Most of the torches were out when Kaz groggily opened his eyes. At first, he wasn’t sure what, exactly, had disturbed him. Then he felt something move against his chest, and he was suddenly wide awake.
A soft, inquisitive chirping sound was followed by a faint crack, exactly like an eggshell breaking. Kaz sat bolt upright, clutching his wriggling pack, and his eyes darted around the area. He was surrounded by huts, and Raff lay nearby. The large human’s eyes were still closed, but there was a crease between his eyes, and he shifted restlessly. He was a warrior, and while his sleeping mind had probably marked Kaz as ‘not a threat’, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t wake at least enough to be certain.
Silently, Kaz scrambled to his feet, slinging the pack around to his back in spite of his wild urge to simply open it and see what was going on inside. He lifted his nose, sniffing deeply, and scented Katri to his left. He didn’t want to see his sister, so he turned and began making his way between the huts in the opposite direction, trying to find the outer edge of the village.
Soon, he smelled the sweet, clean smell of water, and his sharp ears picked up the sound of quiet dripping. It was steady, which indicated a good source of water, explaining how the Longtooths had managed to stay in one place for so long. Water was rare up here, mostly found in silent, ancient pools which refilled in long years that could easily add up to centuries.
Kaz pushed a little power into his nose. He had to strain to do it, which surprised him, since usually it built up enough overnight that he needed to find a patch of lichen or a cluster of mushrooms to dump it into when he went out to forage. Turning his strange extra ‘sight’ within himself, he saw that the thread leading from his core to the egg was much thicker now, throbbing in time with his pulse.
Strangely, a second, finer ribbon had appeared as well, and he felt a faint chill run down his spine as he realized that two things in his pack seemed to be feeding on him. He had wanted to get rid of some of his excess power, but he wondered what would happen if he simply… ran out.
For now, however, he had enough to do what he needed, and all the aromas that filled the camp snapped into sharper focus, including the scent of water. He followed it, curling his toes to prevent his claws from clicking on the stone, and soon found himself walking down a narrow passage that had been nearly hidden by huts.
He hesitated at the next turning. One passage smelled like it probably led to the tribe’s food stores, and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since sometime yesterday. How he hadn’t noticed before, he wasn’t sure, but now his stomach growled at him fiercely. He resisted, however. Taking more than your share of the tribe’s resources was a good way to get in a lot of trouble, and he had no idea how much an almost-grown male pup should get in the Longtooth tribe.
Quickly, he moved toward the sound of water. He was close enough that he didn’t need the trickle of power he had been feeding his nose any longer, so he released it with a sigh of relief, and it was immediately shunted back into the vibrating cords disappearing into his pack.
Soon, he found the source of the water-sound; a large, open pool with a delicate crystalline waterfall dropping into it from a cracked stalactite above. It was lit by the ephemeral glow of one of the largest colonies of glow-worms he had ever seen, and the water actually moved with the tiniest of waves pushed out by the droplets. Kaz just stared, captured by the beauty of it all. Water in the mountain was nearly always still, silent, and dark as the stone over which it laid. His fingers itched for his chalk, but that was hidden away in the bottom of his pack, and there were other things in there he needed to look at first.
Glancing to the side, he saw a rock that protruded up higher than the ones around it, and swung his pack from behind him. Setting it on the rock, he tugged at the drawstring, opening it wide.
“Phweep!”
Kaz jumped back, barely managing to restrain a yelp as a tiny, scaly mouth snapped at his nose. A row of teeth as sharp as his own barely missed him, and the bag rocked as the little creature inside thrashed. It wasn’t quite strong enough to knock over the flat-bottomed pack, and the indignant whistles and growls from inside almost made Kaz laugh.
Except that the creature making those sounds was, without a doubt, a dragon. There was a baby dragon in his pack, and it was clearly unhappy about that fact. Kaz took a tentative step closer, reaching his hand out for the mouth of the bag.
Snap. The little mouth latched onto the string that tied the pack shut, and a reptilian head the size of his thumb shook as the creature worried at it, shaking it like a pup with its first bone.
“There,” he mumbled, almost smiling. “I can make another cord, but it’s harder to grow a new finger. Impossible, actually.” Tentatively, he reached out, and the little dragon hissed at him, dropping the strip of leather and eyeing him with golden eyes that seemed too large for its tiny head. His hand froze in midair as he was caught by that swirling gaze. Hazily, he realized that he hadn’t quite been right about their color. They were mostly gold, but they churned with flecks of black and white that seemed to spin, growing larger and larger as he leaned in until sharp teeth latched onto the end of his nose.
Now he did yelp, jerking back, an action which pulled the rest of the dragon’s long, slim body from his pack. Reaching up, he did what he would have done if a fuergar managed to get hold of him, and pinched the sides of the dragon’s jaws tightly. Instantly, it released him, dropping into his hands, where it stilled, looking up at him with its head tilted to the side. A forked tongue flicked out, licking a drop of his blood from its lips.
