Hans chuckled and shook the nearby bushes, looking for Alfie. Then he spied the barn door, slightly ajar. “Found him,” he yelled, racing to the barn. Evelyn squealed, chasing him.
When he got to the door, he held a finger to his lips and pulled it open only a fraction wider so they could slip inside.
Evelyn let out a giggle as they crept along the wall in the semi-dark, past the horses. Hans stopped to pat his horse, Rosie. They crept past Pa’s tools. “Well, I’ll be—” Hans scratched his head. “Your turn, Evie, I give up.” This was her favorite part of the game.
“Squeak, piggy, squeak,” Evelyn called with glee, grinning.
The tiniest squeak came from above them.
Hans snorted. “That wasn’t a piggy,” he called. “A mouse, more like it!”
He scrambled up the ladder to the hayloft, and rummaged through the hay. No Alfie.
Evelyn came up after him. “He’s not here,” Hans said. “I guess he’s won.”
“Squeak, piggy, squeak,” she called.
An even smaller eek.
“A baby mouse, perhaps?” Hans asked, making her laugh. And that was the point of this whole game, to make her happy again.
They prodded the hay, but the baby mouse didn’t turn up.
“All right, piggy, you win. Show yourself,” Hans called.
No one appeared. Hans cocked an eyebrow at Evelyn. “Don’t say he’s on the roof?”
Evelyn’s eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped.
“Well, he is a climber.” Hans pushed open the shutters. Fixed to the side of the barn, above the window, was a ladder they used for maintenance when they repaired the barn roof. He craned his neck outside.
“Ha! Fooled you!” Alfie burst out of the hay pile in a shower of wiry stalks.
Evie laughed and squealed, “We beat you, Hans!”
He grinned as Alfie hugged his thigh.
A horse clopped along the trail to their home. Shards! Now he had to hurry. “Come on, you two. Pa will have my hide if I’m not ready!”
He clambered down the ladder.
“Quick, jump!” He caught Alfie and Evie, who jumped from halfway. He raced the littlings inside. “Fast, get out of your nightclothes before Ma sees you covered in hay.”
His mother smiled, busying herself at the kitchen table with her back turned until the littlings had scampered past. He washed off his hands with the dipper and pail and then sliced slabs of warm bread. “Smells great.”
“Be careful today, Hans. I don’t want anyone with an arrow through their foot. It’s your big day tomorrow.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course. We’re always careful, Ma.”
§
The bushes rustled. There was a snort and the thud of hooves on brush. Hans glimpsed the flash of a dark snout through the undergrowth and pulled his arrow back, increasing the tension on his bowstring.
“This one’s yours,” his older brother, Guin, whispered.
“Fair enough, you got the last one.” Catching a pig for your own name-day feast was every teen’s dream.
As the pig broke out from behind the bush, Hans let his arrow fly. The tip lodged itself in the pig’s neck. It squealed and ran about. Shards! He nocked another arrow and loosed it.
“Hold fire,” Pa called. “Guin, your turn.”
Disappointment knifed through Hans. He’d messed it up. Pa had a rule: one clean shot, or the blade.
Guin rushed after the pig, leaping onto its back. The boar squealed and bucked, trying to shake Hans’ brother loose. It tossed its head to aim its tusks at him, but Guin sunk his knife deep into the boar’s neck, burying it to the hilt. Blood sprayed the grass. The boar slumped to the ground.
“Now, that’s how you kill a boar, Hans,” Pa said, striding forward.
“Let’s get it back to camp.” Hans helped Pa lift the carcass.
“Not a bad shot.” Guin nudged Hans. “Incapacitated that piggy long enough for me to jump him.”
Usually he was a much better shot. “Fine tusks,” Hans replied. “You can add them to your collection.”
“One for you, one for me. Fair’s fair.” Guin punched Hans on the arm.
“I’ll carve mine into a necklace for Evie.”
“Good idea, son. That’ll keep Evelyn happy.” Pa grunted. “I’ll tell you what,” he continued. “Guin can shoot the next arrow and you can finish the job off with your knife. These boars are for your name-day feast, so you should bring a trophy home. Let’s make sure it’s a big one.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Hans had stuck a pig. They took the boar back to their camp and roped it up into a tree, alongside the other boar they’d caught that morning, to keep it clear of ground predators. Then they headed deeper into the forest. Both boars were Guin’s, so far. Just one last boar—his boar—and then they’d head back.
