Denna drew in a sharp breath. I followed her line of sight and saw the arm protruding from under several heavy logs.
I moved closer. Flies buzzed up and I covered my mouth a bit in a futile attempt to stave off the smell. “He’s been dead for about two span.” I bent and picked up a tangle of shattered wood and metal. “Look at this.”
“Bring it here and I’ll look at it.”
I brought it back to where she stood. The thing was broken almost beyond recognition. “Crossbow.”
“Didn’t do him much good,” she said.
“The question is why did he have it in the first place?” I looked at the thick piece of blue steel that made the crossbar. “This wasn’t some hunting bow. This is what you use to kill a man in armor from across a field. They’re illegal.”
Denna snorted. “Those sorts of laws don’t get enforced out here. You know that.”
I shrugged. “The fact remains that this was an expensive piece of machinery. Why would someone living in a tiny cabin with a dirt floor own a crossbow worth ten talents?”
“Maybe he knew about the draccus,” Denna said looking around nervously. “I wouldn’t mind a crossbow right about now.”
I shook my head. “Draccus are shy. They stay away from people.”
Denna gave me a frank look, gesturing sarcastically at the wreckage of the cabin.
“Think about every wild creature in the forest,” I said. “All wild creatures avoid contact with people. Like you said, you’ve never even heard of the draccus. There’s a reason for that.”
“Maybe it’s rabid?”
That brought me up short. “That’s a terrifying thought.” I looked around at the ruined landscape. “How on earth would you put something like that down? Can a lizard even catch the froth?”
Denna shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, looking around nervously. “Is there anything else you’d like to look at here? Because I’m done with this place. I don’t want to be here when that thing gets back.”
“Part of me feels like we should give this fellow a decent burial… .”
Denna shook her head. “I’m not staying here that long. We can tell someone in town and they can take care of it. It could come back any minute.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why does it keep coming back here?” I pointed. “That tree’s been dead for a span of days, but that one just got torn up a couple days ago… .”
“Why do you care?” Denna asked.
“The Chandrian,” I said firmly. “I want to know why they were here. Do they control the draccus?”
“I don’t think they were here,” Denna said. “At the Mauthen farm, maybe. But this is just the work of a rabid cow-lizard.” She gave me a long look, searching my face. “I don’t know what you came here looking for. But I don’t think you’re going to find it.”
I shook my head, looking around. “I feel like this has to be connected to the farm.”
“I think you want it to be connected,” she said gently. “But this fellow’s been dead a long while. You said so yourself. And remember the doorframe and the water trough at the farm?” She bent down and rapped a knuckle against one of the logs from the ruined cabin. It made a solid sound. “And look at the crossbow—the metal isn’t rusted away. They weren’t here.”
I felt my heart sink in my chest. I knew she was right. Deep down I knew I’d been grasping at straws. Still, it felt wrong giving up without trying everything possible.
Denna took hold of my hand. “Come on. Let’s go.” She smiled and tugged on me. Her hand was cool and smooth in my own. “There’s more interesting things to do than hunt… .”
There was a loud splintering noise off in the trees: kkkrek-ke-krrk. Denna dropped my hand and turned to face the way we’d come. “No …” she said. “No no no …”
The sudden threat of the draccus brought me back into focus. “We’re fine,” I said looking around. “It can’t climb. It’s too heavy.”
“Climb what? A tree? It’s been knocking those down for fun!”
“The bluffs.” I pointed to the cliff wall that bordered this little section of forest. “Come on …”
We scrambled to the base of the cliff, stumbling through furrows and jumping over fallen trees. Behind us I heard the rumbling, thunderlike grunt. I darted a glance over my shoulder, but the draccus was still somewhere among the trees.
We got to the base of the cliff and I started searching for a section both of us could climb. After a long frantic minute we emerged from a thick patch of sumac to find a swath of wildly churned-up dirt. The draccus had been digging there.
