The Sword and The Mountain (Kathardra book 1)
The Forest

His tone was the final straw to the burden Lessa had been carrying the last several days.

“I did what you should have done!” She dropped the full height from Storm’s back, landing in a neat crouch before she rose to her full height and squared up with Zar, fully prepared to fight. “I helped that girl. I got her out, and I made sure they couldn’t follow her!”

“And how many people saw you, Lessa? How many people are going to report back to the king that a girl was seen riding a dragon here? How long before we have half the Kathardrean army and all of its bounty hunters on our backs?”

“Only one! Oh, and I threatened him. He’s not going to tell anybody what he saw!”

“You threatened him?” Zar scoffed, matching her yell for yell. “I’m sure that’s going to work just fine when Golathar is torturing his family!”

Lessa ground her teeth. She didn’t think of that. She glared at the ground and her shoulders slumped, submissive. She drew in a breath trying to calm herself, but sucked in the next one faster, and faster, working herself back up.

“No!” she yelled at him. “You don’t get to be mad at me for this! You brought me here!” She punctuated her words with a finger in his chest. “You brought me here to help your people! I didn’t ask for this, remember? And then when I actually start acting like the fire-blasted hero you want me to be, you get mad at me! No!”

“You are so flaming stubborn!” he growled back, “You aren’t here to save one person, you are here to save the entire Kingdom! How can we do that if we are being hunted? I have told you so many times to stay out of sight!”

“I’m not your subject, Lazaron! You can’t give me orders!” Lessa crossed her arms and very nearly stomped her foot.

“Full name, very poignant,” Worran said from the side.

“Shut up!” Lessa yelled at him.

At the same moment, Zar said, “Stay out of this.”

“You may not be my subject,” Zar said dangerously low. “But every single one of your actions affects the future of my people. I cannot let you take foolish risks.”

“It wasn’t foolish to prevent that girl’s life and body from being destroyed! It might not matter to you but don’t you think it matters to her? Hell Zar, don’t you think saving people like her will encourage them to follow you?”

His jaw worked hard as he glared at her. Lessa felt a victorious thrill.

“I didn’t say it doesn’t matter. But there are things more important. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

She yelled wordless frustration into the night sky. “Maybe I don’t care! Let the bounty hunters come, let him send his armies! I have a dragon!” Her words hung heavy over all of them, they seemed to echo back at her from the trees.

“Zar,” Worran broke the tension quietly. “As much as I’d love to see Lessa Snap, I think it would bring more attention than we need. We should probably leave, who knows how soon we’ll be followed.”

Zar turned away from Lessa to mount his horse. She realized for the first time they were all saddled. They must have gotten ready to leave the moment they realized she was gone.

Lessa turned back to Storm, she wanted to be alone. Or as close to alone as she would get with Storm.

“Ride Leo,” Zar said with a tight voice.

She glared at him with Narrow eyes, ready to once again tell him he couldn’t give her orders.

“We need Storm to keep a lookout, you can tell us if she sees anyone following.”

There was logic in that Lessa couldn’t refute. She climbed onto her horse and they tore out of their camp heading north.

They pushed the horses hard, alternating walking and cantering through the rest of the night and into the next day. They didn’t stop until well in the afternoon. They didn’t talk aside from Worran asking when they would stop.

Lessa was too tired and still too angry. There was no way she was going to apologize for what she had done. Every time she thought about the night before she felt herself mentally digging her heels in.

Had she not acted, she would have been haunted her entire life.

Maybe Zar was right about bounty hunters. But so be it. Show her the bounty hunter that could bring down a dragon, and then she would take that threat seriously.

They finally reigned in the horses when they were deep in a dark pine forest. “Let’s take a break here,” Zar said as he dismounted. At once he came to the side of Leo and looked up at Lessa. “I’m sorry.”

She flipped her leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she replied quietly. What she wasn’t sorry for hung unsaid.

He accepted with a small nod.

“You may be right.”