“So,” said Guin, poking him in the ribs, “going to ask Jenny for a dance after the feast?”
How did Guin know he liked Jenny? A hunter too, she was his age. Tomorrow they’d both be honored at the feast. He’d planning on asking her to dance. Mind you, Guin and Evelyn would tease him forever, but a dance with Jenny might be worth putting up with their taunts. “What’s it to you?” Hans replied. “Thought you’d be too busy thinking about Denika to even notice any other girls existed.”
Guin’s ears went red and he coughed.
“Ssh,” whispered Pa. “Something’s in the bushes over there.”
Twigs cracked. Foliage rustled.
Hans ducked behind the trunk of a huge strongwood tree with Guin.
Guin nocked his bow and Hans drew his hunting knife from its sheath. At Guin’s nod, Hans peeked around the right of the trunk while Guin sighted his arrow around the left.
A pig was crashing through the undergrowth toward them. Bushes bobbed and swayed as it thrust its way through. Hans caught a glimpse of a dark piggy-snout.
Odd. It was at shoulder height—must be enormous. Guin boggled his eyes, then leaned around the trunk again to take a shot. His arrow hissed, streaking through the undergrowth. It hit the pig in the snout. A roar cut through the air.
A roar—not a squeal. They’d maddened the boar. But there was nothing for it. Despite Pa’s one-arrow policy, Guin let another arrow fly.
There was a thud as the animal hit the ground.
They burst out from behind the strongwood trunk. Belly tight, Hans raced towards their quarry with his knife at the ready. But when he got to the other side of the bushes, it wasn’t a boar that he found.
The dead creature had a snout and tusks, all right, but it had a long body, two arms and legs, and was covered in dark fur.
“What is it?” Guin panted as he stowed his bow across his back. “Gods, what have I killed?” His face paled. “Looks like it walks on two legs, like a man.”
Pa joined them, motioning at the leather breastplate across the beast’s torso and thick boots. “What kind of creature wears armor?” Black blood pooled under the beast’s head.
Guin wrinkled his nose. “It stinks.”
The pungent reek from the dead beast reminded Hans of rotten flesh. “Never seen anything like it.”
“I didn’t mean to shoot it,” stammered Guin. “I thought it was a pig, I really did.”
“It’s all right,” said Pa. “Just look at that fur. Even though it’s wearing clothes, it’s an animal, not a person.”
Or a strange combination of both. “Maybe we should bury it, all the same,” Hans said. “Doesn’t seem right leaving a clothed and booted beast on the forest floor.”
“I disagree.” Pa shook his head. “It’s obviously an animal in men’s clothing. We’d better collect our pigs from camp and head home in case there are more of these strange beasts about.” He frowned, gazing about them. “It’s some sort of warrior beast. The sooner we get home, the better.”
Pa’s tone and ominous words made the nape of Hans’ neck prickle.
§
It didn’t take them long
to pack up camp and tie Guin’s boars across the back of their horses. They kept to a single file on the narrow forest trail. Pa kept looking around nervously. His jitters made Hans’ pulse skitter.
When the trail widened, he brought his horse up alongside his brother’s. “Guin,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Do you think there are more of those things around?”
Guin shrugged. “I doubt it, but better safe than sorry. Don’t worry, as soon as we’ve unloaded these boars, and Pa sees that everything’s fine, you and I can sneak out and hunt one last boar for the feast. We can’t have everyone going hungry.”
Hans chuckled. Three boars was tradition, providing everyone with plenty of extra meat to smoke, so it wasn’t as if anyone would go hungry with only two.
Guin’s easy attitude calmed his racing heart. That creature was a one-off, a lone beast. They’d never seen any of those around before, so there was nothing to worry about. It was just Pa being cautious, as usual.
They rounded a corner and had to pull their horses up short to avoid bumping into the hindquarters of Pa’s dappled gray. On the trail in front of his horse, Pa was stooped over something.
“What is it, Pa?” Guin called. “Another one of those strange animals?”
