Reecah's Flight

by Richard H. Stephens

  Jaxon threw his hands up and stepped away. “Whatever you say, but don’t expect me to lie for you when he gets here.”

  The sword in Viper’s hand left Reecah’s face and sliced up at Jaxon.

  Jaxon jumped back. “Really? Have you lost your mind?”

  Viper followed Jaxon away from the campfire, the sword still threatening. “Ain’t no reason anyone needs to know we found her, is there?”

  Jaxon appeared uncertain whether he should unsheathe his own sword and engage the greasy-haired snake or acquiesce. “Come on, Viper, what’re you doing? That’s Reeky. Nobody wants anything to do with her.”

  Viper tried to spit on the ground but it got caught on his lower lip and dribbled down his chin. He wiped it with a black cuff. “Pull your head out of your arse, boy. You need to forget your past and appreciate what lies before you.”

  Reecah didn’t care for the sound of that. Nor did she like the way the confrontation was going. Jaxon would either back down, or Viper would kill him. Either way, it would end up the same for her.

  She searched her surroundings—the edges of the clearing lost in shadow. Her bow lay on the ground along with her quiver and quarterstaff. They were useless with her hands tied behind her back.

  Ducking her chin to her chest, she searched her belt. Her dagger! She squirmed and contorted, painfully reaching with her bound hands, trying to drag the sword belt along the ground to twist the dagger sheath to the side.

  The dagger’s handle touched the tip of her middle finger but she couldn’t manoeuvre it any closer. With a painful stretch she grunted and slid the dagger free.

  Raver sounded somewhere over the mountain nearby.

  Viper and Jaxon looked skyward for a moment before casting their gaze her way. Their personal grievances temporarily forgotten, they walked toward her.

  She tried using her bare heels to push away from them, but it was no use. She had nowhere to go.

  “What are you up to, Reeky?” Jaxon asked and pointed his sword at her waist. “What’s that in your hands?”

  Viper caught sight of the dagger and dropped a knee on her chest, driving the wind from her lungs. She twisted one way and then another, almost throwing him, but quickly tired.

  The vile man painfully twisted the dagger from her grasp. She thought for sure he would cut her with it as he held it for a moment between her eyes, but he rose to his feet.

  “See, I told you. Nothing but trouble,” Jaxon said. “Aren’t you, Reeky?”

  She nodded, a slow smile forming on her dirt-smudged face.

  Both men frowned. Realizing she wasn’t smiling at them, they spun around and were met by two angry dragons. One green, the other purple.

  Lurker’s mouth opened wide, a great roar splitting the night.

  Viper’s lightning fast reflexes lifted Reecah’s sword in defense but Lurker was quicker.

  Reecah looked away as Lurker turned his head sideways and clamped his mouth on Viper’s head. She cringed as Lurker’s dagger-length fangs crunched into the man’s skull.

  Viper’s scream made her skin crawl, as muffled as it was with his face firmly entrenched in Lurker’s mouth. A moment later, the weasel-faced man was silenced forever—his throat ripped out with a vicious swipe of Lurker’s front claws.

  Jaxon stumbled away from the purple dragon.

  Reecah rolled sideways, lifting her bound legs to trip him.

  He tumbled into the campfire and scrambled to his knees—flames licking at his cloak. Without looking back, he ran screaming into the night, his arms flailing around to throw his burning cloak to the ground.

  Reecah expected the dragons to go after him, but with slow, measured steps, they came for her.

  Circle of Trust

  Reecah resisted the urge to scream but she couldn’t stop herself from moving backward as fast as possible, sliding on one shoulder and then the other to keep from hurting her arms. She couldn’t get the last words Lurker had spoken to her from her head:

  I’m not your friend.

  Leave here and never come back.

  The next time I see you, I will kill you.

  Lurker, noticeably bigger than the last time she had seen him, turned his head one way and then the other, matching her progress across the clearing.

