He tilted his head away and laughed. As much as we antagonized each other, I really did love that sound. A laughing dragon was a happy dragon, and I wanted nothing more than for him to be happy, especially since he and Gary were broken up. It wouldn’t last, I knew. Eventually they’d pull their heads out of their asses and then go back to putting their heads up each other’s asses, or whatever sexual perversions they got up to. But while it did, I needed to make sure he was okay, just as much as I did Gary. I thought maybe I’d forgotten that.
He was smiling that weird reptilian smile when he leaned forward again and said, “Cheeky little bugger. I ought to spank that pert little ass of yours until it’s… it’s… huh.”
I squinted at him. “Did you really just lose your train of thought while thinking about my ass? Gods, you’re so weird. I don’t know why you can’t just—”
He reached up with his other hand and used a single claw, pressing it gently against my chin, turning my head west.
At first, I didn’t see it.
It looked like only sand, stretching on without end.
But then there was a flash of light in the distance, shimmering in the heat waves. There was something there, a smudge against the horizon where the flash had come from.
“What is it?” I asked quietly, even though I knew. “You can see better than I can.”
“Ruins,” Kevin said. “It looks like ruins.”
IT SAT in the middle of a valley of sorts, a tumbling pile of black stone. There was the outline of a structure there, something that had long since collapsed. There were archways and pillars, almost as if it’d been a castle of sorts. I dug back in my memory as far as I could go to see if I could remember any mention of a castle this far out in the Luri Desert, but I came up empty.
The sand dune we came upon was smaller compared to the rest around the ruins, the grade shallow as it dipped down. A large flat length of sand stretched out ahead of the ruins, something we’d have to cross if we had any hopes of reaching the crumbling rock. From where we stood, I could see a large dome in the middle of the ruins, cracked and decayed. The side of the dome facing us had collapsed, leaving an entrance that was hidden in shadow. I thought it was a good possibility that the search for the dragon would start there. I tried not to think about the idea of a gigantic lizard snake burrowing in tunnels underneath our feet.
Ruv had been leading the way, but he’d stopped before we stepped out onto the flat sand ahead of us. He was tense, shoulders squared, looking out across the expanse. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I didn’t see anything myself, aside from the fact that he was hesitating when we were so close to reaching our target. Why he was t
rying to delay the inevitable, I had no idea.
“We don’t have time for this,” I growled, attempting to push past him.
His arm shot up against my chest, holding me back. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “Trust me.”
I scoffed. “You know I don’t. We have a job to do, though I’m still not quite sure how to do it. And since you aren’t exactly in the know either, expert, I think you should let me go.”
“And if you don’t take your hand off of him,” Ryan said, gripping the handle of the sword at his side, “I can remove it for you.”
Ruv muttered something in his native tongue that I was sure was not a compliment before pulling his pack off his back. He dropped the wooden contraption into the sand, the cloth around it fluttering. He reached into the pack and pulled out three spherical stones, all smooth and bone-white. He was still grumbling to himself as he fitted the pack back around him and held out one stone to Ryan, one to me, and kept the other one for himself. “You throw left,” he told Ryan. “Sam, right. I will throw down the middle. As hard as you can.”
I could admit to being curious, which is probably why I didn’t argue. Ryan glanced at me, and I shrugged. Ruv knew something we didn’t, and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.
I threw my stone. It landed a good distance away, but instead of a puff of sand when it landed, the sand itself rippled, as if I’d thrown it into water.
“Um,” Gary said. “What just happened?”
“Bad feeling,” Tiggy said. “Baaaaaad feeling.”
Ryan threw his. It went farther, of course, and he looked a little pleased at the fact, given that he would always be a little bit of a douchebag, gods love him. It impacted with the same curious effect, rippling outward.
Ruv went last, throwing his stone down the middle. His went the farthest. Ryan looked grumpy at that. But instead of rippling, his landed with a hard thunk, as if just under the sand was something solid.
I blinked. “Okay, what the hell?”
“Something smells weird,” Kevin said, nostrils flaring. “Almost like… rotted fish.”
Ryan drew his sword. “This can’t possibly be good.”
“Watch the outer stones,” Ruv said.
We did.
It only took a minute more.