Someone knocked. “It’s Kisha with your dinner.”
Thank the Egg, it hadn’t been a tharuk. She slid the bolt open. “Come in.”
Kisha passed her a plate of bacon, eggs and thick slabs of cheese with bread. Marlies sank onto the edge of the bed, more than ready to eat, then sleep.
Kisha slid the bolt. “We must talk.” Her eyes flicked to Marlies’ healer’s pouch. “Do you know the remedy for limplock?”
“Why?” Marlies narrowed her eyes. Limplock was one of Zens’ poisons. Fatal. She’d had more than one dragon rider die before she’d learned how to combat it. “Has someone been poisoned?”
Kisha shrugged, waiting, so Marlies answered, “A blend of herbs and minerals combats Commander Zen’s vile poison.”
“And how does that blend look?”
“Yellow granules,” Marlies replied. Years ago, she’d developed the remedy, but— “Why are you smiling?”
“Are you the Master Healer from Dragons’ Hold?”
Marlies swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. She’d never thought she’d ever be addressed as Master Healer again. Who was Kisha? Was she working for tharuks? A spy? Within a moment, Marlies’ plate was on the bed and her dagger was at Kisha’s throat. “Who are you? Tell me why you want to know.” Shards, she should have laughed it off. Now she’d given it away. It had been so many years since she’d played this game—she was making too many mistakes.
Staying cool, Kisha murmured, “My grandmother was Anakisha.”
So that’s why she’d looked familiar. Marlies sheathed her dagger. “My apologies.”
“Mine too. Years ago, my grandmother told me that there would come a day when she would depart to the great flying grounds beyond. May she soar with departed dragons.” Kisha pulled up a chair and sat while Marlies continued her meal. “She came to visit my mother and me before her final battle.”
Marlies inhaled sharply. “So, you’re the reason she came to Last Stop? Why?”
“Anakisha had a vision. She told me that when I was older, you would visit me. She said to question every healer who came here, asking whether they knew the limplock remedy.” Kisha chuckled. “Most of them had no idea what I was talking about. Anakisha told me your name was Marlies, that you would come in a dire time. She mentioned your turquoise eyes.”
Marlies’ jaw dropped. Zaarusha must’ve known some of this. A dragon and rider didn’t often keep secrets. Then again, maybe not. The Queen’s Rider, Anakisha, had used the gift of prophecy, but not Zaarusha—unlike Hans and Handel, who both had visions.
Kisha drew a small piece of folded leather from her pocket. “This is from Anakisha. I’ve kept it all these years, since I was a littling.” She passed it to Marlies.
Marlies unwrapped it to reveal a jade ring engraved with whorls.
“She said that if you were ever stuck in a dire situation, to rub the ring and say my name, Kisha. I hope it helps you one day.”
“What does it do?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never used it. My grandmother emphasized the danger in using this ring too often. It’s for emergencies only.”
Marlies tucked the ring in her breast pocket and hugged Kisha. “Thank you. I loved your grandmother very much.”
Kisha blinked several times. “Me too. Where are you going?”
The more Marlies told Kisha, the more danger Kisha would be in if tharuks questioned her, so she kept her answer vague. “Across the Flatlands.”
Kisha’s eyes lit up. “We have a wagon doing deliveries in the Flatlands tomorrow. We can help you across.”
Marlies hesitated. Would she drag the driver into danger?
“Our driver is experienced in avoiding tharuks,” Kisha added.
Better than going on foot. “I’d love a ride, then,” Marlies replied.
A tharuk bellow came from the taproom, “More beer!”
“Sleep well.” Kisha rushed from the room. “See you in the morning.”
After finishing her meal, despite the loud festivities outside, Marlies fell asleep. It was far from restful; she twitched and turned at every sound, dreaming of tharuks stalking her through The Lost King.
§
476 limped into Last Stop as dawn dragged its bloody claws across the sky. His crow alighted on his outstretched arm and showed him faces and scents of travelers who’d entered the village from the south yesterday. One caught his attention.
“That one,” he said, seeing the crow’s memory of a tall woman who was wearing boots under her peasant dress, instead of shoes or sandals.
