Page 154 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
“Are you all right?” came Lord Wellington’s concerned voice.
“Yes. I am near them now. My awareness is. I sense Lydia’s ferretworm, and the firedrake.” The burning presence approached a wyvern in brilliance. “Lydia has not bound the drake, but she is… caging her. The method is unpleasant.” Sheets of oily black swirled around her.
“Can you see through the drake’s eyes?”
“I dare not try. Lydia would sense me. But there is a feral draca nearby. Very dim, which happens when they are asleep.”
I gave a prod. The awareness sparked into light, and a draca’s exact senses filled my mind. But not vision. This was touch—cool earth, flecks of clay, edges of rock. An open tunnel that I sensed without sight, descending with twists to skirt large rocks. The scalding heat of day was screened by a few inches of insulating earth above my head.
I gave a breath of laugh as I realized. “A tunnelworm. Underground. But maybe he will take a look for me.” Already, he was scrabbling upward with remarkable speed.
Light flooded. By reflex, I mimicked his blink against the brightness. My eyes had been closed, so that just added a confusing second image until I shut them again.
Lydia’s corrupted silhouette was visible. The revulsion of the tunnelworm spilled into my own body, vile in my stomach. I guided his eyes in another direction and blew out a relieved breath as the sensation faded.
“There is a wagon… and many people—” I stopped as a hand brushed my side. My real side, not the tunnelworm’s. I heard a crunch. “Was that you?”
“Pardon me.” Lord Wellington’s voice was strained. “How many people?”
“It is hard to judge… draca do not see like we do. More than twenty. Oh.” My voice choked.
“What is it?”
“Mr. Darcy,” I said in a small voice. “I see him. He is alive.” My relief was so intense that it hurt, as if my heart had been so tightly bound that it lost feeling, and now each joyous beat drove out a stab of stale fear.
“I think you had best stop now.” Lord Wellington sounded strange.
“I may be able to recognize Miss Darcy—”
“Stop. We have little time.”
I pulled my awareness back, took a breath to settle myself, and opened my eyes.
Two feet in front of me, a gentleman’s penknife stood vertically in the ground. It had skewered a foul crawler six inches long.
I remembered a hand brushing my side. “Was thatclimbingon me?”
“I am afraid so. I neglected the obvious risk that your sister would have a similar ability to use crawlers as sentries. We are discovered. You must take your horse and ride for the Briton village. I will stay to slow their pursuit.”
I was having trouble dragging my eyes from the myriad, twitching legs. “Certainly not. It was inevitable that I confront Lydia. I will simply do so without surprise. Perhaps you should go—” I looked at him and stopped.
Lord Wellington’s jaw was corded in pain. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. On his shaking wrist, I saw the discoloring, twin punctures of a crawler sting.
“I am in no condition to ride,” he said through clenched teeth. “I will be done for soon enough. You must run. They may yet free Darcy.”
“No. The Britons can treat this! They have draca essence—”
A man in an ill-fitting English uniform stepped out of the brush, his musket leveled at me. Another emerged and pressed the barrel of his pistol against Lord Wellington’s temple.
51
A CHOICE OF DESTINY
Why does a draca bind?
The men marched us uphill. When Lord Wellington’s steps faltered, a man struck him with the butt of a musket, then half-dragged him.
We entered a meadow. A brook splashed through the tufted grass. At least forty armed men were scattered in disorderly clumps. Two wagons waited, the grass heavily rutted by their wheels.
