Dragon (6 page)

I read the introduction.

Historically known as the ‘Land of Fire’ due to jets of natural gas that burn as they escape from the ground, and the practice of fire worship, Azerbaijan is reawakening as it emerges from Soviet Control. Its rich culture is largely unknown to those who live beyond its borders. Many regions are accessible only on horseback or with a four-wheel-drive vehicle, so the close-knit communities of the remote areas remain a mystery to outsiders.

From its snow-capped mountains to its fertile valleys and subtropical forests, Azerbaijan can seem like a land forgotten by time. Medieval villages continue to look much the same as they have for untold centuries, a sharp contrast to the high rise buildings and modern architecture blossoming in the cities.

The guide then goes on to list stats—Language: Azeri, literacy rate: 97%. The population, it says, is similar to that of New Jersey, but the land area is roughly ten times that of the same state. I’ve never been to New Jersey, either, but I guess it must be ten times as crowded as Azerbaijan.

The guys in the front seat are still weighing the pros and cons of their proposed routes, so I flip open the big two-page spread that shows the whole region, from Prague over by my left thumb, to Azerbaijan, which barely escaped being cut off on the right side.

I can see the problem right away.

If you draw a line between Prague and our destination, it would run right through the Black Sea, which is a huge body of water. We’ll have to go around it either to the north or the south, but it looks to me like the south, Ram’s proposed route, would take us further out of the way, maybe even by hundreds of miles.

So I don’t understand why Ram’s so determined to go that way. I mean, yeah, we’d avoid the Russians, but what’s so important about that? There weren’t many Russian girls at Saint Evangeline’s, but the few I knew were some of the least snooty people in the student body. So I’m kind of thinking Ion’s route would be better.

Nonetheless, Ram insists we head for Slovakia instead of Poland. And for reasons that are even more puzzling to me, especially when you consider Ion has control of the steering wheel, that’s the route we take.

South.

Ram’s route.

Hundreds of miles out of our way.

Adding long hours—maybe even days—to our trip. And for what? I can’t imagine.

But the important thing is, for the first time since my dad dropped me off in Prague, I’m headed home again. So I let that reminder stick in my heart as I settle in to the back seat with Ozzie’s bloodied muzzle warm on my lap, and fall into an exhausted sleep.

*

I awake to angry voices and a sickly gray-green sky. It’s not just Ram and Ion arguing now. There are men outside the window. Men with guns—big guns.

Instinctively I keep my mouth shut and lower my eyelids to slits, open just far enough so I can see out, not that there’s much to see from the back seat. If anybody asks, I’m still asleep.

But just between you and me, I’m watching carefully, wary. Judging by the sky it will be morning soon, but the sun hasn’t quite reached the horizon. I don’t understand the language Ion and the blokes outside his window are arguing in, but I can tell from the sound of their words they’re not getting along very well.

Pretty soon Ion nods, puts the car in gear, and turns us around. The men’s voices fade as he cranks his window shut.

“What’s that all about?” I ask when Ram glances back toward me.

“We can’t go into Romania. Not this way.”

Ion scowls. “We could have gone through Ukraine. I could have gotten us through there.”

“We’ll be fine,” Ram states flatly.

“What are we going to do?” I’m sitting up a little straighter now, and my eyes are all the way open. So are Ozzie’s.

“We’ll go on foot.”

“What?”

“All the roads have border crossings,” Ion explains. “The border agents won’t let us through. The only way into the country is to avoid the border crossing points, which means leaving the road and going through a field or forest on foot, somewhere there’s no one to stop us.”

“You mean on foot just to cross the border, right? Then we’ll find another car, or take a train?”

“We’ll go on foot, cross the border in the woods, out of sight. We’ll walk,” Ram sighs. “As far as we have to.”

I remember him saying we wouldn’t be able to bring the swords on a train or plane, although I wonder how much that’s true. Maybe if we put them in a big duffle bag, or something. But then again, these formerly communist nations are known to be nosy and picky about what makes it into their countries. I don’t want to think about what the blokes with the guns would have done if they’d opened the boot and seen our swords.

“Isn’t there any other way?”

Ion laughs. “We could try crossing into Bosnia.”

