A Dragon From the Desert, page 24
“Our patient is getting worse,” she said in a voice so low I could hardly hear it over the rumble of the wheels and the sounds of the march. “She is very weak now.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“I am going to get water for her, from the supply wagon.”
“I’ll come with you.” We walked back towards the wagon, Red scampering from my shoulder to hers, flapping into the air, circling overhead and then dropping to the ground. I was worried that he might get crushed beneath wheels or marching feet but, somehow, he avoided it at the last second every time.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“She has fever, she’s thin as a broomstick, and she babbles all the time. She talks to people who are not there and calls me by different names. She says she’s burning up and begs for water. I could not bear being in there any longer and I volunteered to get some.”
“That sounds awful,” I said because I could not think of anything else. “Should I go and fetch Mistress Iliana?”
“Lady Rebeka said she would do that if it was needed. Right now, she just needs her medicine and the water to wash it down with. I should get it and get back.”
We reached the supply wagon and Ruth explained to the driver what was needed. He pulled the vehicle off the road, clambered into the back and ladled water out of a barrel and into a bowl as the soldiers marched by. Red circled him, hoping for a treat but got nothing. Ruth accepted the water and said, “I need to get back now.”
She turned to hurry away. Her tone was so clearly a farewell that I did not volunteer to go with her. As she walked away, she said over her shoulder, “I may not be able to give you your reading lesson tonight. I am sorry. If…if Lady Alysia is unwell, I need to be with her.”
“Of course,” I said, but I could not keep the disappointment out of my voice. Once again, I saw the hand of my mistress in this. What had they been talking about last night?
“If I can I will try and come over when we make camp,” she added.
I brightened at that, “I hope you can,” I said, and then added, “And I hope your mistress gets better.”
“Me too,” she said, in a tone that told me that she did not hold high hopes for that.
“Look who is,” said Ghoran as I came up to him. He smiled. “Is dragon and his pet boy. How you do, little dragon?”
Red shrieked at him and flapped into the air again. He circled around above the marching company. I fell into step moving along the side of the road to where Jay and Ghoran were. The ground was rougher there and I had to pick my way with care.
“He’s well,” I said.
“I pleased to hear it.”
“Was that Ruth you were talking with?” Jay asked. I felt my face flush and not just from the exertion of walking. Of course, the pair of them noticed.
“Little dragon’s pet human sweet on her,” Ghoran observed.
“I am not surprised,” said Jay. “She’s a pretty girl.”
“Best be careful,” Ghoran said to me. “You have rival. Jay.”
“I already have a girl back in Solsburg,” said Jay. It was his turn to blush.
“Someday I see her. Then I believe.”
Jay punched Ghoran on the arm. The big Northman laughed. “Another mighty blow,” he said loudly. “You hit harder than Todd. Of course, girl Ruth hit harder than Todd.”
“You come back here to see your girlfriend?” Jay asked.
“My mistress kicked me out of the wagon. I think she wanted time to herself.”
“So you get to come back here and practise marching with the rest of us poor bloody infantry.”
“Grinner like you,” Ghoran said. “She let you ride in wagon all time so she must.”
I wondered if he guessed there was more to it than that. Ghoran was sharp even if he spoke our language like a village idiot.
“He’s welcome to ride alongside Grinner,” said Jay and shivered. “I would prefer to march.”
“You need exercise, fat boy,” said Ghoran. “You pudgy.”
“I’m not,” said Jay outraged. “I am just big-boned.”
We teased each other in the way boys will as we marched. We laughed and joked in the sun. I was happy then and I did not even realise it.
The road curved down round a hill as the sun lowered in the west. To our left lay the sea in all its sparkling glory. Red gawped at the vast expanse of blue and screeched as if burned. He leapt onto my right shoulder, curled his tail around my neck, flapped his wings and screeched again as if trying to draw my attention to the thing that frightened him.
