Chapter 14
The sharp slicing of Myn's claws into the snow left a clear path to follow, but the rising wind was quickly wiping them away. Racing against time, Myranda trudged through the snow, knee-deep at times, as quickly as her legs could manage. She ignored the savage burning of the wind in her eyes, knowing that if she lost sight of the trail for even a moment, she might never find it again. All the while, she kept her left hand clenched angrily about the front of her cloak, holding it closed and squeezing at the mark that had brought her such misfortune, as though if she punished it enough it would release her from its accursed grasp.
The shadows lengthened as she trudged onward. Long ago, the prints had been wiped away. She moved now on hope alone. For once, luck did not fail her. Ahead, she found a patch of snow stained red by the blood beneath it. The patch stood out against the stark white that surrounded it. The snow, blown about by the savage wind, had faded but not erased the remains of the battle that Wolloff had described. It must have been a terrible one. Though she could not be certain, the half-hidden footfalls scattered about the clearing seemed to have belonged to a half-dozen or so men.
Four did not live to see the end of the battle. The bodies must have been taken; in their places, helmets had been left, hung atop swords stuck into the earth in the center of the bloody spill that marked their end. The helms were elaborate, iron with dark blue enamel covering the whole surface, save a few areas that bore gold detailing. Rising from the peak was a white plume that looked to be horse hair.
"So they were soldiers," she said through wind-burned lips.
She searched the ground with her eyes, but there was no sign of Myn having even been there. The telltale dimples in the snow left by the soldiers' horses all led almost directly to the north. Myranda, with nowhere else to go, followed them. If Myn had not reached them before the battle had ended, then she might have met them further on.
It was not long before she found the site of a different battle. More blood spilled, and a single helmet, left seemingly out of carelessness rather than memorial. Beside the blood-spattered helmet was a deep furrow left by the spirited movements of a creature's claws. Further on, there was a deep pit in the snow, almost to the ground, that bore its own stain, though this blood was of a thicker, darker variety. Precisely the kind that was left in the wake of the elder dragon's rampage. There was no doubt. It was Myn's.
"No!" Myranda cried out.
She threw herself into the snow, digging her fingers into the windblown flakes just as the first crystals of the long impending storm began to fall. Myranda stood. The pit was empty. Squinting, she made out a tiny speck of red, followed by another, and another. She followed the trail of drops to its end. There she found the prone, motionless form of the little dragon. She was cold to the touch, nearly as cold as the snow that half buried her. Two vicious injuries marred her hide, clearly the cause of her collapse. Myranda dropped to her knees and placed her ear to the dragon's chest. There was the weakest thump of a struggling heart to be heard. The tiniest whisper of life, the smallest glimmer of hope.
Myranda analyzed the wounds. There was a horrid gash running along her neck and down her side, cleaving whole scales and clotted with sticky, near-black blood. The second injury was smaller, a notch cut into her crown scale. The thick protective piece of armor had done its work. Only a trickle of blood escaped the wound left by a blow that would have killed a lesser creature.
The novice healer prepared to make use of her fresh knowledge. Suddenly her heart dropped as she realized her carelessness. A crystal! She'd forgotten to take one! She had never been able to cast a spell without one. There was no time to lose though. If she delayed for even a moment, she could lose her friend forever. She placed her hands on the dragon's neck. The creature's unique blood burned at her fingers, but she ignored it. Her mind needed silence for the spell to work. Every thought had to be washed away to provide a trance deep enough to allow her words to reach the ears of those forces that could put them to reality. The lack of a crystal made it difficult, but the high emotions made it near impossible.
She tried, and tried, but she couldn't manage to ignore the fear and sorrow she felt for the only creature that cared for her. Tears flowed from her eyes and stung her cheeks as the flood of powerful emotions fought back. The harder she tried to focus, the more she thought of the danger her friend was in. Her mind swirled, but she could not relent. The feelings intensified until she could not bear it. Finally, she spoke the arcane words. If she could not draw the strength from calm focus, then she had no choice to try to draw it from the maelstrom in her mind.
