The Book of Deacon (26 page)

As she chewed the roots, she remembered when
she was a little girl and she would hunt for them any chance she
could. It was a more peaceful time, and having a little slice of it
at a time like this made it all the more disturbing to her that
things had changed so much. In those days, the only things she had
to worry about were her assignments and when her father would get
home. Now she was freezing cold with no hope for shelter, digging
for roots for sustenance instead of for fun, and constantly looking
over her shoulder for a team of soldiers with specific orders to
find her.

Myranda shook the thoughts from her head and
dug the knife into the earth to pull out another root. When she
did, she noticed something that the scarce light had hidden from
her before. There was an impression in the ground--almost
undetectable, but undeniable. It was a footprint. The rain had
nearly washed it away, so it must have been left before the sleet
and rain had started. From the shape, it could only be a boot
print. Nearby there were a few more accompanied by hoofprints as
well. They could have been left by anyone. Perhaps hunters or
woodsmen who had moved through the area a few days earlier. Deep
inside, though, Myranda knew that there was something sinister
behind these prints.

While she pondered the worst, Myn stirred,
padding over to Myranda and flopping down again, offering her head
for the usual stroking while she gnawed at her new toy. This helm
was different from the one she had left behind. It was more
carefully detailed with gold, with a nose guard in the shape of a
dragon's head. The dragon had focused her attentions on this piece
in particular and managed to snap it off in short order. Before
long Myn's hunger got the better of her and she trotted off to seek
out a meal. Myranda called after her.

"Don't forget your old friend! I'm hungry,
too!" she called, immediately scolding herself for making so much
noise.

Before worry could rush back into her mind,
Myranda busied herself with the preparation of the fire. She
gathered the driest tinder and kindling she could manage, as well
as a few thicker branches to feed the fire later. After clearing a
place and laying out the wood properly, Myn had not yet returned.
With nothing else to do, she picked up the dragon-head piece that
had been left behind. Most of the details were intact. It had a
gold-bronze color and, like the rest of the helm, was exquisite.
There were even eyes carved of amber mounted in the head that were
uncannily alike in hue to Myn's own eyes. The piece of armor must
have cost a small fortune. One of the dragon's teeth had managed to
punch a hole just below where the piece had broken from the rest of
the helmet. Myranda pulled a thick thread from her uncle's old
cloak, now rolled up as a keepsake in one of the new white robe's
pockets, and pulled it through the hole. Instantly, she had a new
pendant.

Myn marched proudly back a few minutes later.
The dragon must have heeded Myranda's words, because with her she
brought two freshly killed rabbits. The dragon lit the fire quickly
before gulping her meal down. Myranda cooked her own meal as
quickly as possible, and extinguished her fire before eating. The
wet wood created copious amounts of smoke and she feared that she
would be found if she let the telltale flames burn for too long. As
she ate, Myranda felt the vague feeling of uneasiness return. She
glanced to the south, then to the footprints. She couldn't explain
it, but the tiny yearning, like an itch she could not scratch, soon
consumed her. It pushed all other thoughts aside. Before long, she
found herself manufacturing rationales for moving southward.

"We really ought to keep moving," she said
aloud to Myn. "If we remain here, they are likely to find us soon.
After all, we slept here. Days could have passed for all we know.
The Elites could be just out of sight. South is as good a direction
as any. What do you say?"

Myn's interest rested solely on the leftovers
of Myranda's meal. Once she had snapped them up, she could care
less what she did, so long as she did it with Myranda. As the
creature happily munched, Myranda presented her with the pendant.
Myn had earned it, after all. The string was tied about her neck
tightly enough that it would not fall or become tangled. She seemed
pleased, shaking her neck a bit to feel the weight of it before
snatching up the rest of the helm and making it clear she was eager
for whatever was next.

