Avalee stared unseeing as the partiers grew tired and began to disperse. The longer she thought of the plan, the less confident she was in carrying it out. Doubt and fear filled her, and she was having trouble taming them, having trouble even breathing. No one saw her inner struggle, though. Her face was serene, accepting. None would have any reason to suspect Avalee was neither of these things.
A touch on her arm snapped her out of it, and she looked up at the elder who now stood at her side.
"It is time."
What? She didn't say it aloud, but it screamed in her mind.
"Come," the elder instructed as the two closest men took her by her elbows and pulled her into a standing position. Avalee wordlessly allowed them to guide her, expecting them to take her home for one more night with her family. One more night in her own bed, but that wasn't the direction they took.
Avalee saw her family waiting at the edge of the square. Her mother’s attempts to hold back tears had failed her, but her expression was flat. Her brothers and sister huddled close together under her mother’s arm, and her father stood to the side with clenched fists, his lips pressed tightly together as his daughter was led in their direction. Other families stood to either side of the avenue that led through the village towards the field.
They are taking me now, she realized with a start.
No one said another word, even as her parents and siblings fell in line behind the elder and the men escorting her. She could have begged them not to do it. She could have fallen in a faint, or collapsed in tears. Instead, she picked up the pace, marching with the grace that those pretend maidens in the skit had shown. The escort became an entourage.
The watching villagers saw this, and soon she heard unexpected murmurs.
"So brave."
"Such beauty."
"Too young."
All of these whispers reached Avalee's ears. Those future actresses would have no need to pretend or embellish for Avalee. She only hoped that they, too, would wield a sword for their final battle with the beast.
The pounding of her heart belied her calm exterior, but the weight of the sword on her leg balanced it. She would succeed or die trying, or both. But no matter the outcome, she was committed. There was no room for fear here. No room for hesitation. No room for regrets.
They reached the field, and Avalee slowed slightly for the rough ground. Her slippers weren't made for traveling, and the furrows and clumps of dirt threatened to trip her or pull the shoes right off her feet if she wasn't careful about her footing. The men closed in, mistaking the change for hesitation, but she waved them off and pointed at the dirt. They nodded wordlessly and stepped back, allowing her room to maneuver the path unencumbered. On many of their faces, Avalee saw admiration, on some she saw confusion. They had expected this to be harder.
She glanced over at the elder and saw approval reflected in his face. He likely thought her bravery was due to that displayed by the maidens in the skits. He probably thought they had inspired her. She let him think whatever he wanted to and turned her face back towards the platform.
The platform stood on stilted beams some six feet off the ground. The railing around the top was the same as it was ten years ago, four feet high. The supports for it were on the outside of the structure, the inside was all flat boards, set vertically to make climbing difficult if not impossible. They were so close together that one could not see inside until nearly at the base of the steps leading up to it. Those began right beside one of the corner beams and hugged the side of the structure to the opposite corner where a small square platform stood next to the gate. There was enough room for five or six people on the platform, enough to ensure a struggling woman could be controlled long enough to push her inside, or enough to manage to carry her as was the case with the last one. The gate stood open. Waiting.
She paused at the foot of the steps and looked over at the elder before speaking her first words of the night. "Will you come with me to the top?"
He nodded and said, "Of course."
As she took the first steps, he gestured for the others to stay behind before following behind her.
When they reached the top, Avalee took a deep breath and then stepped inside, turning to face the elder, who watched her closely. She could tell he didn't know what to expect.
She said, "I want you to tell my family that I love them. Tell them I do this for them, for all of you."
"I will."
"Good, I am ready."
The elder nodded and then swung the gate shut. Avalee heard the locks click into place as he secured them. A faint wish for luck made its way through the cracks in the boards from the other side, though Avalee couldn't begin to guess what the elder would consider lucky in the situation. Perhaps an instant death? She decided she would take his wish and turn it towards her plan instead. She would take it as a wish for success.
"Thank you," she whispered back, though the creak of steps indicated the elder probably wouldn't hear her.
She waited for just a moment, then made her way to the edge of the platform and looked out over the railing. Her escorts hadn't wasted any time. They were hurrying away and across the field towards the edge where Avalee's family watched. She counted them off in her head to make sure all had left. It wouldn't do to reveal herself too soon. Smiling grimly and nodding in satisfaction, she noted that all of them had indeed gone, and now they were at her family's side, the elder giving his brand of comfort before moving along towards the village with his men. She saw her mother pull Anna close to her and her father wrap his arms around the two of them while her brothers watched the platform.
She wished they weren't there. Maybe she should have asked the elder to tell them to leave, to tell them she didn't want them to watch. It was too late now.
Wasting no more time worrying about what might have been, Avalee moved to the end of the platform opposite the side her parents watched. There, she crouched on one knee and lifted her skirts to get at the sword. She fumbled for a bit on the knots she'd made in haste, they'd tightened considerably over the course of the evening. The weight of the sword paired with her movement had pulled them in such a way to leave little slack. Absently, she wished she had pocketed the smith's knife. It would have been so much easier to cut the bindings free.