He’s laughing because the Bosnians are at war with, I think, themselves, and maybe the Herzegovinians or Croatians, or Serbians, or something. I’ve seen things on the news, usually pictures of burning buildings or bombed out buildings, or people crying because their loved ones were brutally killed.

No, I don’t think we’re going to go through Bosnia, even if they’d let us through, which I’m starting to doubt.

“Can’t we backtrack and go through Russia? I know it’s out of the way now, but that would still be faster than legging it.”

“Russia is not an option.” Ram gives Ion a cold look. Ion is no longer laughing. Something must have passed between them, maybe in the night while I was asleep. I’m curious to know more, but at the same time, I’m picking up a cold vibe and some serious tension between these two, which says now is not the time to probe further.

Ram must know what he’s talking about, but it still sounds barmy to me.

“So we’re walking to Azerbaijan?” I grab the map and consult the legend in the corner of the two-page spread. It’s going to be hundreds, even thousands of miles. I don’t know how many miles these guys can walk in a day. Fifty? Maybe a little more? It will take us weeks, even months if we have to contend with mountains and indirect routes. And we’re going to be hauling backpacks and swords. “Ozzie’s injured. How’s she going to walk?”

“Her face is injured,” Ram says patiently. “She can still walk.”

“But she’s old.” I say it in a whisper. I don’t want to hurt Ozzie’s feelings, but she’s been old the whole time I’ve known her, gray around her muzzle and a little stiff in her joints, especially when it’s cold.

“I know.” Ram whispers, too, his voice resigned. I can hear the echo of all his arguments underpinning those two words—reasons why we shouldn’t leave Prague, why it’s not safe to attempt the journey, why we should stay and wait for my dad.

But it’s too late now for that.

*

My feet hurt.

I was starting to get a blister on my right heel, but Ram put a bandage on it and made me change my socks, which helped the blister, but that doesn’t fix the fact that all the muscles in my feet ache. Did you know the human foot has nineteen different muscles in it? (That’s one of those ‘fun facts’ they loved to teach us at Saint Evangeline’s.) Times two feet, I have thirty-eight muscles that are killing me, and that’s just below my ankles.

Also, my shoulders ache like bruises from hauling my backpack and my swords. I keep trying to shift the weight so it doesn’t dig in so badly, but it just shifts back again and hurts worse.

I really hope these guys know where they’re going. I’ll spare you the details, mostly because I don’t want to think about them, but my day has been a blur of forests and fields, barbed wire fences, and bothersome bugs. Mostly mosquitos, with the occasional biting fly.

We’ve been avoiding villages and farmsteads. For lunch, Ram darted away from me and Ion and Ozzie, and came back a few minutes later with some roasted meat. Even though I don’t know how he had time to do it, I’m pretty sure he killed, skinned, gutted and roasted some kind of animal. I didn’t ask what kind, but it tasted good.

Other than that, we’ve just been walking, walking, walking, as the sun slowly rises, peaks, falls, and starts to set.

The Romanian countryside is arguably lovely, but not when you’re fleeing with heavy bags. Most concerning of all, Ozzie’s having trouble keeping up, and fresh red blood seeps up through her gauze.

I’m afraid this trek is going to be too much for her.

Finally, finally, when my feet are so sore they’re throbbing and I’m starting to trip over dirt and roots and branches because my feet are half numb from exhaustion, we reach a right thick stretch of woods and Ram and Ion announce it’s time to make camp for the night.

I haven’t been camping since I was a kid, when we’d head down toward the sea (which I realize now must have been the Caspian Sea). But even then we had things like tents and sleeping bags, food and other gear, which we don’t have with us now.

So setting up camp consists of finding a flat stretch of earth big enough to lie down on, clearing away the sticks, and heaping up soft leaves like some kind of mattress.

A mattress with bugs living in it.

I want to go back to Prague.

Except the yagi were there.

Okay, maybe, maybe, camping in the Romanian woods is preferable to living at Saint Evangeline’s, but I’m assuming these bugs don’t bite. If creepy crawly things start chewing on me, this could swing the other way in a hurry.

I can’t wait to get off my feet, so as soon as I have a reasonable layer of leaves under me, I sit down and take off my shoes to inspect the damage. Fortunately it looks like the blister on my heel was the only one, and Ram’s bandage kept it from getting any worse.

