by L. R. Patton
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Dragons: Episode 4 (Fairendale, #4)
Footsteps
Fortune
Throne
Hate
Plans
Peace
Arrival
Opportunity
Found
Consolation
Fire
The End
Don’t miss out on the next Fairendale adventure!
Shape Shifters
How to Know If You Are a Shape Shifter
7 Ways Dragons Differ From Humans
About the Author
A Note From L.R.
Read all the books in the Fairendale series!
Book .5: The Good King’s Fall (a prequel)
Book 1: The Treacherous Secret
Book 2: The King’s Pursuit
Book 3: The Perilous Crossing
Book 4: The Dragons of Morad
Book 5: The Fiery Aftermath
Book 6: The Mysterious Separation
Collector’s Editions:
Books 1-6: The Flight of the Magical Children
To see all the books L.R. Patton has written, please click or visit the link below:
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Copyright ©2016 by L.R. Patton. All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To my dragons,
who set a world
afire
Footsteps
THEY say dragons can feel footsteps. It matters not how silent those footsteps may be, for it is said that dragons can feel the shifting of the earth, even if it is but a gentle shifting. The children, and, of course, Arthur and Maude, know very well these stories, and so it is that they travel on the perimeter of Morad with a mounting fear in their hearts. Will they wake the dragons? Will they find themselves in a greater danger than they might ever have faced? Will they have the utmost privilege of bearing witness to the majesty of creatures such as these, a privilege that comes with a dangerous price?
The answers to these questions do not matter at all, dear reader, for Arthur and Maude and the children know they must journey on. They know that passing through the dragon lands of Morad is the only way. They know that the king’s guard, under orders from King Willis to find the magical boy of Fairendale, are coming for them, and to turn back would be to surrender their lives. They must move forward. They must at least try.
Arthur leads the way. He steps carefully, slowly, silently. No one speaks a single word. They are afraid of speaking, you see, for any noise could be the noise that gives them away. If they could fly through this land, they would, for even the noise of their feet, the shaking of those steps, carries danger. They cannot very well keep the ground from shifting beneath them. Who could?
There are so many children, and they are trying so very hard to be quiet, but children, we well know, are not always skilled at keeping quiet, nor are they always skilled at knowing precisely what quiet means. One has only to recall the experience of slipping out of bed, for one more thing, and immediately being discovered by one’s parents to agree that this is an interesting mystery, indeed.
A dragon’s ear, alas, is even finer tuned than a parent’s.
Arthur leads the children onward toward a shelter. He has chosen a cave. There are many in this land, but this cave is larger than all the others, enough to hold the twenty-four children and the two grown ones. He does not speak his fear aloud, not only because he knows the gift of silence in a land such as this one, but also because he does not want to alarm the children. There could be dragons waiting in that cave. Oh, yes. But perhaps fortune will smile upon them today, as it seems to have smiled upon them in their every attempt to escape danger. This is the hope Arthur carries. Every step, this hope trades places with his fear, so his footsteps sound like this:
Left, right, left, right, left, right. Fear, hope, fear, hope, fear, hope.
Maude brings up the tail end. The children stretch between them. They do not run, hardly even walk, to be precise. They creep, one step after another. The girls do not touch their staffs to the ground, for that would be unnecessary noise. They cradle them in their arms instead. The children think only of what is behind them, hoping that they have gained enough space between them and the danger of the king’s men that they will not be discovered. It is not so very far to the cave before them, but they move so slowly.
Maude, for her part, thinks only of the dragons. Perhaps Arthur, Maude and the children will be permitted this invasion. Perhaps the dragons are reasonable creatures who will listen to their story and agree that they may pass into lands of safety. She looks around the wasteland that has not moved or changed at all in the minutes they have traveled. Not a single sign of life. And this brings another concern to the mind of a woman like Maude. What is it that they will eat? Where will they find water? How will they survive this crossing without sustenance?
And what will they do once they reach the cave? They will not be able to remain in a cave forever. What is it Arthur has planned? Has he planned at all?
She supposes her husband has likely not thought this through in its entirety, but she cannot blame him, reader. For they are all only concerned with the moment, with ensuring safety here and now. They will consider the future when they have reached safety.
And look. They have made it to the mouth of the cave. Maude has caught up to the group, and they are standing in a huddle of sorts. Arthur glances behind them, to make sure no one has followed them. In fact, he looks all around, briefly, with a trained eye that has not been used for some time. It has been many years since he has seen a dragon. He has forgotten how to look.
“I shall go in first,” Arthur whispers, and Maude nods silently. Brave Arthur. He is a good man, a kind man, and, perhaps most importantly, a courageous man. Not many would risk their lives for all these children. But Arthur has risked his life all along the way and now risks his life by walking into a cave.