  The purple dragon, smaller than Lurker by a head, remained beside the campfire.

  Raver called out from somewhere above. She stopped and glanced at the yawning abyss at her back.

  Time stood still as Lurker towered over her, an emerald eye studying her from one side of his large head. Without warning he wrapped his mouth around the bottom of her legs.

  Too scared to move, she expected to lose her feet but the pain never came. Lurker tugged at the rope binding her ankles, working it between his pointed teeth.

  She frowned. “Are you freeing me?”

  Lurker paused. He sniffed loudly through his nostrils and resumed gnashing his teeth back and forth.

  Without the journal, she wouldn’t be able to converse with him, but she knew he understood. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Lurker’s administrations pulled her back from the edge of the drop-off. At one point her backside lifted off the ground only to be dropped again as the binding loosened.

  Raver fluttered to a lower branch and bobbed his head as if approving of Lurker’s actions.

  The rope shredded and her feet separated. She rolled herself until she could get to her knees and rose to her feet.

  Lurker flung his head to the side, casting the rope to the aside.

  Reecah considered her wrists. She didn’t trust Lurker to sever the smaller binding without taking her hands with it.

  She caught sight of her dagger beside Viper’s mutilated body and went to retrieve it. Kicking the dagger away from the disgusting sight, she bent at the knees. She reached blindly behind her, struggling to keep from falling until she clasped the dagger’s handle.

  Carefully spinning the handle toward Lurker, she waggled it. “Here, take this. Can you hold it in your mouth so I can saw the rope apart?”

  “Of course I can.”

  Reecah dropped the dagger and jumped forward, spinning to face him. “Did you just speak to me?”

  Lurker’s mouth never moved, but a voice sounded in her head, “I don’t see any other dragon around here but my purple friend over there and she doesn’t say much.”

  Reecah glanced around the dark clearing. The purple dragon hadn’t moved. Other than Raver watching on with interest, there was only herself and Lurker in the clearing. “But how?”

  “I sense magic in the rocks attached to your ears.”

  “Ahh.” Reecah touched her earrings, a look of wonder on her face. “That’s why Auntie Grim did this to me. How come I couldn’t hear you before?”

  “Because I hadn’t allowed you into my circle of trust.”

  “Circle of trust?”

  “According to my mother…” He trailed off.

  Reecah respected his silence, the pain of his mother’s loss displayed in his eyes.

  “According to my mother, dragons and people are different. Besides the obvious, we are inherently intelligent beings…” He must’ve noticed Reecah frowning at him. “Yes, yes, so are people, but dragons are born from magic. Our growth is incredible in our early days. I hatched from an egg that was perhaps twice the size of your head. After eating the other eggs in the nest, I grew half my size again overnight.”

  Reecah blinked at him, his words barely registering as she tried not to forget all the questions bumping around inside her head. He hadn’t answered her question, but she couldn’t help asking, “How old are you?”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized it was a silly question.

  Lurker blinked, craning his neck to see the three-quarter moon in the western sky. “Judging by the moon cycle, I am five.”

  “Five years?”

  A strange noise escaped his throat.

  If Reecah wasn’t mistaken, she had just heard
a dragon laugh.

  “Five months,” Lurker said and lowered his mouth to the ground, grasping the dagger by the handle.

  “That’s what I thought. How, then, do you know so much? You speak as though you are many years older.”

  “I’m a dragon,” he said as if that explained everything.

  Reecah nodded, accepting his answer. Positioning her wrists over the dagger’s edge, it didn’t take long for the keen edge to sever the cord. Shaking the thin rope free, she massaged her chafed wrists and relieved Lurker of the dagger, all while trying to stifle a deep yawn.

  “You’re tired. Go lie by your fire. Nothing good will come of it if you don’t sleep.”

  “But there are so many things I want to ask you.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time in the days to come. You’ll need to be rested if you wish to keep ahead of those chasing you.”

  “You know of them?” Her heart pounded faster, fearing Lurker thought her responsible.