With that they were off. The routine of the
next few days was a strenuous one. Sleep would come during the
comparatively warm daylight hours. Upon waking, Myn would fetch
food for Myranda and herself if she so desired. Then the remains of
the fire would be eliminated or hidden and they would move at a
brisk pace southward. The sheer density of the forest assured that,
even if the Elites were to search nonstop, they would not stumble
upon any evidence of Myranda or her dragon for days. Although once
they found what they were searching for, they would easily be able
to follow her, Myranda convinced herself that so long as she was
careful and continued her southward trek, she could remain out of
their reach.

One curse and blessing of their chosen
direction was the fact that the wind was always at their backs.
This was helpful in that it did not burn at their faces or make
walking more difficult. Myn, however, was near madness from the
scent of the Elites that was carried by the constant breeze. The
little dragon's uneasiness became a gauge of how near the soldiers
were. When her restlessness turned to defensiveness, it was time to
quicken the pace. In this way, the soldiers were always kept at
least out of sight. Though they were a constant threat, Myranda
soon found that she had a more pressing concern.

The footprints that she had found before had
only become more numerous, and slightly fresher. Whatever group had
been here before, it had followed the same path. Had she been in
her right mind, she might have changed direction to avoid trouble.
Such a choice would not be made. The intuition that had led her
this far had only become more insistent. Whatever was out there,
she had to find it or be driven mad by doubt.

As if the uneasiness wasn't enough to addle
her mind, the nights on the cold and often wet ground were
affecting her health. The stiffness that came to her muscles during
rest lingered longer each day, and her breathing was reduced to
wheezing at times. She knew what it meant. At least once a year she
began to feel this way. It generally signaled the beginning of a
long illness.

Myranda smirked. Not this time. She knew the
words that could cure her, but she had been warned not to cure an
illness before it had become a burden. If a body was cured of
disease too quickly, too often, it would weaken, and eventually
cease to fight disease on its own, Wolloff had warned. Indeed, many
a wizard, kept alive well past the time that nature had intended,
had died for precisely this reason, he claimed. Myranda decided
that once the wracking cough that invariably came appeared, she
would cure it. That should give her natural defenses the practice
they needed.

Perhaps five days of constant travel had
passed. She had not traveled due south, or the Elites would have
surely found her. Instead, she zigzagged along rocky ground and
thatch, anything that could obscure her tracks. She was walking the
bank of another pebble-bottomed stream when she noticed something
in the distance. Myn noticed it as well, and rushed to chase after
it. When the creature was flushed out into the open, Myranda caught
a clear glimpse of it before it galloped away. It was a horse. A
horse just like the one the Elites who pursued her were riding. The
image had burned itself into her mind--there could be no doubt.

But how? How could one of their steeds have
gotten past her without either of them noticing? And why did it
have no rider? Perhaps it was the horse that had run away from the
leader of the Elites when Myn had scared it during the rush to the
Locke's Woods.

Her mind turned to the footprints and
hoofprints. If there was an Elite horse here, then perhaps the
Elites had been in this place, days before, leaving behind those
traces. But how? They had to be behind her! Myn proved that! Unless
they had split up, but then they could have confronted her days
ago! None of this made sense! Myn trotted back, pleased that she
had frightened away the assumed threat.

"Myn," Myranda whispered, "this is very
important. How near are they? The bad ones."

Myn did not understand. Myranda took a series
of sniffs to illustrate what she meant. The dragon imitated, but
seemed no more disturbed by the scent than usual.

"Again! You need to be sure!" Myranda
demanded as a change in the wind brought a blast from the
south.

Myn caught a whiff of this new wind.
Instantly, her eyes shot open. She turned to the south and took off
like a bolt, sprinting across the ground like a creature
possessed.

"Myn! No! Not now!" Myranda called out
uselessly. She hurried after her friend, following the deep claw
marks left by her sprint. This could not have happened at a worse
time.

Minutes of running as fast as her legs could
carry her had aggravated her ailing lungs severely. She stopped
briefly to catch her breath, leaning against a tree. When she took
her hand away, she felt something sticky. She looked to the culprit
and found her hand reddened with blood. Fresh blood. She rushed on,
determined to not to stop until she found her dragon and the thing
that had stirred her so. There was danger afoot.

