Redheart (Leland Dragon Series) (10 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Two weeks of working at the Brown Barrel had finally earned Riza enough money to buy new clothes. In her room, she tugged on a fresh tunic and stepped into a bland patchwork skirt. They were both a little too big, but after wearing the same green dress in a tavern kitchen day after day, she’d begun to feel like a walking fertilizer cart. Her new clothes at least felt clean and good, despite their size.

She still needed her dress, though, and planned to take care of it. She’d purchased a cake of lard soap in town, and she used it now to scrub down her dress as best she could. She rinsed it with water from her clay pitcher and then hung the dress in her open window to dry. She watched the thin fabric flutter like an emerald flag against the sill.

What would have happened to her that first day she’d come to Durance, if she hadn’t met up with Jastin Armitage? She was afraid to consider it. She still didn’t understand why the man had taken pity on her. In fact, the more she got to know him, the more she realized his moment of charity was completely uncharacteristic of him.

Just then, a blast of hot wind pushed her dress from the window, and the fabric sank to the floor. She bent to retrieve it, and caught a glimpse of her reflection. In the early light, the uneven glass held phantom clouds where her eyes should be. She touched her finger to the pane. Maybe someday she would touch a real cloud.

She hadn’t seen Kallon since their day at the lake, but today was her day off, and she was going to go looking for him. Along the way, she’d have to work up the nerve to ask him to take her flying again.

She stepped outside her room to hurry down the steps. She heard Jastin’s voice and paused, then peered down over the railing.

“There is far more danger to your town than you realize,” Jastin said to Rusic. “It’s by good chance that I’m here. I’ve handled many a problem such as this.”

“What problem?” Riza asked, leaning out. Both men looked up at the sound of her voice. Rusic’s mouth opened to say something, but Jastin slid off his barstool.

“Milady field mouse,” he said, and extended his hand.

She descended the steps. “What problem?” she asked again.

“Nothing that is your concern.” Jastin scooped up her hand. “Your generous boss informs me you are not required in the kitchen today. I would ask you to spend some of your free time with me.”

“With you?” Riza stared at him, his face a sudden mask of pleasantness. She hardly recognized him.

“Why are you so surprised?” He bent forward to kiss the inside of her wrist, but she yanked back her hand. She wasn’t sure which was more distasteful, his touch, or the unexpected flutter it usually caused.

“Ye dun think the man loiters about the place to visit me, do ye?” Rusic barked a laugh. “I’ve seen his face more ’n Old Yammer’s these days!”

Old Yammer lifted his cheek from the bar and stared with glazed eyes. Drool leaked from the corner of his mouth. “On the house, ye say?” He collapsed back into a heap of sweat and clothing.

“But. But I have plans!” Riza stared at Rusic.

“Bah. Another lost day of wandering the woods, I’ll wager.” Rusic shook his head. “Ye spend too much time alone. Even while yer working, surrounded by noisy folks, yer somehow all alone.”

“Very well,” said Jastin. He nodded to Rusic, and then turned to Riza. “I’ll call for you at four o’clock. That gives you plenty of time to wander the woods before we meet. Until then, milady field mouse.” He bowed, and then strode outside.

Riza stared after him. She turned her stare to Rusic. “What just happened?”

“I believe ye just came into a courtship.”

Chapter Eighteen

Kallon arched his heavy wings outside his cave, poised to fly, but his nostrils flared. A familiar scent mingled with, and then overpowered, the musky elms. “Human?”

“It’s me, Riza,” she called. Brittle underbrush crunched beneath footsteps, and he waited for her to appear from behind the trees. “I hope you don’t mind that I came back. I made sure no one saw me leave, or anything.” More crunching footsteps sounded before she finally appeared. She paused at the edge of the underbrush.

He regarded her in silence, uncertain if he minded.

She returned his gaze, just as silent. She shifted her weight. “Have you been flying?”

“Was just about to.”

She nodded, and glanced down. She hugged her arms around her waist.

“Was there a reason you came back?” he asked.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

Kallon shook his head. “You shouldn’t have, but you’re here now, so tell me what brought you.”

It wasn’t like her to hold back a question, so her hesitation felt uncomfortable. He settled his rump, growing impatient. “Going to ask me something?”

“I’ve just been thinking about that time you took me to your lake.”

“I see.” He nodded. “So have I.”

“You have?” Her chin lifted and she smiled.

He’d been thinking about it for several days, and regretting it more and more each time he remembered. He’d been really foolish. He wasn’t sure why he’d allowed her to go with him to the lake, and he’d realized too late that he’d encouraged her. Here she stood again, just as he’d feared. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, the girl kept coming back.

“Oh, I recognize that,” she suddenly said, and pointed to the linking stone hanging against his throat. “It’s that crystal.”

He covered it with his paw. “Yes.”

