Fierell looked to the four, whom I noticed for the first time since the fight began. They had advanced and were ranged behind Arinaud, a variety of weapons in their hands. She tilted her chin and they sheathed their steel and left through the east wall.
“May I offer my sincerest regret at this incident and my assurance that this blood will not flow again on my lands?”
Arinaud spoke before she finished the words, “I accept.”
Toss poked me and I was at a loss for a moment as to what he wanted. He cocked his eyebrows at me and I stammered out, “I...I accept?”
“What token will you receive of my sincerity?” She continued the confusing negotiation with Toss.
“I want blood.” He returned.
Fierell took the ruby hilted dagger from Arinaud’s shaking hands, wrapped it in a ribbon from her hair, and offered it to Toss.
He accepted it formally. “It will serve.”
Toss turned us around and marched me out through a break in the north wall as soon as he got the dagger in his hand. I complied, confused and pain-blind as I was, until we were out of sight behind the wall. Then my fight switch toggled back to on and Toss had to wrestle me down the street until we saw Kivern headed our way with Geoffrey. We both herded him away from Fierell and back to the cottage, urging Kivern ahead to open it up.
I was coming down off my adrenaline rush and starting to feel the wound in my arm, so I don’t remember that discussion at Kivern’s table too clearly except that it came to light Geoffrey wasn’t fooling anyone with his disguise and Toss and Krt had been following us since we left Tren and her bond Raum’s farm in Torscreek. Kivern's bond, Denn had wanted us to stay and speak openly with the elders at the pub and Geoffrey wanted to stay and kill Fierell. But Kivern convinced Denn that for the prince’s safety, we should leave as soon and as swiftly as arrangements would allow. And Toss convinced Geoffrey it was more responsible to kill the dragon first and come back for Fierell. Denn assured him they could handle her for a while longer.
Geoffrey filled Denn in on what we found in Forte and recommended sneaking out those who were rebelling silently against Fierell and sending them to restore Forte. It would give them activity, get them away from possible fights, and add fuel to their fire.
They loaded us up with supplies and we left that night, under the new moon. We have been traveling on these plains ever since, skirting civilization to lessen the chance of Arinaud and his four catching up with us.
∞
OH MY GOD!!!!
No wonder he’s scared. It was, must’ve been, the size of a, well, something really big! It flew over just as we were finally drifting off, each on our own side of the fire. After serving up his wildlife stew, Toss had gone to backtrack and see if we had acquired a tail. So it was just Geoffrey and I. I felt a strong draft of warm air pushing me into the earth at the same moment that Geoffrey’s hissing woke me.
“Nanda!”
I opened my eyes to see a massive fur-covered underbelly rising between a pair of golden blue wings that spanned, well from Orion to Cygnus. The one powerful beat that woke me soared the beast up and away faster than a Eurail train. It was so unbelievably beautiful and frightening. I have never seen anything, living, that was so massive except maybe those California redwoods we visited when I was like eight. This creature, this dragon, was as long as four busses tip to tail. Its own wings dwarfed its torso. In a glide, the sky and dragon blended to near invisibility but for the winking of stars and the knowledge that a creature larger than my apartment building was prowling overhead.
Neither Geoffrey nor I spoke. We sat up and stared after the vision soaring off in the direction we’d just come, covering in moments distances it had taken us hours to achieve.
Suddenly, the long neck broke the elegant line of the body as it spotted something on the ground. The wings folded and the dragon fell with vicious speed. Whatever it captured slid down that neck like a fish into a pelican’s gullet as the dragon rose again into the sky and out of sight.
A minute. Two. It couldn’t have taken longer than that and it was gone. Still we sat there staring after it for ten times as long. I was first to break the silence.
“So. We’re going,” I tore my eyes from the sky and looked at Geoffrey, then at the distant mountains, “to kill that?”
He nodded silently.
“And where are the rest of them? The sleeping ones?”
