For the next several days, all Valen could focus on was helping Layne. He knew that his sister and the others were being held by the Blackscale Knights, and that Raenelir had been taken by them as well, but he also knew that he would never be able to help them on his own. He needed Layne. That meant taking the time to help get her back to at least some semblance of decent health.

Thankfully, her horse carried enough supplies to keep them fed and warm for a while. At first, Valen was worried that they might have to deal with hungry predators up here in the mountains. Then he realized, after none showed themselves, that every other animal in the Drake’s Tail was probably in hiding right now with so many dragons about. It only made sense that none of them would show themselves, even at the prospect of food.

Though he hated attributing any kind of blessing to the riders, he supposed that it was, in the end, a small blessing that they were able to avoid that additional danger.

Layne’s horse kept itself fed out and around the cave, though she seemed to sense the danger in the air as well and so never strayed too far from the relative safety their temporary shelter offered. Every once in a while, Valen pulled out one of the apples that he discovered Layne kept in her saddlebags and would feed the horse bits of them to keep her happy.

The fruit would not last long, though, and he knew it.

Thankfully, to say that Layne was strong would be an understatement. While her wounds seemed fairly serious when she had first found him, he quickly realized it was her wounds combined with her sheer exhaustion that had caused her to collapse the way she had. After that, it had been easy enough to bind her wounds and stop the bleeding, though the gash to her side had been a bit more difficult to deal with. Luckily his time spent working with wounded wyverns allowed him to adapt his skills and dress that properly as well, leaving only the fever that followed to deal with.

With their lack of medicine, it would have been dangerous if it had been much worse that it was. By the blessings of the Four, however, she never got too hot. He was able to fight the fever by wetting one of their blankets with the cold water of a nearby stream – which he had gone searching for the very evening Layne had found him – using it to try and cool her down as much as possible.

He was forced to remove her cloak and armor, though he was careful not to do anymore than that. Even if it would not have been awkward, she still would probably want to murder him for just as much as he had already removed. In the end it didn't matter; the wet blanket and the chill mountain air were enough.

After a few days of fever it subsided, and Layne began to rest more easily.

He was worried by the fact that she had not regained consciousness since she first fell from her horse, but her breathing had grown steady and she no longer looked like she was experiencing pain as she had been the past days. Now, he was left to try and figure out what his next move should be once the ranger woke up.

Though his own tracking skills were not exactly up to par, it wasn't difficult to keep track of the riders that had begun regularly patrolling the area. Due to the rising of the sun, he knew they always came this way from somewhere South and West, and then went back that same direction once they had flown as far as their patrol route seemed to lead them. He knew who they were looking for – he was the only one left, aside from Layne. They had to know now that he was in the mountains as well, after finding Raenelir, as they knew what the Highborn looked like thanks to his time in chains in Lakevale. Once they had gotten him back to wherever they were basing their search from, he doubted it took very long for them to realize the wyvern was the one Valen's party had been travelling with.

Thankfully, in the rush of the fight with the Ridgeback the other day, it seemed as though the dragon riders had not been able to tell what direction Raen had come at them from. Although they came back this way a couple of times in a heavier sweep of the area, they never noticed the cave hidden at the base of the spires.

It was one of the few mercies he experienced during this period of waiting.

A couple of times, after ensuring that Layne was safe and secure in the cave, he waited for riders to appear and tried to follow them back towards wherever it was they were returning to. He simply was not fast enough to succeed, though, not to mention he did not want to risk getting lost. If he was not able to get back to the cave where Layne still slept, who knew what might happen to the both of them?

Still, he was able to figure out that they seemed to be flying in the direction of the highest peak he could see in any direction, a giant mountain that towered over any of its siblings in the Drake’s Tail. It stuck out to him even more, however, because towards its summit the rock seemed to turn black. It wouldn't have bothered him so much except that it seemed unnatural, a sudden change that should not have been.

The unnatural mountaintop served as a recognizable enough landmark for him to remember and so he was able to refocus on simply helping Layne recover.

It went on like this for several more days until, finally, Valen was shaken awake, his eyes opening blearily as he tried to register what was happening. Then he saw Layne there, standing over him back in her armor and cloak and looking like she was ready to kill.

