“Why are you so cruel?” she blurted out.
“Cruel?” He grinned as he coiled the rope around his fist. “I am no crueler than the next man. Your pain will pass … you are alive for the moment, so stop complaining. This is nothing compared to your husband’s work. Although I see now that I’m more of a man than he was; I took your virginity. Well, this did.” He indicated his riding crop. “An oversight on his part, gave you a way to hide from him. When I beat a man to death for his amusement all those years ago, something snapped in me. I was sick of all the baseness, of being the one preyed upon just to survive, and performing for their pleasure. I wanted more than survival, more than just existing on their whim. When I left the baron’s service, I decided I didn’t want to play it their way anymore. I wanted to be on top of the heap doing it to others, and so that is what I did.” He scanned the surroundings. “Now, we must move on.”
“Yes, Master.” Despite the numbing effects of the liquor, cold tendrils of fear wrapped around her heart. Gercomo was no longer a man—he was a beast formed of this barbaric world and only Margra knew what harm he would bring in the future. Someone had put him in the vineyard for a reason. And here she was helping him to escape back to the life that had forged him.
On they climbed, groping their way over the broken earth. At the sound of wing beats, they hid between rocks or crouched low. After a while, Gercomo hissed at her to summon the dragon or he’d start to slice her skin off the bone to lure one. Her attempt to summon Plu failed again. Yet once more he did not act on his threats.
That night they lay down to sleep on a tongue of rock jutting from the ground. Gercomo placed himself on top of her and wedged her against the rocks so that every breath was a struggle. That way he could sleep using her as a mattress and prevent her escape. At dawn, he poured the elixir into her mouth before she even woke. She coughed and rolled into a fetal position. The rush was more powerful than the last time. The explosion of light in her brain made her slump to the ground. Only a kick in the gut made her climb to her feet. She tried to estimate how often he had fed her the liquor and how long he waited in between doses. Were the intervals getting shorter? It was hard to tell without a reference point.
A pool of water slaked her thirst. Gercomo had nothing more than a few crusts of bread on him. He didn’t seem to need to eat, and gave the food to her.
Later, as they skirted the outer reaches of the dragon hatcheries, they heard in the distance the scraping of claws on rocks and smelled strong wafts of sulphur. “Dragon sign, Master,” she said. In her fatigued and drugged mind, she tried to find a landmark, some way of orienting herself. A triple stand of rocks, a stunted bush and the corrugated mountain silhouetted behind reminded her that she knew this place. She’d been there before with Mez when they had re-integrated Plu. Her hatchling’s nest was nearby. Even though she couldn’t summon him with power from the cadre, she could call to him with her voice. When he was younger, he had come to her and she hadn’t had the cadre then. If he could hear her, perhaps he would come. He had to come.
“Summon your dragon now,” her master said. This time he held another knife to her throat. Drawn from his boot, it was long and thin and looked sharp. “I’ve nothing to lose, slave, for without that dragon we both die, but I’ll see you mutilated first. I’ll feed you piece by piece to the dragons before I leave this life.”
“Yes, Master. I will try.” He backed off.
Climbing to her knees, she crawled up onto a low boulder. In the distance in the valley behind her, the vineyard lay like a blackened scab. The Fire Ranges spread out to the west in front of her and the plains on either side. The taint of smoke blended with sunlight, burnishing the landscape with streaks of violet and shadow.
“Te Nuan Pluresh. Hwathen nu waken.” She called the words, although they were flat and bereft of power. Please, Plu, she thought, please hear me. She needed a full-throated yell for her words to carry. “Te Nuan Pluresh. Plu, come to me.” Again and again she called to him, her words falling like dust on the dry plain.
The rope tightened around her waist. Her master knew, as she did, that she could call no more. He pulled her closer, and she followed the tug of the lead, knew she was stepping toward her death. The scent of sulphur increased, perhaps borne on the wind from the hatcheries. Gercomo tested his blade, practicing his throw.
