DragonLight (22 page)

The room darkened, and no one in the family moved to light the candles. Only the flickering flames from the fireplace cast an orange glow into the room. The mother unobtrusively gathered the empty dishes. The son left, quietly slipping out the front door. The older woman’s hands gradually stilled, her head leaned back, and a soft snore rumbled an uncanny backdrop to her husband’s words.

He spoke of fierce wild animals, stunning landscapes, occasional scrapes involving both the high and low races, searching for riches, finding satisfaction in simple things, and coming home ready to be content with life in a small town on a trade route.

When the old man’s eyes drifted shut and his raspy voice softened to a whisper, Bardon asked, “Did you ever run into a meech dragon in the Northern Reach?”

His eyelids snapped open, and his clouded eyes searched the room. “Aye, I did. And I know you’ve brought one into my home.”

The son and his wife sat up and looked at the man who had remained in the shadows.

“No offense to you, sir,” said Woodkimkalajoss. “I can smell you. Meech have a different odor, not unpleasant, but different. I lived in their colony for more than a year.”

This time, Regidor straightened in surprise.

The old man nodded. “I’d fallen and would have died, but they brought me in.”

Regidor spoke from the shadows. “Can you tell us where to find this colony?”

“You don’t want to go there.”

Regidor stepped forward. “But I do. I want to find my people.”

“They’re busy. Best leave ’em alone.” Woodkimkalajoss closed his eyes as if to shut off the discussion.

“Busy doing what?” Regidor persisted.

“It’s a secret. Just like where they’re living is a secret.”

“I am one of them.” Regidor coated his words with honey. “I am destined to help in whatever is their task.”

“Guess not, if you don’t know where they are.”

A commotion from down the street caught Bardon’s attention. He stood. Lee Ark stood as well, and the man of the house crossed to open the door. The noise came from the center of town and approached them. Bardon recognized Toopka’s shrill voice raised in alarm. “Get out! Get out! Sittiponder says get out of your homes. Stand in the open.”

Her words and ones with a similar message echoed from the streets on either side of Oben Way.

How did she manage to raise such a ruckus? Why are these people believing her?

The urgency in the voices propelled Bardon to pick up the old woman and head for the door. Regidor lifted Woodkimkalajoss, chair and all. He gestured with his head for the man and woman to leave before him. In the center of the street, their neighbors stood. Some of the children and women cried, the men looked puzzled, and no one offered any explanation for why they had responded to a child’s summons.

The commands to get out of the buildings subsided. In the distance, Toopka’s voice could still be heard, and then that, too, became silent.

For a second, the only sound to reach Bardon’s ears was the quiet whimpering from among the small crowd in the street. Then dogs began to bark. Several cats bolted through the streets, screeching off-key.

Bardon’s toes tingled, and he realized the ground beneath him vibrated. A woman wailed. A loud crack reverberated from the outskirts of the village. Bardon turned to look in that direction just as the lane buckled. The road rose and fell like a wave on the ocean. Some citizens landed hard on their knees or backs. Children cried. Another undulation tossed everyone off their feet. They crashed down on the broken bricks of the street.

The buildings crumpled, some collapsing in on themselves, others rising up and falling over on the next house. The sound of wooden beams breaking in two, clay crashing as it crumbled, and glass shattering filled the air.

Bardon struggled to keep the old woman in his arms. Her son came to help. He took hold of her from the other side, but the next quake tore him away. Regidor yelled, “Lie down. Quit trying to get up.”

The ground shook, then tremored, and then sighed with one last slow movement up and down.

Dust filled the air. People coughed and wheezed. No one spoke at first, then whispers of, “Are you all right?” were barely heard, and finally louder calls rang out as people tried to locate their loved ones—shouts that accompanied their efforts to stand amid the rubble.

Bardon heard the old man’s thready voice. “Did I tell you about the time…”

He wouldn’t stay to hear this tale. He needed to find Kale.

He tenderly placed the old woman in her son’s arms and turned to go. A fit of coughing seized him. The soiled air obstructed his air passages, and he fought to clear them. When the spasm subsided, he drew air in cautiously through his nose. A whiff of something set his nerves on edge.

The first cry frantically rent the air, but panic obscured the word. The second shout came loud and clear.

“Fire!”

         
28
         

S
HAKEN

Kale knelt beside a small o’rant boy with a broken arm. She concentrated to block the child’s pain as she and Gymn set the bone gently back into place and began the healing process. Gymn was the only minor dragon she had allowed out of her cape so far. The villagers were shaken enough without having to cope with the unusual sight of nine dragons.

Smoke swirled above their heads. Kale vaguely noted how quietly the people went about moving the weak and injured out of harm’s way.

“Are you done yet?” Gilda’s plaintive voice pierced Kale’s absorption in her task.

“Not quite.”

Gilda coughed. “I’m going to the outskirts of town. To the west. The smoke is drifting the other direction.”

“As soon as little Dobis here is ready to travel, I’ll go with you.”