Still, she managed to loosen them, at least enough to slip the makeshift sheath off of her leg—she had to sit to do that—then she spent a few minutes rubbing the feeling back into it. The angry, red lines across the leg where the leather cords had bit into it were nearly as painful as if they had actually been cuts. She abandoned the task as soon as she realized it made no more difference. She could handle what pain remained.
Avalee now turned her attention to the sword. She pulled it from the leather encasing it and held it out. It was heavy, but not too much so. Working hard alongside her family in the fields had made her strong and fit, and she'd wielded a scythe for many harvests, which gave her an idea of how to proceed. She stood carefully before giving the sword an experimental swing in a similar manner. It was a little awkward, and the blade wasn't facing the right way, so she adjusted her grip and tried again, careful to keep the motions low and out of sight of those who were watching. Much better. She would win no competitions, but this wasn't a contest. All she had to do was get in one good hit.
Knowing that swinging the weapon wasn't likely to win the day for her, Avalee began to practice piercing motions. She tried swinging her arm straight forward, as though her forearm was a pendulum, parallel to the ground. Soon her shoulder burned from the effort, and she had to rest it. But instead of pausing, she just switched to the other arm. This time she tried something else. She held the hilt of the sword up near her temple, palm facing out, and then arrowed the blade forward in a twisting motion, ending with her palm facing in the opposite direction. Her pleasure at the extended range was short lived when she remembered she was being watched. She lowered the sword to her side quickly and looked over at her family.
&nbs
p; Avalee sighed in relief. They were not actually watching her. Instead, they had started a low fire and were huddled around it in various states of consciousness. Anna was obviously asleep, her mother and father were huddled together upright, but likely dozing, and her brothers were taking turns poking at the fire and gazing at the sky. They likely planned to douse it at the first sign of the dragon.
She decided the risk of discovery was worth practicing that last move a few more times and began to do so, glancing over at the distant flames between every thrust, just the same. After a while, she felt better about her chances, but realized there was only so much she could learn and manage to do in such little time. Looking at the sky, she estimated she had a few more hours until dawn. Enough time to get some sleep, if she could manage it, or to at least rest from her exertions if she couldn't.
It was a comfortable night, neither cold nor hot. She slid the sword back in its sheath and lay down, hugging the blade to her body with one arm while the other cradled her head. In surprisingly short time, she was asleep, visions of her coming battle playing themselves out in her subconscious mind. She didn't notice the break of dawn due to the mountain shading the platform from the sun. She slept deeply and unconcerned until the brush of wind whipped her hair up and lashed the side of her face with it. The sound came soon after. A low roar and whoosh, the wind responding erratically, catching again at her hair and now her skirts as she took to her feet.
The dragon was coming.
~~~
Chapter 3
The grit of dirt pelted Avalee's face, stinging and biting into her skin brutally, but she refused to look away. Eyes squinting nearly shut against the punishing onslaught, she still had no trouble watching the dragon's approach. The beast's bulk eclipsed the sun. Not a sound escaped its throat, but the hurricane of wind from its wings roared in her ears.
The solid feel of the short sword's hilt in her palms did little to comfort her now that she saw just what she was facing. Avalee fought the urge to scream, to drop the futile instrument and abandon reason and perhaps consciousness, too. Or perhaps to make a leap for the railing and try to flip herself up and over, for all the good that would do to outrun the dragon once she hit the ground. Two legs, no matter how nimble, were no match for the speed of this beast.
No, instead of giving up or turning away, Avalee held her ground. Instead of dropping the sword, she tightened her fingers around the pommel almost to the point of pain, and leaning into the rough blast as the dragon began flapping to arrest its approach, she raised the sword before her and, with it, her chin, defying the dragon and fate itself.
But this firm stance didn't last long. In fact, from the time of awakening to the raising of the sword, not even a minute had passed. Adrenaline and fear had made it seem much longer, almost as though time had ceased. Her inner struggle, bravery, and show of defiance were nothing to the dragon. A massive claw rose before her, and with no regard to the blade slicing into the flesh of its palm, the dragon swept Avalee up and into the air. The impact knocked the wind out of her, but that didn't stop her from looking over the great knuckle as first the platform and then the field fell away below her.
A rumble of the dragon's breath reminded Avalee to take in some air of her own. The dizzying height and the sweep of the wind through her hair caused her head to swim and her stomach to churn. But, she was alive, still alive. And she hadn't screamed. The burn of hot blood soaking the front of her dress was not her own, but the dragon's, and she still held the sword tightly in her grip. Of course, the hilt now pressed into her stomach and the dragon gave no room to shift it either against the dragon or in favor of her bruised midsection.
A blast of sunlight blinded Avalee as the dragon banked around the mountain, giving it a wide berth. For the first time since her capture, Avalee shut her eyes, tightly. A mistake. Without them, her stomach lurched and seemed to drop into her feet as the pressure of the turn pressed her body outwards against the claws that held her to the beast's body. If she'd been able to eat anything the night before, she would have lost it all then.
