Page 78 of Fiendish Delights
We had no real defence against the fiends and no real way of attacking them. Our only hope was to find the dragon before they did.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
From outside, the lair didn’t look much. I crouched behind a boulder and gazed at the dark, narrow opening surrounded by rocky crags, gorse bushes and sparse tufts of grass. Not far below us, a small flock of mountain sheep were grazing contentedly. Nothing suggested danger.
‘It seems deserted,’ Otis whispered.
I agreed; there was no sign of any dragon prints and there was no indication of any fresh dragon scat. There were charred marks on the rocks, suggesting that they had been damaged by dragon fire once upon a time, but I didn’t get the sense that it had happened recently.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Hugo.
His expression was tight. ‘It looks empty, but we need to check inside to be sure. There’s an hour to go before the sun sets so we should search before nightfall. Dragons are clever creatures and our purple madame might simply be well-versed at hiding her habitat.’
I nodded. ‘We’ve come this far.’ I carefully lowered my backpack and withdrew the old dragon’s egg. Then I took anotherspider’s silk pill out of my pocket. When I felt Hugo watching me, I glanced up. ‘I?—’
‘It’s okay.’
It didn’t look okay. I bit my lip but swallowed the pill anyway – and I followed it up with a second one as a chaser. I was still enjoying the bitter fizz when Hester’s patience ran out and she took off from my shoulder, zipping towards the cave.
‘Stop!’ I hissed. If she heard me, she didn’t react.
Otis, eyes wide with alarm, flew after her. Within seconds both of them had been swallowed up by the darkness of the lair. ‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘if dragons, fiends and spider’s silk aren’t the death of me, those brownies will be.’
‘They’re small enough to escape notice if our dragonisin there,’ Hugo said. ‘You’re not.’ He stood up and walked past me. ‘I’ll go first. Wait here until I give the word.’
As if. ‘You’re the one who was hurt yesterday,’ I said. ‘Youwait here.’
‘Remember our pact.’ He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. ‘We treat each other like adults and don’t protect each other unnecessarily.’
Damn it.
‘Besides, you’re the one who gets claustrophobic in tight dark spaces, so, you—’ He didn’t get to finish his sentence. From beyond the wall of darkness, there was a muffled scream. I stiffened – that sounded like Hester. I spun and sprinted inside. Hugo was right with me.
It was darker than I’d expected. Without pausing, I conjured up a tiny ball of flame to light my path. I knew the entrance was right behind me so there was no rational need to feel the same crushing fear I’d experienced in the depths of Smoo Cave. Unfortunately, my nervous system disagreed: my chest already felt constricted. I swallowed hard, pushing away my terror as best as I could.
‘Hester!’ I called, my voice shaking. ‘Otis!’
From deep within the lair there was another screeching yell. I swore under my breath and turned right towards the direction of the shout. Behind me, Hugo conjured up a fireball of his own. Between his magicked light and my own, the lair’s interior was more visible although there wasn’t much to see beyond a few old bones and more charred marks on the stone walls.
I doubted we would find our dragon; the air was too stale and we’d have heard her by now if this was her den. But something was in here with us.
The walls were closing in, pressing down upon me, while the shadows cast by the fireballs danced around my feet. I was finding it difficult to breathe normally. ‘Hester?’ I whispered as my feet came to a stuttering halt. I sucked panicked air into my lungs and hugged the dragon’s egg close to my chest. ‘Otis?’
My body was shaking, but then I felt Hugo’s hand press firmly against my back. He didn’t say anything – I didn’t need him to. I wasn’t alone. My trembling subsided and I nodded at him, grateful for his presence and that he wasn’t urging me to leave the lair while he forged ahead.
‘There’s a tunnel down there.’ Hugo pointed to a slope that led away from the entrance. ‘The brownies must have gone that way.’ I caught a glimpse of his tight expression in the flickering light. ‘We can do this.Youcan do this. You’re Daisy fucking Carter.’
He was right. I was. I gritted my teeth and plunged down, heading for the tunnel, my feet skidding on the sharp scree and shards of old bones that littered the floor. I slipped and slid several metres, barely registering the old claw marks on the walls. Then I turned a corner and suddenly there was enough natural light streaming down from a metre-wide gap in the roof of the cavern for us to see without the help of the magicked fire.
I caught a quick glimpse of passing clouds and felt the lastof the claustrophobic tension leave my body, then I focused on the flitting figures of Otis and Hester. They were zipping from side to side, doing everything they could to stay out of the path of the enormous creature in front of them.
It wasn’t a dragon; neither was it a fiend.
Hugo was already moving forward and I sensed the magic gathering in him as he prepared to attack. Now it was my turn to offer a reassuring hand. ‘It’s alright,’ I said. ‘I’ve got this.’
He must have heard something in my voice because he relaxed slightly and turned to me. I smiled, only slightly nervous now, and stepped forward.