“We’re looking at them.” He pointed at the distant mountains. “This is the closest I’ve come. It’s easier coming in from further north like this. We didn’t have to cross Battlescar.”
“So,” I think I wanted some clarity to this plan which had suddenly escalated to insanity in my mind, “they’re behind the mountains?”
He turned to me, “No, Nanda. Those aren’t mountains. They’re called the Dormounts as in dormant. That is a one hundred megg long line of sleeping dragons.”
One megg, got that? One megg is equal to roughly how far a single person can travel in a day. How far one single person in good shape can travel in a day.
I struggled to my feet, “And we’re gonna march right up to them?”
“Up them, over them, and through them if that’s what we have to do to find the village.” It was his turn to comfort me. “They’ve been asleep for a hundred and thirteen frseason. What reason have they to wake now?”
“What reason did that one have? And it’s flying around swallowing things whole!”
Geoffrey tried to give me his water skin. “Mobious assures me that—”
“Where’s Toss?” I looked frantically around, suddenly knowing what that dragon might have swallowed.
“He’s right there.” He pointed at the horizon. “Running for us at top speed. Look, he’s as concerned for us as you are for him.”
In the distance there was a small figure headed our way. The iron fist in my stomach released its sudden death grip and my knees went weak. Geoffrey helped me sit. By force of habit, I suppose, he piled our sacs under my legs and took the cloth we kept in a pot of water near the fire and placed it on my ankles and feet.
“I’m sorry.” I stared at the not so familiar stars. “It’s just, I’ve never seen anything that frightening.”
“It’s only my third sighting.” He arranged himself next to me.
“That killed your parents?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
He looked off at Toss, “They went out to kill the dragon and didn’t come back.”
A breeze picked up and blew through the grass. Night creatures came out of hiding and renewed their chorus. Geoffrey wasn’t going to say any more.
I looked up at him staring at the stars. “You know, my dad was just a zoologist. All I really remember about his job is that he got to go in the cages with the lions and the giraffes. He bottle-fed an orphaned monkey. Once he let me help him wash an old elephant. But he said, he said you could die from holding things in.”
“The whole world knows how my parents died.”
“Do they know how you feel about it?”
“I don’t want them to know.”
“My dad said when weird things happened, when there was something I couldn’t talk to anyone about, I could always talk to myself.”
“Talk to yourself?”
“That’s when I write.”
Geoffrey looked at me, “Does no one read your writing then?”
“I do.”
He smiled, “Anything about me in there?”
I smiled, “Is there anyone else around to give me trouble?”
“Yes.” His smile slid away. “Who is he Nanda? Where is he?”
I turned my head away and reached sideways to play with a centipede crawling along our fire poker. “When did your parents die? How old were you?”
“Don’t change the subject. They’re not relevant to this.”
“Not relevant?!” I leaned up on my elbows and looked back at the Dormounts. “What are we going there for?”
“You don’t have to come.” He stood, grabbed the poker, and stabbed at the fire. “You shouldn’t come.”
I kicked our packs over and grabbed the cloth off my feet. The wind blew the smoke and debris he was stirring up away towards the sleeping monsters and I watched one large ash toss about, soaring and dropping in the wild currents until it exploded in a tiny, short-lived flame. The insects had gone silent at our sudden activity, but one dumb mosquito bit into my shoulder as I crossed furiously to Geoffrey. I slapped myself and smashed it, squirting its bellyful of my blood as well as its own blood and guts onto my bare skin.
“I'm not going to let you get killed. I need,” I tried to catch his eyes as he stopped jabbing our fire, “I need a friend. So don’t imagine for a second that I’m going to let you get swallowed or charred or smashed by that creature for no good reason!”
“No reason?!” He threw the stick in the fire. A dozen embers leaped into the air and extinguished. “What could you know of my reasons?”
Geoffrey walked away into the darkness. He didn’t look at me. He wouldn’t look at me.
