“I’m positive that if there is, the lich will be sitting on it.”
“You have your stealth charm.” She pointed to my neck. “And you were able to help me hide even though I was not near you. The power of the dragon blade is great. We can sneak in without the lich knowing we are there.”
“Or we can wait until Xilneth gets word back to his people and an army of dragons shows up to deal with the lich.”
“You said yourself you don’t know if that dragon survived to take the message to others of his kind.”
Earlier, I’d shared the details of Xilneth’s visit and the conversation we’d had. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest.
“Even if he didn’t, Zav knows there’s a problem here. He’ll lead his people here soon.”
Li scowled. “You only want your powerful ally here so he can fly you and my sword away from me after I’ve proven to you that it does not belong to you. Do not think that I will not find a way home. If you flee, I will get it from you. I will return it and the other treasures I’ve reclaimed to my homeland, so that my people will be able to sell them and get out of poverty. And I will show my mother the sword that my father came to Earth to find so long ago. She will be proud of me for fulfilling his mission and reclaiming it for our family.”
“How wonderful for you.”
The scowl deepened, and her fingers twitched toward her dagger. I watched her, ready to spring to my feet to defend myself.
“I should have told you nothing.” Li dropped her hand, spun, and stalked into the trees.
“Fine with me.” I let my head clunk back against the trunk, hoping she would give up on me and continue to the mountain on her own. Though if the whole point of her going was to prove to me that Chopper was hers, there was little point in her going without me.
Li returned scant minutes later, her face more composed. Maybe she’d done some deep breathing or meditation—and was better at it than I was.
She sat cross-legged on the ground and pulled a few things out of her pack, including her canteen and an assortment of energy bars. My mouth watered. She’d given me one earlier, but we’d been here for a full day by now. My stomach was certain of it and growled pitifully. Li must have heard it for she glanced over, but she didn’t comment, merely returning to her pack. A blanket and a tiny collapsible lantern followed the food. Setting up camp for the night.
“Zav wouldn’t do what you think,” I said. “He wouldn’t fly me away with something stolen. He’s honorable, and he encourages me to be honorable.”
“Then why do you carry a stolen sword?”
“Because I don’t have proof that it’s stolen.”
“You know it is. You should have returned it to the dwarven people long ago.”
“They don’t knock on my door very often.”
“If you wished to find a way to them, you could have.” Li splayed her fingers across her chest. “I found the portal generator so I could come to this world.”
“Great. I’d award you a cookie if I had one, but you rudely sucked me off to another world without giving me time to raid my mom’s cupboards.”
Li gazed at me with a stony expression—or perhaps one lacking in understanding. So far, her English had proven good, but my sarcasm might be tough for a non-native speaker to decipher. Even Nin, who’d been in the country for years and was an excellent student of America, gave me puzzled looks from time to time.
“I will give you food,” Li said, “if you promise to continue to the repository with me in the morning.”
“Nope. I’ll just gnaw on my own stomach lining until Zav shows up.”
“It must be comforting to have a dragon at one’s beck and call.” She sounded bitter again.
I was beyond caring. I leaned my head back against the tree and said, “It is. If you want me to hook you up with one, let me know. Xilneth seems to be into mongrels.”
She didn’t respond to that. Good. I was done with the conversation.
I had no intention of sleeping while she was within a mile of me, but my feet and legs could use a rest after all that walking. In case she thought about trying something, I pulled Fezzik out of its holster and rested it in my lap. I shifted Chopper so that its scabbard was under my butt. It wasn’t comfortable, but it would make it difficult for her to slip in and take it.
A few seconds later, something struck me in the chest, and I almost sprang to my feet and pointed my gun at her. But it was only one of the energy bars.
I eyed her suspiciously, but she was opening a bar of her own, the wrapper rustling in the growing darkness, and not looking in my direction. She’d also put her back to a tree, opting to face the road, and pulled her stuff close. Noshing noises floated over to me.
My stomach growled again, but the thought that she might want to poison me burbled up in my mind. Not until she’d finished hers and rolled onto her side to sleep did I touch mine.
I pulled out my phone, which I’d barely touched since arriving, knowing there was nowhere to charge a battery here, and shone the flashlight app onto her gift. Even though I’d eaten one of her bars earlier and suffered no ill effects, I examined the label and made sure it hadn’t been opened before unwrapping it. As with the previous one, it was a familiar brand and had come from a grocery store, not some chemist’s lab.
After another pitiful whine from my stomach, I opened the bar and took a bite. Like other energy bars I’d had, it had the familiar unpalatable tang of strange protein powders that made the faux chocolate barely palatable, but I was hungry enough not to care. Not so hungry that I didn’t think fondly of my chocolate-covered caramels back home, but at the moment, I would have preferred a steak to either option.
After finishing, I stuck the wrapper in my pocket, not wanting to be the rude foreigner who littered on someone else’s planet, and leaned back again. Even though I had no intention of falling asleep, drowsiness came far more quickly than I expected. The long day’s hike, I supposed. The thought that I should summon Sindari to stand guard in case I fell asleep came to mind, but my arm was so heavy that I couldn’t manage the effort to lift it to touch my charm.
An alarm bell rang in the back of my mind. I never fell asleep so quickly or completely. I tried to stir myself, to at least grab Fezzik in case I needed it, but my arms remained limp at my sides.
The soft crunch of someone walking across the undergrowth reached my ears. Li.
I was in trouble, but I couldn’t do a thing about it. My body betrayed me, and I fell asleep.
23
It was full darkness when I woke with a start, heart pounding in my chest, hands and feet so numb they hurt. When I tried to push myself off the ground, my arms were almost as numb, and I pitched back down on my side.
Adrenaline surged through my veins as I feared I was having a heart attack or something equally bad. All by myself on an alien world. My lungs tightened, and I heard my own wheezing.
Damn it, how would Zav find me if I was dead?
I shook my hands and kicked my feet, willing the blood to return to them, so I could dig out my inhaler. Meanwhile, I tried not to panic at the thought that Li might have taken it. If she had, I was screwed. I didn’t sense her nearby. She was probably long gone, leaving me to be eaten by some nocturnal predator.