“Look!” Denna pointed to a break in the cliff, a deep crack about two feet across. It was wide enough for a person to squeeze through, but too narrow for the huge lizard. There were sharp claw marks on the cliff wall and broken rocks scattered around the churned-up earth.
Denna and I squeezed into the narrow gap. It was dark, the only light coming from the narrow strip of blue sky high overhead. As I crept along I was forced to turn sideways in places to make it through. When I brought my hands away from the walls my palms were covered in black soot. Unable to dig its way in, apparently the draccus had breathed fire down into the narrow passage.
After only a dozen feet, the crevasse widened slightly. “There’s a ladder,” Denna said. “I’m going up. If that thing breathes fire at us it will be like rainwater down a gully.”
She climbed and I followed her. The ladder was crude but sturdy, and after twenty feet it opened out onto a piece of level ground. Dark stone surrounded us on three sides, but there was a clear view of the ruined cabin and the destroyed trees below. A wooden box was set against the cliff wall.
“Can you see it?” Denna asked, peering down. “Tell me I didn’t just skin my knees running from nothing.”
I heard a dull whump and I felt a wave of hot air rise up against my back.
The draccus grunted again, and another wash of fire ran through the narrow gap below. Then there came a sudden, furious sound like nails on a slate as the draccus clawed madly against the base of the cliff.
Denna gave me a frank look. “Harmless.”
“It’s not after us,” I said. “You saw it was digging at that wall long before we ever got here.”
Denna sat down. “What is this place?”
“Some sort of lookout,” I said. “You can see the whole valley from here.”
“Obviously it’s a lookout,” she sighed. “I’m talking about the whole place.”
I opened the wooden box that was up against the cliff wall. Inside was a rough wool blanket, a full waterskin, some dried meat, and a dozen wickedly sharp crossbow bolts.
“I don’t know either,” I admitted. “Maybe the fellow was a fugitive.”
The noise stopped below. Denna and I peered out over the ruined valley. Eventually the draccus moved away from the cliff. It walked slowly, its huge body digging an irregular rut into the ground.
“It’s not moving as quickly as it did last night,” I said. “Maybe it is sick.”
“Maybe it’s tired from a hard day’s trying to track us down and kill us.” She looked up at me. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
I sat down and we watched the draccus make its plodding way to the middle of the valley. It went up to a tree about thirty feet tall and pushed it over without any noticeable effort.
Then it began to eat it, leaves first. Next it crunched up branches thick as my wrist as easily as a sheep would tear up a mouthful of grass. When the trunk was finally stripped bare, I assumed it would have to stop. But it simply clamped its huge, flat mouth down on one end of the trunk and twisted its massive neck. The trunk splintered and broke, leaving the draccus with a large but manageable mouthful that it bolted down more or less whole.
Denna and I took the opportunity to eat some lunch of our own. Just some flatbread, sausage, and the rest of my carrots. I was hesitant to trust the food in the box, as there
was the distinct possibility that the fellow living here had been some manner of crazy.
“It still amazes me that no one around here has ever seen it,” Denna said.
“People have probably caught glimpses,” I said. “The swineherd said everyone knows there’s something dangerous in these woods. They probably just assumed it was a demon or some nonsense like that.”
Denna glanced back at me, an amused curl to her mouth. “Says the fellow who came to town looking for the Chandrian.”
“That’s different,” I protested hotly. “I don’t go around spouting faerie stories and touching iron. I’m here so I can learn the truth. So I can have information that comes from somewhere more reliable than thirdhand stories.”
“I didn’t mean to touch a nerve,” Denna said, taken aback. She looked back down below. “It really is an incredible animal.”
“When I read about it I didn’t really believe about the fire,” I admitted. “It seemed a little far-fetched to me.”
“More far-fetched than a lizard big as a horse cart?”
“That’s just a matter of size. But fire isn’t a natural thing. If nothing else, where does it keep the fire? It’s obviously not burning inside.”