I followed, “When I was twelve years old, my dad spent a night at the zoo. To watch over a sick baboon. And some stoned teenagers broke into the monkey house. By the time my father heard the commotion, a spider monkey had wrapped itself around a kid’s head and was choking her. The others ran away, but this girl was starting to pass out and other monkeys were joining in the fun like the kid was some kind of piñata they’d been given to play with. Daddy couldn’t shoot cause the animals were surrounding her, so he just waded on in and started pulling them off. He killed a couple of them. He got a hold of the spider monkey’s hands and feet and almost had it peeled off her head when the others started going berserk. Some cops had shown up and were shining searchlights into the pit. My father and the girl were knocked over the ledge that led to the lower level. Daddy hugged the girl to him and took the brunt of the force when they landed on the stone floor of the cage. She walked away from the fall. It broke nearly every bone in his body. Thanks to the doctors, it took him two years to die.”
Geoffrey didn’t move. His hair settled about his shoulders and the grass around him stopped flailing as the wind died down. I’d followed him only a few paces from the campfire, but the night chill settled on me as the passion ran out with my story.
“I’ve never told anyone before. It was in all the papers. I didn’t have to write down how my father died, everyone had done it for me. I just stuck the scraps in my journal and ignored them. He was a hero. And Mama may say I'm magical, but I will never be as good as him."
Toss returned. He’s exhausted. Geoffrey was still staring at the Dormounts when he jogged up and hasn’t said a word. The usually laconic Toss has been required to soliloquize in our silence. Apparently he had been talking with an old cowboy who was traveling point with a small herd of cattle when the dragon had swooped down and grabbed a cow out of the middle of a herd. The old guy, who had been calling a tale, was still for a few moments afterwards, then apologized saying that his heart still stopped for a little bit whenever that happened. Before Toss took off to make sure Geoffrey was safe, the old cowpoke told him none of the herdspeople were terribly afraid of the dragon. It never took people and never raided one herd too often. Seemed to know what it was doing.
He’s gone to bed now. Uneasy, but we assured him he’d earned the rest. Geoffrey is off staring at the bondstar. I don’t know why I’m sticking with him. He’s got this other chick to find and I don’t think she’ll want me around. Especially like this. Maybe I shouldn’t go to the mountains. I don’t know what I should do. I’ll get some sleep and procrastinate some more tomorrow. Because you know, the sun’ll come out. . .
Dear Nanda,
I’ve borrowed your paper and ink. I don’t have any and you’re asleep so I hope you’ll forgive me.
I had twelve too.
The dragon woke about five season before I was born. There was a rash of fear, the plains people running for cover, western families relocating to the four castleshales: Voferen Kahago, Stray Tor, Forte, and the distant Weary. I knew little of this. My parents were the kimoet, the lords of the land so they often paid out reparation for damages done to villages and tried hard to quell the panic that they believed was causing most of the damage.
During my eleventh year, damages and losses attributed to the creature increased dramatically. There was much outcry and at a festival about two seasons before my birth day, a man brought forth a petition to the kimoet. His wife had been killed by the dragon and he had come to demand the traditional blood fee from the high lords of the land. A bargain was struck. The price would be waived if the dragon could be killed.
Interviews were conducted with all the westerners gathered at the festival to collect as much information as was known about the dragon’s habits so that a plan could be formed. My uncle Ko compiled the information. He wrote a report including all the pertinent facts and concluding that it were best attempted by a small group because its eyesight was not sharp enough to spot a single human from such heights as it normally maintained. Ko took his sister’s bloodprice on his own head and left that night for the Dormounts.
His report was found in the Civil Guarde’s leisure room where they gathered for the morning meeting. In Ko’s absence, they found on his chair the compilation and report complete with a letter of explanation to the kimoet for his unauthorized, self-appointed assignment. It was delivered immediately to the queen who ordered the first wing to intercept their Commandt and return him to Kahago. Stedon, being more personally familiar with the informal particulars of the guarde, privately returned Ko’s wing to barracks and put them on leave, placed the second wing commanded by the heroic Girard on Royal duty, and sent the third wing after Ko.
