***
Once they reached the border of No Man's Land, Ena saw the wind whipping the sand into a blizzard. If she could, she would have opted for staying in the trees that bordered the two regions, but she feared the phantom fae would want more concessions, or worse.
Frantic to get her people to safety, she yelled at them to keep going, to push the horses. They could rest as soon as they made it to the canyon. They had passed halfway through the desert-like area on the way to their destination when a sand serpent came out of nowhere. It wrapped its ugly sandy colored body around one of the wagons—the one that Bryan and Mark were managing. To their credit, neither hesitated to fight the creature. They both stabbed at it with their wickedly sharp, steel-bladed swords, but couldn't kill the beast as it lashed up and around at them. The deadly tail could whip around and crush them, or whip at them and kill with a single slash. Jacob and Ryker hurried to join the humans and with the four of them hacking and slicing, the serpent's head and part of its body stretched upward and started to swing around with its lethal teeth. But it was far enough above the wagon that Ena could now shoot a stream of fire in its direction.
Her red hot flames engulfed his head and part of his body, before he writhed and slithered off the wagon and into the sand where he'd die.
She shifted back to her human form and said, "Hurry, take the wagons to the path straight ahead. There, we'll be sheltered from the brunt of the sandstorm. But if we don't get there soon enough, we'll lose our way. And more of the serpents will come."
This time, she flew low, just in front of Ryker's lead wagon, trying to guide them from a higher vantage point because they were already losing sight of the salt cliffs, blending in with the buff-colored sand.
She heard Ryker shouting that he couldn't see her, and she whipped back around, and stopped the procession, though they could barely see anything for the sand blowing in their faces.
"Tie the wagons together!" she shouted, having to do so or she knew she couldn't be heard over the wind. "Don't lose your footing on the wagons!" She flew back to the last wagon, but Jacob's had vanished and him with it.
No! She flew around and around, trying to find him, but fearing she'd lose the rest of her wagon train and her people, she returned to Ryker and kept her tail within arm's reach of him, and again they moved.
She didn't think they'd make it. Several times she shot flames toward the canyons, just in case her people could see them in the sandstorm, and then the winds lost their strength. They had reached the salt cliffs and were sheltered somewhat. She shifted. "Everyone, get under the tarps to protect yourself from the storm until I return."
"What about you?" Ryker asked.
"Jacob is missing."
"You're going back for the treasure, you mean!" Bryan said. "You left Brett behind because of your hoards of treasure. Say what you mean."
"I'm going back for Jacob," she growled. "Get under the tarp, human!"
Then she shifted, tears in her eyes at now losing two of her people, and gaining two hateful fae seers instead.
"Be safe!" Addie shouted.
"Be safe!" the others of her group chorused, all but the two humans.
She smiled a little. She knew they would be even more trouble. But she hadn't seen just how angry they could make her, yet.
***
It was dark out when the sandstorm stopped, the howling wind now no more than a whisper. But Alton heard the sound of a dragon roaring. A mournful, desolate sound that swept across the desert and the blue lake below.
"Ena," Olaf said and hurried to join Alton at the entrance of the cave.
"She's lost someone or several of her people," Alton said, then shifted and soared above the desert, looking for her as his friends soon joined them. Aideen, too.
Aideen was the color of the sand, giving the impression she was quieter, neutral, and calm, which she was anything but when she was having a fit about something. Color wise, she did blend in well with the surroundings, which was probably why she stored her gold out here. She could fly low and barely be seen, as if she was one of the sand serpents on wing.
They heard another mournful cry and everyone turned and headed farther west, away from the forest to the east that bordered the desert region of No Man's Land.
He saw her then, fighting a sand serpent, but he didn't know why until he saw one of Halloran's wagons half buried in sand, listing to the side. No sign of any of her people though.
Had she lost them all? He prayed to the gods she had not.