Gilda coughed again. “I’m not waiting.”

“You could help someone…”

“Unlike you, Kale, I do not wish to touch these beggars and their filth.”

Kale looked away from Dobis. Plaster, dirt, grime, and debris covered Gilda like every other inhabitant of Arreach.

“Have you looked at yourself, Gilda? You couldn’t get any filthier.”

“I’m not speaking of physical dirt.”

Dobis whimpered.

Kale turned away from the female meech, waving her hand in dismissal. “I haven’t got time right now to figure out what has put a wrinkle in your world. We’ll look for you later on the west side of the village.”

Soon the others of the questing party joined Kale in the center of town and then fanned out to places where they would do the most good. They helped put the fires out. Fireplaces, candles, and lanterns had spilled their flames into the collapsed buildings. It took most of the night for the townsfolk to obliterate every spark.

Toopka and Sittiponder located a few people who had not heeded the call to escape the buildings before the collapse. They brought adults to help free them. Brunstetter carried numerous villagers to a field where they set up a hospital tent. Kale and Gymn helped the village apothecary with many of the injuries. Most people thanked them for the aid, but some were in such a state of shock, they numbly accepted help without a word.

The sun thrust thin rays of light through the still-thick air before the questers agreed they could leave the townspeople to their own resources. Bardon tucked his wife’s hand in the crook of his arm and pulled her away, telling her she could return to help more after she rested.

As they approached the west side of town, Kale smelled cooking. The odor of sizzling sausages pushed back the scent of destruction. People passed them with plates full of biscuits, breakfast meat, and a pile of thick porridge.

Gilda brandished a stirring spoon at a handful of children. “Find more butter. See if you can locate more unbroken jars of jam.”

Kale gasped. “They shouldn’t be going into those toppled buildings. What if the debris shifts?”

Gilda cast her a scathing look. “I’m not that foolish. Most of the outlying homes have root cellars. The children are only picking from the holes that broke open. They are ‘fishing’ with poles I provided. With a little ingenuity, I’ve manipulated these rods, infusing them with a special attractive power so they pick up the usable items from a safe distance. In all this chaos, my scavengers are the only ones having fun.” She waved her hand over the food laid out on makeshift tables. “Come, eat. I know you are tired.”

Kale took Bardon’s arm.
She amazes me. At times I want to wring her neck. Then she does something like this.

Bardon rubbed the back of her hand on his arm.
“But she still manages to be irritating as she shows us her generosity.”

We’re both tired.
Kale’s next thought was cut off by her husband’s quote.

“‘Words spoken from fatigue resurface like oil on water. They are clearly seen and not easily eradicated.’”

She allowed herself a muffled growl, just to let Bardon know he had struck a nerve. “I was going to say we’d best watch what we say.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” He blinked with a vacant, innocent air, but Kale suspected he had enough energy left to tease her.

“Bardon, if you quote another principle, I’ll kick you.”

“You’re too tired to kick me.”

“Yes. You’re right. I am.”

“Sit here, and I’ll get you a plate.”

Kale sank onto the grass among dozens of others who had followed the smell of a good meal. By the time Bardon returned with two plates, she could barely keep her eyes open.

“Where’s Toopka?” she asked.

“Sitting with Sir Dar. I think she is avoiding you.”

“Why?”

“Eat,” commanded Bardon. He watched her take a bite of the sweetened porridge. “Perhaps because she and Sittiponder went screaming through the village last night.”

“They’re heroes.”

“They’re children who are worried.”

“I want to know how they knew.” Kale forced herself to take a bite of biscuit filled with butter and jam before Bardon could bully her again.

“Toopka says she felt the badness coming in her bones. And Sittiponder says the voices said to get out of the houses.”

Kale ate without asking the questions that muddled her head. Exhaustion kept her thoughts from stringing together coherently, and she doubted words from her mouth would make any sense. She ate as much as she could and then lay down, as had many of the villagers who had no place but the meadow to sleep. Bardon stretched out as well.

Hours later, Kale became aware of the warmth of the sun on her face. She moved her hand to feel for Bardon and touched fur. Toopka. The child curled between her and her husband. Unwilling to open her eyes, Kale stroked the doneel’s arm but otherwise refused to come fully awake. Toopka’s tiny hand stole into Kale’s and squeezed two fingers. Kale smiled and squeezed back.

“What you did last night was good,” she whispered.

“I don’t feel so good today.”

Kale’s eyes popped open, and she gazed into the large brown eyes of her ward. She cupped the child’s chin in her hand. “You hurt?”

Instead of a nod, Toopka blinked.

“I ache too.” Kale tried to reassure her. “Being tossed in the air and landing hard makes for a lot of bruises and sore muscles.”

A tear escaped one of Toopka’s eyes. “Will you get Gymn?”

“Of course.” Kale opened her cape and called quietly to the healing dragon.

Gymn appeared, took one look at Toopka, and leapt to the child, perching on her chest. He turned about several times.

“What is it, Gymn?” Kale asked.