The next three suns proved his close association with Ko had served us all well. The rioting broke out nearly as soon as the horses’ hooves had ceased echoing from the forest. Ko’s first wing, scattered about the city, were able to douse any incendiary persons before the crowds became too fired-up. All agitators were detained within the puniary until the fuss had died down. Only three of those locked up were local residents.
This isn’t making me feel better. Everyone knows all this. Everyone knows that Ko never returned and that the one guarde of the third wing who was able to get himself back to a village, Sapproach as a matter of fact, was burned so badly that he died before he could give any details. When the news got back to Kahago, Mum and Da were confronted by the bonds and families of the lost guardes. They did not demand blood like that stringy little bleeder. They asked if they could help the kimoet attack the beast. Mum and Da said thank you very much, we’re sorry for your losses, as soon as the prince is of age, we ourselves will offer our blood in exchange for the dragon’s death.
I don’t know how to tell you about the rest of that winter and spring. They prepared. My studies were relaxed and I joined them in many meetings of state. My opinion was required in the settlement of private disputes brought before the kimoet. Da invited Mum along on one of our journeys to the beach. They showed me the rocky peninsula where he first held her hand. We did... family things.
On my twelfth birth day, I was chosen, formally, for succession to the leadership and a great festival was held. Eight sunrises later, Mum, Da, Girard, and the second wing left by foot and by wagon for the Dormounts.
They
Girard came back alone. He’d broken his leg repairing a bridge across the Sapproach river and had been left behind with the healer in the village. The Dormounts are a megg from the river. No one is sure of the paths within the Dormounts. But when a week had passed and he was able to move, Girard had the healer bind up his leg and he rode out to find his wing and his lords. The carrion that had found them first made the carnage easy to locate. Most of the bodies were mangled and burnt and... he couldn’t identify more than a handful of his friends and fighters. A couple of bodies were completely unaccounted for.
My parents died horribly.
When Mobious sent me away from Voferen Kahago, and I think it was as much for my education and my safety, he told me to return when I had found my queen. I privately vowed that I would not return until the dragon as lord of his land had paid my parent’s blood fee. Girard escorted me away from my home and left me after we had traveled three days south from the final cottages of Voferen. He had retired from the guarde and was planning to settle in Sapproach. He blames himself, but it is wrong for him to do so. No one could have saved them from the dragon.
I don’t want to risk your life. But I fear I don’t have the courage to continue this journey without you.
Geoffrey
Fourteen
∞ Edling Geoffrey of Kaveg’s journal ∞
Fall
Denver, CO America
She kissed me! On the cheek, yes, but she kissed me. And she smiled as brightly as when we reached the Sapproach river. I was up in the attic this afternoon, looking for the stormwindows our landlady said were up there. I wouldn’t know what a stormwindow looked like if I was closing the shutters on it, but I was dutifully rummaging away while Nanda scrubbed our small rooms.
The poor apartment is so bare. We have a threadworn rug laid down over the wooden floor in the main room and Nanda has bought paints and brushes to decorate the walls. I’ve begun painting a traveler’s doorway on the south wall showing our campground in the mountains. Our bedroom floor has been decorated by a couple of the dogs from downstairs who tramped through my paint and ran around in there until Nanda trapped them in the bathroom.
She’d just started scrubbing the kitchen when she sent me to find the stormwindows after lunch. I was dutifully searching through the dusty third floor rooms that our landlady referred to as the attic and I’d found some interesting items; colorful paper books, a carved rocker made of wood so rotten it crumbled when I touched it, a rusted horse on wheels with a faded red bow tied around its tail. But no windows. I began to think that perhaps I was supposed to take the glass from the windows in the walls and that’s when I found the flower. A vine had grown through the broken window and out again and it was in bloom with yellow and purple buds.
Geoffrey's Queen: A Mobious' Quest Novel Page 17