  “We’ve been watching them since they entered our valley.”

  Reecah wondered who we were. Lurker and his purple friend? A sudden wave of guilt gripped her. She felt responsible for bringing the armed men and women into the dragons’ territory. They were after her. She hung her head, unable to look Lurker in the eye. “I’m sorry they’re here.”

  “I believe you.”

  She looked up in wonder. The guilt she’d been harbouring since Lurker’s mother was killed lifted from her. She dared to smile.

  “Now sleep. My friend and I will watch over you.”

  Relieved of the crushing burden she walked halfway to the fire and stopped. “One more thing.”

  Lurker inclined his head.

  She swallowed, debating whether it was wise to broach the subject, but she had to know. “The last time we met, you told me to leave and never come back. That you would kill me if I did.”

  “Turn around.”

  She fretted, uncertain that was the best course of action in light of the conversation, but did as she was told. She emitted a short scream—the purple dragon stood right behind her. It lowered its chest to the ground and bowed its head. Clutched within the four claws of its right forepaw, was her journal.

  “Take it.”

  Reecah accepted the journal.

  “She is the reason.”

  Reecah faced Lurker. “I don’t understand.”

  “The last time you entered the pass, you came across a dragon identical to my silent friend. She came from the same clutch. The one you comforted was pulled from their nest right after he was born and slaughtered on the ground. The evil men made a point of smashing the remaining eggs but they missed one.” Lurker nodded toward the purple dragon. “She hatched shortly afterward and witnessed the compassion you showed her dying brother.”

  Reecah observed an excessive amount of moisture in the purple dragon’s amethyst eyes.

  “After I sent you away, she told me what you had done. It has taken me until now to reconcile my error. I see how your people treat you. I apologize. I believe you are as mother thought. A Windwalker. A dragon friend.”

  Something startled Reecah awake as the early morning light lifted the darkness from the pass. She had suddenly become cold and yet, the ground beside her felt unusually warm. As did the outside of her cloak, even though the fire appeared to have gone out long ago. Shivering, she needed to get up—her feet were like ice and her bladder was about to burst.

  Raver made an unhappy chirp inside her cloak—the musty raven snuggled between her chest and chin.

  She stroked the back of his head. “Come on, silly bird, I need to get up.”

  Raver pecked at her hand.

  “Hey!” Reecah pushed him away and received a face full of flapping feathers. She sat up, watching him land on a nearby branch. “If you’re not careful I’ll feed you to the dragons.”

  “Too bony.”

  Reecah’s nerves jumped. She wasn’t used to the foreign presence in her head. Glancing toward the drop-off, Lurker stood where she had left him last night. Scanning the clearing, the purple dragon was gone. “Where’s your friend?”

  “She just left. I think she has taken a liking to you.”

  Reecah located her boots sitting neatly beside each other and pulled them on. “Where’d she go?”

  “Didn’t say. You woke up as soon as she left you.”

  “Left me?”

  “She slept next to you to keep you warm.”

  Reecah’s eyes widened.

  “It appears I’m not your only dragon friend.”

  A happiness filled her unlike anything she had ever experienced—a large smile dimpled her cheeks. Shaking the debris from her blanket, she folded it and placed it in her rucksack, before locating a nearby boulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  Returning to the clearing, she fetched Viper’s crossbow from the rock it leaned against. Just touching the weapon revulsed her. She carried it to the brink, leaned back, and hurled it away. The offensive weapon spun out of sight.

  “I hope no one was down there.”

  “The men won’t be down there. And even if they are…” She shrugged.

  Lurker shook his head. “I didn’t mean people.”

  Reecah cringed. “Oh. I never thought.”

  “Mother said people are often guilty of that.”

  She couldn’t argue the point. Pulling a strip of dried meat from her pack, she tore a small piece off for Raver, but before she offered it to the raven, she considered Lurker. Glancing at the meagre portion she said, “Um, do you want some?”

