“Just a book of tales is all, old dragon tales. Crazy old man came through here a few months back right after first-melt when the snow was still clearing. Said that he was a wizard and he was going to find dragons. Then he died over at the inn one night in his sleep. The inn keeper sold his things to me to pay his bill. This book was in his packs with two others. One is blank pages for making a journal and the third one is all written in some kind of scribbled language that nobody around here can read.”
“We’ll take the books too. I like tales and something to read would be nice to have around,” said Veer.
As the three carried their supplies out to be distributed among their packs the man continued to speak. “There is an inn there across the way. And a stable just up the street here. Make sure to tell them Torel sent you.”
After adding the new supplies mostly to the pack horse and distributing the rest among the other horses the three companions began to lead the horses up the street toward the direction of the stables. Following along with them were three puppies, a hunting dog and a big tough looking young guard dog. Overhead, from rooftop to rooftop moved a noisy crow.
“North?” Asked Shira. “And heavy coats when we are headed south and it won’t be that cold for a while?
“That man sells information, we came in from the direction of the Furway and we should leave to the north on the Edgeway then that is all that he can tell. And that we bought heavier cloaks for the northern winter,” said Cyerant.
“Then we double back around through the hills,” added Veer.
“Well, if he sells information why didn’t you ask….” Shira got that far before Cyerant cut her off.
“Because when a guardsman asks about somebody like me or a foreigner asks about people with dogs then he will remember that we asked about guards and foreigners. All he knows now is that we go north.”
Shira shook her head and said. “People – especially people in towns. I just don’t understand them. I would rather be out in the hills, those I understand. Now, why the books?”
Veer answered. “Tales about dragons might have something in it that we don’t know that can help us. Did you see it? It looks really old.”
“Ok so why the other two books?” Continued Shira.
“They were all the same size and the same leather covers like they were made together so if they are a set then we should keep them together. Maybe we’ll find someone who can read that language and I might start keeping a journal.”
“A journal?” Asked Cyerant. “You didn’t buy any ink.”
“Alright, then I’ll buy ink next time,” said Veer.
“No! Please, it’s all that I have,” came a child’s voice from a small alley between two buildings.
“It’s all you had boy, now I have it. Feel lucky I don’t sell you to a slave trader. Get gone,” answered a rough female voice.
As Cyerant stepped toward the entrance to the alley he heard the sound of a loud slap and a cry. Looking down the alley Cyerant saw a tall middle aged woman standing over the child that the companions had seen earlier that day. The woman was dressed in some light leather armour and was wearing a sword and in her hand she held a cloth sack. The woman gave the child a kick which caused him to cry out again. Then with a laugh she turned to walk away toward the back of the alley. The child scrambled to his hands and knees and lunged toward the cloth sack and managed to get a good grip on the cloth. The woman tuned back toward the child while drawing her knife. She jabbed the knife downward at the child who managed to squirm just enough that the blade did not plunge into his throat as had been intended. Instead the blade struck his shoulder and bit deeply into what little flesh the skinny boy had. The woman swore and drew the blade back to prepare another stab at the child.
“Stop!” Cyerant shouted as he drew his sword and approached the woman with long quick strides of his lean legs.
The woman looked up and snarled. “Mind your own business boy. Put that sword away, I was using swords before you were born.” Quickly she wiped her fighting knife on the cloth sack and returned it to the sheath and drew her sword with a single fluid motion.
Cyerant, seeing the woman replace her knife and draw her sword so smoothly recognized her experience with weapons and stopped his progress and postured himself in a guard position. “Leave the child and his things and we don’t have to do this,” Cyerant said warily.
The woman laughed and said,” maybe I want his things, and maybe I want to do this.” A look of recognition spread across the face of the woman. “I know who you are: the black hair and white skin. You’re the one what murdered that son of a lord. There’s a reward for you.” The woman was still holding the sack in her left hand and she dropped it while giving the child a sweeping kick to the ribs which drove the breath out of him and threw him clear of the feet of the woman. The child was thrown against the wall and let out another cry. The woman came slowly on guard facing Cyerant and looking beyond the shoulder of the young man she noticed his companions. “Your friends can go they aren’t worth anything. Now you can drop your sword and come with me or I can kill you and bring you with me. I get paid be you dead or alive.”
Cyerant felt a cold anger begin to sweep over him as he approached the woman. He knew that it was the anger being felt by his dragon Corth and he could hear the dragon coming up beside him. Cyerant tried to will the dragon to stay behind him and he was met with a firm resolve and a low growl to his left. Then Cyerant heard a sword unsheathe to his right and saw Veer move up to stand beside him and he heard another low growl off to his right which told him that Corth was not the only dragon preparing for battle. There was the sound of a bow being drawn just behind and to the left of Cyerant which told him that Shira would actually make the first strike in this fight.
The woman now seeing that she faced two swords and a girl with a bow began to slowly withdraw down the alley. She had an unsettled feeling about her opponents. Something about the two dogs that were facing her was strange. The guard dog and the hunting dog just looked odd and that colt standing there. Colts don’t fight but this one looked intent on attacking her. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that a puppy had gone over to the child with his sack and was licking the wound on the shoulder of the urchin. She hastened her retreat until she was able to duck around the building and disappear.