“Wait. Do my ears fail me?” Worran dropped from his horse and came toward them. “Lazaron, did you just admit you were wrong?”

Zar glared as Worran thrust his hands skyward and spun in a slow circle. Zar drew a slow breath through his nose, clearly willing patience.

“You are right, Lessa. I lost sight of why I have to take Kathardra back. I have been distracted by the means. I cannot forget the individual for the sake of the kingdom. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Her hoarded negativity melted away. All she could do was nod.

“This was just so great, for me, in particular.” Worran put a hand on each of their shoulders. “But can we go back to where Zar admitted he was wrong?”

Lessa brushed him off and set about unsaddling Leo, the poor guy had to be exhausted. He was so sweaty he had nearly soaked through his saddle pads. She rubbed him down with rags from her bags and picketed him to a tree so he could graze.

Just as she finished with Leo Storm dropped between the trees with the leg of a deer in her maw.

“Thanks, Storm,” Worran said as she dropped it in front of him. “All those years of training with my brothers to be a hunter, put to such great use”

“I would have thought you’d be grateful-” A scream cut Lessa off mid-sentence. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” Storm answered.

“Hear what?” Worran said as he cocked his head to listen closely.

“Lessa!” The voice screamed out.

It had been months, but that voice was written on her heart.

“Brody!” she cried out and bolted into the trees.

Both Zar and Storm called after Lessa but she didn’t heed either of them. Brody was in danger.

He screamed again, she swerved to the left to follow his voice. “Brody! I’m coming!” she shrieked out into the air. “Where are you?”

“Lessa! Help!”

“Stop!” Zar called out behind her.

“Brody!” She could see him now, he was hanging upside down from a tree. How in dragon’s beard did he-”

As soon as her hand came in contact with her little brother it was no longer Brody, it was a broken limb hanging down.

Frozen in place Lessa stared at the limb. But she had heard him.

She swiveled to look for her friends.

They weren’t there.

She hadn’t run that far.

“Storm?”

The silence was profound.

“Storm!” she yelled, “Zar! Worran!”

Nothing.

She was alone.

Lessa spun in a circle with her hand on her sword hilt. “Where are you?” Her voice cracked as she screamed into the wild.

She didn’t even know what direction she had come from. “Stupid, stupid,” she cursed herself.

She had to think. Lessa dropped to her rump to think of a plan.

Another scream had Lessa launching to her feet immediately. “Lessa! Help me!”

“Mom?” she asked the air.

“Lessa!” her mother called again. Lessa was running before she processed what was happening.

Her mother sounded so close, “Where are you?” she yelled as she ran.

“Help!”

How was she further?

“Mom?”

“I’m here!” she called out one more time.

There! Lessa could see her, she was in the middle of a clearing, and she was knees deep in mud, sinking quickly into the ground. Lessa slid to a stop just before her own feet entered the thick mud. Her mom looked at her wide-eyed, Lessa dropped to her stomach and reached her hand out. But the ground she fell on was solid, confused, Lessa looked back up at her mother to see the jagged trunk of a broken tree.

“What?” she breathed.

No, she had made eye contact with her. She was here.

On her butt, Lessa scooted away from the tree that had been an apparition.

Chest heaving with an effort to calm herself Lessa stared at the fractured wood.

“What is going on?”

It was not so long ago that Lessa’s mind had always been singular. But now she felt half herself. She had been unaware of how much she leaned on Storm’s presence even when they weren’t talking to each other.

“Lessa!”

“Oh no.”

She covered her ears and rocked forward and backward.

This was her father’s voice.

“It’s not real.”

“Help!”

“You aren’t real!” she yelled into the gaps between trees.

Again, his voice called, an indiscernible agony piercing the air.

“No!” Lessa jumped to her feet and bolted in the other direction. Feet pounded the ground soft with fallen pine needles, and her lungs began to burn but she did not stop. Something was wrong here. Something was giving her hallucinations. But she didn’t know enough about Kathardra to know what it could be.

