by GARY DARBY
“Nets that we didn’t see. They must have thrown them at the same moment that you skyed, and no doubt pulled Cara and the others off their dragons and to the ground. That’s why you didn’t hear the other dragons sky out of there.”
“That may well be what happened, Hooper,” she sadly replies. “All I know is that the only dragon wings I heard were my own,”
The rain and wind have noticeably lessened, and the lightning has moved off into the distance. I look around. We’ve landed in a tiny, oblong-looking glade. Tall, thin sprucelike trees hem the glade and form a natural windbreak.
I motion towards the trees. “Let’s get closer to the trees, they’ll keep out some of the weather, and I need to think.”
Once we’re settled against the trees, I ask anxiously, “Could you tell if any of the others were hurt?”
“No,” she murmurs. “The wind was too strong, and it took us before I could hear or see more.”
I run a hand through sopping wet, mud-filled hair. I twist around to face the golden and hold out my hands as if I were Scamper pleading for food. “If they’ve been captured, I — I don’t know what to do, Golden Wind. I’m not a warrior or a Dragon Knight.”
I pull my knife and hold it up for her to see. “All I have is this. No bow, no sword, not that I could wield either if I had one.” I hang my head and slowly plop down into the mud.
My voice trembles as I murmur, “How am I supposed to help them when all I’m good for is to fetch wood and water, or shovel manure?”
I raise my eyes to her. “What do we do? How am I supposed to get into the village and try to rescue them?”
She doesn’t immediately answer, and when she does, her response is like a lightning bolt that comes close to knocking me off my feet. “We’re not going to the village,” she states bluntly. “They won’t be there, but elsewhere.”
My mouth sags for a moment. “Wha — ” I begin, but the golden doesn’t let me finish.
She swings her head close. “Hooper, do you want to help your friends?”
“Friends?” I choke. “I don’t have — ”
“Nonsense! Of course, you do. Scamper is your friend — the sprogs are your friends.”
She leans closer. “I am your friend as are the others. You just don’t know it or don’t want to believe it.”
Her eyes are intense, questioning. “Now, do you want to help them?”
“Of course,” I snap, “but I can’t. If I were a Dragon Knight — ”
“But you aren’t,” Golden Wind cuts in, “so stop wishing for what cannot be, and start imagining what can be.”
“Oh?” I demand. “And just what am I supposed to imagine?”
“That you and I together can rescue our friends,” she answers.
She stares unblinking at me, and I return her gaze with my own hard stare. We stay that way for several heartbeats until I feel a pawing at my knee and look down. Scamper chitters angrily and I listen for a moment before I say, “All right, all right. Yes, I know she’s right, I just hate to admit it, that’s all.”
I let out a deep breath and mutter, “So, do you know where they’ve taken them?”
“I believe so,” she answers and glances up. The rain and wind are slowly slackening, and the lightning flashes have moved off; the storm is abating somewhat, but it would still be a formidable task to try and sky through.
“There is only one place that they would take them that is nearby and suitable,” she goes on to say.
“And where is that?”
“Dunadain,” she states.
“Dunadain?”
“Yes,” she replies. “The royal keep that guards the river pass at Angbar’s Meld on the River Lorell, just below where the Stord River enters the Lorell. But we must wait until the storm clears before skying. Darkness will cover our flight, and then we must wing swiftly.”
Wing swiftly. I’ve had enough of skying rapidly through the air. “Do we have to sky swiftly?” I ask with a little groan. “I don’t do well with swift.”
She looks at me as if I just made a silly statement. “Of course you do. You held on with an arrow in your shoulder when I flew so fast that the sapphires were hard put to keep up.
“We cannot be slow about this, Hooper. You can be certain that those who have captured our friends will move very swiftly to collect their reward. They will march through the night and the promised reward will be more than enough for them to ignore the storm and its dangers.”
“All right, I understand that, but why,” I sigh, “can’t we go slow about this? Especially the skying part.”
