The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending by Chris D'Lacey Page A

face Voss and the dragon alone.”
    I nodded and picked up my backpack. A hole had been gnawed in the bottom. Out of it tumbled an apple core. “Mice,” said Tryst. I heard the katts snicker. I sighed and picked up my bow. I feared for the cheese I had brought, but hopefully the tiny thieves had left me some meat.
    Making the slightest of chatteringsounds, Tryst flipped his tail and spranginto the forest. I followed him directly,though it wasn’t easy. He was nimble andoften bathed in shadow. I saw the other
    katts too but only in snatches, so well did their fur blend in with the trees. A small
    squeak now and then, followed by a fierce territorial growl, would alert me to the

    fact that one of them had caught a careless rodent. Always, they were ruled by the need to hunt.
    Before long, I felt the Fain working mymuscles to assist me up the gradients Trysthad warned about. For most of the climb
    my feet were able to gain good purchase and I kept to the katts’ unerring pace. But as we approached the limits of the forest the plain brown bracken thinned like the hair on an old man’s head and Kasgerden began to show itself, mainly in patches of loose grey shale that slid or broke away from my grasping hands. With little earth for their roots, the trees petered out. The light grew stronger. The ground, firmer. As we approached the final pine, several katts scampered up into its branches. Only

    Tryst came to the very edge.
    He sat and dipped his head forward. The mountainside had become quiteshallow, an escarpment of shale and roughearth and grass. Well beyond it were theharsh grey slabs of rock that soared upinto the mountain proper. I saw a look ofdeep longing enter Tryst’s eyes, as if hewould like to go bounding up there. “Whycan’t you leave the trees?”
    “Look at the stones,” he said.
    Among the shale were a number oflarge, weathered stones. They were not, as I’d imagined, tall fingers of granite, but ajumble of strange, misshapen bouldersscattered over a widespread arc. “Whathappened here?”
    Tryst was about to reply when we both

    heard the clip of hooves. I dived for cover, behind the same tree Tryst had quickly climbed. He laid himself flat on the branch above me. I reached for my bow and primed it.
    Two men   , said the Fain, sensing their
    auma.
    Voss?
    No.
    Grella?
    Just men.
    “What’s in it for us?” I heard one of
    them say. Dull. Disillusioned. Not too bright. I saw the first horse come into view. It was finding it hard to stay steady on its feet. The rider cursed and slid out of
    the saddle. He looked of Horste stock.
    Wild-haired and bearded. The colour was

    a match for his dark brown jerkin. His trousers were ripped. There were holes in his boots. He broke wind as he walked
    towards the stones.
    “What’s in it for us is a nasty end if we don’t follow Voss’s orders,” said the other. He was thinner than the first man.
    Rangy. Mean. Hair that draped in lankyspikes around his bony, milk-skinned face. He had a lean, crooked nose. A mole onhis chin. Sunken eyes, always on thelookout for danger. As they swept myway, I turned side-on behind the tree. The Fain slowed my heartbeat to keep mequiet.
    The first man said, “I’m bored oflooking for paths for the horses. I needsomething to   kill .”

    The other man spoke in a soft mumble. “Well, there’s a great big scaly brute uptop just waiting to feed on a goof likeyou.”
    “The old feller in the krofft, he waseasy,” bragged the man. “Ready for adragon now, I am.”
    “You were seen, Egil.”
    “Nah,” he said. “In and out like ashadow, I was.”
    “I’m telling you, I saw a kid run out.”
    My arrow hand began to shake.
    “So what?” Egil said. He unbuttonedhis trousers. “The men was all drugged. We ain’t gonna be followed.”
    “Get  back   on  your   horse,”   hiscompanion said suddenly.
    He’s reading an auma wave   , the Fain

    commingled.   I cannot tell