“Where are they?” was all she asked.

It was all that she needed to ask.

----------

After she learned how long she had been unconscious, and that Raenelir had been taken by the riders as well, Layne tucked into a meal from what remained of their supplies – she had not had anything but water since she found him, after all – and then they packed up their things in her horse’s saddlebags and were off.

Valen was grateful that neither of them were too heavy, because they had to share a single horse riding through difficult terrain. They avoided directly taking the main road, though they kept it in sight as they headed toward the mountain he had told Layne the riders always seemed to return to. The going was slower than either of them would have liked, but there was not much they could do about it.

As night fell on their first day away from the cave, the duo prepared to make camp. Layne, though she had regained much of her strength, had not fully recovered just yet. Valen went about setting camp to the best of his ability, though it was a crude set-up.

That was when he came to the unfortunate realization that they only had a single tent to use. He resigned himself pretty quickly to the fact that he would be sleeping out under the stars for the night, though, as there was no question as to who needed better sleep. Layne’s strength had to be fully recovered if they were going to have any chance to save the others.

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Of course, there was also another, much darker possibility, but Valen refused to think about that.

'They're alive… they have to be.'

Since they wished to avoid detection by the dragon riders they could not risk a fire, but thankfully it wasn't too freezing this night. Once things were finished, Valen sighed and moved over to sit against a tree. They would not have a sentry, which might be dangerous, but even more dangerous would be trying to take on the Blackscale Knights while sleep deprived. So with that option looking worse than the no sentry choice, he resigned himself to it and tried to get comfortable against the tree, pulling his hood up to act as just a bit of cushion for his head while using the rest as a blanket.

“Valen, what are you doing?” Layne asked him. Confused, he turned to look her way and noticed the ranger staring at him like he was an idiot.

“What do you mean? I’m getting ready to sleep,” he told her, though he did not understand how she could not tell. Shaking her head, she gestured to the tent.

“I mean, what are you doing out here? You need decent rest just as much as me. We’ll share the tent,” Layne replied. Immediately Valen felt his face turning red. Sharing a tent, with Layne? No, there was no way. The thought made him beyond embarrassed. Unfortunately, Layne seemed to understand what was behind his reaction, because she started laughing.

Layne! Laughing!

“Oh please, Valen,” she began, after recovering enough to catch her breath, “you can’t expect to sleep out here, totally exposed to the elements and without even a blanket. You managed alright in the cave because we could have a fire there, and it was covered. But out here, you could easily get sick. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I would never think of you that way, anyways. You don’t have to worry about me… trying anything.”

As she finished, Layne broke into another fit of laughter, though this time it segued into a bout of coughing that immediately pushed Valen from irritation to concern.

“Are you alright?” he asked, coming to her side as if to try and help somehow. She held out a hand in his direction, however, stopping him in his tracks.

“I’m fine. It’s just… taking a bit longer than I would like to get better. But I’m sure you know that already. So come on, let’s just get some sleep,” the ranger responded. At this point, Valen knew there was no point in trying to argue the point, not to mention that he did not want to keep Layne awake because of an argument over something so foolish when she needed rest so badly.

Instead he waited for her to enter the tent first, then followed her in. He kept himself from groaning as he entered, seeing already that it would be a tight squeeze for the both of them. As if he needed yet another reason to feel awkward about all of this. Still, Layne did not seem to care at all, simply lying down and turning to face the wall of the tent.

“Just lie down and go to sleep,” she said, already closing her eyes, keeping her cloak tight around her as well as a good half of her blanket. Valen would be sleeping without a pillow, but he had no issues with that; if he was going to be sleeping under cover, that was more than enough. He slipped off his boots and laid down, facing the opposite direction of Layne and slipping some of the blanket over him to keep warm.

He still felt so awkward, however, that he was sure sleep would not come for a while. Until the exhaustion hit, and he felt unconsciousness quickly take him.