Hans dismounted.
“Saw her boots sticking out of a bush. She must’ve fallen.” Pa was pulling a woman out of the undergrowth. Clad in the dark garb of dragon riders, she had a broken arrow sticking out of her left breast. Her tunic was splattered in green grunge.
Pa’s face was grave as he lay his fingers on her neck. “No heartbeat. She’s dead, poisoned.” He broke off the arrow shaft and checked the fletching. “Not made by anyone from Monte Vista. We can’t just leave her here. Hans, help me lift her.”
Pa took her legs and Hans reached under her shoulders, her head resting against his arm as they carried her to his horse. Her face was serene in death, with lake-blue eyes staring up at the clouds drifting above the forest canopy. “I wonder who killed her? Where’s her dragon?”
“I don’t know,” Pa said as they laid her across Rosie’s flanks. Guin brought a rope from his saddlebags and they secured her. “We’ll take her back so we can get to the bottom of this. No doubt, the Dragon Council will want to hear of her death and give her a proper dragon’s send-off.”
The Council of the Twelve Dragon Masters was at Dragons’ Hold, nestled among Dragon’s Teeth—a ring of vicious mountains beyond the Northern Grande Alps. With their dragons, the twelve masters ruled Dragons’ Realm, protecting the people of the realm. They needed to know of this new threat.
Pa’s dark brows drew down in a frown. “Something must’ve gone terribly wrong for this rider to be killed so far from Dragons’ Hold.” He tugged the ropes tightly around the rider. “Let’s get home as quickly as possible.”
Hans mounted his horse. It didn’t seem right, tying this pretty young rider on the back of Rosie, the way they’d tied the boars to Pa and Guin’s horses earlier, but there was nothing for it. They had no other way of bringing her home.
“Hans, you ride in the middle with the dragon rider. Guin, bring up the rear. Keep your hands near your weapons in case we need them.” Pa set off at a canter, the boar’s head bobbing against his gray’s flank.
Hans followed. He kept glancing back at the rider, her plaits swinging as they dashed through the forest. Who was this girl with the flaxen hair, killed far from her home? She must be only a few summers older than him. What a tragic way to die, miles from those she loved.
A short distance along the trail, they came across huge gouges in the track. The nearby foliage was charred, and one of those beasts was sprawled at the foot of a strongwood tree, charred and stinking.
“Another of those strange new creatures.” Guin spat as they rode past. “That’s what you get for killing a dragon rider.”
They pressed on. When they were nearly home, distant roars floated on the air.
Pa pulled his horse to stop and cocked his head, listening. “Those came from the west, thank the Egg,” he said. “But let’s make haste.”
They cantered off through the forest again.
Homecoming
When they reached the first houses, Hans knew something was wrong. No one was about. There were no littlings playing outside. A cow was slumped in a meadow, belly ripped open, her entrails spilled onto the ground.
Feeling sick, Hans wanted to turn his face away, but he couldn’t. His eyes were drawn to the wanton slaughter. The cow was whole, not killed for food or meat, just lying there while crows pecked at her guts and eyes.
They rode three astride, instinctively bunching for protection. Hans nocked an arrow to his bow and scanned the yards and fields as they made their way through the settlement. Gates were open and stock wandered aimlessly, many animals missing. Doors hung ajar. A wicker basket was on its side in Jenny’s yard, laundry strewn over the grass, as if the clothes had been flung about like discarded playthings.
Hans’ mouth went dry. Was Jenny all right? He stowed his bow.
“Those clothes look dry,” whispered Pa. “This must’ve happened yesterday, shortly after we left.” Pa raised a hand in caution and reined his horse in.
They dismounted. Sword drawn, Hans raced to Jenny’s home.
Footsteps pounded behind him and Pa grabbed Hans’ arm, restraining him. “Not so fast.” Shoving past him, Pa entered the house with Hans and Guin on his heels.
The hearth was cold. Plates were laid on the table with half-eaten stew on them. A cup was shattered on the floor, the shards crunching as Hans stepped through them.
