Reecah searched the immediate area before stepping onto the path.
“If I meant you harm, don’t you think I would’ve told the others you were there?”
She searched him from head to foot. “How’d you know?”
“Your friend gave you away.”
She frowned.
“The raven. He’s yours, is he not?”
She swallowed, refusing to comment.
“He’s the bird from Grimelda’s Clutch.” Junior’s words were a statement, not a question.
Saying nothing, Reecah backed down the trail.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you. I wanted to warn you. My uncle suspects the raven belonged to the witch. Through your association, he has tied the bird to you. It’s just a matter of time before they put it all together and realize you’re the one behind the delays along the route. When that happens, you’ll be in serious trouble.”
Reecah cast a glance behind her, fully expecting to see the other three men from the hunt sneaking up behind her.
“If you’re looking for the rest of the hunt, they’re dead.”
“Huh?”
“We were attacked by dragons last night.”
Reecah gaped, lowering her sword. That explained the commotion. “And?”
Junior shrugged. “And what? We defended ourselves. We killed them.”
“What colour?”
“Huh?”
“What colour were the dragons?”
Junior stepped toward her. “What’s it matter? They’re dead.”
Reecah raised her sword again, her eyes narrowing. “What colour?”
“Easy with that thing.” Junior back stepped. “Purple and green, why?”
“No!” Reecah slid her sword into its sheath and sprinted up the trail.
“Reecah, wait! It’s too dangerous.”
His words didn’t register. The vision of the ivory poles making up the litter’s frame flashed through her mind. All she could think of was Lurker’s mother as she bolted up the trail, deeper into Dragonfang Pass.
She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Junior giving chase, but he just stood there, staring at her, bewilderment written on his face.
It didn’t take her long to stumble across the gory scene. Two full-sized dragons lay dead across a wide clearing—blood and gore splattered around their midsections and heads. She stumbled to a stop in front of the green dragon, her mind numb.
The dragons were massive. Judging by the size of their mouths, either one of them would have been able to swallow a man whole.
Between the dragon corpses, the remains of a large campfire lay smeared across the ground, but the burn marks close to the purple dragon were definitely not caused by a campfire.
She dropped to her knees in shock, staring at the green dragon’s head. It lay on its side, its visible, lifeless, emerald eye open and infested with flies.
Her body convulsed but she hadn’t enough food in her stomach to bring it up.
A sad mewling noise made her jerk her head up and look around. It came from the purple dragon.
Reecah stood and fingered her sword hilt, not sure what to do. If the dragon was still alive, she was in trouble.
The massive body didn’t move. Its butchered head as lifeless as the green dragon.
The sad noise came again.
Pulling her sword free, Reecah walked around the purple dragon’s head, giving it a wide berth. On the far side of the clearing, she caught sight of a man-sized, purple dragonling nuzzling its head beneath the dead dragon’s foreleg. It looked identical to the baby dragon she had covered with her blanket.
Afraid she was making a deadly mistake, she approached the baby dragon—the poor creature trying to rouse its mother. It was either oblivious or uncaring of her presence.
Tears blurred Reecah’s vision but another noise, one much more ominous, had her staring around the clearing searching for the cause.
Lurker appeared between a gap in the trees, his wings beating slowly as he hovered at the brink of the precipice looking in. His eyes took in the purple dragon and then the green before locking on Reecah. He never broke eye contact as he landed beside the green dragon’s tail.
Reecah walked between the fallen dragons, but Lurker’s angry glare stopped her. A look so intense it was like he was trying to talk to her.
The journal!
She withdrew the book and opened it to the second page.
You did this!
Her heart caught in her throat. She shook her head. “No! I would never do this. It was the men we spoke of yesterday.”
Your friends!
“They’re not my friends. They’re bad men.”
Why didn’t you kill them?
My mother would still be alive!
“Oh, Lurker, I’m so sorry. I had no idea they would do this.”
Look what you’ve done!
Reecah gasped. “B-but, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. Lurker, you’re my friend. I would never do this. I tried to stop them.”
Lurker charged up to her so fast she couldn’t have gotten out of the way if she wanted to. He stopped, his long snout level with her face.
She waited for the fire that never came. Searching the dragon’s face, the sight of tears escaping his beautiful eyes was like a dagger to her heart. Holding the journal up in a shaking hand, his words drove the dagger home and twisted.
I’m not your friend.
Leave here and never come back.
The next time I see you, I will kill you.
She lowered her eyes. The journal slipped from her hands. It fell to the ground on its cover, its pages rustling in the breeze. With her head hung low, she started for home.
The Hill Witch
“Viper tells me you spoke with the hill witch again,” Jonas growled, his meaty fists lifting Junior off the trail and pinning him against a tree beside the drop. “Is that true?”
Junior caught Viper’s sneer out of the corner of his eye.
Viper scoffed, “Don’t be thinking I’d forget your weakness just because you slew a dragon. Lucky for her, I didn’t catch on until it was too late.”
Junior frowned at the weasel-faced snake. “What’re you talking about?”
