by GARY DARBY
“Honestly, we don’t know,” Phigby concedes. “She only said that we needed to get deeper into the mountains to avoid being seen by Wilders and that she wanted us to meet someone. But she didn’t name who that someone was or where we were to meet. However, of a surety, she spoke true, for only a few hours ago did we see Wilder scum skying in the distance.”
At that, the lady straightens to stare at Phigby. “How many and how close?”
Just then, a motion in the sky on our back trail catches my eye. I whip up my hand and point. “As many as those.”
Everyone spins around at my declaration. Skying low above the row of hills that we just passed through and maybe five leagues or more distant are six Wilder dragons.
The Golian takes one look and orders, “Swiftly, follow me.”
At a brisk run, the Golian lady leads us through a series of hill valleys until, surprisingly, we turn away from the mountains and back toward the woodlands.
We pass through a sharp cleft between two birchen-covered hills and ahead of us I can see several small mountains, one of which seems to have its top cleanly sheared off as if some Titan had taken his ax and cut off half the mount in one mighty swing.
The giantess halts to scout our back trail, rejoins us, and seemingly satisfied that the Wilders haven’t spotted us, slows down, though what she considers to be a slower pace is still a lumbering gait for the dragons.
Cara pulls Wind Song out of the line and alongside the litter. She seems to be concerned about Alonya. After a bit, Wind Song picks up the pace and comes even with Golden Wind.
As they draw alongside, I ask, “How is she doing?”
“Still sleeping,” Cara curtly answers, staring straight ahead without even a sideways glance at me.
“Her wounds, have they stopped bleeding?”
This time, she turns her head to me as if to acknowledge my presence. “Yes, it appears so,” she says and begrudgingly gestures toward the giant litter. “Thanks to your contraption.”
“That’s good,” I answer. “It’ll give Phigby’s salve more time to work.”
I squirm around so that I can glance back. Between the golden’s movements and the logs dragging across the ground, the litter bounces and sways. Trying to make light-hearted conversation, I point at the sleeping giant. “Look, she has a smile on her face. Maybe the litter’s rocking makes her think that she’s back in her cradle.”
“And what would you know of cradles?” Cara snaps.
“I, uh—I,” stutter before I give up and shrug. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Well,” Cara replies while giving me another hard look, “since you don’t, make sure you not only keep a close eye on Alonya but Golden Wind, too. Remember she’s carrying a sprog, and I don’t want the strain of pulling Alonya to be too much for her.”
With that, she prods Wind Song to pull ahead of us. I let out a long breath that lifts my bangs. I chew on my lip as I watch Cara pull alongside Phigby, no doubt to report on Alonya’s condition.
I shake my head to myself and murmur, “And all along, Hooper, you thought Arnie and Hakon had sharp tongues. That girl could slice and dice them with two sentences. Wait, what am I saying? She’d only need one sentence and a short one at that.”
“Hooper,” Golden Wind asks, “is there trouble between you and Cara? I know that she means a great deal to you, doesn’t she?”
“Uh, well, I . . .” The golden’s question has left me tongue-tied. Are my feelings for Cara that obvious? If they are, I need to be more careful, especially around Helmar.
But I truthfully answer Golden Wind in a murmur, “Yes, she does.”
“Then I am truly sorry that you are experiencing distress over it.”
I snort in response. “Distress? Trouble? Hah! But let’s just say that if Cara and Vay ever get into a stare-off, Cara could turn Vay into an icicle in two blinks of her lovely green eyes.”
“Is there something I can do to help?”
“Sure, start speaking to her like you talk to me. You know she believes that you and I talk to each other and that I’m keeping it a secret from her.
“And she hates it, too,” I sigh in a small voice. “I wish I could share, but you’ve said not to.”
Golden Wind is silent for a long time. “Hooper, sharing is an important part of friendship, and I am very sorry that this is something that you can’t. However, I promise you that at the right time, Cara and I will be able to have speech together.”