Gercomo’s gaze locked with hers, and she saw her end in those gray eyes. It was decided in the clench of his mouth and the reflected light on his blade. The blade caught the low, evening sun and became a mauve-tinted tongue of flame. Then a shadow crossed over them and a brush of downdraft from a wing beat. Salinda held herself still. Death was her future either way. Better a dragon than the Inspector, her master Gercomo.
The wing beat grew louder—followed by the sound of scales grating on rock close by. Salinda waited unshrinkingly in the open. A familiar screech made her look around. There was Plu.
The dragon called out once. Gercomo lessened his hold on her leash, so she groped her way toward Plu along the rocky path, hobbling because her feet were cut and bruised. When she was close enough, she reached out and stroked her dragon’s tongue.
Behind her Gercomo stood, the blade in his hand.
“Master, this is Te Nuan Pluresh—Plu.”
Gercomo strode forward, now confident. “Good, slave. You will live another day. He must take me north to Gunner.”
Salinda frowned. How would she tell Plu to take them there? The dragon would not willingly go near a town or city. The harpoons from the city walls would skewer him before he could get close enough to use dragon fire. “Nhiem, a ger bach,” she whispered to Plu. “North near the man place.” She hoped that would be enough.
If Gercomo feared riding a dragon he didn’t show it. He kept the rope around Salinda’s waist taut, preventing escape. He needn’t have bothered. Her body had begun to crave the strange liquor. The burning in her blood when she drank it was like nothing she had experienced before. It was beautiful and deadly.
She was perched in front of Gercomo, who sat confidently, like he was born to wing and air. Plu began to run, his wings flapping. With two of them riding, he had to work harder. For a few moments she thought he would balk, but then he began to lift from the ground. Salinda just held on as Plu struggled to gain height, his body undulating. Once the dragon settled into flight, his wings caught the air. She was curious enough to look. It was a long way down, that much she could see, but her deadened mind held no fear. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gercomo looking around him, expressionless as if he were sitting in his office doing paperwork. Nothing seemed to amaze him.
Well after Belle moon had set, she lost track of how long they had been flying. A burning itch began under the surface of her fevered skin. Her mouth filled with saliva, desiring the taste of the elixir. The physical cravings had begun. Turning her head, she called against the wind, “Master, that liquor …”
His mouth pressed against her ear. “When we land, whore-slut.”
The itching under her skin increased, so much so that she thought peeling it off would be the only way to find relief. A small voice inside urged her to fight. Think. Think. Think! Death is all there is for you with this man. You must find a way to survive. Must!
It was still quite dark when Plu dropped from the sky like a rock. Salinda guessed they were well short of Gunner for there was no sign of the town, no lights visible. But in dragon terms she supposed it was near. The dragon tilted as he came in to land, tipping them both backward to the ground to fall in a heap. She was surprised Plu had managed to bring two people so far. By the time Gercomo had shoved her away and allowed her to climb to her feet, Plu was flapping his wings, leaving only his clawed feet kissing a tumble of gravel. Her young dragon didn’t even stay to have his tongue stroked. With a piercing, mournful cry and strong downbeats of his wings, he angled away, leaving Salinda at the end of Gercomo’s rope. Had Plu known that she was not herself? Could a dragon understand that?
>
Gercomo quickly surveyed their position. Clouds patched the muted sky. It was a few hours before dawn and even in this light Salinda could see they were surrounded by thin, stunted trees interspersed with boulders and rock sprays. Judging by the symmetry of the rows she thought it was a plantation.
Gercomo pointed toward the north-west. “Blast that beast. It could be a day or two’s walk in that direction,” he said, snatching his flask from his shirt and downing a few gulps. He put it back in his shirt and turned to her. His expression was cold, bereft of emotion, and his eyes were …
The blow to the side of her head took her by surprise. She sprawled in the dirt, dazed.