Another drip of blood fell from his nose, and the hatchling licked that up as well, then opened its mouth, clearly asking for more.
“You’re not getting any more of that, you little beast,” Kaz muttered, cautiously shifting the dragonling to one hand, so he could try to staunch the flow of blood with the other. The dragon’s teeth were sharp, but they were small, and it didn’t feel like the injury was too bad.
“Here,” Kaz said, tucking the dragon against his chest as he gave up on his nose. The dragon instantly began chewing on his fur, making tiny growling sounds as it tugged. Wincing, he grabbed his bag, digging into it. There were crumbled pieces of dragon shell and remnants of whatever goo was inside eggs… and very little else. Well, a few scraps of the thin leather that had been wrapped around the jerky he had taken to eat for breakfast over a day ago. Even his chalk was gone!
He was happy when his fingers found the inedible shape of his fire-striker, then frowned again when he touched something slimy and covered in dust and tiny shell particles. It was stuck to the pouch Rega had given him, which still contained the lumpy shapes of the objects inside, though it looked like the dragon had chewed on the bag itself more than a little.
He pulled the bag out and pried off the sticky lump, examining it as the hatchling cheeped peevishly in his embrace, trying to eat through his fur with ever greater enthusiasm. Inside the chunky, viscous coating, the thing was hard, and thin threads of some fibrous material seemed to be attached to it. He tried to think what it could possibly be, and finally remembered the soft, delicious-smelling thing he had picked up at the same time as the dragon egg. He had meant to investigate it further, especially since it, too, seemed like something he could use to get rid of some of his power, but he hadn’t had a chance.
And the dragonling had eaten it. All except for this part, whatever it was. It must have been too large or too hard for its little teeth to break. He shook his head, eyeing the greedy little dragon. “You already ate everything I had,” he told it, and it clicked angrily, snapping its sharp teeth at his nose.
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Kaz looked around. “I guess I can at least get you some water. You must be thirsty, too.” He snuggled up the hatchling again, and it immediately started ineffectively biting at him as he walked the few steps to the water’s edge. The little tugs almost tickled, until it actually managed to pull a clump of fur free. He grimaced, setting the dragon down on the stone beside the pool.
He yanked his fingers away from the pointy teeth, then turned away to rinse the gooey shell-bits from the sticky lump he’d found in his pack. The stuff was like glue, but he eventually managed to scrape it all off, and glanced over to see if the hatchling was drinking.
It was gone.
Frantic, he looked around. He was certain he would have noticed if it had run off. Its little wings were too small to lift it, surely? Though he’d seen its brothers and sisters fly within a few minutes of hatching, so maybe he was wrong.
He felt a strange tug deep behind his bellybutton, and looked down. He fed a bit of power into his eyes, and the world changed. The light of the glow-worms was magnified; golden flames edged with impossibly black light. The water glimmered with that same obsidian luminescence, and within it, he caught a glimpse of gold, flickering and close to going out. Looking down, he saw that the cord leading from his belly to the dragonling now trailed into the water, and realized the tiny creature must have fallen in. How foolish could he be? Yes, it was a dragon, but it was also a baby, and he had left it beside open water!
Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped into the pool, gasping as the cold shocked his body, soaking through his fur. Bubbles streamed behind him as he dove, chasing that faint thread, even as he tried to force more power down it. Could he keep the dragon alive simply by feeding it more of his own strength? He kicked his legs, distant memories of his father teaching him to swim in some nearly-forgotten lake resurfacing, reminding him how to control his movement.
His outstretched fingers latched onto a cold, limp shape. Only its scaly surface and a jump in the connection that flowed from his core told him that he had found the hatchling. He rolled, thrashing, lungs aching as he tried to figure out which way was up. His eyes only found blackness, but that other sight locked onto the golden glimmer of the glow-worms, and he kicked, fighting his way toward it.
When his head breached the surface, Kaz gasped, pulling precious air into his lungs as he lifted the dragonling out of the water. His legs were growing weak, but he forced them to move. He realized he couldn’t see the shore, and through his exhaustion, a sudden fear stabbed at him. He could drown only ten or fifteen feet from safety, never realizing it was there.
Another tug at his belly made him spin, his arm pushing the water out of his way as he looked toward the thread of golden light vanishing into the distance. Not far, but not near, either. He focused, seeing the miniscule strand that led away from his core, through the water, toward the light. He draped the limp dragonling around his neck, making sure its head was above water, and swam.
It was the thing he had taken from his pack. Whatever the object was, it was connected to him as surely as the dragon was, and he had left it on the shore after washing it. As he dragged his soaked, trembling body out onto the rock, he picked up the no-longer-sticky thing and placed it beside the little dragon.
Which wasn’t breathing. The thin, fragile ribs were still, and the hatchling’s mouth was open, its tongue lolling over the sharp teeth.
