36. Losing the Trail
“Where is he?” growled Nettlebrand, raising his head from the turbulent waters. Dark gray mountains rose into the sky, and the river foamed against their rocky slopes as if trying to wash them away. Its dark waters lapped over Nettlebrand’s scales and almost swept Gravelbeard off his master’s armored brow.
“Your Goldness!” spluttered the dwarf, spitting out icy water. “When can we get out on the riverbank? Dwarves aren’t fish, you know.” He was wet through to his woolen shirt, his teeth were chattering, and he’d already had to pull his hat out of the river seven times.
“The riverbank?” snorted Nettlebrand. “This is no time for me to mix with human beings.”
Shivering, Gravelbeard looked ahead of them. A suspension bridge spanned the foaming torrent. Houses clustered at the foot of the mountain slopes, and a road led along the bank between huge boulders, almost buried under the mud and stones of a landslide that had fallen during the last rainy season. There was no one on the bridge, but two birds were perched on its fragile cables. A solitary bus was driving along the road, and people were bustling about among the houses.
“Where is he?” growled Nettlebrand again. “He can’t have gone on — that’s impossible!” He sniffed the cool evening air. Days here on the roof of the world were boiling hot, but as soon as the sun set an icy chill, like the snowy breath of the mountains, descended on the valleys.
“It’s been quite some time since you last scented him, Your Goldness,” said Gravelbeard, tipping water out of the brim of his hat. “In fact, it’s been a very long time.”
“I know, I know,” snarled Nettlebrand, swimming on until he was in the shadow of the bridge. “Everything was fine until we reached these mountains, then the trail suddenly vanished. Aaaargh!” Furious, he spat into the turbulent water.
“He’s probably not following the river anymore.” Gravelbeard sneezed and rubbed his cold hands. “You were wrong, Your Goldness, and he’s flying over the mountains. How are you going to follow him there?”
“Oh, shut up!” Nettlebrand dipped his head in the water, snuffling, and turned to let the current carry him downstream and back south. The place where he had lost Firedrake’s scent was not too far behind him.
“Your Goldness!” the dwarf suddenly cried. “Watch out! There’s a boat coming upstream straight toward us.”
Nettlebrand jerked his muzzle up. “Ah! Just what I fancy!” he growled. “I’ll push it around a bit. Batter it, bash it, capsize it! Hold tight, armor-cleaner. This is going to be fun. I do like to hear those two-legs squeal.” Bracing himself in the current, he plunged his head deep into the water. “One little shove should do it!” he whispered. “Humans are such helpless little things on the water.”
The narrow boat was making its way upstream with difficulty. When it was quite close, Nettlebrand raised his head and gazed up at the humans. Most of them were looking at the houses on the bank, but a tall thin man and the girl with him had raised their eyes to the mountains, indistinct outlines in the evening twilight.
“Well, look at that, dwarf!” Nettlebrand submerged his head and laughed until he shook all over. “What have we here? That’s the professor who stole my scale. Oh, what a surprise!” Flipping his tail a couple of times, he drifted sideways until his armor clunked against the stony bank.
The boat glided past him, and the people on board had no idea of the danger they had barely escaped. Only the girl glanced at the place where Nettlebrand was lurking in the water. She tugged at her father’s sleeve and said something, but the roaring of the river drowned out her words. Barnabas Greenbloom just stroked his daughter’s hair absentmindedly as he continued looking up at the mountains.
“Not going to capsize it after all?” sighed Gravelbeard, who had been clinging as tightly as he could to one of the dragon’s horns. “Very wise. Very wise, Your Goldness! It would only have made trouble.” Then he realized that his master was changing direction yet again. “Hey, where are we going this time?” he called, crossly wringing the water out of his beard. “I thought we were going back, Your Goldness! Back to where you lost the scent!”
“Not now,” replied Nettlebrand, swimming upstream against the current as if he felt none of its force. “A good hunter follows his nose, and my nose tells me I shall find the silver dragon again if I follow that thin human. Get it?”
“No,” grumbled Gravelbeard, sneezing three times in rapid succession.
“Well, never mind,” growled Nettlebrand. “You dwarves are burrowers, not hunters. I doubt if you can even catch woodlice. Keep quiet and make sure the river doesn’t wash you off my head. I may still need you.”
And, as night fell, he set off to follow the boat carrying the humans.
“I really did see him!” Guinevere told her father, who was still standing by the rail and looking at the mountains.
“It’s easy to imagine you see things in rough water, my dear,” replied Barnabas Greenbloom, glancing at her with a smile. “Especially on a sacred river like this.”
“But he looked exactly as you described him!” cried Guinevere. “With golden scales and horrible red eyes!”
Barnabas Greenbloom sighed. “Which just proves that your mother’s right and I’ve told you too many tales about that dreadful monster.”
“Nonsense!” snapped Guinevere, bringing her hand angrily down on the rail. “You’ve always told me stories about all sorts of things. Does that mean I imagine fairies or giants or basilisks all over the place?”
Barnabas looked at her thoughtfully. “No, that’s true, you don’t,” he admitted.
The stars were shining above the snow-covered mountains, and it was growing bitterly cold. The professor wrapped his daughter’s scarf more snugly around her neck and looked into her eyes gravely.
“Right, tell me again, what exactly did you see?”
“He was peering out of the water,” said Guinevere, “very close to the riverbank. His eyes glowed like fiery globes,” she continued, raising her hands, “and he had two horrible horns with a dwarf clutching one of them! The dwarf was sopping wet!”
Her father took a deep breath. “You’re sure you saw all that?”
Guinevere nodded proudly. “You always taught me to observe things in detail.”
Barnabas Greenbloom nodded. “Yes, and you were a good pupil. Always the first to spot the fairies in our garden.” He looked thoughtfully down at the river. “If you’re right, it means that Nettlebrand wasn’t buried in the sand after all,” he murmured. “Which, goodness only knows, is not good news. We’ll have to warn Firedrake the moment we meet him at the monastery.”
“Do you think he’s following us?” asked Guinevere.
“Who?”
“Nettlebrand.”
“Following us?” Her father looked at her in alarm. “I sincerely hope not.”
They spent all night on watch, looking over the rail and down at the river, but the darkness hid Nettlebrand from their sight.
37. An Old Campfire
“Sorry,” said Ben, poring over the rat’s map with a sigh, “but I have no idea where we are. As long as we were flying upstream along the river it was clear enough, but now” — he shrugged his shoulders — “we could be anywhere.”