He and the others dove toward her and fired off a kaleidoscope of flames, worthy of winning an award had they been in a fire-display competition. Her flames were white hot, indicating she was highly pissed.
The sand serpent shriveled into black ashes on top of the blond sand. She dropped onto the wagon and turned into her human form and shouted, "Jacob!" She tugged at the tarp, but all that was there was her gold and other treasures.
Alton dropped onto the wagon beside her and shifted. "Where are your other people?" he asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. "Ena, where are the rest of your people?"
She looked a little bewildered. Had she been flying in this storm all this time?
"Ena! Are they safe?" he asked, trying to get her to snap out of her stupor.
"In the canyon," she finally said.
"I'll take you there," Olaf said, and Alton realized he'd shifted and was standing there, too.
"No, I have to find Jacob," she insisted.
"All right. I'll check on your people," Olaf said. "It's not safe anywhere in No Man's Land."
"I'll go with him," Aideen said.
Ena nodded, then looked off across the desert.
"It looks like the wheel has been broken," Amerand said, digging at the sand to see why it was listing.
"Jacob is a wheelsmith," Ena said numbly.
Alton noted the worried looks on his friends' faces. He didn't think any of them had ever seen her so distraught.
"We're going to get you and the rest of your people safely to the hawk fae kingdom," Alton said.
"Maybe we can all carry the wagon," Kiernan said. "If we can take it to the canyon, we would be free of the sand serpents."
"Piled high with all that gold, I doubt it," Amerand said. "Unless maybe Olaf and Aideen could help."
"Jacob," Ena said.
Alton said, "Come on, let's try."
Everyone shifted but Ena. She looked so desolate, Alton feared she had mentally cracked. He knew dragons could lose loved ones and want to die with them. But he was surprised to see her reaction over a man who worked in the village. He wasn't even on her staff.
They tried to lift it, but Ena shifted and flew off, roaring for Jacob. They couldn't lift the wagon as dragons. They heard Olaf roar in the canyon.
Which meant they were having a fight on their hands. Alton shifted. "Go, help the others. I'm going after Ena."
"She'll be fine," Kiernan said. "But if the wagon stays here for long, and the sand serpents hear the horses' beating hearts, they'll come for them and kill them."
"So we leave the gold behind, take the horses with us," Alton said.
"Yeah."
"Maybe I can drive the wagon even on a broken wheel," Alton said, hating to leave her gold behind. It was totally a dragon obsession, but he and the others couldn't help themselves either. She had oftentimes risked her life to earn it, so it wasn't something he wished to see her lose. "Go, help the others. I'll try to move the wagon."
"Are you certain?" Kiernan asked.
"Yes, go."
Both Amerand and Kiernan flew off to help the others while Alton sat in the driver's seat and was about to shake the horses' reins to attempt this when he heard a low moan underneath the carriage.
"Jacob?" Alton asked, dropping the reins and peering over the foot rest. And there, tied to the undercarriage, Jacob looked more dead than alive. "I'll get you out, man. Don't die on me. Ena's falling to pieces because she thinks she's lost y
ou. And we're in dire straits here," he said, quickly untying Jacob. Alton wouldn't normally have told anyone about Ena's mental state, but if it encouraged the man to live, Alton would share anything with him. Just about. He helped him onto the buckboard. "Okay, now listen. You're a wheelsmith, and I'm not. So I need you to shake this off and get to work."
Jacob looked dazed and even so, he gave him a small smile.
Alton instantly liked the dragon fae. "That's the way. I'll let Ena know I've found you. You get to work on the broken wheel and then we've got to get out of here right away. The sand serpents will be stirring again soon."
He helped Jacob down from the wagon, hating how unsteady he seemed, a bloodied gash across his forehead.
"Here, I'll blow away some of the sand so you can work." Alton turned into a dragon and flapped his wings, sending the sand flying in all directions, but away from the broken wheel.
Then he let out a roar, calling to Ena, an exuberant victory roar that he hoped she would interpret that he had found Jacob.