“Because,” she answers, “most likely, Dunadain is lightly guarded and will present our best opportunity to effect a rescue. However,” she goes on to say with a grim look, “if we wait too long, it would indeed take a whole company of Dragon Knights, perhaps more, to breach the fortress.”
She pauses and then says, her voice ominous and dark, “And worse, if we tarry in our rescue, we face not only more archers and men-at-arms, but she will come.”
She lowers her head until we are eye to eye. “And Hooper, we do not want to face her alone, not yet, anyway.”
Thoughts of Golden Wind
Hooper doubts his own courage. But haven’t we all at one time or another? As we wait for the storm to move off, I ponder, just what is bravery?
Hooper placed his body between a death arrow and Helmar and paid a high price. Physical agony, yes, but worse — he had to endure the wretched presence of the Evil One.
Is bravery the act of dying for someone else? Or is it the willingness to die for another? Must one do one or the other to be considered truly valiant?
Is it the soldier who makes the ultimate sacrifice for his comrades, or who makes a heroic charge against an overwhelming foe, survives and lives to fight another day? Is that bravery?
Yet, what about the mother-to-be who is willing to go to the brink of death itself to bring her little one into the world? Is she not being as courageous as that soldier?
What about the father who may not have to face death arrows, yet gets up every morning and toils all day under a merciless sun to feed his family? Is that not heroic?
Consider the individual who is faced with an overwhelming temptation that is tinged with evil. They sorely, sorely want to give into the enticement but instead shun the desire and choose the right, instead?
Or the person who is surrounded by friends or family, or both, who live immoral lives and expect him or her to do the same? Only, the person chooses a different path, one based in light and goodness. Is that not being intrepid and fearless as well?
It would seem that courage comes in many forms. Perhaps the only true way to recognize it is by how it makes you feel inside, a testimony of the spirit, and that certain sense that what you have done was the right thing.
Chapter 26
By late evening, the skies clear. Golden Wind, Scamper, the sprogs and I have nestled close to the windbreak. Except for the golden’s protective outstretched wing that flutters in the wind, none of us make a sound or move. We’re too fearful that a search party will hear us, or stumble across us before we can make our escape once the storm passes.
Normally, Scamper would be off and about, searching for a tasty morsel, but this time, he must have sensed our precarious situation and stays put, curled up in sleep along with the sprogs.
I huddle close to the golden, shivering in my soaked clothes, trying to draw what warmth from her that I can. There’s no dry wood to be found for a fire. Besides, bright flames in the forest would be a dead giveaway and lead our adversaries straight to us.
I admit it, I’m not good at waiting. Especially when every little sound causes you to jerk upright, afraid that the band of wild axmen will come storming into the thicket and take you prisoner — or worse.
Finally, the storm moves off. Golden Wind murmurs, “It’s time, Hooper.”
I rapidly place the sprogs and Scamper in back of Golden Wind’s skull sheath a
nd clamber aboard. The sprogs promptly go back to sleep, hardly rousing even when I shoved them under the golden’s carapace.
Baby dragons sleep a lot.
Scamper makes a little nervous circle before he snuggles against the sprogs and closes his eyes. Cautiously, stopping to look and listen with every step, we ease out into the thin glade’s middle to a point where it’s wide enough for Golden Wind to spread her wings.
“Ready?” she ask.
“Ready, I guess,” I reply and tighten my legs around her neck.
She bolts skyward. I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was. Even holding onto two of her curved spikes, she bounds so forcefully upward that my head is snapped back, and I see new stars in the heavens for a moment.
She skims just above the treetops, skying so fast that we send the trees swaying in our wake. The wind rushes against my face, but after a bit, I feel comfortable enough to lean over and ask, “I assume that you know the way to Dunadain?”
“No,” she calls back. “I thought you knew.”
“Me?” I yelp. “How would I know the way?”
