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Book of Dragons – Volume Four

Published in the United States by Double Dragon eBooks, a division of Double Dragon

Publishing Inc., Markham, Ontario Canada.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any

information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from Double

Dragon Publishing.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the

author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales

or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Double Dragon eBook

Published by

Double Dragon Publishing, Inc.

PO Box 54016

1-5762 Highway 7 East

Markham, Ontario L3P 7Y4 Canada

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com

http://www.double-dragon-publishing.com

ISBN-10: 1-55404-439-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-55404-439-9

A DDP First Edition April 10, 2007

Book Layout and

Cover Art by Deron Douglas

www.derondouglas.com

Chapter One

By the third week of their journey, the party of Oirat had made it through nearly

half of the deep mountain gorge called the Deguu Masiff. As the gradient of the ground

shifted beneath the waters of the Urlug, and the landscape began to drop into the

ravine, the river changed as well, growing faster and harsher. River banks became

narrow scraps of gravel-strewn earth, littered with large boulders and chunks of granite

that had tumbled down from higher elevations, or been carried by the swift currents of

tributaries during past springtime floods.

Early in the week, they had encountered their first true and apparent trouble on

the water. They had passed into a deep length of the ravine, a declination in the ground

gradient that was imperceptible to the eye, but which churned the water beneath their

boats into a violent, foam-capped torrent. While two of the boats managed to make it

ashore, escaping the rapids in time, the lead knarr was not as fortunate. The force of

the river’s sudden, brutal current had smashed the boat into a tangle of broken granite.

The planks of the hull had splintered with the impact, and men had been tossed into the

waves, their shrieks drowned with their forms by the rushing roar of the water. The boat

had been whipped about in the current, and they had been helpless to prevent it. Again,

it had slammed into rocks, the keel rending apart against the stone. The knarr had

shattered like a child’s toy fashioned of twigs, and the Uru’ut aboard had been swept

away by the river, dragged beneath the surface and lost.

This had left those who remained at a point of grave impasse.

“We cannot abandon the knarrs,” Aigiarn had said firmly.“We cannot take them

any further,” Toghrul had argued, his hands planted firmly against his hips. He had been

standing near her, and his voice had been sharp. She had lifted her chin stubbornly at

him, her brows narrowed, her mouth turned in a frown.

“We will tie lines to them and draw them by shore in the shallows,” she snapped

back at him. “And if that does not work, we will carry them somehow. We cannot

abandon them -- not until we reach the Hawr, where Juchin will have bergelmirs waiting

to help carry our supplies.”

They had followed Aigiarn’s instructions, and though it had taken them until

nightfall -- many long, grueling hours -- they had managed to haul, drag and wrestle the

remaining two knarrs past the channel of rapid water, into a stretch of river where the

current ran more predictably, and less violently.

This, then, had become their new routine. At least four times each day, they

would have to disembark from the knarrs and lead them by rope, hand over fist through

churning sections of rapids. The river did its best to lull them into false senses of

security, running at a maneuverable pace for several miles and then whipping

unexpectedly into foam-capped, furious water again.Yeb had suggested that those

among them with hiimori -- himself, Rhyden, Nala and Baichu -- could induce qaraqu

journeys, that they could send their ami sulds, or mind spirits, ahead of the knarrs to

survey the landscape and the flow of the Urlug. Aigiarn had immediately and firmly

rebuked this idea. All of the shamans, and even Rhyden, had found trouble since their

encounter with Mongoljin. Their uthas had difficulty in reaching them; even Trejaeran

only seemed to be able to visit Rhyden in dreams, as though all of the spirit guides were

being deliberately kept from them.

“It is as though a shroud has been drawn over us,” Yeb had remarked. He had

seemed troubled by this turn of events, but not alarmed.“The Khahl would keep us

blind,” Nala had said, her brows furrowed. “They would summon all of their strength to

keep our uthas from us.”

“Perhaps,” Yeb had said, glancing at her. “Or perhaps the Tengri simply mean for

us to learn from this, to rely upon our own eyes and senses, and not those of the uthas.”

I know what it is, Trejaeran had told Rhyden in a puzzling and somewhat

disturbing dream. Trejaeran had offered no other explanation than this, and he had

smiled at Rhyden, his form faint, like a shadow waning in a sunbeam. Do not be

frightened. Yeb is right -- it is a shroud. But it is meant to protect you, not blind

you. Aigiarn feared that Mongoljin or the Khahl shamans were to blame, although there

seemed no other indication of buyu against them by the Khahl save this, and Aigiarn did

not want to risk weakening the hiimori they had among them with such a task.

She had made her decision, and Yeb had not questioned her. He had merely

glanced at Rhyden as Rhyden had directed his thoughts into the shaman’s mind.

She is wrong, Yeb. Trejaeran told me it is nothing that will harm us. I believe him.

As do I, Yeb replied. But there is wisdom in her words, Rhyden. Even if it is not

Mongoljin or the Khahl doing this to us, they are far from through with their efforts. That

they have not tried anything else so far disturbs me more than Ogotai’s silence or this

shroud-like shadow that seems to have descended on us. Aigiarn is right -- we will all

need our strength for when they come again. The Oirat learned in short measure other

methods to detect changes in the river’s current. Most conversations on the knarrs had

been restricted, as every man and woman trained their ears upon the water, listening for

the muffled roar of approaching whitewater. Rhyden and Baichu had proven particularly

helpful at this; he was Elfin, and by this grace of birth, his hearing was sharply acute,

while she had been blind long enough to have come to rely almost exclusively on her

nose and ears for any sensory perceptions her utha could not provide her. Between the

two of them, one at each prow, Rhyden and Baichu could glean the sounds of rapids in

the distance from nearly a quarter-mile away, even when no one else could detect

them.

They made it three days at this creeping pace, following the river currents for

several miles before having to cross miles further by land, drawing the knarrs through

the calmer shallows with them. By late afternoon of that third day, Toghrul and seven of

the Kelet scrambled up a slope of crumbled granite and loose stone left behind after a

flood, their ropes stretched taut between their fists, their brows drawn, theirs faces

twisted with grim determination as they hauled one of the knarrs. Midway up the slope

of rubble, the heel of Toghrul’s gutal settled on unsteady rocks that shifted and yielded

beneath his weight. He yelped, startled, feeling the stones beneath his feet move

suddenly, and then he spilled, his knees buckling beneath him. He turned loose of his

rope and fell hard onto his rump, spilling sideways and tumbling as the mound of earth

fell with him. He landed hard against the riverbank, rocks and loose granite hunks

spilling about him, smacking painfully against his shoulders.

“Toghrul!” he heard Temu cry, his voice shrill with alarm.

“Toghrul!” Aigiarn cried, running toward him, turning loose of her own rope.

“Toghrul -- ayu ci jobaqu?” Are you hurt?

Sara Reinke - Tiralainn 03 - Book of Dragons Volume 04.pdf

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