----------

After that first night, Valen’s awkwardness at sharing a tent with Layne faded – they were usually so tired by the end of the day that neither of them cared much to even talk. It was not only because of the constant hours on end of riding through the mountains, however. It was also because of the only real change that came while the two of them searched for the riders’ base of operations. She began his training once again, though Layne was not able to be as physically hands-on as she had been previously.

She drilled him in the art of the sword every night for at least an hour, and he threw himself into it now with an abandon far beyond what he had managed before.

Even when he had sworn to give his all in training, he still had not felt such a major, immediate need to learn how to fight. Now he had people and wyverns relying on him to save them. He could not afford to fail.

His progress over the next week was explosive, or at least he felt as if it was. They knew they were heading in the right direction, at least, as Layne was able to confirm that herself after seeing multiple dragon riders in the skies overhead and tracking the general direction they tended to fly in. She explained that although when they flew out from the black peak – which she called the Dead Mountain – the riders seemed to be flying everywhere, they always went back the same way, which was proof enough that she could safely deduce they were basing their movements out of a location near the Dead Mountain, as Valen had thought.

They had time to talk during the day, at least, and he was able to learn a few things over the course of their conversations together.

One: Layne had no idea how the Empire had known they would be in Crove. Usually they would have logically assumed that someone trying to cross into Manidar would take the same route as anyone else, and they would have sent riders that way to stop them. Instead, almost the entire Blackscale Order had been sent East in pursuit of them, and she did not like it.

Two: there was a very strong chance that the others were still alive, thankfully. From what Layne told him of Velitarii, one of his preferred methods of entrapment involved live bait. The Blackscale Knights were some of the Emperor’s primary enforcers, especially on this side of the Divide, so they were one of the Orders the Iron Watch knew the most about. It was enough to know that Velitarii enjoyed the torment he inflicted through the use of captives on enemies of the Empire.

The thought of that sent shivers down his spine.

The third and final major piece of information: the High Lord of the Blackscale Knights was as proud and arrogant as he was devious, and they could use that against him.

That and surprise were the only advantages they could make use of now. Valen had to hope that would be enough for them to be able to free Raenelir, Hera, Aevra and the others. Either way, would have their answer soon enough... because on the ninth day after setting out from the cave to try and locate the Imperial camp, just before nightfall, they crested a ridge and looked down into a space located between three different mountain peaks, with the Dead Mountain looming forebodingly as the far tip of the triangular valley.

Within the valley was a sprawling mass of tents, arranged in a wide square around a large empty space at the center, where Valen saw to his horror dozens and dozens of cages full of captive wyverns. Worse yet, the bodies of others lay in burnt piles outside of the camp with dragons all around, some flying, some walking, some even sleeping. All while a single, massive tent took up the center of the encampment, with a massive dark shape lying behind it that made the other dragons look tiny.

Agrathor, the dragon Patriarch of the Blackscale Knights.

“That is not good,” Valen said. Layne grunted in agreement, and to see the mixture of resignation, surprise and even a bit of fear on the almost always stoic ranger’s face did help his uneasy stomach.

“No, it's not,” Layne agreed, before motioning for Valen to slide out of the saddle. She followed closely behind, rolling her shoulders in anticipation once she was done and reaching into her saddlebags to pull out her quiver, the ranger’s bow already slung across her back. Though she was still not quite back to perfect health, she was certainly strong enough now to be a danger to their enemies.

Valen was glad for that, at least. He had no idea what he would have done without her help.

“Alright Valen, it looks like we’re going to have to get creative here,” the ranger said, turning to look at him as if hoping he might have some idea of what to do. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he tried to think of something, anything they could do to make their rescue a success. It was going to be incredibly difficult no matter what, but…

Then, as his eyes roamed the encampment once again, he caught sight of the wyvern cages and something came to him. Something insane, but insane was probably the only thing that could help them now.

“Do you think you could get us through the main camp, to where the wyverns are being held?” Valen asked, turning to face Layne as he spoke to her. A light of understanding sparked in her eyes, and then they widened for just a moment before settling back to their regular calm – a lie, given away by the small smile alight on her lips.

“I believe I can… what did you have in mind?” she responded, and Valen turned to look back at the riders’ encampment one last time.

“Chaos. Lots of it.”