“Of course I am,” I answered. “I can’t leave them alone now. It’s too dangerous. Talon is actively trying to kill us, and they have a huge clone army to do it. I don’t dare send them back to the safe houses—the nests have all been compromised. I have one place left for us to go, and I can only hope Talon hasn’t found it.”
“I take it we’re going back to the farm,” Wes stated, and I nodded. He sighed. “Well, hell, Riley, I can take them there. It’s not rocket science to drive a bloody van.”
As I stared at him in shock, Jade broke in, as well. “And if you are worried about their safety,” she said, “put your mind at ease. I will remain with them until you return. Talon will not threaten any of the hatchlings while they are under my watch.”
“I… Are you two feeling all right?” I wondered, aghast. What the hell was going on here? Wes hated people, and teenagers especially. And Jade barely knew us. “What’s gotten into you two?” I asked, frowning. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were doing everything to get me to leave except physically pushing me out the door.”
“Riley.” Wes gave me one of his patented I’m surrounded by idiots looks. “Think about it. Ouroboros is the second-oldest dragon in the world, and he’s at odds with the bloody Elder Wyrm. What would happen if we convinced him to fight for us?” The hacker shook his head at me. “If you can’t see the potential there, mate, then I really have no hope for you at all.”
“Yes,” Jade added with a somber nod. “Know thyself, know thine enemies. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“That we are at war.” The Eastern dragon gave me a look that was nearly as impressively disdainful as Wes’s. “And knowing our enemy will be the key to overcoming them. Knowledge is the greatest weapon we have, and who better to obtain this knowledge from than one who has lived longer than nearly everyone else on the planet?”
“And I know you, Riley,” Ember broke in. “You want to meet with Ouroboros. If you miss this chance, you’re going to be kicking yourself for the rest of your life.”
“Agreed,” Mist added. “If I was summoned by a legend, I would make that a top priority, but that’s just me.”
I sighed. “I wonder if you people realize that I’m the leader of this underground,” I remarked. “Just throwing that out there, in case you’ve forgotten.” As expected, no one seemed impressed, and I shook my head in defeat. “All right, I suppose we’re going to see what the First Rogue wants with us. Wes, Jade, if you’re sure you’ve got the hatchlings…”
“Oh, will you just go already,” Wes said. “You sound like a bloody nursemaid.”
EMBER
The present
The humans surrounded us, silent as wraiths in the darkness of the jungle. There were close to a dozen of them, dark skinned and mostly naked, wearing loincloths and necklaces of shell and bone. Most carried crude wooden spears, which they’d pointed at us in a bristling ring of spikes. A few outside the circle held bows and arrows. None of them spoke, or made any sound at all. They simply watched us with unreadable black eyes.
“Okay,” Riley murmured, gazing around. “That’s a little worrisome. Do you think this is the welcome party?” His voice was amused but held a hint of warning. Garret had drawn his weapon and was keeping the muzzle pointed at the ground, ready to respond with lethal force if he had to.
“What do you think they want?” I asked, keeping my gaze on those sharp points hovering very close to my face. Garret had moved behind me, and I could feel the tension lining his muscles, his hard gaze as it swept the crowd. Riley shrugged.
“No clue, but I’m not too keen on getting skewered to find out.” His gaze slid to me, and a hard smile pulled at his mouth. “You have a change of clothes, right?”
“You want us to Shift? In front of all these humans?”
“Who are they going to tell? The news monkeys?” He rolled his eyes before his attention focused on the crowd again. “I figure this way we won’t even have to fight anyone. They’ll just drop their spears and run.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then I’d rather be in dragon form if they try to shove a spear up my ass.”
The crowd in front of us suddenly parted, and an old man stepped through, stopping just a few feet away. He was thin, nearly skeletal, with twig-like arms and only a few strands of wispy white hair stuck to his head. He regarded the three of us with eyes that were still sharp and clear, then raised a clawed hand to point at me.
“You,” he rasped in a thickly accented voice. “Name.”
“My name?” I asked. Around us, the warriors remained silent, still keeping their spears pointed at us. The old man didn’t answer, just continued to watch me with piercing black eyes. “Ember,” I said quietly. “My name is Ember Hill.”
He nodded once and stepped back, and the men surrounding us lowered their spears. The old man raised a withered hand and beckoned, indicating for us to follow.
We did, trailing him down a narrow path that soon disappeared as we went deeper into the jungle. Even for Garret and Riley, it was difficult to keep up. The old man, and the men surrounding us, moved like ghosts through the trees and vegetation, silent and nearly unseen. They blended perfectly into their world, unlike us, the noisy intruders, stomping through the undergrowth in our rugged boots, hacking at vines along the way. The jungle closed in around us, becoming darker and even more tangled, as if offended by our presence and our attempts to clear a path. After only a few minutes, I was lost, and all sense of direction had vanished into the canopy. Which made me nervous. If our mysterious guides decided to disappear and leave us stranded in the middle of the jungle, we might never find our way out.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” I whispered to Garret after a few silent minutes. The soldier had holstered his weapon but his posture was still tense, his eyes constantly scanning our surroundings and the men slipping noiselessly through the trees beside us.
“I don’t know,” he replied, glancing at something overhead. I looked up and saw a small yellow monkey on a gnarled branch, peering down at me with large black eyes. “But they knew your name,” Garret went on. “That means they were waiting for us.”
We continued into the darkness. The men and our guide never slowed down or said anything, either to us or each other. The one time Riley tried talking to our guide, the old man simply shook his head and put a finger to his lips. After a couple hours of walking, I was starting to wonder if this hike would ever end, if the jungle just went on forever, when Garret suddenly nudged my arm and pointed to something in the trees ahead.
At first, I didn’t see anything different or unusual: just looming trunks, undergrowth, vines and shadows. Then the outline of a wall, stony and ancient, appeared through the trees, nearly invisible with moss, vines and gnarled roots. As we got closer, I spotted a crumbling archway in the wall, flanked by a pair of statues so weathered and moss covered that they were entirely featureless. Beyond the barrier, rising toward the jungle canopy, a huge stone structure, as weathered and moss-eaten as the statues, towered among the trees.
My brows rose. Was this where these people lived? A hidden village deep in the jungle, surrounded by the ruins of an even older civilization? I was amazed. It was hard to believe that there were still places in the world this untouched by modern conveniences, where humans had lived without electricity or phones or computers for hundreds of years.
As we approached the archway, however, the old man stopped and turned, holding up a hand. I looked around and saw that the warriors surrounding us had backed away and were standing several yards from the entrance, as if reluctant to step close.
The old man looked at me, then Riley and Garret. He took a step back, pointing at us, then to the archway beyond. I frowned.
“You’re not coming with us?”
No answer, just the repeated motion of pointing at us, then to the gate, a little more vigorously this time. Riley looked at us and shrugged.