Fight or Flight

Chapter 11

Simon

Two days later...

I hung my cloak at the peg by the door, then dropped into the tavern's chair with a heavy motion. The risk of sticking out and being noticed was still an uncomfortable one, especially since I was sure at least some of the villagers must have seen me sharing meals with Enola... but I didn't care about that at the moment. A visit back to Lakeshire might mean I drew attention, but it would also mean a decent chair to sit in, a decent meal I didn't have to cook myself, and most important of all... "Coffee, please."

The man at the simple counter nodded and slipped into the back room, only to return a few moments later with a steaming mug. He sat it down on my table, and I closed my eyes and leaned forward to savor the wonderful scent of a properly brewed cup of coffee.

Digging crystals out of the earth was much harder than it had any right to be. I had originally thought that it would be fairly easy, since they were right there on the walls of the tunnel, but boy had I been wrong. The things seemed to harden the rocks around them as they grew, so pulling one out meant a lot of chipping away with a pickaxe or chisel. A chunk of rock would eventually break free of the wall, and then it was a matter of cleaning the rock from the attached crystal. Without shattering the crystal, a task that was surprisingly more difficult than I had expected.

It was a good thing Enola had gotten me to negotiate down to thirty crystals a month. I was going to have to work hard to get that many by the deadline, and was certain I would have failed to get my original number of fifty. I might be able to make that next month, after getting a bit of practice and exercise, but I doubted the king and the mages would have been very happy about being shorted of the crystals they expected this first month.

I still needed to scrounge up a cart for the trip to Yellowseed, too. And I needed to figure out an arrangement for Smokey. The horse had absolutely refused to go into the tunnel, probably able to smell the grumpy dragon that lived inside it. So far it seemed other predators were just as deterred by Enola's presence as Smokey, and the horse had managed more or less okay by being tethered outside the caves while I worked... but that wouldn't last. Eventually it would rain, or a bear or other predator would get bold, and then there would be problems. It would also be easier if I could move into the caves properly, instead of sleeping outside in a tent to watch over the horse.

Right now the horse seemed like more trouble than he was worth, but I was sure he would be incredibly useful come the end of the month. The soldiers had left several crates packed with dried hay for me to pack the crystals into, which was at least one thing I wouldn't have to worry about, but there was no way I would be able to carry them all the way to Yellowstone without Smokey's help. So I was going to have to work something out.

And as if that wasn't enough, I had also received a letter back from Connor. So far most of the Wellsprings were waiting to see what else I learned before making any major decisions about joining the dragons... but Connor's letter had been quite clear that he wanted me to try and get a crystal for him. Since the letter must have been sent before I had worked out the arrangement with Enola, I assumed the Wellsprings didn't trust me now, and wanted a crystal as proof that my letters were telling the truth. So on top of everything else, I had to find a way to sneak an extra crystal away from Enola.

And on top of all the other problems, I still hadn't managed to make a decent cup of coffee. Enola had watched my attempts with her typical draconic disdain and, as I had predicted, been completely unwilling to give me any magical assistance. And trying to make coffee over a campfire was even more of a challenge than pulling those crystals out of the earth.

But I had managed to pull three crystals out of the tunnels. I was sore all over, and my chest was itching from the cheap cleaning spell I still wore, and it had been a challenge to walk to the village on legs that wanted nothing more than to give up and collapse out in the countryside... but I had gotten started. Two of the crystals were small, somewhere between the size of a finger and the size of my hand, but I had also pulled out a larger one the size of my arm. I was sore, but I was doing it.