I can hear her chuckling over the wind and realize that she’s teasing me. That’s another thing I never knew about dragons, they have a sense of humor. “Don’t worry, Hooper,” she answers, “I know where we’re going.” She dips her wings slightly to the left and then levels out.
With the storm’s passage, the night air has turned clear, crisp, and most importantly, calm. We fly low over the dark countryside. I find that if I snug myself down behind the golden’s skull plate that the wind’s force is not so great, and I don’t have to grip her horns quite so tight.
The moons rise early tonight, sending a gentle light over the landscape. We haven’t skyed all that long when we soar over some high hills and dip into a broad valley. In the near distance is a sparkling silver-tinted carpet that runs the wide vale’s length.
The golden calls out, “The Lorell River.”
She brings us into a tight curve to the right, downriver, and puts herself squarely in the river’s center. Less chance of being seen from the riverbank, I guess. As we sail close to the glistening, smooth water, I mutter to myself, “Hooper, as Phigby would say, m' boy, for someone who’s never traveled farther than Draconton, you’re a long way from home.”
At this point in its course, the river takes several grand sweeping bends before straightening and then narrowing. An odd-looking paleness in the distance catches my eye, and I peer keenly ahead.
On each side of the river rise two gigantic mounds of a gray-white rock that appear to glow with a ghostly pallor under the moons. Split in half, the rock forms tall domed pillars between which the river flows through and onward to the sea.
As if she knows what I gaze at, the golden says, “They’re called Angbar’s Meld. Look to the giant rock on the right hand and to its base, you’ll see Dunadain Keep.”
I lean forward just a bit and find, just below one of the bastions of granite, a fortress that seems to be cut out of the rock. A high battlement runs between three low turrets and connects to a high tower which forms the fourth corner. Apparently it’s the main keep, several stories high and snugged close to the rock wall.
Though Dunadain has no moat, it has a drawbridge that opens into the inner ward but with nightfall has now been drawn tight. There are only a few torches on the battlements, and the only other light I can see is high in the keep itself.
Abruptly, the golden dips her wings to the right, and we rush over a series of squat, wooded hills before angling down to a shadowy meadow. Golden Wind sets her talons down, and we land. She quickly lumbers into a nearby grove and Scamper and I dismount.
At just that moment, the sprogs wake, letting out loud screeps, as if they want to get down too, but I quickly order with a finger in their faces, “Hush! Don’t move and stay put!”
They meekly scurry back under the golden’s skull sheath and huddle together.
“What’s next?” I ask Golden Wind.
“Were you able to see into the courtyard?” she asks.
“No, why?”
“Because that’s where they have Glory, Song, and Rover chained. We’ll have to get closer to see if we can tell where the others are held. I suspect that they may be held in the keep’s topmost chamber.”
“Great,” I murmur. “So just exactly how are we going to get all of them out? You did say that the fortress had guards.”
She turns away and says over her shoulder as she plods through the thicket, “Let’s go see what we can and then perhaps the answer to that will show itself.”
We quietly and quickly make our way through a thin birchen stand until we come up to a small knoll that keeps us from actually sighting the keep below. The golden scrunches herself as low as she can, and crawls like a dog on all fours while Scamper and I do our best to stay with her. We peer over the small hilltop to study the small fortress.
The keep lies in darkness except for the few torches on the walls, and a tiny light high in the landside tower. It’s so small that I can’t help but think that the glow is made from a solitary candle and a meager one at that.
“Hooper,” the golden whispers, “do you see the lone light up high?”
“Yes.”
“From there, follow the tower wall down to the ground, what do you see?”
I let my eyes follow the line from the tower’s high point to its dark base before I shrug. “Other than being a little blacker than the rest of the walls, I don’t see anything.”
“But you do,” she says firmly. “Why is that particular wall darker than the others?”
“I don’t know,” I answer in an exasperated tone. “Can’t you just tell me?”