Caves, you see, are the homes of dragons. He remembers this from his days as a boy, when he would move about in caves, always stepping silently and carefully to ensure there was no danger inside. Sometimes, as a young boy, he found that danger in sleeping form, and he found himself fleeing without a backward glance.
It takes him only a moment, and then Arthur is beckoning them all to enter. “Quickly,” he says. “Let us seek cover.”
It is dark inside the cave. If one could see inside it, one might note how very like the dungeons beneath the dungeons this cave appears. It is dark and cold and damp. These children, who have escaped from the king’s men, face the same sort of sleeping place as the children who did not escape. This, dear reader, is what one might call irony.
One of the girls, a quiet one called Minnie, musters e
nough magic, though she is tired and starving, to make the tip of her staff glow. The children look around them, but do not see much before Maude, dear Maude, closes a fist over the girl’s staff. “No,” she says. “We must not use light. We cannot risk being discovered.”
Will the children have to live in the dark forever? This is the fear that creeps into all of their hearts. They squint their eyes, but there is nothing to see, for the light lessens the deeper they move into the cave, the further they creep from the mouth. A cave as long as this quickly loses all its light.
“This cave is larger than it first appeared,” Arthur says. The children only know where he is by the sound of his voice. They run their hands against the sides of the cave, feeling their way forward. It grows narrower the deeper they move. “There will be plenty of space for all of us to sleep.”
The children brush up against one another, but they cannot see whose tunic touches whose dress or whose foot steps on theirs or which arm has hooked their elbow, for it is much too dark. They cannot even see the whites of their eyes anymore. It is as if the light has been drained from their world.
“Sit, children,” Arthur says. “You are tired. We must rest for a time.”
In truth, all the children want is a bit of water. If you will remember, they have only just finished running faster than they have, perhaps, ever run in their lives, and their mouths are dry and parched. Arthur seems to sense this, or perhaps he feels the same, for he says, “I will search for some water.” A clinking noise. A step. A whisper.
“It is far too dangerous,” Maude says, and it is so quiet in the cave that all the children hear her.
“It is dangerous to live without water as well,” Arthur whispers. “I must go.”
And then he is gone, and it is Maude bidding the children to lie down and rest.
And they try, dear reader. They certainly do. But, you see, this ground is not the same as their underground home. Their underground home had beds made of straw, at least. Here, the only bed they find is one of rock. The edges prod their backs. For a time, there is only the sound of children trying to find a comfortable position, but soon, they stop trying, for there is no comfortable position when one is lying on cold, hard, knobby rock.
“It is not like our other home,” Hazel whispers into the dark. The children murmur around her.
Her mother finds her hand and squeezes it, though Hazel can only sense that the hand in hers is her mother’s, for she cannot see it. “We will leave for Rosehaven soon,” Maude says. “We have only to stay here until we are sure the way is safe. The king’s men will move on.”
“What about food?” a boy calls from the darkness. “What shall we do for food?”
“Arthur will see to that,” Maude says. “Do not worry about your well being. He has brought us here because he knows this land.”
The children, more than anyone, know the stories of Arthur’s wanderings, for this is how they passed their time underground, with storytelling. Arthur is the greatest of all storytellers, though not one of them can recall hearing any involving dragons or these lands.
“Has he traveled across Morad?” Hazel says.
“Many, many years ago,” Maude says.
“Did he know the dragons?” a girl asks.
“He did not know them,” Maude says. “But they let him pass.”
This gives the children great hopes for their own safe passage, as one might imagine. If Arthur crossed these lands once, and the dragons did not stop him, perhaps they, who are in grave danger, will be permitted to cross. It is this very hope, in fact, that led Arthur to try these lands, for no man would ever think to look here.
“How will we cross the land?” a boy says.
Though Maude would like nothing more than for the children to sleep, for she has worries of her own, she knows that they are frightened, and a child frightened is a child who cannot sleep. So she says, “From cave to cave. We will run on silent feet and hide in the darkness.”
“I do not like the dark,” a girl calls out in a squeaky voice.
“No,” Maude says. “Not many do. But darkness is our safety now, children. At least until we cross these lands.”
Someone’s stomach rumbles. A few of the children laugh. Others weep. They are so very hungry, you see. So thirsty. So afraid.
Hazel is glad her mother’s hand rests on hers. She pulls her head against her mother’s shoulder now. “I do not want to leave Fariendale,” she says. “It is all I have ever known.”
Her mother strokes her hair. “I know, my dear,” Maude says. “But you were born in Rosehaven. You do not remember, but you loved the land once.”
“Is it as lovely as Fairendale?” Hazel says.
