Page 62 of Dragonbound

She didn’t react.

‘Skaldi,’ he spoke to the dragon. ‘What’s happening to her? You must be able to sense it. Emma,’ he tried again.

Erann pulled a fur from under him, ignoring the pain shooting up his leg, and flung it over her cold body. He could keep her warm. He didn’t know what else to do. Skaldi didn’t reply to his frantic questions.

He lay panting after his efforts. He reached for her forehead again. She remained cold. But breathing. What was happening? He heard a shush of noise. His eyes narrowed. He peered all around him, and then back at Emma. It came from her. Her lips were moving. He leaned closer, concentrating, trying to make out what she was saying.

‘Shield,’ she whispered, ‘shield,’ over and over again.

‘Did you hear that?’ He looked to Skaldi. ‘What does that mean?’

But the dragon remained absorbed in his thoughts, staring far off into the distance.

‘Skaldi,’ Erann called. ‘Did you hear that?’

Skaldi, he shouted in his mind when the dragon still didn’t respond.

Skaldi’s glowing eyes focused on him in surprise. Erann? Yes?

‘Emma keeps saying “shield”. What does it mean?’

Skaldi’s expression turned from one of confusion to one of deep concentration. Even in this short time, Erann had come to associate it with him listening to the thoughts of others. As Erann watched, comprehension dawned on the dragon’s face. He began to back out of the cave.

‘I have to get her home. She’s been outside the shield for too long. All that time she’s been with my kind, she’s not aged, and now she is, all in one go. I must get her home if I’m to save her. I’ll have to carry her.’

He extended a huge front claw and delicately picked Emma up.

Back to where? Erann asked, fear and frustration building within him. Emma was ill. Skaldi was taking her away. Sereh was gone. And he’d be left entirely on his own, unable to fend for himself.

‘Skaldi?’ he said aloud. ‘I don’t know how… I can’t even…’

But the dragon was moving carefully out of the cave, holding Emma high, so he didn’t jar her. He pulled his long neck out into the sun, then stretched his wings and, with a shuddering noise that could have set off another avalanche, launched himself into the air, gaining height incredibly quickly with cracking wings.

I’ll be back soon, stretched into Erann’s head. He kept in contact with Skaldi’s thoughts for as long as he could. Eventually, they faded and once more he was alone.

He felt reassured and then angry with himself. He was so bloody useless at the moment.

He lay back in his bed, feeling hungry and thirsty. It didn’t help that a tantalising aroma emanated from the cooking pot.

He considered what he should do. He needed to eat. He needed something to drink. Without Skaldi to dull the pain, he was acutely aware of it every time he moved, but it was much more manageable than before. He cast about for something he could use to help him walk. He found another length of wood – thicker and more sturdy than the last time he attempted it – and used it to hoist himself up. He was gasping with pain by the time he stood, but he felt a glimmer of hope. He could do this.

He spotted a second stick, a little shorter, and managed to pick that up as well. Balancing with these crutches, he was able to inch his way across the cave floor towards the campfire, urged on by the smells wafting from the cookpot.

Emma had left a flask of water and a bundle of the herbs on a flat rock – she must have been planning to make more tea before she’d taken ill, he thought guiltily. He poured a cup and added a handful of herbs. The tea was cold and bitter, but he drank deeply, knowing it would do him good.

He knocked the soggy bundle of leaves back onto the board, scooped a bowl of stew from the pot and ate hungrily.

Then he sank onto the floor.

He stoked the fire and added a log from a pile Emma had left, magicked out of nowhere. It blazed merrily.

Tiredness washed over him. He pulled a fur around his shoulders and allowed sleep to come.

He was alone. He was in pain. But he’d done it.

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ERANN