“Didn’t they explain it in that book you read?” Denna asked.
“The author had some guesses, but that’s all. He couldn’t catch one to dissect it.”
“Understandable,” Denna said as she watched the draccus casually nudge over another tree and begin eating that one as well. “What sort of a net or a cage would hold it?”
“He had some interesting theories though,” I said. “You know how cow manure gives off a gas that burns?”
Denna turned to look at me and laughed. “No. Really?”
I nodded, grinning. “Farm kids will strike sparks onto a fresh cow pat and watch it burn. That’s why farmers have to be careful about storing manure. The gas can build up and explode.”
“I’m a city girl,” she said chuckling. “We didn’t play those sorts of games.”
“You missed some big fun,” I said. “The author suggested that the draccus just stores that gas in a bladder of some kind. The real question is how it lights the gas. The author has a clever idea about arsenic. Which makes sense, chemically. Arsenic and coal gas will explode if you put them together. That’s how you get marsh lights in swamps. But I think that’s a little unreasonable. If it had that much arsenic in its body, it would poison itself.”
“Mmmm-hmm,” Denna said, still watching the draccus below.
“But if you think about it, all it needs is a tiny spark to ignite the gas,” I said. “And there are plenty of animals that can create enough galvanic force for a spark. Clip eels, for example, can generate enough to kill a man, and they’re only a couple of feet long.” I gestured toward the draccus. “Something that big could certainly generate enough for a spark.”
I was hoping that Denna would be impressed by my ingenuity, but she seemed distracted by the scene below.
“You’re not really listening to me, are you?”
“Not so much,” she said, turning to me and giving a smile. “I mean, it makes perfect sense to me. It eats wood. Wood burns. Why wouldn’t it breathe fire?”
While I tried to think of a response to that, she pointed down into the valley. “Look at the trees down there. Do they look odd to you?”
“Aside from being destroyed and mostly eaten?” I asked. “Not particularly.”
“Look how they’re arranged. It’s hard to see because the place is a shambles, but it looks like they were growing in rows. Like someone planted them.”
Now that she pointed it out, it did look like a large section of the trees had been in rows before the draccus came. A dozen rows with a score of trees each. Most of them were now only stumps or empty holes.
“Why would someone plant trees in the middle of a forest?” She mused. “It’s not an orchard… . Did you see any fruit?”
I shook my head.
“And those trees are the only ones the draccus has been eating,” she said. “There’s the big clear spot in the middle. The others he knocks down, but those he knocks down and eats.” She squinted. “What kind of tree is it eating right now?”
“I can’t tell from here,” I said. “Maple? Does it have a sweet tooth?”
We looked for a while longer, then Denna got to her feet. “Well, the important thing is that it’s not going to run over and breathe fire down our backs. Let’s go see what’s at the other end of that narrow path. I’m guessing it’s a way out of here.”
We headed down the ladder and made our slow, winding way along the bottom of the tiny crevasse. It twisted and turned for another twenty feet before opening up into a tiny box canyon with steep walls rising away on every side.
There was no way out, but it was obviously being put to some use. The place had been cleared of plants, leaving a packed dirt floor. Two long fire pits had been dug, and resting over the pits on brick platforms were large metal pans. They almost resembled the rendering vats that knackers use for tallow. But these were wide, flat, and shallow, like baking pans for enormous pies.
“It does have a sweet tooth!” Denna laughed. “This fellow was making maple candy here. Or syrup.”
I moved closer to look. There were buckets laying around, of the sort that could carry maple sap so it could be boiled down. I opened the door of a tiny ramshackle shed and saw more buckets, long wooden paddles for stirring the sap, scrapers for getting it out of the pans… .
But it didn’t feel right. There were plenty of maple trees in the forest. It didn’t make sense to cultivate them. And why pick such an out-of-the-way place?
Maybe the fellow was simply crazy. Idly, I picked up one of the scrapers and looked at it. The edge was smeared dark, like it had been scraping tar… .
