The Waking Dragon by Isobelle Carmody

Author:Isobelle Carmody [Carmody, Isobelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89338-4
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

8

BY MIDDAY, THE scent trail left by the wolves on the Beforetime road had brought us around to the east to a humped line of mountains that Darga pronounced tainted. The broken road curved back to the north, but the wolves’ spore went east, so we left the road to toil up and down the hills, winding back and forth around what must be virulent patches of tainted ground. It was only when the sun was setting behind us over the high, dark spine of peaks to the west that we had our first sight of the Blacklands between higher peaks rising to the north and south.

All that day, the others had spoken eagerly of getting to a place where we would finally be able to see our way clear of the mountains. I had said nothing to their comments and speculations, knowing what awaited them. But I had forgotten how dreadful that vast darkness spreading out beyond the High Mountains was, or maybe the impact on me was magnified by the knowledge that we had to cross it. When we reached the zenith of the long slope we had been climbing, we found ourselves with a clear, if narrow, view to the east. Hopeless dismay rose in my heart at the sight of the grim black plain that ran away from the mountains to the horizon.

It was night already where ink-black shadow stretched out from the foot of the mountains, but beyond it, where the ruddy light of dusk still fell, there was no feature visible between the mountains and the horizon, save the occasional dim glimmer of a pool of water.

I tried to tell myself that it looked darker and bleaker cast over with the red of the setting sun, but I knew it would look a good deal more terrible when it was dark enough for the worst tainted ground to give off its distinctive greenish glow. The thought of venturing into that black and deadly wasteland suddenly seemed the maddest and most pointless thing anyone could possibly contemplate. How had the Agyllians imagined I should take others with me? They would die and I would stagger on alone, my body slowly devouring itself trying to find the strength to heal me until I fell, too. But even if I could cross it and find Cassandra’s key, how was I then to make my way to the Red Land to deal with Sentinel?

For some reason, I found myself envisaging the words Cassy had carved, translated into Fian’s spidery script.

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