Gercomo loomed over her. “That felt good. Don’t make me angry again. I may not stop next time.” He uncorked the liquor bottle with his teeth. “Come here on your knees.” She crawled to him, mouth open to accept every precious drop he gave her. He poured a small amount in. Her tongue stretched out, straining to catch the drop poised on the rim of the bottle. She couldn’t help but notice how little remained.
“That should keep you under control a little while longer. When it runs out I’ll have to kill you.”
“Yes, Master.” The rush was short and not very fulfilling. Yet even then she felt the pull, the blanket of stupor cloaking her mind.
“Shut up, whore. Let’s move.”
At dawn, he stopped to give her another dose.
“There isn’t much left. Perhaps we will need it later,” she said, fighting against the craving in an attempt to put off her end.
He slapped her. “Drink it or I will tip it on the ground.”
There was a glint in his eye as he measured her. Both of them knew it was the last dose. If she didn’t drink it he would kill her now instead of later.
“I will take it, Master,” she said, her voice thin.
When he did put the last dose inside her mouth, it was enough. The burn and the rush were greater than expected. Heartbeat amplified, breath difficult to suck into her lungs, blood rushing, burning like ignited Wing dust in her mind and dancing with color. Another inhalation and the pall of servitude was on her.
Again he jerked on her leash, tugging it urgently. Their progress was slow. Although she was willing, her damaged body couldn’t travel at a great pace or for long over the rough terrain. Potholes and rocks made her stumble. Gercomo threatened to leave her tied to a tree as dragon fodder. This gave her the impetus to put one weary foot in front of another. When the drug’s effects waned she began to sense the cadre once again, and its presence renewed her sense of purpose, the desperate need to live. Yet the cadre needed alternatives in order to survive. Perhaps in Gunner, if she lived to see it, one would present itself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dragon Sighting
Lured by the desire to see one of the dragon creatures with his own eyes, Nils ventured once again into the world above. This time he came prepared for a longer journey. He chose another Way Gate and stepped out into the haze-filled morning. The terrain was rocky along the base of an eroded range of hills. The valley behind had once sheltered the university city of Cedrin. All that remained of that place of learning now were uneven humps of dirt and rock, swept regularly by the wind, leaving no trace of its exalted past. Keeping his eye to the ground to avoid any misstep, Nils kept his ears keen for any sound.
By the afternoon he had veered away from the hills without any particular direction in mind. He missed the feel of Margra around him, the firm contours of the earth providing protection. On the surface, he was exposed to light, to the elements. A slight breeze lifted his hood and made him look up. But there was nothing to see except the monotonous barren landscape around him.
Later in the day, as he skirted a mesa-type formation, he found he was tired and began to think about shelter for the night. His chest pained him and he frequently coughed until he could barely breathe. A small meal of fruit and water was enough to satisfy him and allow him to assess the area for a possible campsite. There didn’t appear to be much in the shadow of the mesa so he continued on. With aching knees he walked over more of the ever-present rocks until he found a small grouping of boulders. One larger and flatter stone lay over the top of a couple of others, forming a roof. It was not quite a cave, though it smelled comfortably musty to Nils.
As there was little to do by way of preparation, he found a seat within the cave and gazed at the sunset. Through the protection of the shroud he could see that the sky was laced with violet swirls of cloud, deepening to midnight black. Partially obscured by the cloud cover, Shatterwing rose, winking like light on a lake’s surface. The larger moon fragments were visible and the smaller dust particles glittered like a spray of jewels.
He must have dozed, because when he woke and looked outside, Shatterwing was high in the sky, but had faded now in the glow of Belle moon. For a while he sat there bedazzled by the expanse above, until he realized that something must have woken him. In the distance he heard a guttural cry, a screech that penetrated deeply into where he slept and even into his bones. His heart leaped—it was a sound he had never heard before.
From his shelter he crawled out, angling his head up and around. To be caught and discovered by one of the Sundwellers would be his undoing, yet there were none near. It was an insult to his intelligence to be spied upon by the very beast he was trying to prove existed.