“I’ve been wondering about that, too. What is it?”

He breathed out. He regarded her for a long time. If he answered this question, there would surely be more to follow. He wasn’t going to reply at all, but her expectant face peered up at him with wide eyes. “Was my mother’s,” he heard himself say.

The girl moved in, and he felt her warmth near his chest. He shifted back.

“You said you heard it speak.”

“Yes.”

“How does it work?” She inched closer.

He clenched the stone. “I don’t know. Didn’t believe it really could, until that night.”

“Can I see it?”

He tensed. He didn’t want her to see it, and didn’t want to risk another episode of disturbing whispers. He was just managing to put the last ones out of his mind.

Her fingers grazed the back of his paw. “You said it spoke with your mother’s voice, but I didn’t hear anything.” She gently tugged at his grip. He finally let her peel his claws away from the stone. It brushed and bumped against his chest.

“How long has she been dead?” she asked.

He really didn’t want to talk about this. It wasn’t any of the girl’s business, anyway. She didn’t have any right to be asking.

“Kallon? How long has she been—?”

“Many years,” he snapped. “Since I was young.”

“What about your father?”

“The same. Many years.” The trees grew hazy. His throat closed.

“Is it hard to speak of them?”

“No.” Cords of invisible leather seized his insides and tightened. He would not confess.

“How did they die, Kallon?”

He withdrew a step. Memories made his anger begin to sizzle in the pit of his stomach. He had to make her stop talking, to stop poking her questions into his gut like a rusty knife.

“Kallon?” Her squeak of a voice pricked his spine. “How did they die?”

“They were murdered!” His bellow rumbled the ground beneath his feet. He hoped it trembled the ground everywhere. He hoped it wobbled her feet, and sent her running in fright. “They were stolen from me, one at a time, by puny, pale little humans like you!” Just when he needed them most, they were torn from him as a sapling is wrenched from the ground.

“Wasn’t enough to take my mother while I slept, or enough to take my father, too, while I watched!” The spoken words uncorked his anger, and he could do nothing to stop it from bubbling out in broken, hateful fragments. “Had to leave me here! Had to leave me behind to suffer alone!” He slammed his fists into a nearby elm trunk, and splinters filtered around his shoulders. His wings burst out from his back.

“Kallon, don’t fly.” The girl’s voice pierced his foggy rage. He felt her weight press against his foreleg.

“Release me!” He beat his wings in warning. If she would not let go, he would fly anyway, and let her tumble.

“No. You’re hurt. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help!” With that, he pushed off from the ground. He expected her to let go, but the girl would not relent. She just gripped tighter. “Let go,” he said, and shook his leg.

“Let me help you!”

“No!” He shook his leg once more, and this time, he felt her slide loose. When she screamed, he swung his head to find he’d risen higher than he realized. The human tumbled toward the treetops, arms flailing. He growled, angry with her for being stubborn, angry with himself for letting her get to him. But he didn’t mean to hurt her. He swung around and dove.

Her soft head fell toward a pointed fir branch. She screamed again, and he bolted forward. He caught the edge of her sleeve in his claws, and swung her away from the limb. The motion threw him off balance, and he careened sideways into the very spear he’d saved her from. Pain exploded at the joint of his right wing. He howled. He crumpled, and landed hard.

He could feel nothing but the burning flare in his wing. He didn’t move, and wished he wouldn’t even breathe, because every jostle stabbed the injury.

“Kallon!” The girl’s footsteps pounded toward him.

“Go away.”

“I’m so sorry.” She knelt beside him, and reached toward his wing.

“Don’t touch it. Don’t help me.” He closed his eyes.

“I will help you, and you’ll let me. Stop being so stubborn.” She gently prodded his throbbing joint.

He rolled his gaze toward her face, and stared at her from where his chin rested on the ground. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a scrape.” She pulled back her skirt to show him a gash across her kneecap. Blood dribbled down her shin. “It would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t caught me.”

“You should have let go.”

“I did let go.”

“Should have let go sooner.” She clenched his wing. A sudden crack splattered him with fresh pain. “Ouch! Human! Thought you wanted to help!”

“I am helping.” She crawled toward his face. “There’s no blood, I think it was just out of joint. Can you move it now?”

He feebly lifted his wing. It did feel much better, but he still scowled at her, anyway.

“Now let’s see about this.” She inspected his knuckles, curling his front paws and turning them this way and that. “Looks like you scraped yourself when you attacked that offensive elm tree. You’re bleeding.” She leaned across his foot, grabbed a handful of brown moss, and then dabbed it against his knuckles.

“Don’t even remember doing that.”

She tugged at a string from the bottom of her skirt, and a strip of patches peeled away. This she tore in half, and then wound over and around his digits, each paw in turn. “You were very angry,” she said.