He saw her then as a speck as she flew back toward them, but the horses began to whinny and he knew they sensed another sand serpent.
He began breathing fire, directing it at the sand all around the wagon and horses, melting it, turning it into glass. It wouldn't stop the serpents, but it would slow them down. They were used to plowing through granules of sand. They used some kind of vibration to avoid hitting objects buried underneath the sand, like the white granite cliffs or the trees bordering the sandy desert.
They would avoid the glass briefly, thinking it was like the granite, only it would send off a tinkling noise, so not like the thudding sound when their vibrations bounced off granite.
"I've almost got it," Jacob said, and Alton knew why so many in the village said he was the best wheelsmith there was.
Two sand serpents continued to weave in and out of the sand, hearing the horses' beating hearts, the dragon's, and the fae's. They probably scent-marked areas as many wild beasts did, and knew that this area had once been accessible to them. Most, might think the beasts were just mindless, but any that had dealt with them knew they weren't. They had families, and lived and worked and fought together.
Ena shot a white hot flame at a serpent headed again for the glassy circle. She could fire a shot farther than any of the other dragons and always won that competition. Jacob scrambled back on top of the wagon, but when he tried to move the horses, they couldn't for slipping on the glassy sand.
So much for Alton's brilliant ideas. He called out to Ena, and he showed her what he intended to do, lift the horse on the right side and she swooped in and did the same with the leftmost horse. Together, they carried them across the glassy area, then set them back down on the sandy soil. Jacob yelled at the horses to giddyup and they pulled hard to move them across the desert.
Alton and Ena tackled a sand serpent together and it felt good working with her as a dragon, not in just the way of contests, but in a life and death matter. She flamed the serpent's tail and when it came up to wail in pain, Alton got its head. It sank into the sand, and they both checked out Jacob's progress.
Alton and she worked well together he thought. And he hoped that maybe his finding Jacob and helping to save her wagonload of gold would make her realize just how perfect he was for her.
Jacob looked pale, mainly from the sand residue caked on his skin and hair. And he was tense and worried.
So was Ena as they saw flames shooting in the canyon and heard men and women screaming. But they couldn't go to their rescue while they were attempting to get Jacob and his wagon of gold to the canyon.
And then he saw what the trouble was. Baobhan sith, female vampire fairies—wickedly dangerous to the fae, but not so much to the dragons. Their white gowns flowed about them, making them appear almost angelic, their blond or brown hair whipping about like silk, their skin ice white, and green eyes catlike. Their snarl and vicious teeth destroyed the image of their being anything angel like.
The vampires lived here in No Man's Land in the mountains and passes, but also on Earth in Scotland in the Highland mountains and glens attacking travelers in the area. They moved fast, struck quickly, but as long as the dragon had a safe line of fire, he could torch the vampire and end her life quickly.
They finally got Jacob to the canyon. Alton and Ena helped to finish off the last of the vampires that had not fled the area fast enough, when they heard screams coming from the mountains nearer the ocean. None of Ena's people could have headed in that direction, could they have?
Ena stayed with her people, checking them over, while Alton and Olaf flew off to see who else was in distress.
A woman, dressed in men's breeches and a torn tunic, her feet and hands bandaged, the cloth bloodied, was clinging to a rock, unable to move up or down, and a man lay still on a ledge some ten feet below her.
Alton swooped in to grab the girl who released her hold on the rock just as she appeared to faint at the sight of him. Olaf went after the man, then picked him up in his talons and looked to see what Alton wanted to do. He hated to take them to the wagon train when they weren't out of danger yet, and bring these two into the fold. He saw they had no choice. Not with one man injured, and the woman in a dead faint and injured as well. And no one on the beach below who could help either the man or woman.
He swung his head around, indicating they needed to return to the wagons.
