Page 60 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“Well, what if we tied the horses up down here, and made a camp,” said Iahir. “Then we could go up through the wooded area, and the dragon might not see us there, not if we remained under the trees.”

“That could work,’ she said. “But what if it kills our horses?”

Iahir gave her a sympathetic look. “You are quite taken with that horse, aren’t you?”

She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know why. I’ve never felt an affinity with a horse before, but this one… and I still have not named her.”

“Well, perhaps it’s better if she has no name if she is sacrificed to the dragon,” said Iahir.

“Do not say such things! Not my horse.”

“Would you rather the horse or your mother?” He was pointed.

She did not answer, but her expression was now cold and determined. “All right, let’s try it.”

They spent a good bit of time making up their camp area, leaving it in such a way that it might be believable that they were coming right back any moment, and they set it up in a place where it would be quite obvious from the air. It was so well done and so deliberate that Iahir began to worry that perhaps it would be too obvious and the dragon would know they intended to deceive it.

By all accounts, dragons were intelligent creatures. They were capable of mastering speech, and they had their own languages. In the stories, of course, the dragons always spoke the elvish language, but he sort of wondered which one. Back during the times of those stories, back during the times of the treaties, the old Cirdan language was still spoken, but almost no one spoke it anymore.

For a time, the clergy were all well-versed in it, because there were a number of old religious texts that had been written in it. But now, almost all of that had been translated, and the books had been printed on printing presses and bound, and he knew that the clergy was supposed to learn Cirdan, that there were classes on it in school. But he also knew that there were a number of things he was supposed to have learned in his schooling. And he had mostly memorized it and then immediately forgotten it after being tested on it.

Anyway, the point was that the dragon would be intelligent enough to puzzle out whatever it is that they had done here.

He began to think that their better bet might be to move as quickly through the woods as possible, to get to the cavern entrance before the dragon came back.

So, he pushed them, urging her, saying they must take a quicker route, even though it was steep and required them to climb up rock ledges, pulling themselves up by grasping onto trees that were growing here and there, scrambling over roots and leaves and branches—

And then they weren’t quick enough, anyway.

The dragon came back, and they went still in the woods, huddling together under the branches of a particularly large tree as they watched it circle their camp and then fly higher and higher, as if searching for them.

The dragon flew around, out of their view, blocked by the slope that rose up in front of them, and it seemingly disappeared.

They could see the opening to the cavern that they had thought was its lair from here. The dragon did not enter there.

They had a conversation in low voices.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” said Iahir. “Perhaps that’s not its lair at all.”

“Or perhaps there is another entrance,” she said. “A hidden entrance, one it is confident we will not find. Perhaps it went in there.”

“Could be,” he said.

“We have come this far,” she said. “We need to investigate that cavern.”

“All right,” he decided. “I suppose you’re right.”

They had to exit the woods and go out into the open for nearly one hundred feet to get from the edge of the woods to the entrance to the cavern. It had looked like no distance at all from below, but here, standing at the edge of the woods, it seemed a vast amount of distance.

Iahir could just picture the dragon popping right up, breathing fire on them both, or worse—picking up Gathren and flying off with her, taking her Ornhil-knew-where, and he would be useless to find her.

But nothing like that happened.

They rushed across to the cavern entrance, and once inside, they could see right away that it was the dragons’ lair. It was a hoard. They walked three feet inside and there were golden coins and trinkets and glimmering jewels scattered over the floor.

And then, five more feet inside, there was a heap of such things, crowns and necklaces and free jewels and goblets and ever so many coins, all piled on top of each other.

He could barely breathe. It was exactly like the stories. He had not thought such a thing might be possible, for how could one winged creature gather up so many shiny things and put them all in one spot like this? He had thought it must all be pretend.