“And when will that be?” I ask eagerly.
“I don’t know, Hooper,” she admits. “I just know it will happen.”
“Great,” I mutter in a disappointed tone. “Until then, I’ve got a sorceress that wants to cut my neck off and a girl who wants to wring it.”
I let out another long sigh. “It just keeps getting better and better.”
At a clear-running stream, the Golian slows us to a walk and in the shelter of a dense grove, sternly orders, “If you need to drink, do so, but stay here and do not move from this place.” She turns and strides off on our back trail.
At a gesture from Master Boren, we slide off our dragons to let them and ourselves drink. Cara and Helmar help me unload the sprogs and after drinking deeply from the creek, I join Phigby, who’s checking Alonya’s bandages.
Amazingly, not once during our run through the valleys has Alonya stirred from her sleep. Amil peers over at her and asks, “What did you put in that potion, Phigby? The next time I need to rest long and deep, I shall ask for some myself.”
Phigby straightens from inspecting Alonya’s bandages and an embarrassed expression sweeps across his face. “Umm, er, it may be that I added a mite too much Tincture of Chamomile, and perhaps a pinch too many Lavender Tea leaves. Or, it may be that I added too much—”
“Never mind,” Amil snorts. “In other words, she’s going to sleep for a while more.”
“I wonder where our guide went,” Cara questions. “A little odd just leaving us here without a word of explanation.”
“Yes,” Helmar mutters, “but apparently she trusts us enough to watch over her comrade while she does.”
“And I,” Master Boren returns, “take that as a good sign that we’ve earned some measure of trust.”
“And why not?” Cara answers. “We’ve cared for Alonya all this way; why would we do anything different now?”
“I agree,” Phigby mutters. “Still, we can thank our lucky stars that she didn’t unleash her arrows on us back there. Nevertheless, it wasn’t exactly a warm welcome.”
“I’m not so sure,” Amil mutters darkly. “She may well come back, but with reinforcements and no doubt with someone of authority. Then we’ll see just how warm a reception we really get.”
“Either way,” Master Boren declares, “we shall do as she says and go no farther. She seems to think this is a good place to hide from the Wilders.”
He motions toward the trees and says, “Let’s get the dragons in a bit deeper.”
I have Golden Wind pull the litter under a tall tree that reminds me of an oak, but whose branches spread wider and higher than any oak tree I’ve ever seen.
The sprogs waddle over to where Scamper is digging at the base of the tree. Regal, naturally, gets directly behind Scamper and gets several paws full of pebbles and grass in the face before he gets the idea to move off to one side and away from the dirt spray.
Though he’s feverishly trying his best to dig his way under the tree, I call out to Scamper, “Scamp, keep an eye on the sprogs, make sure they stay out of trouble.”
Helmar snorts and laughs. “Don’t you think you got that backward? You should be telling the sprogs to keep an eye on Scamper.”
“Actually, Helmar, no,” I answer. “Scamper seems to take an interest in watching over the sprogs.”
“Oh, really?” Helmar asks and I can hear the derision in his voice. Shaking his head, he walks away.
I’m still watching Scamper and the sprogs when I hear the litter start to crea
k and groan from Alonya’s sudden stirring. Before I can turn, there’s an outraged bellowing, “What is this? What have you done to me!”
I spin around to find a furious Alonya pulling herself from the carrier. She stands on unsteady legs but her eyes are ablaze with fury. She points to the leafy stretcher and questions in a cold, incensed tone, “What is the meaning of this? I am not some child that you can carry about in such a manner.”
Drawing in a breath that’s almost a hiss, she lays a hand on her sword. “I have legs and feet that can carry me as a warrior should.” She bares her teeth in an animal-like snarl as she draws her sword. The metal on metal hissing sound from the sword leaving the scabbard is loud, threatening.
It leaves no doubt as to the level of her fury. She levels the point of her sword first at Phigby, and then me as we are closest to her.