Viper spat on the ground. “Please. One minute you’re distracting me with questions about my crossbow, and the next you’re volunteering to wait on the raven. When it dawned on me what you were up to, I went back and saw you speaking with the witch just before she took off up the valley.”
“Why does everyone insist she’s a witch?”
Jonas jammed his fists under Junior’s chin and said with a tooth-clenched snarl, “Think, bonehead. She’s related to the witch we burned in town.”
“Grimelda?” Junior asked. “No way!”
Jonas grunted, his angry sneer boring into Junior for a tense moment before he released him. “If you’ll take your mind off your crotch, you’ll recall Reecah’s grandmother was Grimelda’s sister. In my book, that makes the hill witch Grimelda’s great-niece. You thinking on populating the village with ill-begotten spawn?”
Junior looked at the ground. “No, Father.”
Stretching his neck and rubbing at it where his father had threatened to crush his windpipe, Junior struggled to keep from running from his father’s wrath. He knew that if he did, his punishment would be more severe when he returned home.
Trying to appear contrite, he kept his eyes diverted and thought about the night the witch’s shop had burned to the ground. Reecah had pled with his father and uncle to leave the witch alone. Now that he thought about it, he recalled the rumours of the Draakvriends. He’d never made much of it, but if his father was right…
He shook off the thought, thankful the rest of the hunt had continued down the path, including Joram and his brother. He couldn’t bear Jaxon watching their father pummel him. His brother received too much joy from it.
Jonas started to walk away but came back and went face to face with him. “What am I g
oing to do with you?”
Junior mustn’t have answered quick enough because his father slammed his palms into his chest. He stumbled toward the brink. Using his hands to grab at the brush on the ground, he prevented himself from pitching over the edge.
If Jonas was concerned at how close he had come to killing him, he never let on. Stepping close, he seemed on the verge of giving him one final shove.
If not for Viper’s intervention, Junior was fairly certain his father would have.
“Jonas! Enough! Deal with him when we get off the mountain. If we’re attacked again, we’ll need every man.”
Junior gave the snake a sideways look. So that was it. Viper wasn’t concerned with his welfare, he was ensuring his own sorry hide had enough protection in case a dragon attacked.
Even with Viper between them, Junior feared his father wouldn’t be put off, but eventually, Jonas stormed off.
Viper cast Junior an angry glare. “Don’t be thinking we’re done with your wench, neither. Fishmonger Bay ain’t no place to be harbouring witches anymore.”
Junior stared at the greasy-haired man striding after his father. The last thing he wanted to do was go with them but what choice did he have? He couldn’t remain on the mountainside. Surely not within the pass.
He thought of Reecah who had gone the other way. He shook his head. Perhaps she was a witch.
Heaving a sigh, he straightened his clothing, adjusted his gear, and started along the trail—making sure he walked slower than his father.
No Going Home
Reecah’s feet hurt, her stomach ached, her head pained her, and her heart was broken. Descending the mountain heights, she looked forward to secluding herself within her lonely hut on top of the hill. Despite her misery, she experienced a faint warmth deep inside as the familiar terrain passed beneath her boots. There was nothing quite like the peacefulness and sense of security offered by the weathered boards of Grammy and Poppa’s cabin.
Raver squawked somewhere in the trees behind her but she wasn’t worried about him. They were far enough away from Dragonfang Pass. With the exception of dragons and people, ravens didn’t have many predators. Reecah pitied any hawk or owl deciding to tangle with her black feathered friend.
Four days had passed since witnessing the gory scene with Lurker’s mother and the purple dragon. The image still made her sick to her stomach. Lurker’s accusations and his open threat to kill her had left her numb.
Despite Lurker’s harsh words, she lamented dropping her diary. The journal and the magical gemstone were special gifts from Grammy and Poppa. She fought to quell the tears blurring her vision, something that happened more often these days. The journal was lost to her.
To console herself, she focused on the fact that she had been granted a once in a lifetime opportunity to speak with a dragon. She didn’t know of anyone else ever doing that.
She sniffled and forced a smile, wishing for the countless time she had a friend in the village. A friend anywhere. One that she could sit down with and share her amazing experience with. She had never been a braggart but the event was too exciting to keep to herself. She scuffed the toe of her boot on the grassy hillside. Who would believe her anyway?
She had made a point of following the route the hunt would take, not wanting to overtake Jonas and his thugs. Watching the faint trail at her feet, her breath caught in her throat. If not for the heavy rains last night, she would have missed the boot prints in a quickly drying mud puddle. She had recently departed the main trail. Nobody else took this side route off the mountain except her. It led to only one place. Home.
She ducked beneath the height of the spring undergrowth lining the hilltop above the clearing around the hut and listened. Nothing.
She studied the tracks. Four sets. Judging by their size, at least three of them were men’s.
Raver fluttered into view, silently winging his way to the cabin. Her mind eased. She had grown used to his habits. If he’d seen anything untoward from the sky, he would’ve called out, folded his wings in, and dropped to her like a rock.
Fingering her sword hilt, she quietly padded the rest of the way down the hill behind her home, stopping at the edge of the small clearing. It wouldn’t hurt to be careful.