“Eech!” Denna said behind me. “Bitter. I think they burned it.”
I turned around and saw Denna standing by one of the firepits. She had pried a large disk of sticky material out of the bottom of one of the pans and taken a bite out of it. It was black, not the deep amber color of maple candy.
I suddenly realized what was really going on here. “Don’t!”
She looked at me, puzzled. “It’s not that bad.” She said, her words muffled through her sticky mouthful. “It’s strange, but not really unpleasant.”
I stepped over to her knocked it out of her hand. Her eyes flashed angrily at me. “Spit it out!” I snapped. “Now! It’s poison!”
Her expression went from angry to terrified in a flash. She opened her mouth and let the wad of dark stuff fall to the ground. Then she spat, her saliva thick and black. I pressed my water bottle into her hands. “Rinse your mouth out,” I said. “Rinse and spit it out.”
She took the bottle, and then I remembered it was empty. We’d finished it during lunch.
I took off running, scrambling through the narrow passage. I darted up the ladder, grabbed the waterskin, then down and back to the small canyon.
Denna was sitting on the canyon floor, looking very pale and wide-eyed. I thrust the waterskin into her hands and she gulped so quickly that she choked, then gagged a bit as she spat it out.
I reached into the fire pit, pushing my hand deep into the ashes until I found the unburned coals underneath. I brought up a handful of unburned charcoal. I shook my hand, scattering most of the ashes away, then thrust the handful of black coals at her. “Eat this,” I said.
She looked at me blankly.
“Do it!” I shook the handful of coals at her. “If you don’t chew this up and swallow it, I’ll knock you out and force it down your throat!” I put some in my own mouth. “Look, it’s fine. Just do it.” My tone softened, became more pleading than commanding. “Denna, trust me.”
She took some coals and put them in her mouth. Face pale and eyes beginning to brim with tears, she gritted up a mouthful and took a drink of water to wash it down, grimacing.
“They’re harvesting Goddamn oph
alum here,” I said. “I’m an idiot for not seeing it sooner.”
Denna started to say something, but I cut her off. “Don’t talk. Keep eating. As much as you can stomach.”
She nodded solemnly, her eyes wide. She chewed, choked a little, and swallowed the charcoal with another mouthful of water. She ate a dozen mouthfuls in quick succession, then rinsed her mouth out again.
“What’s ophalum?” she asked softly.
“A drug. Those are denner trees. You just had a whole mouthful of denner resin.” I sat down next to her. My hands were shaking. I lay them flat against my legs to hide it.
She was quiet at that. Everyone knew about denner resin. In Tarbean the knackers had to come for the stiff bodies of sweet-eaters that overdosed in the Dockside alleys and doorways.
“How much did you swallow?” I asked.
“I was just chewing it, like toffee.” Her face went pale again. “There’s still some stuck in my teeth.”
I touched the waterskin. “Keep rinsing.” She swished the water from cheek to cheek before spitting and repeating the process. I tried to guess at how much of the drug she’d gotten into her system, but there were too many variables, I didn’t know how much she had swallowed, how refined this resin was, if the farmers had taken any steps to filter or purify it.
Her mouth worked as her tongue felt around her teeth. “Okay, I’m clean.”
I forced a laugh. “You’re anything but clean,” I said. “Your mouth is all black. You look like a kid that’s been playing in the coal bin.”
“You aren’t much better,” she said. “You look like a chimney sweep.” She reached out to touch my bare shoulder. I must have torn my shirt against the rocks in my rush to get the waterskin. She gave a wan smile that didn’t touch her frightened eyes at all. “Why do I have a belly full of coals?”
“Charcoal is like a chemical sponge,” I said. “It soaks up drugs and poisons.”
She brightened a little. “All of them?”
I considered lying, then thought better of it. “Most. You got it into you pretty quickly. It will soak up a lot of what you swallowed.”
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