He nodded.

“I’m sorry. That was my fault.” She tied off the cloth. “I ask too many questions.” She sat back against her heels.

She did ask a lot of questions. A part of him wanted to blame her. But, looking into her sad eyes, he couldn’t even remember what it was that made him so angry. She hadn’t meant anything, and couldn’t know the years of bottled pain she’d been probing.

She pushed to stand. The hem of her skirt no longer covered her ankles, and thick drops of blood gathered around the top of her boot. She limped backward. “I won’t come back anymore. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t want her to leave like this. It was the right thing, he was sure, but he didn’t feel as relieved as he thought he should. “Riza—“

“You said my name!” She burst into a wide smile that dimpled her cheeks.

He didn’t know which to react to first, his own surprise, or hers.

“I’m sorry. What were you going to say?” she asked.

At that moment, a gray pigeon tumbled from the sky. It landed with a thud against Kallon’s skull and flopped to the ground. A throaty coo burbled from its beak.

“Oh! Poor thing! It’s hurt.” Riza reached out.

“Kallon Redheart,” the pigeon called, then went limp.

Riza flashed her pale face toward Kallon. “Did you hear that?”

Kallon forgot his soreness and thrust to his feet. His wings stabbed the air. “Something’s wrong. Orman sounds strange.”

“Who’s Orman?” Riza knelt beside the bird. She nudged it.

“Is it dead?” Kallon asked.

“I can’t tell. I don’t think so.”

“I must go.” He leapt to the air and swerved off toward Orman’s mountain. He glanced back to see Riza scoop the injured bird into her arms. Then he raced on, dreading what he might find. He didn’t understand the feeling, but he flew hard.

Chapter Nineteen

Kallon swerved to land on the plateau of Orman’s mountain. The wizard’s hut had lost its longstanding battle with gravity, and lay as a pile of wood and mortar pebbles. The stone table was overturned. Crystals of onyx and amber and pale blue lay strewn across the ground like a shattered rainbow. Silvery gray pigeons meandered in dazed circles, heads bobbling. Alarm gripped Kallon’s spine.

“Orman?” He sniffed at the rubble. Orman’s scent was there, but not strong enough that the man could have been inside the fallen hut.

His nose led him toward the overturned table. He recoiled at an aggressive and spicy scent. Dragon. No doubt about it. Another dragon had been here only moments before.

The scent was still strong and easy to follow. Orman’s scent mingled with it, but dropped off the edge of the mountain. Whatever dragon had come had either tossed Orman over the side, or carried him off. His eyes followed the logical path, and came to rest on Mount Gore.

Mount Gore. Orman had been there plenty of times, and had even stood beside Kallon’s father during council meetings. He was known there as a friend to the dragons. Kallon had no reason to fear for the wizard, and yet, he did fear. Orman’s belongings had been destroyed. No friend of Orman’s would do such a thing.

Kallon had sworn to never return to that mountain. To follow Orman’s abductor would lead him into a world he had long since abandoned. What would he do once he caught up to them? Demand information? Then what? To Dragonkind, Kallon didn’t even exist anymore.

Just then, a glare of sunlight caught his eyes. He squinted, searching for the source. He spotted a blurry shape in the distance that, at first, seemed to be a puff of cloud. Then it banked, and sunlight glinted once more, caught on the scales of a white dragon tail. Without thinking, Kallon leapt.

His wings pumped hard to close the distance. He was getting closer, and could just make out a silhouette against fleecy clouds. Then the white dragon veered and plunged into the thick forest below. Kallon lost sight of him.

He growled. He’d come so close! He drew up when he reached the spot where he thought the dragon had disappeared, and circled slowly. He peered down at a town wedged tight among green firs and stout pin oaks.

Wing Valley. It writhed with activity. Greens and Yellows hauled fresh kills onto pallets to dredge them in sauces of red wine and clove. Blues hung artisan-crafted chains and horn ornaments from woven stands. Blacks turned their crystal amulets to glimmer beneath the sun, hoping to catch the eye of passing shoppers. Grays barked prices for dented wing shields and claw cuffs. Browns waved long reeds packed with dried licorice and turmeric, and argued with each other about the logic of gold in weapons, as their smoking sticks choked the air with scent.

It might have only been yesterday that Kallon had last seen the village. After all these years, it seemed only hours. Remorse threatened to rise in the back of his throat. He stifled it.

He turned away. He didn’t have any real proof that Orman was in danger. All seemed normal in the village below, and his wing was beginning to ache again. He’d just head back to Orman’s mountain and wait for the wizard there.

Then he remembered Orman’s hut, or, the lack of it. He remembered the broken and scattered crystals, and he became uneasy again. A disturbing question filtered from the back of his mind to behind his eyes. What would his father do?