Once again, I’m on the edge of being either skewered or beheaded by the giant maiden and as before, I can feel my stomach tighten, and the bile crawl up my throat at the thought.
Alonya whips her sword back and forth, though I can see that she’s still a bit unsteady and the blade, instead of slicing cleanly through the air, sort of dips and wavers.
“To be carried about like some invalid when I am still able to move is an insult, a dishonor to a warrior.”
“Alonya,” Phigby replies in soothing, respectful tones while holding up open palms. “Please, we did not mean to offend. Our morning trek reopened your wounds; you saw for yourself how much of your life-fluid you had lost. You simply could not go farther without endangering your life.”
“You,” she snaps, “gave me a sleeping potion so that I would not know nor be able to stop that which you were about to do.”
“No, Alonya,” Phigby answers in a truthful tone, “the elixir I gave you was to ease the pain and help you rest. I did not intend, nor did I know it would put you into a deep sleep. For that, I sincerely apologize and beg forgiveness. It was an honest mistake of one who has never treated a Golian before, and I fully admit it had unintentional consequences.
“However, once it became evident that you would sleep for a good long while, we decided that for your safety and our own that we needed to go farther into the mountains. It was only then that we came up with the idea of transporting you in the litter as we could think of no other way.”
He turns and gestures toward me and explains how she had come to be on the makeshift carryall. “So you see,” he continued, “we were just trying to push on to the mountains while at the same time lessening the chances that your wounds became life-threatening.”
Master Boren steps forward and bows his head to her. “Alonya, if there is any fault in the disrespect, then it lies with me. I agreed with Hooper’s notion and told him to continue. We had no idea, nor did we know that this would be an affront to your dignity. If we had, we certainly would not have made the litter.”
Master Boren takes a deep breath, straightens, and meets her eyes with his own direct stare. “If you must exact a punishment, then it should rest on me. My only excuse is that we needed a way to save you, and help ourselves at the same time. We saw Wilders in the air, searching, and thought that it wouldn’t be long before they found us. We needed to be away, and soon.”
He points at the carrier. “This seemed to be the answer to our dilemma. If you must fault anyone, then let it be me. Besides, if we hadn’t—”
“Silence!” Alonya’s roar startles the sprogs, and they go scuttling away, bleating loudly, with Scamper right behind as if he were shepherding them to safety.
Alonya holds her sword outward, her face livid—her eyes blazing with anger. I’m not sure I understand why she is so furious, but I do know that what she’s intending to do is wrong.
Very, very wrong and if she continues in this towering rage, someone’s severed, bloody head is going to be rolling across the ground in a few moments.
Perhaps mine.
13
I can’t explain what comes over me; it’s as though invisible hands push me forward until I’m just in front of the giantess with her sword point aimed practically between my eyes.
Trembling, I swallow and say, “Alonya, please stop. What you are doing is not right. In fact, it’s all wrong.”
“Hooper,” Phigby grinds out between clenched teeth, “what are you doing? Step back.”
“Yes,” Master Boren mutters, “move away, now. You’re only making things worse.”
“No, I’m not and no, I won’t,” I respond over my shoulder without taking my eyes off Alonya’s sword.
Her sword weaves in front of me and my eyes follow the point as if it were a dancing butterfly in front of my face. “How can you be angry at us for trying to save your life? Or for not knowing your customs? You don’t repay someone who’s only trying to prevent your death by slicing off their head. That’s silly.”
I take a breath and hold my ground even though I know that she merely has to flick her wrist and my head will be lying on the ground.
Still, I can’t let her take an innocent life because of peevish anger or needless pride. “Alonya, we have fought together.”
I stop and then declare, “No, we have fought for each other, mingled our blood with yours.”
I point at Amil and Helmar. “They fought off three Vargs that had you pinned to the ground and were at your throat. Phigby bound your wounds so that you didn’t bleed to death.