It had been following large bootprints before the fire in the gum trees. This female had large feet—and no strong scent. Her head was wrapped in a peasant’s scarf and she was carrying a sack of firewood—a sack large enough to hide something. 476 had to find her.
His crow perched on his shoulder, 476 tromped through the alleys toward the square. Spotting a troop of tharuks who were slumbering off beer—from the smell of their stinking breath—he roused a small one with a kick.
“Who is your overseer?” 476 snarled, spit flying off its broken tusk.
The small tharuk nudged a larger beast and it scrambled to its feet. Upon seeing 476’s broken tusk, this overseer practically bowed.
476 smirked. There was value in having a reputation. “You seen this female?” he barked. His crow hopped onto his outstretched arm and let the overseer touch its head and mind-meld. Behind it, the troop rose to their feet, at the ready.
The overseer motioned a mind-bender forward to touch the crow.
Black eyes gleaming, the mind-bender said, “It’s that female what wanted shoes. Let’s visit cobbler.”
§
Bloodcurdling growls woke Marlies. Leaping out of bed, she hastily fastened her sword belt and palmed her dagger, listening. Another growl came from below her window. Marlies twitched back a curtain. Shards, she’d overslept, lulled by a bath, hot food and a soft bed. Tharuks were swarming the square, hassling hawkers, overturning stalls and holding villagers at clawtip. Thank the Egg, only a few villagers were about.
Thumping sounded on the wooden door downstairs. Doors either side of hers bashed open, and snarls filled the hall. “She’s here, somewhere,” a tharuk roared. “Search!”
She had to leave to protect Kisha. Marlies threw on her rucksack. Sliding the window up, she clambered onto the sill, holding on to the lintel. Should she jump?
There was no way down. Cries rang out. Poised on the window ledge, Marlies had nowhere to go except sideways. The ivy smothering the inn was going to make it hard work. Her hands gripping the tiny crevices between the stones, Marlies edged along the building, picking her way around the leaves—until her foot got tangled in a vine. Nearby, a growl rumbled. Shards! A tracker was harassing a man right below her. If she dropped ivy leaves, it’d see her. Heart pounding, Marlies extricated her foot from the vine.
Reaching her arm around the wall, she found a handhold around the corner. As she swung her leg around, her rucksack threatened to drag her off the building. She grabbed another handhold, but her foot hit a piece of loose stone, dislodging it. The chunk of stone crashed to the ground, narrowly missing a littling. The boy stared up at her, opening his mouth to shriek. Marlies smiled at him, frantically shaking her head. Wide-eyed, he snapped his mouth shut.
Marlies nipped along the wall, hand over hand, making her way along a narrow alley. Her arms were burning and her legs shaking, but if she could just get around the next corner, she’d be above the stable yards at the rear of the inn.
Someone screamed. She whipped her head around to see a tharuk chasing the littling boy down the alley. Without thinking, Marlies let go, pushing off the wall. She landed on the tharuk’s back. It hit the ground, snarling. Leaping to her feet, Marlies drew her sword. The beast slashed her leg with sharp claws. Pain lanced through her. By the Egg, her calf.
She lunged and drove her sword under the tharuk’s arm, through its armpit into its chest. The beast shrieke
d and lay still.
Wiping her sword on its fur, Marlies said to the littling. “Go. Run and hide.”
The boy scarpered.
Leg burning and blood soaking through her breeches, Marlies staggered to the stable yard and wrenched the gate open. Dragging herself inside, she closed the gate and leaned her forehead against it. She closed her eyes. That had happened so fast—one moment on the wall, the next with a slashed bloody calf. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and pushed off the gate.
“There you are,” rumbled a deep voice behind her. Thick arms wrapped around her middle and yanked her off her feet.
§
“I don’t care about your sharding ethics, Marlies,” Giant John said. “Now’s not the time for principles. Tharuks will find your blood—especially if you haven’t taken freshweed since yesterday. Take some now, get that stuff on your wound, and let’s get out of here. Hurry.”
