Page 4 of Realm of Thieves

Or perhaps Ruunon hired someone else while I’ve been out sick. Perhaps this person is my replacement. Perhaps I’m being watched to see how well I do.

To see if I fail.

The skin on my neck prickles. Whether this person is meant toreplace me or whether they’re part of an enemy cartel, I don’t think they mean to let me live. Coming across them was no accident. They wanted me to see them.

This isn’t good.

I stop just as movement comes from my right and Lemi suddenly appears out of the air, his tongue hanging out from the heat but otherwise looking unharmed. I quickly glance back to the mystery figure but they’re gone.

Vanished.

There’s no one there at all.

“What in damnation?” I whisper, looking around quickly for the missing intruder. “Lemi, did you see that?”

I know Lemi doesn’t understand most English but that doesn’t stop me from talking to him like he does.

Then another, even more terrible thought comes to me. Did that person see Lemi shift? Shifting dogs aren’t normal as far as I know, and if any of the other syndikats find out that he’s instrumental in finding dragon eggs, he’ll end up the target, not just me.

I reach back and draw out another sword for good measure, gripping them tightly as I start walking toward where the figure was. I know I need to concentrate on finding the nests, but I’m not sure how I’m going to do that now with someone else here.

I glance out at the ocean, wishing the haze would clear. I can’t see the boat past the wards, but I don’t know if it’s because of how far away it is or that the fog is obscuring it…

Or if it’s gone. Maybe the bastard already up and left me. And if he didn’t, I’m starting to think that maybe paying the guy and just getting a ride back to Esland without the eggs might be the best course of action for me. I’ll figure out what to do with the Dalgaard syndikat later.

Lemi lets out a huff of air from his nose, his long floppy ears now pricked straight up in the air like a fox’s. He’s caught a scent.

“Lemi,” I whisper to him, “Lemi, stay.”

But Lemi doesn’t listen once he’s gotten the scent. At least he knows enough not to shift so that I can follow him, but even so, he’s off and running away from the shore.

I sigh heavily, adjusting the swords in my hands. He’s heading in across the middle of the rock, which is thankfully more level. I scramble up the sharp and craggy cliff until I’m on top and then take off after him. I keep looking around me as I go, trying to see where that person could have gone, not wanting any surprise attacks from behind me or from the sides. So far it looks like I’m alone but I can’t trust that. How does someone just disappear like that? Is it possible he was a figment of my imagination? The world here does play tricks on you.

Fjallen Rock is the closest piece of land to the wards, with Esland just over the horizon, which is why I usually get the boats to drop me off here. It’s built like a table, with a sharp and undulating coastline that leads up to a steppe. The surface of the steppe is volcanic and mostly flat with large pockets of scarred earth left behind from past explosions and lava flows, and it’s in these craters and crevices that the dragons like to lay their eggs.

Usually it’s the elderdrage that use this island as their nesting grounds, but occasionally the smaller sycledrages or blooddrages will nest in the craters, especially if some of the elderdrages have moved on. Because the only food the dragons have come in the form of the rockdeer herd that gets delivered once a moon, the larger dragons are known to eat the smaller ones when they’re hungry. And those smaller dragons are the ones I need to find right now.

The farther we run across the steppe, the thicker the volcanic fog gets, and I have to pull up my mask in order to breathe, the potent air stinging my eyes and making them tear up. I can feel the sticky trails of the black salve I’ve applied around my eyes for protection melt into obsidian rivers down my cheeks, gathering in my mask. Sweat poolsunder my leathered armor and I wish I could take it off, but I have to wear it in case of a dragon attack. While the armor won’t protect against the claws of a sycledrage (or a broadsword from an enemy), it is designed to withstand the blast of fire, which is a dragon’s first line of defense.

Finally, Lemi stops running and goes totally still, his nose pointed toward the ground, which means he’s found a nest. I pray to the universe that it’s a nest of blooddrages, which are the smallest, not much larger than a chicken egg, and still pack quite a punch for their size. Also the blooddrages themselves are easier to deal with, as long as there’s only a couple of them to fend off.

Suddenly a shadow passes over me and I instinctively drop flat on the ground, not moving an inch, not making a sound even as I land on the hard rock. I don’t dare move my head to look but I know that Lemi is doing the same.

Wind from dragon wings blows strands of hair loose from my bun, and the thick air fills with their distinctive scent, the smell of sulfur mixed with something herbaceous that reminds me of the convent. I lie as still as I can. It’s probably a dragon keeping an eye on the nest, and from the way it hasn’t attacked me yet and the gusts from the wingbeats, I know it’s large, probably an elderdrage. The bigger the beast, the easier it is to evade them, so long as you don’t make any quick movements or sounds. Their sense of smell and eyesight aren’t the best, thankfully.

When the steadywhump whump whumpof the wings fades away, I slowly raise my chin off the ground and crane my neck to see the dragon passing over Lemi, about one hundred feet in the air, continuing on a steady flight toward the Midlands, its extra-long tail trailing behind it like a whip. It lets out a high squawk, one that I now recognize as a warning. It hasn’t spotted us but its instincts have it on high alert.

I wait until it disappears into the smoke, and then I quickly getto my feet and hurry over to Lemi, who is now on all fours, his focus on the nest again.

“Good boy,” I tell him as I pat his silky head and peer down over into the shallow crater. There are two eggs nestled in the grass and seaweed that the dragons make their nests out of, both over three feet in height and at least a foot at the widest point. Their shells are covered in scales of a light pink color with dark magenta on the edges. They’re beautiful, gleaming slightly with iridescence that shines even under such foul skies, which means they’re unfertilized and ripe for the taking.

I exhale and wipe my brow with my gauntlet. I can feel time ticking away—the Midlands have a strange way of making it move faster altogether. Once I thought I had been gone an hour but it turned out to be a whole day. The weather behaves unnaturally too. Acidic rain falls up from the ground and into the sky. When the Great Sorcerer Magni first magicked the land to imprison the dragons, it was said the magic altered the way the environment behaved, and I’ve seen those effects firsthand.

Lemi whines impatiently and gives me a pointed stare, wondering why I’m not taking out my bag and putting an egg inside.

“How will we get it back to the boat?” I ask him, putting a hand on my hip. “You can’t tow me with it, and I can’t swim in all my gear without some help.”

He tilts his head, his tongue lolling out to the side.

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