“At the pond, while you slept from exhaustion and loss of blood, we stayed with you when we could have easily have left you behind to whatever grisly death that fate might have decreed for you.”
I hold out my hands in an imploring gesture. “But we didn’t, and wouldn’t have, even if we hadn’t contrived the litter. We would have stayed by your side, protected you with our own lives if need be, for as long as it took.”
I point at the golden and the stretcher. “This—this was just our way of saying and showing that we hold your life in as much esteem as we value our own.”
With a gesture toward the company, I say, “We’ve become comrades through our blood and battle. Shouldn’t that mean more than being a little insulted just because you were lying on a bed of leaves and branches being pulled by a dragon?”
I give her a little smile and shrug. “At least you were being pulled by a golden dragon and not by one of the ordinary sapphires.”
Just then, Scamper darts out of the grass to stand on his back paws in front of Alonya. In an angry, almost scolding tone, he chitters away at her.
Before, I might have stopped him, but this time, I let him have his way. I have no idea what he’s saying, but I notice he has Alonya’s attention. When he finishes, he mimics me by putting out his paws and utters one final, Brreease?
Alonya’s sword hand clenches and unclenches the hilt of her massive sword. She stares at me for what seems a long, long time before she slowly lowers it until its point drops to the ground.
She winces as she puts weight on her injured leg. “Hooper, I did not understand before why the Anarsi would choose you to care for the little one. But now I am beginning to see, a little.”
The giantess leans forward, her face close to mine. “It took great courage to speak to me as you did. In another place and time, I would have had your head for your impertinence and thought nothing of it.”
Alonya draws in a breath, sheathes her sword, and glances at the others. “It took courage from all of you, and I let my pride and anger blind me to what you were trying to do.”
She rests one of her great hands on my shoulder. “You are right. We have fought for each other, and that is what I forgot. But I won’t again.”
“And well you shouldn’t,” a stern, commanding voice comes from off to one side and startles us all. The older Amazos steps out of the forest dusk, her eyes centered on Alonya.
“Lady Fotina!” Alonya blurts out with a quick duck of her head before she whips around to stare at the woodlands as if she is finally aware of her surroundings.
Fotina strides forward and says in explanation, “I came across them at the neck of Rounded Valley. They explained how you came to be injured.”
She lets out a sigh. “And I told you that you should not go so far into the outlands. The Vargs’ howls have come closer and closer over the last several moons.”
“I am sorry, mistress, I only wanted—”
“I know, child,” Fotina answers with her hand on Alonya’s arm, “you only want to see the world.”
She turns to us. “The Wilders apparently did not see us, for the six still fly low at the base of the foothills.”
With a wry smile, she motions to the leafy litter and says to Alonya, “So, will you ride your carriage of state, or shall I carry you piggyback the rest of the way?”
A small cherry-colored stain creeps up Alonya’s neck, and she mutters, “I will ride.”
“Good,” Fotina chuckles. “You would not be as easy to carry on my back as when you were a child, you know.”
With that, Fotina strides away while Alonya adjusts her scabbard and pulls her jerkin tight. She lays a hand on the leaf-covered mat and pushes down, causing the whole litter to bounce slightly.
Turning to me with a little smile that dimples one cheek, she says, “It is not as comfortable as my own bed, but it will do for now. But, next time, try to do better, yes, Hooper?”
I return her smile with my own and nod, “Yes, m’lady, but remember, I’m still new at this, and it was the best I could come up with. Next time, I’ll cover it with roses.”
“Oh no, not roses, Hooper,” Alonya responds with a little grimace. “They have thorns.”
“You’re right,” I answer. “Sorry, what’s your favorite-smelling flower?”
“Jasmine,” she smiles.
“It’ll be fresh jasmine, then,” I smile back.
She starts to turn, but stops and instead swivels at the waist to murmur, “I do sincerely thank all of you.”
With that, she slides onto the inclined mat. We all stand gaping, not quite sure of what to say or do at that moment.
