Although only the tiny pinpoint of the White moon was visible in the sky and enormous Iridith was hidden behind Ha’athior’s looming bulk, there was plenty of ambient light to help Lia traverse the cliff. She hurried with the zest of someone who knew a large volume of highly explosive hydrogen gas was about to ignite. Scrabble for bushes and handholds. Keep the feet moving, but take each step with care. Wish for wings that could bear her aloft if she took just one misstep …
How long was that fuse? Was Master Jo’el correct about the five minutes? She waited.
When it came, the detonation was disappointing.
Thump. Just a dull concussion conducted through the ground to her feet, although Lia did see a flash of light briefly illuminate the volcanic cone to her right hand. Dragonets? Lia paused in surprise. Hundreds of dragonets lined the volcano’s rim to watch proceedings. How did they know?
She turned. Nothing.
“Oh, Islands’ sakes …” Lia’s voice trailed off.
First, there came a sharp cracking sound as though lightning had struck from within the Island. Then, a deep groan, as if a mile-high door had been forced open for the first time in millennia. And now, a roar as a piece of Ha’athior Island slipped away from the mainland, sluggishly at first, but the noise rapidly escalated into a thunder that rolled away over the Cloudlands until it was lost in that immensity.
Flying ralti sheep! Lia dived beneath an overhang as a cascade of pebbles pinged her head and shoulders, followed by a few larger boulders which narrowly missed her feet as they tumbled past.
After that, the stillness shrieked against her ears. Hualiama listened for a final crashing lower down the Island, but perhaps the distance was too great. Silence. No Orange Dragons nosing about, investigating the landslide. Right. She scrambled to her feet. Time to see what trouble she had wrought.
Hopefully, a great deal. But when she reached the old avalanche site, it was to voice an involuntary wail of despair.
She had buried him!
Hualiama surveyed the destruction with mounting horror. A hundred feet away, she saw a darker smudge that she took for a sign of the blast-fire. Bushes still smouldered there, but below, the cliff-side had been carved away, leaving naked rock. But where was Grandion? Surely, he should emerge from the tunnel smiling and carolling his joy to the heavens? Then, she heard a muffled roar. Alive! He was somewhere beneath the rubble!
Before she knew it, Lia screamed across at the dragonets, Help me! There’s a Dragon, buried here. They looked on as, with trembling hands, she shinned down a vine to the level on the near-vertical slope where she thought she might find the Tourmaline Dragon, tracking the sound of his voice and the faraway scrape, scrape of his paws. Boulders, sand and other rubbish had collapsed into a crack here, she saw. The explosion had brought the cliff down on Grandion’s head–or not quite on his head, judging by the racket he was making.
Drawing one of her forked daggers, Lia hacked off the vine below the level of her feet and then tied the end firmly about her waist. Did she care about prowling Dragons? Nay. Living atop an active volcano meant that earth tremors and landslides could be bought a dozen for a brass dral.
Having freed both hands, she began to dig.
Immediately, two reds whizzed over to chatter at her in amazement.
Two-leg thing make dragonet warren? inquired the first.
Crazy creature far from home, snickered the second. Crazy-no-brain. Play game?
Being accustomed to a particular dragonet’s name-calling, Hualiama only smiled at them, mindful to keep her teeth covered by her lips. There’s a Dragon trapped beneath this rubble, little ones. Will you help me dig for him?
The reds chorused, No dig warren?
No, I’m playing a game to find a Dragon. Can you hear him under there? Why don’t you bring your friends to play?
Chirping excitedly, the dragonets began to burrow into the side of the cliff with the alacrity and enthusiasm of a pair of rabid weasels. In seconds, another dozen dragonets joined them. Dirt began to spray about. Boulders shifted. The dragonets took turns to tease and castigate each other. A minute or two later, Hualiama estimated that she had to have five hundred eager little helpers, their paws blurring as they dug, covering each other in dirt and picking up bushes to drop them off the cliff, crying, Beware! Beware! in shrill little voices when they undermined a boulder