Draxus Flameheart's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

Ashara's map showed the keep as a black square in the cliffs. It showed nothing else. No gates. No walls. No guards. Draxus tapped the parchment by her fire. "This gets us there. It doesn't get us in." Kerra leaned over his shoulder. "Charge blind and we walk into a trap," she said. "We need to see the keep before it sees us." Ashara snorted. She rose on old legs and crossed to a shelf. She lifted down a green crystal on a fine chain. It caught the firelight and glowed deep as river ice. "My mate used this to scout raiders," she said. "Hold it steady. Fix your mind on a place. It shows you what waits there." She pressed it into Draxus's palm. "But it takes a still hand and a still heart. You have neither." Draxus almost laughed. Then he saw her good eye was serious. He held the chain and let the crystal hang. He pictured the keep in the frozen cliffs. Nothing. His hand shook. His mind ran to the hatchlings, to the cold nights, to the hoard behind those walls. Kerra knelt beside him. "Breathe," she said. "Slow. Like you taught the young ones to feed." Her voice steadied him. He slowed his breath. The shaking stopped. The crystal went still. Green light spread across the longhouse floor. In it Draxus saw the keep. Ice walls, thick and sheer. One gate, iron-barred. He counted the figures on the ramparts. Six guards, spread wide. He watched them walk. Two crossed the wall, met at the gate, then turned back. The pattern repeated. There was a gap. Every few minutes the eastern wall stood empty. "There," Kerra whispered. "The east side. No one watches it for a breath." Draxus held the vision until his eyes burned. He traced a hidden stair below the eastern wall, cut into the cliff. A way up. A way in. The light died. Draxus dropped the crystal, gasping. Sweat ran down his black scales. But he had it now. The gate. The guards. The gap. The stair. "You saw it," Ashara said. It was not a question. "All of it," Draxus said. He looked at Kerra. "We don't charge the gate. We climb the east cliff during the guard change. We're inside before they know." Kerra smiled, but her eyes stayed sharp. "Six guards on the wall," she said. "How many inside? We saw the shell, not the belly." Draxus wrapped the crystal chain around his fist. The map had been a door with no handle. Now he had the handle. He knew the way in. Ashara caught his arm as he stood. "The stair you saw," she said. "My mate found it too. He never came back down." Her grip tightened. "They know their weak side, boy. A blind spot left open is bait." Draxus went still. The gap was real. So was the trap set beneath it.