There was a gouge in a door frame and a chair lay in a doorway with a leg broken off, as if someone had wielded it as a weapon. Jenny’s favorite hunting jacket lay on a bed. This was her room, the one she shared with her littling sister and brother. Hans strode inside and checked the wardrobe, but it was fruitless—the place was abandoned.
“Come on,” Pa called from the living room. “We’ve got to get home.”
“Where’s Jenny?” Panic made Han’s chest tight as they ran from the house. What of their own family? Oh, gods, let them be safe.
Not a soul stirred as they galloped through town, their horses’ hoofbeats the only eerie sound in deserted Monte Vista. Overnight, the whole village had disappeared.
A lamb wandered across the dirt road, bleating. Pa rode past, but Hans wheeled Rosie to a halt and scooped the bleating lamb into his arms, then clambered back up, nestling the woolly bundle against his jerkin. He dug his heels into his horse’s side, hurrying to catch up with Pa.
“Shards,” Guin cursed as he caught up. “Where in the Egg’s name is everyone?”
Pa’s grave eyes took in the lamb, but he said nothing, just nodded grimly and galloped for home.
The wagon in their yard was overturned and one side was splintered. One of its wooden wheels turned idly in the breeze. Their front door hung open on a hinge, like a gaping maw.
Dismounting, Pa pulled his sword from its scabbard. Guin held his knife at the ready and Hans deposited the lamb on the grass and got out his bow and arrow.
Throwing stealth aside, they ran across the porch. Hans shuddered at a smear of blood on the door jam. Whose was it? Ma’s? Evelyn’s or little Alfie’s?
Gripping his weapons tighter, he stepped inside. Apart from an overturned chair and burned stew over a cold hearth, everything looked normal. Except that no one was there.
“Marika,” Pa called, rushing through the house, opening cupboards and looking under beds.
“Smell that?” Guin asked.
Hans sniffed. “That stench. Those beasts were here.”
Hans and Guin helped search. They even opened the pantry and checked the latrine out back.
“Flaming talons,” Guin cursed, slamming the latrine door. “Where’s Evelyn? Alfie?”
They met Pa on the porch, empty-handed. “No one, Pa,” said Hans. “There’s no one here.”
Pa’s face crumpled. He slumped onto the
step, hiding his face in his hands. “They have to be here somewhere,” he groaned.
Hans’ mind raced. Perhaps they’d hidden? Was it too much to hope? “They could be with neighbors, Pa. Let’s search.”
“I’ll check the barn, then we’ll take a look.” Guin strode off.
Hans untied the dragon rider, and pulled her down off his horse. Where could he put her? It didn’t seem right to leave a dragon rider on the ground, so he laid her on a corner of the porch that ran along the front of the house, placing her hands on her stomach, and shutting her eyelids. He fetched a blanket to cover her.
“No one in the barn,” Guin puffed.
Hans slapped Pa’s shoulder. “Come on, Pa, we’ll look at the smithy’s. They’re a little further out. Maybe whatever came here missed them.”
“You could be right, Son.” Pa jumped up and swung into his saddle. “Let’s go.”
Hans rode behind Pa, with Guin bringing up the rear. Hans kept an arrow nocked, scanning the foliage. Mouth hanging open, the boar’s head bashed against Pa’s gray’s flank, the tusks reminding Hans of the strange beast they’d shot in the forest.
When they got to the smithy’s, the forge was cold and tools were scattered on the ground. Smashed glass was strewn across the kitchen floor, but once again, there was no one in the house.
“Where is everyone? Where’s Marika? Evelyn? Alfie?” Pa’s voice was hoarse and his face was deeply lined with worry.
“Gone. They’re bleeding well gone,” Guin smashed his fist against the forge wall, then kicked it.
“Bashing the wall isn’t going to bring them back,” Pa hollered.
“Well, it makes me feel better.” Guin kicked the wall again.
“Nothing will make me feel better until I get my wife and littlings back. So stop it!”
Guin glared at Pa and picked up the smithy’s tongs, flinging them across the forge. They hit the tool rack. Bellows and a hammer clattered onto an anvil.
“I. Said. Stop. It.” Pa bellowed.
There had to be some explanation, something they were missing. Hans left them fighting and went around the back of the house, sword at the ready.
Bronze Dragon, A Riders of Fire prequel novelette Page 2
