“Are you sure this is the right place?” Amanda asked Coal.

  He had insisted on coming along with them rather then just giving them the location of where to look.

  Several metres further up the steep rocky slope, Sirius scouted ahead for the cave.

  “Of course,” Coal replied. “It should be around here somewhere.”

  It was late on Sunday afternoon and they’d already been walking for hours. Amanda was surprised that Coal had managed to keep up but the man was fit, even if he was completely inappropriately dressed for an outdoor excursion. He still wore something that looked like a suit. He’d insisted that it was lightweight and easy to move in but the aesthetics of a man in a suit in the wilderness still weirded her out. His shoes were sturdy enough at least, although even those looked like something suited more for a soiree than a hiking trip. And yet he seemed to leap from rock to rock with ease.

  He stuck behind her but she knew that was by choice given he wasn’t puffing in the slightest. Meanwhile, she kept having to pause every so often to get her breath back.

  She paused again and briefly watched up ahead as Sirius tried out one path, then backtracked along a better route. They’d been working their way up a ravine, skirting along the upper slopes on the look out for anything that might be the opening to a cave. Apparently the dragon had been found down near the river. Loose rocks covered the slopes and every now and again one of them would accidentally cause a rock to go sailing down the side of the mountain toward the distant winding river below. They had to be careful that they didn’t move directly above or below one another as they travelled.

  Amanda had hoped that Coal might have some magic shortcut to locate the cave but alas it seemed, beyond getting information about where the dragon had been originally located, there was very little they could do except manually search. She’d considered using pegasi. Flying would have been faster. Given the large number of dragons in the area however, walking was safer. At least getting back would be easy enough. Coal had preset up a teleport.

  “Here! I think I’ve found it!” Sirius suddenly yelled down to them.

  She got moving again and scrambled up to where he stood at the unmistakable entrance to a cave. It was nestled down in a little hollow over the edge of a lip, a crevasse in the side of the mountain that could have easily been missed despite its size. It was wider than it was tall and it curved down into a sharp fish hook turn. There would be more cave that went up beyond the corner Amanda guessed.

  Coal arrived a moment later and looked down into the cave beside them. “How do you know this is it?” he asked.

  Sirius pointed to some scratches in the rock. “You can see the scratch marks there from where its rubbed its scales against the rock. I don’t know if it’s our dragon but there’s definitely been a dragon through here recently.”

  Amanda started off down the slope toward the mouth of the cave. Coal and Sirius joined her a moment later. The cave did indeed slope up around the corner from here to another ridge, the next one encased in darkness. It likely sloped back down again after that.

  “It’s a bit small isn’t it?” Coal asked. “Surely that dragon wouldn’t fit through there?”

  Amanda shook her head. “You’d be surprised. They have flexible skeletons, sort of like rats and snakes. They can squeeze into some surprisingly tight spaces. And anything too tight they’d just eat bigger. They like things cozy though.”

  Coal was frowning. She didn’t think much of it. It was typical for an aristocrat to buy a dragon without knowing much about the species.

  “Come on,” she said as she set out for the next ridge. She summoned a few nearby flames for light.

  Sirius beat her to the top, switched on his head lamp and then disappeared into the next section.

  Amanda thought Coal was just behind her until she reached the edge and glanced back. He was still only a few metres up from the bottom of the slope and had stopped.

  “Coming?” she called back to him.

  He looked up at her, hesitated a moment and then called back, “You go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  She frowned, surprised that he didn’t want to keep following them given he’d come all this way so far, but she didn’t care. They didn’t need him.

  She joined Sirius over the the next edge. He was scoping out the upcoming section which went down again and looked like it got a bit steeper. “Coal isn’t coming?” he asked.

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  Amanda shrugged. “He said he’d wait there.”

  It was probably for the best. 30 or so more metres in and the cave turned vertical. Amanda had no idea what Coal was like with ropes but she and Sirius had come prepared for this.

  Finding no natural anchors and having not bothered to cart a drill all the way up the valley, Amanda used her fire to melt a hole into the rock. She left a section untouched so the hole went in and then out again so it made a tunnel she could loop a sling into. She was careful to keep the heat out of the the bridge section. She gave it a good few hard tugs to test it, then Sirius handed her a sling. She made a second anchor as a backup just in case this one failed as well as a third one for him to tie into while he lowered her down.

  He fiddled about inside his coat and then pulled out a silver charm. “I’ve restocked some of the infusements they took at the facility.”