The words began to do their work, though weakly. Slowly she felt the gash begin to close beneath her fingers, but not completely. She spoke the words again, and again. Each speaking brought the wound closer to disappearing, and brought Myranda closer to collapse. The last trickle of the blood escaped the wound as the apprentice wizard finally passed the breaking point, falling forward. Large, icy flakes of snow began to fall with all of the force of a blizzard as the world faded from her view.
#
In the city of Nidel, General Trigorah pored over her notes of the weeks gone by. Progress had been slow, painfully slow. Her duties had required her to track the path of the sword and those who may have contacted it. To that end, she'd been quite successful. Indeed, in front of her was a description of the very weapon she sought, provided by an elderly weapon shop owner who had agreed to buy it. The last of the prospective witnesses had been identified, and their current whereabouts noted.
Every last story that there was to hear had been heard, and the last of the truth was being gleaned from them. There was the strong indication, though not the certainty, that Myranda . . . that the target had been in possession of the weapon when she left the weapon shop, but not when she had arrived in the town of Nidel, and certainly not when she had been captured.
It was here that things had ceased to fit together. There was the church. Trigorah knew her target tended to visit places of worship when seeking shelter. There had been a church, burned, and four soldiers killed. That didn't make sense. Why burn the church? To hide evidence? Perhaps, but the remains of the soldiers, some of Demont's men, were left for all to find, when they could easily have been thrown among the flames. If evidence was being destroyed, it was evidence of some other crime.
From the descriptions of her target, it seemed highly unlikely that she would have been capable of defeating four soldiers. And then there was the fact of her escape. The carriage was burned. More fire . . . but this time well-used. Aside from requiring that the girl be captured as well as the sword, the escape made it clear that she could not have been working alone. No, there was another hand at work here.
As she stared at the totality of the information, a solution stared back at her. All of this had a familiar ring to it. A color . . . a texture to the events that she'd become sensitive to. She knew that the assassin had been sent for the sword, and that he likely still held it. That much was not a mystery. The mystery was where he could be found, and it was one of which she'd spent decades frequently in the pursuit of a solution.
She didn't have the time for that. She needed progress quickly. Some sort of step forward. The reports of the escape held clues. The horses were missing. The armor was missing. There had been looting. Not unheard of, save for the destruction of the black carriage. That was an act of vengeance. Only one group sought weapons, armor, and revenge. The Undermine. Trigorah stood and stalked out to her waiting Elites.
"Saddle up, men. We are heading east," she ordered.
#
The first rays of the sun stirred the two travelers. They were both near-frozen, spared a complete blanket of snow only by their proximity to a thickly-needled pine tree. Great mounds of the white stuff surrounded the tree and buried the lower third of their bodies. Myranda managed to get her numbed limbs beneath her and roll off of Myn. Even after being healed, Myn had lost too much blood to last the long, cold nig
ht alone. She would have surely died if not for the impromptu blanket in the form of the unconscious body of Myranda. The dragon hoisted herself to her feet and released a mighty blast of fire. Instantly, the warm blood surged through her body, bringing new life to cold muscles. A second blast brought her strength and comfort back to normal.
The brief blasts of warmth that Myn had created did little to restore feeling to Myranda's icy fingers. She gathered together the only wood available, green boughs broken free by the powerful wind. Some of the snow was pushed aside to provide an appropriate place to start the fire, but she knew that she had little chance of sparking a flame. She had no tools to do so, and the fresh wood would be slow to light. The cold had robbed her of nearly all dexterity, and she knew that if she didn't get feeling back into her legs soon, she never would. She looked pleadingly to Myn.
"Fire. Please understand me, Myn. Just this once I need fire," she said.
The dragon looked back innocently.
"Here, feel. Heat does not return so easily to me as it does to you," Myranda said, placing a hand on Myn's neck.