She needed to find Zar, Storm, and Worran. They would know what to do. But how could she find them when she didn’t know if she could trust her own eyes and ears?

Mid stride something caught Lessa’s ankle, and her momentum sent her sprawling on the ground. She rolled and pulled her sword from its scabbard as she found her feet.

There was nothing. Of course.

Tightness stretched through Lessa’s chest and her heart beat wildly. A wave of dizziness washed over her.

“No. I can’t break down,” she forced herself to walk. It helped her heart regulate, but now she thought she would throw up.

“I’m probably getting more lost.” Her feet rooted mid-stride. Didn’t people always say if you are lost, stop and wait for help?

But another thought occurred to her. “If Storm could find me she would have by now. Whatever is happening here I have to figure it out.”

Her heart was still beating irregularly, she took a deep breath through her nose. And then several more. It wasn’t helping.

“I need a plan.”

They had been traveling north for some days. That was a start.

All the time on the road had proved useful for Lessa to find her directions. There were things the boys had taught her to utilize her surroundings, and she had learned even more by just watching them. She would never tell him, but Worran had been incredibly useful to watch in the wilderness.

He knew more plants than Zar, what was edible, what was poisonous, and what could be used as medicines and poultices. He could glance at the scat and tell how long ago an animal had left it, along with what they had eaten the last couple of days.

Lessa had watched him closely each time he pointed to something and used it to indicate what direction they were headed.

She looked at the moss of the pines around her, she had her north. She oriented herself, turning almost ninety degrees left, and set off.

She set her eyes on a tree straight in front of her and headed toward it. Only a few steps forward and Lessa realized it was getting foggy between the trees. In the distance, she couldn’t see between them at all.

“That’s just perfect.” She continued on until she saw something move in the fog.

She froze, hand on her sword handle.

Did she see something?

She jolted her head left and right, shaking the paranoia away, and continued on.

This time something definitely had moved in the fog just off to her left. It had even left behind swirling tendrils in the vapor.

She drew her sword and walked with it in hand.

Something else darted in front of her to the right.

Lessa stalked forward, sword held in two hands it stood out in the white-gray fog like iron in snow.

The fog was so tight around her she couldn’t see the closest trees, it was getting prematurely dark, the mist and trees blocking out the light of the sun.

Finding somewhere to spend the night was now foremost. She tried not to think about the unavoidable fact that she would have to spend the night with nothing but the creatures in the fog for company.

There was no time to build a shelter, a tree was probably the safest bet. With any luck, she wouldn’t fall out of it.

Now that the trees were hard to see, Lessa settled on one of the first she found. The first was too small, the second had no branches she could reach, and the third was again too small. But the fourth would do well enough. It would at least keep her from whatever lurked in the fog. Hopefully.

She climbed the tree and settled onto a branch. Her sword belt was the only thing she had that might stabilize her in the tree. But when she tried, it wouldn’t fit around her and the branch.

Reluctantly, Lessa settled her back against the trunk. It would have to do.

Having not slept the night before, and after a couple of adrenaline dumps, Lessa was exhausted. But it was going to take hours to get any sleep.

The sun set quickly. More and more things started moving through the night. Lessa never got a clear look at what it was, a couple of times a streak of white moved directly under her tree. She had her sword in her hand, just in case.

Each time she felt her eyes drifting closed there was chattering in the woods. It very nearly sounded like two men, voices abnormally deep. There were definite syllables but Lessa couldn’t make out any words. Lessa was convinced the owners of the voices were talking about her. She would jolt awake, clutch her sword tighter, and wait for them. But they never showed.

Sometime shortly before dawn, Lessa fell asleep long enough to be jolted awake.

“Lessa!”

It was Worran!

“Worran!” she called back. Lessa dropped from the tree and looked around wildly for Worran. The fog had dissipated, but she couldn’t see him.

“Where are you?”

“Lessa! Here! Help!”

Lessa darted in the direction his voice was coming from.

“Worran! Where are you!”