Raver was nowhere in sight. Nor was anyone else. She scanned the ground. Faint tracks much bigger than her own led from the trail toward the hut.
An excited cawing caught her attention. It grew in volume until Raver appeared from around the front of the hut and flew straight at her. She caught him on a vambrace and held him steady. “What is it? Is somebody in the hut?”
Raver bobbed his head up and down. “In the hut! In the hut!”
She ducked low, feeling exposed. If someone had bothered to look through the back window, they would know she was there.
Afraid to move, she studied the area, ready to bolt up the hill, but nothing moved. Nor did she detect any sound coming from her cabin.
Swatting at a gnat buzzing around her head, she decided to risk a closer inspection. If someone had seen her it wouldn’t make a difference how she approached, so she stood and threw Raver into the air. “Be my eyes.”
The raven cawed twice and flew to the hut’s peak. As frightened as she was, she couldn’t help smiling when he slipped on the roof and tumbled to his side. She envisioned him rolling off the roof in a flurry of frantic feathers, but he righted himself.
Stifling a nervous laugh, she hurried to the back wall of the hut and crept over to the window. She held her breath, rolled her head to the side and peeked through the window.
It was difficult to see the dark interior but right away she knew something was wrong. On the opposite side of the cabin, the front door stood ajar.
She pulled back, debating whether to make a run for it or charge into the hut with her sword drawn.
A wind swayed the treetops and the door banged in the wind. The noise had her doubting herself. Perhaps she hadn’t closed it properly. That still didn’t explain the boot prints.
Risking a better look, she cupped her hands against the window. Her mouth dropped. The contents had been tossed.
Without worrying about the ramifications, she raced around the hut and burst through the door, her sword held in front of her, but no one was inside.
Sliding her sword into its scabbard, she walked amongst the jumble of upset furniture and broken adornments. The sheets were torn off her pallet and the drawers of Grammy’s old dresser lay upended on the floor.
She jumped as Raver flew into the hovel and crash-landed on the countertop beneath the back window.
The sight of Grammy’s loom smashed beyond repair left her reeling. Covering her stricken face with trembling hands, she stumbled to the old weaving machine and set the old stool back on its feet so she could sit before her legs gave out.
“Who would do something like this?” she said out loud, but she already knew the answer.
A cold chill gripped her. Everything she’d ever known lay strewn around the interior of the hut. Her gaze drifted to the corner where she used to sleep on a blanket. Her wooden dragon lay in splinters against the wall.
The stool tipped from underneath her as she dropped to her knees and stretched a shaking hand toward her most special possession. She couldn’t bring herself to actually go to it. She was crying so hard she found it difficult to breathe. She didn’t care. They had taken everything from her.
Raver squawked excitedly just before the sound of booted footsteps approached the hut and stomped across the porch—stopping in the doorway.
“Reecah?”
Junior’s voice called to her but she didn’t bother meeting his gaze—her hurt too profound. If the son of Jonas wished to run her through with his sword, let him. She had nothing left.
She had no strength to flinch as his footsteps approached and stopped directly behind her.
“I’m so sorry.”
A tentative hand dropped on her shoulder but she shrugged it off.
“I had nothing to do with this. I can’t believe they did this to you.”
The presence of Jonas’ son did little to soothe her grief. With swollen eyes, she regarded him, not caring how she must look—face streaming with tears and her nose running.
Junior glanced around the hut, shock and sadness on his face. When their eyes met, he appeared on the verge of tears himself.
“I apologize for the actions of my family, but I’m sure nothing I say will ease your pain. If it’s any consolation, I’m ashamed to be a Waverunner.”
Reecah swallowed but didn’t think she could find her voice. She shook her head and cried even harder.
Junior knelt and put an arm around her shoulder.
She tried to shrug him off but his strong grip held on, pulling her into his embrace. She wanted to resist but the hurt was too intense. Lacking the strength to break free, she resigned herself to his arms and cried into his shoulder.
She wasn’t used to being held, not since Grammy had left her. She couldn’t recall a time anyone other than her grandparents and great-aunt had bothered to show her affection. It felt strange being in Junior’s arms, and yet, she found it oddly comforting. Had he not been a Waverunner, she might have returned the hug.
To his credit, Junior held her patiently until she finally sniffled loudly and separated herself, wiping her face on the inside of her cloak.
Junior rose, watching her, his lips pursed to speak but he remained quiet.
Her voice came as a harsh whisper. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be killing babies?”
He wrung his hands together. “I came to warn you. You can’t stay here.”
If her heart hadn’t been so heavy, she would’ve laughed at the absurdity of his statement. “You’re too late.”
“No, Reecah, listen.”
He stepped forward trying to grasp her by the hands, but she stepped out of reach.
“Members of the hunt did this on their way to the village. They were hoping to find you here. They’ll be back.”
“I don’t care anymore. What more can they do to me?” Even as she said it, visions of all the ways Jonas and his men might make her life worse went through her mind. She shuddered.
Legends of the Lurker Box Set Page 14