A deep thrumming in the dark of night sounded off to his right. The sound drew closer. It was rhythmic like the beat of wings, but wings that displaced a lot of air. The breeze stirred, bringing a faint whiff of sulphur that drove him back into the rock shelter. He caught a glimpse of something large gliding down from the sky. The shadow cast from Belle moon followed like a huge phantom, its blackness blanking out all below it. Still he caught sight of the beast as it flew overhead.
What a sight it was! A majestic beast! Nils gained the impression of green and mauve scales glistening in the moonlight. The wing span was twice the length of the beast’s body. It drew down its wings powerfully, lifting itself high into the sky with each thrust.
How had such a creature come about? Had it fallen to Margra from Ruel? Had the species been magically bound within its broken moon or had it emerged from a damaged Margra, from the depths of the wound in its crust where a section of Ruel had cleaved the world? He could sense in the beast an aura of power. If he tried to reach out to it, if such a thing were possible, what would he feel? An ancient wisdom or the mad ravings of a bestial mind?
Direct evidence of the dragon’s existence didn’t satisfy him. He wanted more, wanted to touch and know and feel. He was weak with curiosity, which half-masked a desire to keep on living and quelled his feelings of unworthiness. There were none of his kind to judge him; in any case he was the harshest judge of his actions. He wondered at the irony of how a malcontent like him could be the sole survivor of the Hiem and, consequently, the great inheritor of their fabulous wealth of knowledge.
As he lay down to go back to sleep, his mind was a whirl of activity and plans. He decided Sundwellers were no longer worth his thoughts or labor. But dragons—mysterious beasts—he must know. Must!
It was full light when he woke. He reshrouded his head to protect his eyes from the light, though it seemed to be milder than it had been before Ruel split. He measured the lux levels and they were indeed less. So much dust to block the rays of the sun, he assumed. He coughed again and couldn’t stop for a time. A sip of water soothed his throat but he was left weak afterward. When he thought of the dust and the deaths that had followed the fall of Ruel moon he guessed that his lungs would have trouble adapting to the atmosphere. The dust was clearly an irritant and could be a killer by stealth.
With his shroud wrapped tightly around him, he headed north-east, slinking from shadow to shadow, from rock overhang to copse of trees. He hesitated at the crest of a hill so he could see the land ahead: a vast plain which stretched out a dead brown color.
The next morning he woke to the realization that there
had been no further sign of dragons in the night. He walked on, repeating the pattern of the day before, slinking from the shadow of rocks to hide in depressions in the ground where the sunlight found no purchase.
At midday, he found signs of a Sundweller settlement—outlying farms with a few animals and sad-looking crops. Just as the afternoon sun’s rays lightened the sky to pale pink, he saw the town. The smell of decaying meat and ripe sweat emanated from it. Its dark gray walls had oily stains, like old blood. A dark runnel of water, which had once been a river, curved in near one side of the walls and leaked away to the right and then down a small rock face to crash against stained rocks. The water was then reduced to a thin stream by a makeshift dam of rotting wood. Despite the foreboding that he could almost taste on his tongue, Nils decided to slip through the gates and enter the town.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Witch Way
Gercomo dragged Salinda through the patched iron and wood gates of Gunner before sundown. Her skin burned from the effects of withdrawal from the tainted liquor, and though the drug’s effects had fallen away, the relentless abuse and exhaustion had taken its toll on her mind. Despite this, a small corner of her consciousness was now alert to what she had become, to how low she had sunk. In many ways she craved death because she sensed that only death would obliterate the shame she felt. She wouldn’t have long to wait, she thought, as they had safely arrived in Gunner and her usefulness was at an end. Vaguely, she wondered why Gercomo bothered bringing her inside the gates at all, seeing as he could have cut her throat out of view of the town and none of the inhabitants would have been any the wiser. But, in spite of everything, she knew that as long as she lived and breathed there was still hope. Still a way to save the cadre, at least.
Shatterwing: Dragon Wine 1 Page 11