She saw him hanging from a tree, a rope wound tightly around his neck, his legs kicked, his hands gripping the rope under his chin, trying to take the pressure from his neck.

“Worran!” Lessa screamed and shot toward him, she grabbed his legs and tried to lift him away from the rope strangling his life away.

A crack reverberated through the trees and he came free. They both fell heavily to the ground. Lessa knew before she even righted herself that she wouldn’t find Worran. It was a branch again.

She jumped to her feet and marched away, furious that she had been fooled again.

“Storm!”

Just ahead of Lessa Storm’s form was laying in a clearing. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you!” She ran forward but something was wrong.

Lessa froze, yards from the form of the dragon. She was too limp, too stiff.

Lessa circled around, unable to draw nearer, but needing to see Storm’s face.

“No, no, no, no.”

Deep red blood was dripping from a wound in Storm’s side, a thick long spear was buried deep in the hollow where her neck met her shoulders.

Was this why Lessa couldn’t hear her?

Overcome Lessa dropped to her knees and vomited. Storm’s unseeing eyes watched her glassily.

Tears came, steadily pouring from her eyes, snot dripping across her lips. She pulled herself across the piney dirt toward Storm.

Her fingers reached out but didn’t make contact.

What if this didn’t turn into a mirage?

Lessa drew her knees up to her chest and cried into her arms. She couldn’t. It would be better to be lost wandering these trees for the rest of her life than live without Storm.

Finally, without looking Lessa reached out a hand. Her hand reached on for an eternity, any second, instead of open-air her fingers would touch smooth scales.

Cold is what Lessa felt first when her fingers finally reached a stop. It was rough. Hesitantly, she lifted her head and looked to the right. Her hand rested on a rock that was at the foot of a boulder pile.

She gasped, in relief, in pain, in exhaustion.

Storm was still out there. Still looking for her.

“Lessa!” It was Zar’s voice.

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t.

She was frozen, she was nothing but a heartbeat.

Lessa stood. She walked in the opposite direction where the voice had come from.

Whispers carried on the breeze, washing over her. She ignored it and kept walking.

She made the mistake of looking up.

Zar was there.

Lying in a puddle of blood.

Lessa turned away, she choked on a sob. She walked on.

But he was there again.

“Noooo.”

She turned around and walked the other way. But his body was in front of her no matter what direction she turned.

“I can’t. I can’t.” Lessa dropped to the ground and wrapped her arms around her legs, her face buried.

If that was Zar.

She couldn’t even think of it.

Lessa fell to her side, her legs still curled up.

She closed her eyes and willed the body to disappear.

When she opened her eyes Zar was still there, soaked in his own blood.

“Please, no,” she pleaded with whatever was doing this to her.

Tears dripped from Lessa’s eyes directly into the soft ground.

Life without Zar would be as bad as life without Storm. Without her permission, he had become as much a part of her as her bonded dragon. She didn’t know how to live without him. She would never love again like she loved him. She had given herself over wholly to him. If this was him, she would never recover.

Lessa stayed in the dirt for hours.

No chattering bothered her, no mist, no creatures. Just her, and the body of the young man she had given her heart to.

The forest was holding its breath. Waiting for her to act.

She looked into the trees past Zar. If she kept on walking would the forest let her die? It was clearly driving her insane. Would it be better to die slowly, driven mad, than to live without Zar?

Somewhere, Lessa found some resolve. She couldn’t let the forest win.

She reached her fingers toward Zar’s face. It was pale, drained of its normal golden glow. His deep blue eyes were grayed and glassy.

She faltered. What if this was Zar? What if he didn’t disappear?

With one final deep breath, Lessa touched his cheek.

The apparition before she faded into nothing, like dust on the wind.

She fell forward, relief washing through her, tears falling from her eyes anew.

But, the pine needles she was expecting to land on were not there. Instead, Lessa landed on manicured grass.

She jolted upright on her knees.

No longer in a forest, Lessa was on the edge of a manicured lawn. It was round, massive, many acres across. And in the very center sat a massive stone manor.

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