He groaned. Where did that thought come from? Nevertheless, he swung back toward the village, grumbling and practicing the rant he’d turn loose on Orman when he finally reached him. He silently landed on a village path.

He stood eyeing the scaly crowd. Few faces turned. It appeared that no one was interested in the Red who dropped from the sky to shop. He inched forward to blend in, and to discreetly begin his search.

“Look, Father!” There was a high-pitched cry from a Blue fledgling. “A Red! You said there were no more Reds.”

Kallon jerked his head toward the young dragon to hush him with a glare. Instead, he met the suspicious gaze of the youth’s father, presumably, for this massive Blue poked his snout very near to Kallon’s, towering like a wall of granite. “That is right, Son. No more Reds.”

“They died out with Bren Redheart, the last of the brave,” came another voice. Its owner, a thin Green, pushed his way through the forming gawkers.

Whispers and murmurs buzzed around Kallon’s ears. He tried to move forward, but the crowd prevented him.

“Was there not a son?” someone asked.

“Yes, but he died,” another said.

“I was under the impression he rejected his father’s ways, and willingly excommunicated.”

“No, he was too young to take the post, I think. No one knows what happened to him after that.”

“I was certain he died. I was told he starved to death from grief.”

“You are all wrong. He went off to hunt the dragon slayer that murdered his father, and was captured by humans.”

Kallon nearly bellowed in frustration. The dragons gathered too near for him to spread his wings, and babbled so distractedly that they would not break up to let him through. He was about to stomp a warning, when a low, vaguely familiar voice called quietly over the din.

“Redheart?”

His eyes came to rest on a petite Brown. The curve of her delicate horns, and her thick lashes rimming glittering eyes revived a phantom memory.

“Brownwing?”

She smiled, and broke through the murmuring crowd. “You remember me.” She arched her neck, nearly pressing her snout to his own. “I am stunned to see you. I thought you were dead.”

“Others, too, it seems.”

“Pay them no mind. Come, tell me why you have returned after all these years.” She pressed her shoulder against the wall of surrounding chatter and cleared a path. He followed.

“I am here only for a moment.”

“Only a moment?” She paused, and turned. “Then you have not come to claim your station on the council?”

“I have not.”

Her head swung around to the path ahead of them. She drew him away from the noisy village path and into the trees. “Then why have you come?”

He didn’t reply.

At a nearby clearing, she lowered her rump to a flattened bed of fallen leaves. She curled around to face him, and cocked her head. In the growing silence, he found his eyes trailing the ridges that followed the gentle slope of her spine to the plump base of her tail.

“I am the only one who still believes you will one day realize your place, and come to rule the council as destiny intends.” One brown paw crossed over the other.

He forced his eyes from her, and gazed instead toward the sky. “There is another who believes this, and he is as deluded as you. I must go now.”

She rose. “But you have only just arrived. We have barely spoken.”

“Yes, but I must go, Vaya Brownwing.” He turned away.

She was beside him in an instant, pressing her shoulder to his collarbone. “You may have lost count of the years since you left, Kallon Redheart, but I have not. Even after all this time, I watch the skies.” Her snout pressed to his neck, and she purred, shooting a rumble through his legs to the ground. “I cannot let you go so soon.”

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the sweet mingle of her heat and breath. “I may be the only one who really knows you, Kallon. You found the ways of a vassal difficult to understand, and instead of blindly choosing your father’s service, you questioned it. I respected you for that.” Her paw rested atop his foot.

He could hear her heartbeat. He could feel it, pulsing against his claws and rushing vertigo into his brain.

“It was only natural that you should turn away from all he represented when you lost him,” she said softly, her paw caressing. “You were young and hurting, and you misunderstood his death, just as you misunderstood his life.”

“You don’t know me, to be saying—”

“But I accepted this in you. I still accept it.” She breathed across his muzzle. “My father was to speak to your father about promising me to you. We were to be the first crossing of our tribes.”

He was losing the sound of her voice to the emptiness between his ears. He couldn’t think past her scent. He couldn’t gather intelligent words with her pressing so close. “My father? Your father?”

She drew back, and smiled gently. “I see in your eyes, you never knew this. That helps me understand.”

Her distance helped him breathe. “Understand?”

“It helps me understand why, when your father died, and when you turned from everything he believed in, you turned also from me.”

He tried to speak, but he had no words. It was true that he never knew. He couldn’t help but wonder if knowing would have made any difference. Gazing into her golden eyes, and feeling the slide of her scales against him, he thought it might have.

“Go on,” she said. She stepped back and waved her paw. “Rush off to whatever coaxed you into the land of the breathing. But…” Her eyes closed to half-lids. “…promise me you will come again.”

He shook his head. “I won’t come again, Vaya.”

Then, afraid she might entice him into promising, he lunged away, leaving her without looking back.