Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott

Author:Ellen Jensen Abbott [Abbott, Ellen Jensen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780761460886
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-01-06T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

They headed northwest, as Vigar had instructed. Without talking about it, they had taken to traveling by day, eager to see the features of this new land. On the second day, they came to the torrent of a large river cutting its way south through gorges and stony beds. Abisina had never seen a river this large, and she stood transfixed by it, absorbing its power, its roar, its call. “The River Deliverance,” she said, sure that this was Vigar’s river. As if in agreement, the necklace at her throat glowed warm against her skin.

“It has to be,” Haret replied. “And it runs due north as your ghost said it would. Let’s go.”

But Abisina lingered by the river, head tilted toward the sky, eyes closed, ears filled with the water’s thunder.

Then she felt a shadow pass over, and Haret was hissing at her to stay silent and pulling her urgently toward the trees twenty paces behind them. When they reached cover, Haret stopped and looked skyward, his face tight.

Abisina followed his eyes as she put an arrow to her bow.

An enormous creature—terrible and beautiful—flew away to the west, sunlight glinting off its shiny wings. Its great head was balanced by a long, tapering tail whipping through the air behind it. Even from this distance, they could hear the rush of wings pumping up and down and the wind whistling through the spikes that marched from its head to the tip of its tail.

Dragon. The word came to Abisina with no prompting from Haret, a creature Sina had brought to life in countless stories by the fire. “Did it see us?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Either it didn’t—which would be very strange; they have sharp vision—or it’s not hungry. Either way, we are very lucky.”

Is it another sign? Abisina wondered. Like the minotaur?

“Are they—common?” she asked as she stared after the dragon, which had become indistinguishable against the rocky slopes.

Haret shrugged. “Not in the south. But I would have said the same about minotaurs, and now we’ve met four!”

“Will it come back?”

“We’d better stick to the trees for now.”

The dragon did not return, but Abisina glanced skyward whenever the tangle of brush, trees, and vines drove them to the riverbank. And she kept an arrow nocked, though she knew it would do little against the hide of a dragon. Then Haret discovered some wolf tracks: “the strangest wolf tracks this dwarf has ever seen—no front feet and back feet bigger than a large man’s. They shouldn’t be out much in the day, but keep that arrow ready, human,” he concluded, drawing his own axe.

Despite her fears, anticipation grew with each step. As they rounded bend after bend in the river, she expected to see Watersmeet before her. Neither of them knew what it would look like. Haret insisted that Watersmeet was underground, populated with survivors from the Obrun City. But Abisina disagreed.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” she insisted.

“The Obrun City was more beautiful than anything you’ve ever imagined!” Haret contended hotly.

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