  Lurker tilted his head, regarding the scrap. His gaze took in the crimson stain on the ground behind her. “I ate while you were sleeping.”

  An eerie sensation crept up her spine. She swallowed her apprehension. Viper was gone. “Y-you mean…?”

  Lurker nodded. “Very greasy.”

  Reecah spurted out a nervous laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives you indigestion.”

  Lurker burped. “Too late.”

  She smiled. Never in her wildest dreams had she envisioned having a conversation like this with a dragon, and yet, here she was. It didn’t seem real.

  “You should continue into the valley while I scout the people following you. They were a full day behind when I left them to investigate the noise your friend was making.”

  “My friend?”

  Lurker glanced at Raver pruning himself, a scruffy wing held high as he pecked at the feathers underneath.

  “Oh!”

  “For a little guy, he makes a lot of noise.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “If not for him we wouldn’t have known of your trouble.”

  She smiled, considering her best friend. “Ya, he’s a real gem.”

  “I’ll find you later.”

  “Wait! What do I do if I come across a dragon?”

  “Pray they don’t like greasy meat.”

  Swoop

  Travelling through the forested slopes of Dragonfang Pass, the midday sun streamed long rays through the forest canopy. Reecah questioned what she was actually doing there. Yes, she was being hunted by Jonas and the people in uniform. Why they wanted her so badly, she couldn’t fathom. Just because they claimed she was a witch didn’t justify the lengths they were going through to catch her.

  She debated her options. With her climbing skills, she was far enough into the pass that eluding them wouldn’t prove too difficult. Someone like Jaxon might give her trouble, but once she got beyond them it would be a simple matter of slipping across Peril’s Peak and making her way to Thunderhead.

  The idea resonated with her. Other than the mountain slopes around Fishmonger Bay, she’d never been anywhere. Perhaps it was time to see the world. She had loved studying Poppa’s old maps and listening to him go on about wondrous cities like Madrigail Bay or the duke’s city of Carillon where a magnificent castle was being built. Poppa said the castle had been under construction for hundreds of years. He claimed it would
someday surpass the high king’s palace at Sea Keep—wherever that was.

  The ridgeline she followed bent sharply around a massive spur of bare rock. Rounding its base, the trees fell away, revealing a stunning vista. A lush green valley, interspersed with waterfalls tumbling from inaccessible heights, stretched away to the eastern horizon. The lofty crags on the far side paralleled the one she stood on—the valley seemingly an endless furrow, carved out of the living rock during the world’s creation by a harrow wielded by the gods.

  As stunning as the view was, it paled in comparison to what filled the air. Dozens of dragons both near and far soared upon the wind, lazily curling one way or another, their horned heads searching the steep slopes.

  So absorbed in their fantastical beauty, she never saw the dragon drop out of the sky above her. With nary a sound, it touched down behind her—the wind its wings produced as it caught its descent fluttered her cloak.

  She jumped, screaming, and held her hand over her heart. “You scared the life from me.”

  Lurker tilted his head as if contemplating her remark. “You seem alive to me.”

  Frowning at first, she broke into a smile. “It’s a figure of speech.”

  Lurker tilted his head the other way.

  “It’s an expression. I didn’t mean it literally.”

  “Literally?”

  “Yes. I didn’t mean you killed me, I just meant…” Flustered she threw her hands in the air. “It doesn’t matter. You scared me. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Lurker nodded once, apparently accepting her explanation.

  He had grown a head taller since their first meeting in the spring. Reecah found herself having to look up to meet his gaze. “Any news on the others?”

  His face became serious.

  “What is it? Are they close?”

  “They are still a long way off. I left them where we slept last night.”

  That was alarming. She glanced back but the western end of the valley was hidden from view by the rock spur. Jonas’ men were half a day away. If she wasn’t careful, someone like Jaxon might catch her unawares.

  “I’m surprised the dragon community allows a force like that into the valley.”