“No,” Maude says. “I have never seen a land as lovely as Fairendale, though I have not seen them all. And Fairendale...” She does not finish, but every child here could finish for her. Fairendale is not as lovely as it once was. They have heard the stories from their own parents, you see. Fairendale, as it existed once, practically shimmered with vibrant colors and clear skies. And while it is true that the Fairendale before the king’s roundup wore vibrant colors and beautiful blue skies, it did not shimmer as it had done once upon a time. The land had never known a cloud until King Sebastien took the throne. Some stories say it was his doing, that he did not enjoy the light so much as The Good King Brendon, and that is why clouds crept in. The children have never known this flawless world. They have only known a muted beauty that is, still, lovelier than all other lands.
Fairendale has grown even darker still, now, without the children, but they have not gone back to see it. They do not know what a land becomes without its children.
“But the people of Rosehaven are good people,” Maude says. “They will keep us safe. They will grant us asylum.”
Hazel does not speak again. She is only thinking of Theo. What if they never find Theo? What if he does not know where they have gone? What if he is in the king’s possession?
What if he dies?
She cannot bear to think of her brother’s death. She cannot bear to think of life without him, of magic without him. She does not dare say her thoughts aloud, for she does not want to cause her mother more distress. So she says, instead, “What if we do not ever return to Fairendale?”
“I believe we shall,” Maude says. “In time. In the days of another king, perhaps.”
“A king like Prince Virgil?” Hazel says.
“Perhaps another,” Maude says. Her voice has grown far away, as if she is no longer in the cave but with her husband, who, even now, is stealing back to their cave on legs that belong to a much younger man.
“You must rest, my dear,” Maude says. “I shall wait up for your father. I will guard the way.” She gently pushes her daughter away from her shoulder. Hazel stretches out on the ground, as all the children have done, their feet touching heads, on and on down the line, each of them facing another, but for the last one, a boy called Jasper, whose head points toward the mouth of the cave, though still deep enough inside to be hidden from those who might peer in from the outside.
Soon, the cave will grow much darker, for the sun will be gone, but the children will not notice, for they are very tired—tired enough, even, to sleep on a bed of stone. They do not think of the dark, nor of the stone, nor of what may come tomorrow. They merely sleep, their breaths warming the cave.
No one but Maude hears Arthur return. No one but Maude hears Arthur whisper. “It is growing colder out there. And we are headed north. But I brought us water.” No one but Arthur hears Maude whisper back.
“We will make it, will we not, Arthur? We will make it to Rosehaven. Please tell me we will.”
Only Arthur and Maude hear the silence that stretches between them, summoned by a question that cannot be answered.
IN the woods, hidden quite impressively, away from any place one might detect him even if one were skilled in looking, is a man.
He is a young man, clothed in brown and green and
all the colors of the forest that turn him invisible to the naked eye. He has donned his cover most skillfully, huddling in the shadows, right out in the open, but one would never notice anything but a stump.
This man is an unknown man. He does not dare move from his cover. He must appear as a stump, if he is to watch the mouth of the cave unnoticed. He must not retreat back into the trees. He must certainly not step over the line. He knows the rules, after all. He knows that no man who desires to live would ever cross this boundary line.
And so he hides. And waits.
He waits for what he knows must come.
For he has seen the print. His kind can see prints from quite a distance away.
It is only a matter of time.
IN the heart of the woods, the king’s men have dared remain longer inside the cover of trees than any other man, for they have been given a charge, and they, in truth, feel desperate to find the missing children, for the ones among them who have lives in the village of Fairendale, which is merely a handful of them, want nothing more than to return to their wives and mothers. They are duty bound, and these men, you see, are honorable men, unwilling to break their vows to their king, though their king has stolen some of their children. It is not easy to understand, is it, dear reader? But honor is a strange thing, different for every man. Some believe that honor means fulfilling the duty they have promised another. Some believe that honor means caring for their families. These men, you see, are caught between the two. Fulfilling a duty is what they are doing. Caring for their families is also what they are doing. One might argue that the king’s men are not caring for their families, but in the world of Fairendale, one who works for the king is one who receives all his family needs. Alas, they cannot decide between finding their own children and caring for the family that is left to them. And so they do their duty. They hold to their honor.
They look rather silly cavorting about in their silver breastplates and clunky armor, trying to beat the sun. The men who are strictly soldiers and the men who are also family men have all heard the stories of the dangers that live in these woods, and so they turn stones and climb trees and crawl on their hands and knees, noses near the ground in full soldier dress, for protection, of course (they did not dare take it off, for what if they should meet a creature of the wood?). They search in a fashion that is decidedly hurried and desperate, for they must find their way out before the sun disappears. And the light is fast fading, for the trees loom thick and tall.