Sitting on a pile of hay in the stables where Giant John had carried her, Marlies chewed on freshweed and dribbled piaua onto her wound, bracing herself against the burn. She didn’t have time to stitch it shut—so it would leave an ugly scar. Marlies pressed the edges of the gash together, watching the skin knit over before her eyes. It’d been so long since she’d used piaua on herself, she’d forgotten the deep aching burn and tugging sensation as the muscles wove together again.
Giant John, looking every bit as formidable as he had years ago, scuffed dirt over her blood, and shoveled manure over it for good measure. It was good that her old friend was Kisha’s driver. Giant John was good at keeping secrets—they’d worked together for years—and he knew how to evade tharuks.
Marlies wiped the dried blood off her leg and tucked the rag under a dry horse pat. “Now, what?” She chewed some more freshweed, to help mask her scent.
“It’s good to see you again, too.” Giant John grinned, then gestured at a wagon piled high with vegetables and ale. He flipped the side of the wagon down, revealing a hidden compartment under the floor. “Let’s make some deliveries.”
Marlies clambered in and he shoved her rucksack in after her. She was wedged on her side with her pack in front of her, but at least she could reach her supplies if she needed them. She checked her dagger was still in its sheath and laid her sword next to her rucksack. This was going to be a cramped and uncomfortable journey, but it was better than facing mind-benders and trackers.
“There’s a trapdoor, bolted from the inside, in case you need to escape. If I drum my fingers, freeze. If I cough, we’re in dire trouble. When I ask you a question, tap once on the wagon floor to answer yes, and do nothing for no. Got it?”
Marlies tapped once.
Giant John laughed. “Where are you headed?”
“Death Valley.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You don’t do things by halves, do you? Let’s get out of here.” He flipped the side of the wagon up. Bolts slid into place and Marlies was sealed in the dark. Giant John thumped into place above her. “Hear this?” Giant John asked, drumming his fingers on the wagon seat, then coughing.
Marlies tapped once and heard his dry chuckle and the snap of the reins. The wagon creaked across the yard, then the metal-bound wheels clattered along the cobbles in the alley. Each cobble jarred Marlies’ body, and she was tossed from side to side. Giant John would be taking the winding back alleys. It felt like rushing through a chasm of whitewater rapids, clinging to driftwood. Good thing she’d used piaua—with an injured leg, this trip would be as bad as Death Valley itself.
§
Giant John left the cobbled streets of Last Stop and took a barely-used lane through outlying fields. The wagon rumbled along the dusty road, the horses’ hooves clopping in time to a ditty running through his head. He casually scanned the surrounding pastures. No tharuks in sight—yet. So far, he’d gotten Marlies out of Last Stop without tharuks on her trail.
Soon, he’d meet up with the main road through the Flatlands. On horseback, he could’ve gone across country, but then, he’d hardly be smuggling Marlies across half the realm if he was on horseback, would he? Years ago, before she’d disappeared, he’d helped her on many of her clandestine trips, but that was before he’d had a family. Kisha had surprised him last night, asking for his help transporting Marlies and promising to send word to his wife. He hadn’t risked his safety for years. His wife and littling needed him. He flicked the reins. Now, his routine trip into Last Stop had turned into an adventure—hopefully, one they’d both survive, although with Marlies heading into Death Valley, he wasn’t so sure.
§
The compartment was hot and stuffy and Marlies’ mouth was coated in dust. An odd rhythm sounded above her—oh shards, Giant John was drumming his fingers. She froze. The familiar stench of rot wafted through cracks in the wagon bed.
“Halt!” a guttural voice growled.
How could they halt when they’d already stopped? Typical tharuk, stating the obvious.
“Where are you going? What’s in that wagon?”
“I’m delivering produce. Would you like some fine cabbage?”
“Got any meat?” another tharuk called.
“You heard. Any meat?” the first snarled.
The only meat was her, trapped in this shrotty cage. Marlies could practically hear the beast drooling.
“No, sir, but what about my finest ale?” Giant John asked.
Thunking sounded above her, then a barrel lid cracking open, followed by eager slurping and the scent of beer.
Stuck in a box, like the perfect prisoner, there was nothing Marlies could do. She was helpless while tharuks could be invading her home, attacking her daughter or torturing Zaarusha’s son.