When the red behind her lids mellowed, she opened them once more to gaze out in wonder. Besides the fact that she was being carried almost as high as the mountain reached, she saw everything she'd known—every place, person, and creature she'd ever known or seen—all laid out below her, like nothing more than a child's diorama. Avalee quite thoroughly forgot to be afraid and allowed the scene to fill her senses. The dragon was riding the wind now, and their flight was smooth, almost as though hovering in place.
"Beautiful," she said aloud.
A rumble pulsed through the dragon's chest at that, and Avalee looked up at it in alarm, the moment shattered and fear crashing right back in. Was it growling?
No, not growling, she realized. Laughing, chuckling perhaps. It was laughing at her. Just like that, fear once again forgotten, Avalee scowled up at the beast. Angry, yes, but mostly annoyed. She'd never felt more alive than in that moment, and likely never would again, and the dragon had laughed at her.
She clamped her mouth shut, not wanting to give any additional cause for amusement, but couldn't resist looking down again. Why not? She may as well enjoy the trip. Obviously her plan to fight back had done nothing to beat the creature back so this flight would likely be the last experience she would ever have. Despite its laughter, she doubted the dragon was pleased that she'd skewered its foot with a sword.
But as the dragon's wings began to actively beat once more, Avalee realized something. They were not stopping at the mountain. In fact, now that they were moving again, the mountain was rapidly shrinking behind them, and the landscape below was no longer in any way familiar to her. She tried to look ahead of them, which meant cranking her head to look over her shoulder, but she managed to see only a flash of yellow and blue before giving up to resume her rear watch.
She had no idea what she'd seen, but she figured she'd find out in good time if the dragon continued in this direction. Dragon's Mount was still large on the horizon, but not at all as large as she was used to it being. And then, without nearly as long of a wait as she'd expected, the scenery changed abruptly. Trees gave way to sand that was spotted with widely spaced splashes of blue. They looked like perfectly circular holes, each filled with water, but a shade of blue Avalee had never before seen, almost green. They looked alive, though Avalee stifled a chuckle at the thought. How could a pond be alive?
"Where are we going?" she'd forgotten herself again and spoke the words aloud, not expecting an answer, hardly even realizing she'd spoken.
"East."
If it hadn't come directly after her question, the dragon's voice could have been mistaken for a rumble of its stomach or a simple growl deep in its throat, but no. In context, Avalee found the word unmistakable.
Emboldened, she replied, "Where East? I thought you lived in the mountain."
"No," it growled back.
No, it wasn't going to tell her, or no, it didn't live in the mountain? She almost spoke again, but a subtle shift in the beast's grip unnerved her. They traveled in silence once more, and the last of the shimmering pools were swallowed behind them. Even at this height, the heat reflecting off the vast plain of sands below felt like an open furnace, and Avalee turned her head away from it to try to shield her face from the worst of the reflection.
Sweat streamed from her brow, and as she lost precious moisture to the invisible flames that seemed to well up from below, the lowering sun behind them added its own brand of torture to the mix. There was no way she could turn that didn't burn. She felt as though she was cooking alive, and her throat had long since dried up as her mouth lost its ability to moisten itself. Paired with the stabbing pain of the sword’s hilt still pressed into her abdomen and the excruciating sameness of everything as far as she could bear to look, Avalee was soon over the novelty of the experience.
A few more hours of this, she mused to herself, and I'll be begging for the dragon to put me out of my misery.
Sore and becoming delirious with thirst, hunger and pain, Avalee began to slip in and out of consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open once to find that they'd left the desert behind them and had lost the sun behind Dragon's Mount, now in the South West, but they rolled back up as she slumped once more into a stupor. Sometime later she came to again, this time in nearly perfect darkness. An overcast sky hid stars and moon, and their light and the land below were almost invisible; though Avalee could tell they were still in flight by the rise and fall of the dragon's wings and the whoosh of chill air that set her to shivering.
"How much farther?" she croaked, barely able to get the words out.
"Soon," came the reply.
She accepted it. Soon. She could deal with soon. The cool air, while biting into her extremities painfully, was easier to endure than the dual punishment of sun and sun's reflection off of sand, so this time Avalee was able to maintain consciousness. Rather than try to engage the dragon in conversation, she pondered what it might mean that it had chosen to speak to her in the first place. Her mind was still foggy, but not so much that she couldn't come to some hopeful conclusions.
First, the dragon spoke. That meant it wasn't merely a ravenous beast as she'd assumed. A beast, yes, but perhaps one that could be reasoned with. That it had bothered to answer her questions, well, that gave Avalee another glimmer of hope. These things coupled with the fact that it had laughed meant it was capable of feeling emotion, and emotion was not far from empathy. If the beast had empathy, perhaps it would decide to spare her.
Avalee and the Dragon Page 2