“No,” Kaz whimpered. He looked at the thread that linked him to the small creature. It was still there, but so, so faint, and all its rich, golden color was fading to white.
Reaching out, Kaz rolled the dragonling over and pressed gently on the narrow ribcage. He forced more and more of his own strength down the flickering cord that tied them together, feeling his heart stutter in his chest as he did so.
He needed more. It was a strange thought, since always before he had wished the power gone. But now, he needed more of it, and there was no way to get it. The power simply came, forming in his own core, then pushing out through his body until he was so full that he had to expel it or have it overflow uncontrollably.
But if he could push it out, perhaps he could also pull it in? He was surrounded by energy, after all, though he could no longer see any but the faintest trace of it, since he had already given the little dragon the power he had been sending to his eyes.
Still, he knew it was there.
For the first time in his life, Kaz truly examined his own power. There was only a trickle of it left, and it flowed sluggishly along streams that ran from just below and behind his bellybutton, up along his backbone, and he sensed it gathering again somewhere around his forehead. He reached up, pressing a finger to the spot, which was just above and between his eyes.
Here, the power turned, pouring back down in a current that traveled right behind his ribcage, along the front of his body, and back into his core. It was a full circuit, a cycle, and each time it passed through his core, it picked up speed and power, used that power along its path, and the remnants ended up back in his core again. If he used less than it put out, he would end up with the too-familiar excess, but at the moment he was using every bit, and still needed more.
He focused. If he sped it up, pushed the power through him faster, would that pull more power from his core? Refresh it faster? The core itself blazed with light, and he could see that it was nowhere near depleted, it was just that the pathways within his body were too small, and the current too slow to carry as much power as he now needed. He didn’t even need to look outside himself, just make better use of what he already had.
Except that no matter what he did, he couldn’t force the stream to move more quickly. At least, not enough. The simple act of turning his attention to it had helped a little, but it felt like… It felt like there was a rockfall across a tunnel, preventing him from passing through. That image was enough to give him an idea.
He had to move the obstruction out of the way. Throwing caution to the wind, he pushed at it, forcing the pathways open, shoving at something that moved like the slow slime-creatures that infested the middle levels of the mountain. He felt a tearing sensation, like something deep within him had come free, and then he coughed and vomited up a stream of black, stinking bile, barely managing to avoid splashing the hatchling or the water.
Power coursed through raw, open channels within him, sending waves of pain that threatened to make him curl up into a protective ball around his core. He had no time for that, though. He had already wasted enough time, the eternal moments spent staring into himself ticking away precious seconds of the dragonling’s dwindling life.
He turned his eyes on the little creature, lying limp and sprawled out on the stony ground, and saw that it, too, had a core and a tiny little stream that ran up along its back, paused in the forehead, and then tried to return down the chest and belly, back to the core.
Except that it couldn’t. The hatchling’s chest was filled with blackness, which absorbed all of its own power. Its little body was only still functioning because Kaz himself was shunting his strength into it, replacing what should have reached and cycled through the miniature core.
Kaz reached out again, but this time when he pressed on the dragon’s chest, he also pushed on the blackness. Remembering the foul stuff that had come from his own mouth and lungs, he tried to move it up, toward the gaping mouth.
The blackness shifted, and Kaz threw more power at it. The dragonling spasmed, its little body curling up the way Kaz’s wanted to, and black water poured from its mouth. There was far more than should possibly have fit inside the tiny creature’s lungs, but Kaz kept pushing until every last bit was clear, and the cycle of power flowed smoothly again.
Except…
Kaz frowned. There was a… blotch, in its head. Right at that spot between the eyes, where the power swirled and gathered before returning to its core, darkness clung, faint but insidious. Kaz prodded it, and the little body squirmed, but he somehow knew that that blockage wasn't supposed to be there, and, stubbornly, he pushed again.
His own vision grew dim as he pulled more and more power from his core, forcing his own cycle to speed up in response, until there was a nearly audible pop and the black spot tore, spinning apart into something that almost looked like the trailing lines of one of the runes Katri had taught him. The strands were caught up in the stream of power flowing through the dragon, and it coughed again as they reached its mouth, spewing out another clot of foul goo.
As he toppled to the side, Kaz pulled the limp but rapidly warming body of the dragon against his chest. He felt the hard lump of the rock-like thing that had been inside the squishy oval he’d found in the dragon nest. It pressed against his back, greedily drawing in more power from his newly increased capacity. The hatchling did the same, though it didn’t look like it was conscious yet, and Kaz was distantly glad that he now seemed to be producing enough power that even the demands of the dragon and the pseudo-rock weren’t draining him dry.
No, if anything, the dragonling pulling from his chest, and the rock pulling from beneath his spine were making the spin even faster, gathering more and more power from the seemingly inexhaustible well in his belly. The spinning grew, gold and black and white and red and even a gleam of deep blue, until the world vanished as he sank into unconsciousness.