“I can,” she replies, “but that teaches you nothing. Think, Hooper, what would make that wall so much darker all the way up the tower?”
I let out a sigh, squint my eyes and really peer at the tower. Suddenly, I see tiny flutterings up and down the wall. Leaves, whipping back and forth in the breeze.
“Vines,” I state. “There’s a vine lattice growing up the tower wall.”
“And strong enough for you to climb,” she acknowledges. “You have your answer, Hooper. I have no doubt that our friends are held captive in that topmost room, and now you know how to reach them.”
“Wait,” I protest. “You’re expecting me to climb up that? It’s one thing to sky on a dragon, it’s another to try and climb up a tower that’s over a hundred hands high on little, no, make that tiny vine branches.”
“The vines are intertwined and quite sturdy,” she encourages. “They’ll more than hold your weight. Besides, if it were you in that tower, any one of your friends would gladly climb that wall to save you.”
I can tell I’m losing this argument. I lean forward a little, desperately looking for another, lower, route into the keep. “Can’t we just sky in there,” I suggest in weak voice, “you hit the guards with blast of dragon fire, and while they’re scurrying out of the way, I’ll hop off and climb up the stairs to set everyone free.”
I like the sound of my plan except that I need to add one thing. “And, oh, while I’m hurrying up the stairs, you keep the guards distracted.”
I turn and give her a hopeful smile. “A much better idea than me scaling a castle wall, sturdy vines or not, don’t you think?”
She cocks her head to one side as if she’s considering my proposal before she says, “I could do that, but let me ask you this. In a heavily guarded fortress like Dunadain, just how far up those stairs do you actually think you’d get before you joined our friends in that upper room as just another captive?”
I start to reply but she shoves her muzzle so close that I’m staring up into her glistening nostrils. Please don’t sneeze, I think. Dragon snot is particularly icky and smells like burnt garlic. “Not far is the answer,” she growls.
I can see I’ve lost the argument. “All right, all right,” I grouse. “You win. I climb. But once I get up there, then what?”
“Uh, huh,” I answer. “That’s a big help. And while I’m playing fly on the wall, what will you be doing?”
“Watching,” she answers. “What else?”
“Watching? That’s all?”
She nods and then says, “One more thing, Hooper. Truly, there is more danger here than just archers and men-at-arms, so be on your guard at all times.”
“What do mean by that?” I sputter. “What kind of danger?”
“Just be on your guard,” she rumbles and pushes at me with her muzzle. “Now, go.”
Scamper starts to go with me, but I reach down and hold him back. “No Scamp,” I say and shake my head at him. “You can’t climb those vines with me. It’s too high and too dangerous, you’ll have to stay here.”
“Hooper,” the golden says firmly, “Scamper is as much a friend to Cara and the others as you are. He wants to help. Take him, you just might find he comes in handy.”
Scamper has a pleading expression on his face. “Suit yourself,” I tell him. “But remember, I warned you.” With that, the golden turns and plods away into the forest gloom.
Watching her go, I mutter under my breath to Scamper, “She’s the one with wings, big talons, fangs, and dragon fire and she’s the one staying behind to do what? Watch?”
I let out another long sigh, nudge Scamper, and together, we pick our way downhill through the trees until we come to a shoulder in the hillside. I stop to again peer at the river and the fortress.
From my vantage point, I see several guards, their lances at the ready, pacing along the battlement’s top. Every so often, one of them stops to gaze between the parapets at the ground below. I don’t see any guards outside the walls, just those on the high walkway.
Using the dense underbrush to conceal our movement, Scamper and I move almost parallel to the bastion. We reach a spot where I can easily see the vine-covered tower wall.
Once, Lord Lorell visited Draconstead and instead of dragon skying as he normally did, he arrived riding a beautiful palomino horse. Beautifully sleek, the horse pranced as it made its way up the lane that led from Draconton. I remember gathering with the other workers to admire the steed.