The little creature pulled away from her icy touch and glared at the offending limb. She traced the arm back to Myranda's face, then back at the hand. When she looked to her face again, there was understanding dawning in the young creature's eyes.
"Yes, yes. I am very cold, I need fire," she begged again.
Myn's chest puffed up as she made ready to blast a third column of flame directly at Myranda. She pulled quickly away.
"No, no! Not me! There! The wood!" she said, gesturing desperately.
Myn furrowed her brow as she looked doubtfully at the wood. When she looked to Myranda again, she saw the face reserved for when she has done something right, so she knew what to do. A blast of fiery breath directed at the wood did in a moment what would have taken ages for Myranda to do. She held her hands over the fire as Myn sat next to her in the warm glow.
"Well, Myn. I suppose this makes us even. I have saved your life, and you've saved mine. Once I get a bit more feeling in these frost-nipped digits, I will give you the reward I know you are waiting for. I am going to give you the best scratching you've ever had," she assured her friend.
After a few minutes a strong tingling came to her nearly frostbitten fingers. Though it was painful, she welcomed it, as it meant her hands had not been damaged by the cold. As soon as the painful sensation subsided enough, she gave Myn what she wanted. The dragon drank in the joy as her companion stroked lovingly at her head. In truth, through the thick scales, she could barely feel it, but she loved it just the same.
Myranda continued to indulge her friend until her hand was exhausted. Even so, the dragon looked at her as though she was a criminal for stopping. Her offense was short-lived, as a sound and a scent drew her attentions to the woods. She was off in a flash. Myranda had managed to take most of the chill from her body by the time Myn came back with what had been a moderately sized wild turkey.
"That is quite a catch! What are you going to do with all of that . . . oh . . . oh my . . ." she said, turning away from the gruesome answer to her question.
The powerful jaws of the dragon, who just minutes before had been as gentle and loving as a kitten, now made short work of the prey, tearing great pieces of meat away and eating them in greedy gulps without chewing. A few more swallows and the bird, bones and all, had all but disappeared. It was this seldom-seen side of her friend that disturbed her. She often forgot that the dragon was a wild animal. When the snapping and crunching had ended, Myranda ventured a peek at the very satisfied creature. The dragon licked the stray drips of blood from her maw with a few deft swipes with her long tongue.
"You've something to learn in the way of table manners," Myranda said.
She looked at the odd scattering of leftovers from the primal meal. As disgusted as Myranda was at the spectacle of the creature eating, it had not been enough to make her forget that she hadn't eaten the day before. She smirked. In the past it was not at all uncommon for her to skip a day or two between meals. The opportunities to eat were often few and far between. Her time in this rather austere place of learning had managed to spoil her nonetheless, as she had become accustomed to the luxury of a daily meal.
The smile faded from her face as she turned her eyes to the south. It had taken the hours from noon to nightfall to find this place, and that was on a good night's sleep and with fear speeding her stride. The return trip would take twice as long, even ignoring the thick blanket of fresh snow.
The hungry girl's gaze turned to the leftovers beside Myn once more. Among the mangled feathers and other debris was a shred of meat. Myranda plucked it from the snow and, in a decision motivated more by hunger than good sense, deemed the sorry morsel edible. By the time she had stripped away the feathers and other less than appetizing parts from the meat, it was barely enough to fill her palm. She skewered it on a pine bough and held it over the fire. Myn watched her friend with her usual curiosity before disappearing into the woods once more.
"Don't stray too far," she said more to herself than the dragon. "After this mouthful is savored we need to head back to Wolloff's."
With a bit of time to spare while the meat heated, she let her mind wander. The spell she'd managed to cast had muddied her thoughts more than a night collapsed in freezing cold could repair. The lingering cobwebs led her mind in slow, meandering circles around a fleeting concern. Something about the battleground she'd passed through to reach this place. It didn't seem like Myn was involved in that first clash . . . but someone must have been. Someone who could take four well equipped soldiers before . . . before what? And why were there soldiers in Ravenwood to begin with?