Ozzie settles down beside me nice and close, and I lean my head against her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to mind.

Then Ram returns with more roasted meat, which is a bit of a surprise because I didn’t even realize he’d stepped away. I thought he was behind my head laying out his leaf bed. We kind of made a triangle—me, Ion, and Ram, with Ion’s feet near my feet, and Ram’s head near my head, and Ram’s feet near Ion’s head. I didn’t want my head near anybody’s feet because, having smelled my own, there’s just no way I could willfully lie down like that.

The meat is a different kind this time, and I’m thinking I should ask Ram what it is and how he got it, and how he cooked it so quickly, but I’m too busy chewing, and then I’m full and sleepy and more interested in lying down flat and sleeping than in solving the mysteries of my weird companions.

It’s all I can do to stumble to the nearby stream (we’ve sort of been following this stream—I’m assuming it’s a helpful navigational aid in addition to a water source), and I brush my teeth while standing barefoot in the cool water, which is a little numbing but feels absolutely amazing on my thirty-eight sore muscles.

Then I step out and stand on a patch of moss until my feet are dry enough not to track mud back to camp, and I pad back barefoot, and I stretch out on my leaf bed with my Ozzie pillow under my head, and hope none of the unfamiliar noises rustling in the woods are yagi.

Chapter Seven

“Shh, Ilsa, wake up. Don’t say anything. Sit up slowly.” Ion’s voice is a whisper, his face so close to mine I feel his day’s growth of stubble scratching near my ear.

Torn by his words from a troubled dream of shadows and yagi and fear, my heart is pounding so loudly I have to strain to hear his instructions.

“Put your shoes on.” The stubble around his mouth brushes my ear again now that I’ve sat up. “We’re going to go.”

“Go?” I whisper, too, a sound that’s hardly more than a breath.

“Yes. You and me—back to the car. We’ll drive around via Russia. Ram is crazy but I’m not going to fight him. We’ll just sneak away while he’s asleep.”

The moon is a sliver, and the light that penetrates the canopy of branches is meager, but I find my socks and shoes, and pull them on. My feet aren’t so swollen now, but I have no idea what time it is or how long I’ve slept.

Even as my sleepy hands fumble with my shoelaces, I debate whether going with Ion is the right thing to do. Obviously taking the car is better than walking. Backtracking through the night is better than spending two months hiking through unfamiliar mountains with winter fast approaching. And if we leave Ozzie with Ram, she won’t have to endure the journey.

She’ll have time to heal.

That, more than anything, makes up my mind for me. I will leave Ram so he can take care of Ozzie instead of escorting me.

I slip into the jacket I was using for a blanket, and start to strap my daggers to my thighs.

“Don’t bother,” Ion shakes his head, his words mouthed as much as spoken.

I look up at him, blink once, and finish buckling. I’m not sure about leaving Ram. But I am sure I’m not leaving my weapons behind. We might be making the rest of the trip in the safety of Ion’s Skoda, but Ram taught me how to fight for a reason.

And I’m pretty sure this trip is the reason.

Once I have my swords secure at my hips and across my back (under the backpack—they won’t be as easy to pull out if I need them, but otherwise they stick out too far and catch on branches) I nod to Ion.

We step away silently. Ram’s face is nothing but hair and two lenses reflecting the crescent moon to the sky. Ozzie had shifted out from under my head in the night, and now snoozes closer to Ram. Neither of them moves as we sneak away, which rather surprises me because usually Ozzie is a light sleeper. Then again, given her injuries, I’m surprised she didn’t fall asleep on her feet during the trek.

Initially we walk slowly, stealthily, picking our way through the woods so we don’t accidentally snap a stick and awaken Ram or Ozzie. But as we get further away from our campsite, we increase our pace.

I also start to wake up a little more, and realize what I’m doing is not a dream. I’m leaving Ram behind. For real.

My dad told me to trust Ram. But the two of them have been keeping secrets from me, which is so very not cool. And Ion gave me a picture of my mother. Ion wants to bring me home.

This must be the right choice.

I stumble on. It’s difficult in the darkness when there isn’t a clear path. I’m grateful for my jeans, which are thick enough to protect my legs from all but the thickest and pointiest branches.