Olaf dipped his head in acknowledgment and flew beside him. When they reached the canyon, Ena had gotten her people to move again. Alton only then noticed the two humans on the one wagon and wondered where in the world she had managed to pick up a couple of more human servants. He set the girl beside Addie, who wrapped her arm around the woman. The man was dressed as a captain. Had to be a shipwreck. If they were griffin fae, they were not going to be happy that Alton and his friends would be taking them to the hawk fae kingdom. The dragon fae didn't care anything about the squabbles between the two kingdoms, but their involvement now couldn't be helped.
Aideen and Amerand flew toward the end of the canyon to see what lay ahead for them.
Ena was checking out the injured man. He stirred and Alton landed on the top of the treasure nearby to hear what the man had to say. Alton had it in mind that if the fae thought to fight Ena for taking him where they were going, Alton would protect her, even though he knew she didn't need his protection for that.
"Who are you? Where are you from?" Ena asked.
He looked dazed, blood dripping from the side of his head. "Captain Baldur of the Seaward Sprite." He glanced around a little, eyes wide, and tried to sit up, but groaned out loud.
"We have the girl. She's safe," Ena assured him. "Who is she?"
"Esmeralda." Then he closed his eyes and drifted away.
She tried to wake him again, but looked relieved that he hadn't died on her.
Alton shifted. "Why are those two with you?" he asked in way too gruff a manner. He didn't mean to sound so angry, but seeing the two humans on the wagon, he couldn't help being annoyed.
"They came along to help."
"Where is your prisoner?"
"With the phantom fae," she said, scowling. "They took him to help pay our toll."
Alton smiled a little, but quickly lost the smile when Ena looked so angry, that he recalled she'd had some fondness for the human and that had him seeing red.
Chapter 12
Brett went to the cemetery to watch his grandfather being buried and swore he saw a girl half hidden in the mist swirling around the headstones, her back bared in the low back gown, no straps or sleeves either and he wondered how her gown stayed up. Like the other phantom fae, her skin wore the intricate tattoos on her forehead, a slash of ink across her cheeks, and fancy designs down her back. He noted that all the designs were different for each of the fae.
She looked sweet, innocent, alluring. Her hair was copper-colored, some braided, some in long, thick loops of silky strands coiled against her back, a black rose fast
ened at one side. She appeared almost surreal. She glanced briefly at him, her brown eyes catching his gaze, her red lips parted slightly in surprise, and then she vanished.
He wanted to go to her, as if in that moment they had some kind of a connection—yet he'd never seen her before. He thought it was just the sight of such an exquisite creature in this dark cemetery that made him want to reach out, to touch her, to comfort her?
He wasn't sure why he felt so compelled to speak to her and learn more about her. But he did.
The full moon peeked through a gray stone archway leading into the cemetery, the grass oddly green around all the headstones. He then noted a raven sitting on a headstone, unafraid of him.
The raven tilted his head to the side a bit, the bird only showing its profile, his one eye watching Brett as the men dug a hole for his grandfather.
It was said that different kinds of birds brought messages from one plane of existence to another. That ravens were such a bird—carrying a word sometimes from the darkest recesses of the mind, or some other dark place in the world, and then taking that message into the light. They were considered powerful teachers of mystery and magic, heralds of change—at least according to the research Brett had done, concerning the symbolism of the raven in The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.
They preyed on the dead, yet that gave them life, and so by consuming the dead, they were transformed, casting away the old life and making a new one. Shapeshifters, some thought. They could mimic the calls of other birds, too. He didn't see the raven as a bad omen, as some did, but as a sign of change. He wasn't certain why, but the way the raven observed him, Brett almost felt the bird was allied with him in the way it stood so regally upon the gray headstone and didn't flee at his approach. He wondered if it had to do with this place, that it was a raven in a fae land, or something else.
The raven then turned to look at the site where Brett had witnessed the girl. He glanced in that direction, wondering if she'd suddenly appeared and caught the raven's attention. But there was no sign of her.