. He knew he had to hurry, he knew Shaella couldn’t keep the dragon occupied all day.