Giant John thudded back onto the wagon. So, this was how Giant John had planned to get her across the Flatlands—bribery.
§
A tharuk tracker, dribble sliding off its broken tusk, was standing apart from the troop, its black eyes piercing Giant John. His head spun. Repressing a shiver of revulsion at being mind-bent, Giant John imagined the beer—remembering its mouth-watering scent, the taste sliding down his parched throat to his belly. His stomach rumbled.
The brute snarled, breaking off its gaze, and thrust its way through the horde of tharuks crowded around the barrel. It shoved them aside and rammed its snout into some of Last Stop’s finest ale.
Giant John snapped the reins, and they moved on. His trick with picturing the beer had incited the monster’s thirst. Thank the Egg, that broken-tusked beast was behind him. Was the other half of its tusk impaled in someone?
They were only a few fields away when roars broke out. He snapped the reins and they picked up speed. Glancing back, he saw the tharuks fighting over the ale. What a waste of good beer, but they’d fallen for it. He only had a few barrels left and their journey would take days. What would happen when their supplies ran out?
He pushed the horses on, driving through the morning, keen to get to River Forks before nightfall and find a place to stay. The next day, they’d push on to Forest Edge and Waldhaven, where his friend Benji lived. It had been while since he’d seen Benji, but he’d put them up for the night in his barn.
Mid-afternoon, Giant John stopped and stretched his legs. He was about to flip down the side of the wagon bed to let Marlies out, when a flurry of birds took off from the trees beyond the meadow. Something had disturbed them. A tharuk or a deer? Better to be safe than sorry. He drummed his fingers on the wagon side, then rummaged through a sack. Grabbing a couple of apples, he hopped back onto the seat and pressed on. They had to get to River Forks.
Bitter Truth
The sharp clack of dress boots echoed along the prison corridor. Visitors seldom came, except Ernst and Tomaaz. The pair had kept him posted, asked for guidance on training, and brought him decent food. Hans stopped his strength exercises and peered through the bars.
Klaus was striding down the corridor, stopping to mutter a few words with each criminal. Hans caught phrases such as, “few more weeks,�
�� and “got your just desserts,” and “time will tell.”
How many of these men and women had been unjustly imprisoned, like him? He’d never questioned it until now.
Bill hung his arms through the bars, rubbing his hands together as Klaus approached. “Master Klaus, so nice to see you.”
Hands on hips, Klaus regarded him. “Despicable, Bill, whipping a daughter like that. You won’t find any sympathy here. You’ll be staying behind bars as long as I can keep you there.”
“But Master—”
“Don’t Master me!” Klaus’ voice was low, deadly.
Bill slunk to the back of his cell.
Surely, Klaus didn’t still think his opinion mattered to Bill?
Hans kept his gaze steady as Klaus faced him. “Good morning, Klaus.”
“Yes, it is a good morning, a nice peaceful morning, like all the others this past week.” Klaus shook his head. “No tharuks today, Hans. Or any other day for that matter. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Eight days in this dreadful place already, and still no attack. Hans had been pondering it all day, but he doubted Klaus really wanted to know. “Perhaps tharuk scouts slipped through, but were detained in Western Settlement.”
“Perhaps there wasn’t a fire, Hans. Perhaps you imagined it.” Klaus’ lip curled. “Perhaps it’s been more peaceful because your children are no longer fighting in my marketplace.”
Bill was leaning forward, listening. Every afternoon, crows visited his window sill for food, and let him pet them, while he whispered at them. As if he was reporting the jail’s comings and goings.
Ridiculous. Hans collected himself. The boredom in prison was addling his brain. “Maybe.” Klaus was never going to listen. Never going to prepare. But, then again, perhaps he was right. Maybe tharuks weren’t coming. No, Hans couldn’t risk it. They had to do whatever they could. “I’d rather prepare in vain than be caught unawares. These are our children and families, our neighbors, Klaus. Wouldn’t you rather be cautious than sorry?”
Dragon Hero: Riders of Fire, Book Two - A Dragons' Realm novel Page 10