  “Mindwalking?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She hesitated. It would be useful for keeping in contact, much easier and stealthier than radios but it would also be expensive if the thing had any range at all. Stealthy was important and one reason to avoid drills. It was possible this wasn’t their dragon’s cave. The price of a dragon egg on its own would be well worth it but that all depended on if Coal kept his word.

  “You take it.” He handed it to her.

  She put it around her neck and made sure the metal at the end was against her skin. “How many did you get?”

  “Three but they won’t last very long.”

  She nodded. Best to just use it to signal for him when to stop and when to raise the rope back up, and maybe the occasional check in rather than a full ongoing conversation.

  They synced their watches and then she tied into the end of the rope. There was likely another tunnel, hopefully horizontal, part way down the shaft but it was impossible to know how far. The rope they had went up to 120 metres max in length not counting a little extra from the rope stretch. She hoped it would be long enough. If the shaft went any deeper than that they’d have to rethink the plan.

  She strapped on the backpack containing enough netting to retrieve about six larger dragon eggs, confirmed with Sirius that he was ready and had a hold of the rope, before she leaned back out over the shaft.

  Over the edge she went and down into the darkness. She used small snippets of fire rather than torchlight to see her way. It was far easier to suddenly snuff those out if they encountered anything they might need to hide from. Given it was obviously a dragon cave she wasn’t too worried about any dangerous gasses.

  She walked down the wall, one foot at a time. The green-black serpentine rock looked much more black than green in the low flickering light. It had a slight sheen to it from water that had come in recently from somewhere above.

  It didn’t take long before she found what she was looking for. She’d barely gone even 30 metres. The vertical shaft continued down into darkness for quite a distance yet. It was deep enough that she couldn’t make out the bottom. But here, nestled into the middle of the wall was a strangely circular hole, obviously unnatural, if one considered dragons unnatural, and just the right size for the dragon she’d see at the ball.

  Dragons were known to expand their caves as they grew. Keeping things only just large enough to fit meant they were safer from other dragons. The rocks around this area were full of mineral deposits which the dragons would slowly feast on by heating up the rock and then consuming the molten metal.

  She used the mindwalking charm to communicate back up to Sirius to pause the descent as she swung herself neatly onto the ledge. She stayed on the rope until she’d made a new anchor, one she could temporarily tie herself into and then hitch the end of the rope to.

  ‘Do you want a bit extra for the eggs?’ Sirius thought down to her when she checked in with the mindwalking. ‘Or if there’s any more descent in the tunnel? How does it look?’

  She peered into the darkness. Small fires lit up the wall. The tunnel did curve down and around slightly but it was nothing too steep and it looked like it went for awhile. If there was another steep drop, they’d need to use one of the other ropes. They’d brought a total of three with them, a 60m, a 90m, and a 120m. She had the 60m with her and Sirius had the other one. If needed they could swap the long one with the short one but she didn’t think the cave would be in too much further.

  ‘Looks fine for now. I’ll let you know if I need you to come down. I’m heading in deeper.’

  ‘Rodger that.’

  She made her way carefully down the next section, gingerly testing the range of the mindwalking charm as she went. She kept her tests short, not wanting to waste the magic but also not wanting to be too cut off from Sirius. She’d touch his mind with the lightest caress every 20 metres or so which would let him know she was there. They were well practiced with this and she could pull the task off reasonably efficiently. Even so, she’d burned through half of the mindwalking magic by the time she found the cavern.

  It was just around the next corner and along about a hundred metres that the cave levelled out into a large room and there right in the centre of the room sat five eggs. Ones she hoped were still alive.

  Around the edges of the room, diamonds sparkled. She’d heard the humans of the old world considered such things valuable but here, in regions where dragons roamed they were plentiful. The compressed carbon was a natural output of a dragon’s digestive system. The metals they incorporated into their scales and bodies, but the carbon, which was plentiful and consumed along with the other rocks, was expelled as waste. People still traded it of course, especially if one had a contact who was a worldjumper but the value of the stones was nothing compared the eggs themselves.

  These eggs were still young. Unlike many other animals, dragon eggs continued to grow after being laid, somewhat subject to species. The initial lay size also often depended on the size of the mother. A young mother meant smaller and more vulnerable eggs. One of the largest dragon eggs ever found had been about three times bigger than a horse. That one had never hatched and was housed in a museum somewhere. The smallest could fit in the palm of a hand, although at that size they also tended to have a low survival rate. The optimal size was somewhere between that of a small and very large dog. There were five in this nest and each one came up roughly to the height of her knees. She’d might even be able to fit them all in one net. The question was, were they still alive?