Myranda stumbled into a clearing. She could
barely breathe. Her eyes scanned the surroundings. It was a
gruesome sight. Soldiers, Elites, a dozen or more, were scattered
about the ground. They had been slaughtered, armor pierced and
torn. It was as though a wild animal had been let loose upon them.
The sight brought painful memories of the battleground she had
stumbled through when Myn had run last time, though now the
injuries seemed somehow more savage. These were not the clean
slices of a sword, but the horrid punctures and tears of a spear or
a lance.

The bodies, like the blood she had stumbled
upon earlier, were fresh. They had likely been killed just as the
sun was setting earlier that day. At the opposite edge of the
clearing was Myn. She was nosing a figure that was hunched against
a tree. It was difficult to tell just what it was that she was
looking at when she finally approached it, so covered was it in all
manner of injuries. Perhaps it was some sort of monster. It had
arms and legs like a man, and some shreds of clothing, but the
numerous tears showed a horrid red fur. Myn was blocking the head,
but from what Myranda could see, this creature was as dead as the
soldiers that littered the area.

"Myn, get away from there! We need to leave
this place--now!" Myranda ordered.

Myn looked up pleadingly. Slowly, the fallen
creature weakly raised a hand and placed it on the neck of the
dragon. It was alive! Myranda dropped to her knees and more closely
inspected the stricken creature. As she did so, it managed to raise
its head.

"L-Leo?" Myranda cried out, as the battered
face of the malthrope she had met so many months ago stared vaguely
back.

"Leo, what happened? Did the soldiers do this
to you?"

The near-dead malthrope tried to focus on the
hazy form in front of him. His free hand grasped painfully at a
cruel-looking rusty spike, nearly as long as his arm and clearly
the weapon that had taken the lives of the other soldiers.

"You? Myranda . . ." he said, before drifting
into a weak, delirious laugh that ended in a series of coughs.
"Irony . . ."

His head dropped back into unconsciousness.
Myranda clutched her gem and surveyed his wounds. Many deep slashes
striped his arms and chest. The fresh injuries were joined by
recent scars, as well as every stage of healing in between. He must
have been under constant attack for weeks, or longer. Aside from
the lacerations, his legs appeared to have been broken and poorly
healed. One eye was swollen shut, a crust of dried blood showing
between the lids. An ear had been slit all the way through. In
truth, there was not a part of his body that did not suffer from
some malady or another. Even the long hair that he'd displayed when
she first met him had been rendered a scraggly mess, as though it
had been cut away with a dull blade. This, coupled with the
scrawny, malnourished appearance of his muscles and the patches of
blackened, almost charred fur, told the undeniable tale of
torture.

Myranda set her mind carefully to the task of
healing the most grievous of injuries first. After forcing him into
a deep healing sleep, she spoke the words to close the wounds that
still leaked blood. When they had been tended to, she relieved the
smaller cuts and swelling. Each spell robbed her of more of her own
strength, but the months of training had brought her enough stamina
to perform the task at hand. By the time she had cast the last
spell she could manage, Leo was far from healthy, but he was most
assuredly out of danger. She leaned dizzily to the tree he was
slumped against and slid to the ground. Myn, who had watched the
whole spectacle with nothing short of angst-ridden worry, curled up
between the girl and her patient.

"I may not be able to stay awake, Myn. I need
you to be vigilant," Myranda said.

The dragon did not fully understand, but she
scarcely needed to be told to protect her companion, perpetually in
a defensive position whenever the slightest threat emerged. For
Myranda, the world faded in and out for some time while her mind
recovered. It was a strange near-sleep that she found to be quite
unsettling. She was utterly helpless, not enough of her mind left
to form a cogent thought. No less than three hours of such a state
passed before she was shaken from her trance by the movement of
Leo. He was painfully struggling to his feet. Myn, joyful to see
him rise, managed to knock him back to the ground in her
enthusiasm.