Gymn chirred low in his throat.

“Toopka, do your lungs hurt? Maybe you inhaled too much smoke.”

“Yes.” The word wheezed between her thin black lips.

Gymn circled Toopka’s head, then crawled down each arm and each leg. He returned to curl up on her chest.

“Gymn says you have lots of bruises, but there is one hard spot near your heart that he is worried about. He’ll stay with you until you’re more comfortable.”

“Did I break my heart?”

Kale smiled and shook her head. “No, darling. Gymn found a small, hard lump like a pebble. Were you eating rocks last night?”

Toopka’s weak giggle made Kale’s heart ache.

“No,” she said, closing her eyes. “We were too busy raising a ruckus.”

“Are you hungry?”

A soft snore answered Kale’s question.

She left Toopka and Bardon sleeping and went to help with the noonmeal preparations. Sir Dar stood on a wooden block, stirring a pot.

“Did you get some rest?” asked Kale.

“Enough. I sent Gilda away. Pregnant meech dragons are murder to work with in the kitchen.” He looked around. “Even when there is no kitchen, per se.”

“That is a wise observation. How many pregnant meech dragons have you worked with?”

“One too many.” Sir Dar tapped the spoon on the side of the cauldron and then hung it by a leather thong on a nail driven into the side of a makeshift table. “Are you here to help?”

“Yes.”

“Would you believe our most abundant food is pnard potatoes?”

“Oh, yum. That should make our feasters happy.”

“There is little else to be happy about this day.”

Kale surveyed the flattened town, two-thirds of which was scorched as well. “How many lost their lives?”

“None. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Toopka and Sittiponder.”

“Yes, and whatever force compelled the people to heed the call of two children.”

“Look, here come Regidor and Brunstetter. Who are the old tumanhofers they carry?”

“I suspect that is Woodkimkalajoss.”

Kale repeated the name slowly. “The old man or the woman?”

“The man.”

“Who is he?”

“Someone who has actually been to the meech colony.”

Kale’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“Were you going to help?”

“Yes.”

“Peel potatoes.”

“Yes sir!”

Kale sat next to a bushel basket, picked up a knife, and chose the biggest pink potato from the top of the pile. Out of the corner of her eye, she kept note of the progress Brunstetter and Regidor made as they worked their way through the crowd. Soon she realized three other people followed. She thought they might be father, mother, and son. They carried bundles, probably a few possessions scrounged from the wreckage of their home.

Children arrived, carrying fistfuls of greens from the nearby scraggly woods.

“Where’s the funny lady?” asked one boy.

Sir Dar plopped a round of bread dough on the baking rock. “Lady Gilda?”

“Maybe. She’s got green skin and no eyebrows.”

“That would be Lady Gilda.” He pinched off another piece of dough and kneaded it into a small ball, flattened it a mite, then placed it next to the other. “She went to rest. Did you bring us feathered chard for our soup? What a tasty addition that will make.”

“Will she come back?”

“Probably.”

“Does she really have wings under her cape? Is she really a dragon?”

Sir Dar stopped what he was doing and cocked an eyebrow at the inquisitive youth. “Who told you that?”

The lad pursed his lips and looked at the ground.

Another girl stepped around him. “Everyone is saying that it’s true. Two meech dragons came to the inn with a bunch of travelers.”

“Twenty or thirty,” piped up a small marione with big blue eyes. He continued in a hushed voice. “Maybe a secret army.”

The child who had been struck dumb by Sir Dar’s question nodded and regained his ability to speak. “They came to talk to Woodkimkalajoss. He was me da’s teacher in school.”

The girl thrust out her chin. “My da says there is no such thing as meech dragons, and if there were, they wouldn’t look like the lady. They’d have big teeth and fierce eyes, and they’d growl, not talk like us.”

A low growl emanated from above her head. She turned with the others to confront Regidor. He carried the old man in his arms and peered down at the children.

He rolled the ridge above his eyes much like a man would raise and lower eyebrows when teasing a child. He grinned so that his teeth gleamed in the sun. “I disagree with your esteemed father, my dear. Meech dragons do speak.”

The children shrieked, dropped their precious contribution to the meal, and fled.

Old man Woodkimkalajoss burst out laughing. All those who had witnessed the interlude joined him.

“Put me down,” he cried after a moment. “I’ve shook my insides until I can’t hardly breathe.” But he continued to guffaw. “I would like a painting of their faces so I could study ’em up close. I can imagine their big eyes, mouths open like a peep-bird, and all their color draining out until they should have dropped o’er in a faint.”

Gilda appeared, apparently out of thin air. “Regidor, you shouldn’t have done that. Haven’t those children had enough to frighten them over the last twenty-four hours?”

“No, no, missy,” said Woodkimkalajoss. “Best thing for them. A real dragon instead of the fears they be imagining. And they’ll come to see that this dragon isn’t so frightful, while at the same time, those other fears based on the world shaking and their homes falling down, well, those will lose their power o’er them.”