“What do we do now?” Asked Shira as she slowly let the pressure off of her bow and returned the arrow to the quiver. “She is going to report this to the guardsmen who are hunting you. She wants money.”
“No, she knows that she will make more if she brings me in so she is going to follow us until she can take me alone or find where we are hiding and bring guards to us.”
“So what do we do now?” Asked Shira again.
“Cyerant sighed and said. “We do what we said and we head north and then double back around. If we go after her here in this town people will ask questions and it will draw attention. If we just leave she will follow us and that will mean less attention and then we can deal with her later in the hills if we have to. But first let’s see what we can do for.”
Veer cut Cyerant off mid sentence warningly, “guys.” As Shira and Cyerant turned toward the sound of his voice Veer just nodded toward the side of the alley to which the boy had been kicked. They followed his gaze to see the boy sitting with widely opened eyes with his mouth agape in a silent scream as he looked right into the eyes of a baby dragon which had just been licking his gashed shoulder. The boy was starting to shake in terror.
“He sees what it really is,” said Veer. “But why?”
“That’s it!” Shouted Shira excitedly. “It’s the blood. Don’t you see? That must be how they bond. Every one of us got hurt and they licked the wounds and it saved our lives and then everything started to change.”
“Quiet,” Cyerant said. “We need to move now before we draw anymore attention.” Cyerant returned his sword to the sheath and walked over to the boy and picked him up. “Come with us, w
e’re all orphans too.” Lifting the boy in his arms Cyerant walked out of the alley and sat the boy on his horse and climbed up into the saddle behind the child. The child did not resist and seemed to be in shock.
Veer grabbed the sack from the alley and quickly tied it to the pack horse before mounting his own horse and following after the young nobleman. Shira grabbed the lead of the packhorse and climbed on her own horse and she too followed.
“At least his bleeding stopped,” said Veer quietly.
“Yes, I think that is what happens when that kind of puppy licks you,” responded Shira.
The companions rode as quickly as they could without looking like they were in a hurry. They rode to the north up the main street until they passed from the town.
The tall woman had doubled quickly around to watch the companions in the street and she saw them heading north from the town. Resolving to follow them she went to the stables to check on her horse. After what seemed like forever the stable boy had to run around back and she was able to take her horse without settling her bill but the delay was going to cost her.
The companions rode for about ten minutes until the Edgeway rounded a bend which obscured them from the town. Cyerant quickly led them off of the Edgeway and into the tree line headed toward the Wall. Just after entering the trees Cyerant stopped the party and started to watch the road behind to see if they had been followed. A few minutes later they saw the tall woman ride quickly around the bend and continue to the north past where the companions had left the road.
The woman rode to the north and just after rounding the first bend she could feel the eyes in the trees watching her. As she passed the place where the companions had left the road she acted as if she had not noticed the tracks. She planned to ride some distance ahead leaving them to think that she had missed them and then she would herself wait in the trees until they came by continuing their journey. And if they didn’t come by on the road she knew that would mean that they were actually heading into the hills of the Wall. Stupid kids, this is going too be easy. She thought to herself.
“Oh, good she went right past us,” said Shira. “We won’t have to worry about her.”
“Shira, think,” said Cyerant. “You’re a tracker, if you were her what would you do?”
Veer answered before Shira could. “Ride ahead and if I don’t find anyone I would hide for a while and if nobody comes by I would know that we doubled back.”
Shira added, “so we will only have the rest of today to get as much distance as we can ahead of her.”
“Yep” responded Veer. “So we have to move now and go as far as we can before night.”
They both turned their horses to follow Cyerant who had already headed deeper into the trees bearing south west to carry them all deeper into the Wall and to the south away from their pursuers. A short time later they both heard the boy panic as the shock of being attacked and cut and seeing dragons had worn off. They could not make out what was being said but they could hear Cyerant speaking to the boy in low calming tones. The boy seemed to stop panicking as Cyerant explained things to him.
After a short time they were well among the hills of the Wall and so Cyerant turned south and set a demanding pace throughout the rest of the day. As evening approached the horses would occasionally stumble in their tiredness. When the sun sank below the horizon the companions were still in the saddle and Veer finally spoke. “Cyerant, we have to stop it is getting too dark to see a safe path and the horses are exhausted. They have to rest.” As Veer said this, Cyerant, still in the lead broke through a brush-line into a small beaver meadow. There was a clear mountain fed stream flowing through the middle of the meadow right past where the old beaver dam once stood at the bottom of the clearing and there was enough grass to feed the horses well.
“Veer, Shira, this is Jolss,” said Cyerant as he climbed down and then helped the small child get down from his seat in front of the saddle. The boy was unsteady on his feet and he started to have a fit of coughing which also made him grab his shoulder from the pain that the coughing was causing to the wound. Immediately one of the smaller still greyish looking dragonets scrambled toward the boy who started to back away. The poor child overbalanced and fell hard on his injured shoulder crying out.