The smell of burning food brought her thoughts back to reality. It seemed she had daydreamed just long enough for her food to leap from one side of edibility to the other. The meager chunk of meat was now a charred piece of sinew dangling from the end of the stick. Left with little recourse she took the piece into her hand and surveyed it with a frown before trying her best to gnaw off a bite to choke down. It was like chewing on leather. The crunching footsteps of Myn's return made her decide that it was better to go without than to risk whatever damage she might do to her stomach by swallowing the shriveled wreck. As if to add insult to injury, Myn carried with her another fresh kill.
"Another one?" Myranda said with a frown, spitting the taste from her mouth and tossing the glorified piece of charcoal aside. "Aren't you full yet?"
The dragon marched up and dropped her prize in front of Myranda.
"What are you doing? If you are going to eat it take it over there. I don't want to see that sight again," she requested.
The dragon just nudged the meal a bit closer with her snout and plopped down, staring expectantly at Myranda.
"Is . . . Is this for me? You little angel!" she proclaimed, throwing her arms about the Myn's neck and hugging her warmly.
The little dragon reveled in the attention, even after the hug had ended, as Myranda rained loving praise down on her while she prepared the meat. Just the sound of Myranda's voice brought joy to her heart. It was, after all, the first sound she had heard in life, and to hear it lifted by happiness and gratefulness was more than enough payment for services rendered.
Getting the turkey ready to eat without the aid of a knife proved to be quite a task, one further complicated by arms and legs still clumsy from a night in the freezing cold. Soon enough, though, she was savoring the tantalizingly fresh meat. She pulled whatever parts seemed warm enough to eat away and eagerly devoured them while the rest of the bird cooked. Before long, she had taken the edge from her hunger and then some. She was shocked by how good it was. Even the meals she ate at Wolloff's were generally composed of meat that was far from its prime. This was a meal fresher than even a king could enjoy. A final bite convinced her that the age-old phrase was wrong. Eat like a king? Ha! Eat like a dragon! She threw the leftover meat to Myn, who snapped it up quickly.
"Well, now.
We have slept. We have eaten. Let us be on our way!" she said.
Her legs were the things most affected by the long cold night and did not serve her quite as well as she would have liked. She nearly fell to the ground twice while kicking snow onto the fire to extinguish it. As a result, she had to stick to traveling where the snow was thinnest, taking wide circles around the now-towering drifts that the blizzard had dumped into her return path. Luckily, the snow was thick and heavy, with only the top few inches thin enough to sink into. Otherwise, even the shallow valleys between drifts would swallow her up to her waist. After a few minutes of walking, her legs finally seemed to remember how to handle the snow, and walking became less of a conscious affair. It only then that she noticed how Myn was acting.
The usually jovial beast seemed more and more spiritless with each passing moment. Her tail, normally alive with twisting and curling, hung down behind her, dragging a faint line in the snow. Every few steps she would draw in a long, slow breath through her nose and look about longingly. Myranda grew concerned. Myn had never acted this way before. For all appearances, she seemed to miss someone. But who?
"What is it, little one? Who do you miss? Was it the one the soldiers were fighting?" Myranda asked.
The duo was passing through the site of the first battle. The snow was much deeper, with only the very tops of the grave markers visible. Myranda lifted a helmet from one of the improvised memorials and showed it to the dragon.
"Did these men take it from you, the thing you miss so much?" she asked, showing Myn.
The beast's eyes locked onto the armor piece, fury burning behind them. She clamped onto the helmet with her teeth and shook it viciously. Her teeth scraped at the intricate enamel and the pressure of her jaws dented and bent the thick metal plates. She continued to thrash it about while walking until she came to a seemingly random patch of snow. She dropped the helmet and pawed at the fresh white powder madly.
The Book of Deacon Anthology Page 17
