“If it’s the same beast,” the Ard Rhys answered.
Pleysia wheeled on her. “No two Drachas share the same markings! You know that as well as I. All the histories say so. Drachas are unique. You, boy!” She turned the bright glare of her eyes on Redden. “Was it the same beast or not? You saw it clearly when it flew off. Were the markings on its wings a match?”
Redden nodded reluctantly. “They were.”
“There! Even the boy agrees. It is the same beast. Oriantha and the Dwarf have escaped it. We must go on!”
The Ard Rhys gave her a brief smile. “No one ever said we wouldn’t, Pleysia. Please take the lead.”
The other woman did so, striding out with grim determination. Within seconds she was twenty yards ahead of the rest of them.
Redden moved up alongside the Ard Rhys and whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I should lie.”
“Don’t apologize for telling the truth. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. I know it’s the same dragon.”
“But you think they’re dead, don’t you? Crace Coram and Oriantha. What’s going to happen when she finds out?”
“I’m not so sure either of them is dead, Redden. But knowing is necessary before she will agree to give up the search.” She gave him a long look. “I know you want to go back. I know you worry for your brother. I worry for him and for the others, too. But until we know there is nothing more we can do for our missing friends, we can’t quit looking. We owe them that.”
They marched on through the twilight until Khyber Elessedil brought them to a halt on a broad, open rise that gave them a clear view of everything approaching from all directions.
“We’ll spend the night here. Three on watch, three asleep in four-hour shifts. We won’t be caught by surprise again. Pleysia, I can see by your face that you want to continue on. But it is too dangerous to go farther this day. We don’t know enough about what’s hunting out there. We’ll wait until morning.”
“Waiting is a mistake,” Pleysia snapped. “Morning may come too late for us to be of any use to my daughter or the Dwarf.”
“We won’t be of much use if we are dead or crippled, either.”
Pleysia stared out at the sweep of the land south. “I could go on alone. You could catch up to me in the morning.”
The Ard Rhys shook her head. “We agreed to stay together. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
They sat down on the rise and ate their meager dinner, their eyes scanning the horizon, watchful of shadows, uneasy with the growing dark. In the lengthy silences, they tightened their resolve and prepared themselves for how they would confront the hours ahead. No one had put the events of the previous night entirely in the past, and no one expected to sleep well.
When the meal was finished and the darkness was complete—the sky so overcast with haze you could barely see in front of your nose—Pleysia and two of the Trolls rolled into their blankets while the Ard Rhys, Redden, and the other Troll took the first watch.