“He won’t hurt you,” said Veer as he climbed down from his saddle and hurried over to the boy. “He wants to help you.” Veer sat on the ground beside the boy. “Jolss is it? Let me see your shoulder. Put your head here in my lap and let me see the wound.” The boy turned so that his shoulder was exposed and Veer gingerly pulled back the ragged cloth from around the wound.
“You’re good with kids,” Shira said as she grabbed a satchel of medicines and salves from the back of the pack horse.
“I had a little brother,” Veer responded as he took the satchel. “He was about the same age he would be coming up on his eleventh birthday soon.”
“Thirteen. I’m thirteen not eleven,” Said the boy as he started to squirm around to look up at Veer.
Placing a firm hand on the arm of the boy, Veer said. “Hold still until I get this wound dressed.” The older boy began to slather the wound with a particularly odiferous salve and bandaged the wounded shoulder.
“Argh, does it have to stink so much?” Asked the boy.
“Yep, it has to stink if it is going to work. The root that makes it stink is the one that stops the pain,” answered Veer as he slowly sat the boy up.
Cyerant said, “tonight we will have to cold camp so we eat from the packs.” He then started to distribute dried meat and some bread bought that day.
“Oh. I’m so hungry,” the small boy said as he took his portion clumsily with one hand.
Shira said, “that’s the dragons, when they get hungry we feel it. It makes your hunger even worse. When they get angry we feel I too.”
“Where are the dragons?” The boy asked as he looked quickly around.
“Out hunting,” said Veer. “They’ll be back after they eat too.”
“Corth is already finished and on his way back,” said Cyerant
“How do you know?” Asked Jolss
“Cyool too,” Shira said to Cyerant and then she turned to the small boy and continued. “When they eat we stop feeling their hunger and only feel our own.”
“Drace will take a while,” Said Veer. “I think he just missed a kill and has to start over. He is still hungry and now he is pretty angry – or no – more frustrated than angry.”
The boy asked questions into the night and the companions answered them all one by one until the boy knew everything that they did about dragons. Yes, he should name his dragon. Yes all of the dragons were the same age even though the bonded ones looked older. Stay away from Green Eyes.
The boy also answered his share of questions until the companions knew more about him. He had always been an orphan and had been in an orphanage until spring when the orphanage decided to sell him to a trader who he didn’t trust. Yes the orphans were sold into apprenticeships around age 12 or so. He was so small because he was sickly and seemed to always have something or another wrong with him. He had been travelling south to try to get to the cities in the south to make his own way. His little sack had everything that he owned in it and he had been discovered by that woman when he was pulling it out of the hiding place. Jolss was the only name that he ever knew. He had learned to read at the little orphanage farm before he ran away, and he always loved to read because it was the only thing that he could do when he was sick all of the time. The Three older companions also noticed that Jolss coughed a lot and looked generally to be pale and sickly.
Finally the exhausted little boy drifted off to sleep rolled in a blanket from the packs. The companions discussed the situation and decided to head southward as quickly as they could in the morning and that since Jolss had bonded a dragon he would have to come with them. The companions then planned their watches and each took one watch and two turns of sleep.
“Ouch,” yelled Jolss
as he woke up with dawn. “My shoulder hurts.”
Shira had been sitting the last watch until Veer and Cyerant had both awakened to the birdsong just before dawn. The three companions had already saddled and packed the horses and prepared to move. Shira offered the boy some bread and a cup of water and said. “It will be sore and stiff for a while. But I think that it will heal quickly everything seems to heal quickly for us.”
As the boy ate, Veer pulled the three books out of the packs and showed them to the boy and asked. “Do you remember these?”
“Yes Jolss answered with an excited look. “You bought the dragon book. Can I read it?”
“As we ride,” Shira said. “I guess that you will share my horse for a while since we are the lightest. You can sit in front of my saddle and read while we ride.”
The boy got a hesitant look on his face. “Ride, again? So soon? Can’t we take a break for a couple of days?”
“Your backside will get used to it in a few days,” Cyerant said with a rare hint of a smile. “We could get Veer to put some of that stinky salve on it if you want.”
“No!” The boy snapped as the other three smirked at him. One of the small dragons had come to stand beside the boy. The dragon was so small that it sat barely reaching the knee of the child. The dragon stretched herself to her full height and in her small voice roared an indignant challenge toward Cyerant.
Shira was already mounted on her horse and she had subtly folded up one of the softer blankets and laid it across the horse just in front of her saddle. She held her hand out toward the boy and said, “up you get.”
Veer lifted the boy careful to not jostle the injured shoulder of the child. Jolss clumsily kicked his leg over the back of the horse almost hitting Shira in the face as she ducked aside to avoid the foot. Cyool, standing nearby, gave a scolding hiss toward the boy.
“Sorry” Said Jolss with a smile as he also tried to steady himself.
Dragons of Summer Tide (The Dragons of Hwandor) Page 14