A white strand glittered beneath us, fringed by long grass and sand dunes like frozen waves. Here and there, palm trees swayed in the breeze. It was the first time I had ever seen a beach and it fascinated me, although I had seen more than my share of sand back in the Bleak Lands.
Red shrieked and took to the air. He rose high, wings spread, and the heads of the soldiers craned back to keep him in sight. One or two shouted encouragement to him. Someone, one of Todd’s friends no doubt, bellowed at him to fly out to sea and drown. I felt a surge of anger at that, but I could not see who shouted, nor did I have any idea of what I would do if I had.
Red kept moving, and then much to my surprise he veered towards the sea, sending a shadow much bigger than himself surging over the grass. I raced after him, worried that he was going to do something stupid, like try to swim. If small dragons could even do that.
He shrieked happily, tail held straight behind him, arrowed towards the beach, curved back and then stooped over a clump of long grass, dropping like a stone down a well. I heard more small shrieks and wondered if he had somehow hurt himself. He had descended very fast.
I found him hunched, paws protecting something. It had been a mouse before a small dragonling had removed its head. Blood rimmed Red’s mouth. He licked it away with his long flickering tongue.
He looked up at me and I swear he smiled. His tail wagged so fast as to be almost invisible and he looked pleased with himself. He nudged a little bit of what was left of his mouse towards me. I can’t say I was tempted.
“You have it, Red,” I said.
He did not seem inclined to argue. His muzzle descended, and the eating began again. I rose and stared out to sea, relieved that he was staying in one place for the moment. On the water, the white shark’s fin shape of a lateen sail moved towards the horizon. I wondered whether it was a fisherman, a pirate, a trader or something else I could not yet understand.
The sea itself was a vast moving wilderness, as threatening to me as any desert. White caps emerged as waves curled to break. The sound of the water’s rush reached my ears, as if I was hearing it for the first time. It had been there for a while, but this was the first time I had listened, to the sea’s relentless, monotonous voice.
I felt like that ship, a long way from home, blown by the wind, moving towards something, pushed by something I could not see or understand. In the past few days I had acquired a new life, acquaintances, companions. I had accepted responsibility to look after this small smelly beast.
My old life felt like a dream, and yet at the same time, when I thought of my family, I felt a stab of longing so great as to be almost painful. I wondered if I would ever see Ma and Da and my brother and sisters again. What would they say about Red? About me being a sorcerer?
That thought gave me pause. How would they feel? Would they look at me as if I was a monster and at Red as if he were my familiar? Would they seem as strange to me as I to them?
As I listened to the wind moan and the sea roar and Red munch, it struck me that I could never go back to my life that was. I could never make things as they once had been, no matter how much magic I learned, no matter how powerful I became. I had lost perhaps more than I had gained when I had signed that contract in my own blood. I had exchanged my old life for something new and strange, and I did not know where it was going to take me.
A shout drifted across the distance separating myself and the marching soldiers, and I realised that someone was telling me to get a move on. I did not want to be left by myself on that strand of a beach so far from home with night approaching.
Red finished his meal. He burped and farted and closed his eyes happily. I picked him up, draped him over one arm, and ran to catch up with my companions as if the demons of Shadow were howling at my heels.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We made camp along the beach that night, pitching tents on the grass-covered dunes, building fires and adding driftwood the soldiers gathered.
After they finished eating, men walked to the water’s edge, stripped off and dived in. A new division emerged, between those who liked the sea and those like me who mistrusted it. I wondered at the cause. Had some of them been born beside the sea, and had others come from inland?
I pitched the tent for my mistress and brought food, then waited for her to set the wards and tell me to sleep. It seemed as if there would be no reading lesson this night. There had been no sign of Ruth. There must have been something about the way I stood because she looked up at me and said, “Go on then, go explore, go talk to your friends, be back in an hour and I will set the wards then.”
I knew then that she too had been infected by the new mood in the camp. She seemed more relaxed. Perhaps she felt a little safer. It came to me then that her journey was a mirror image of mine. Every step took her closer to home.
“Thank you, mistress,” I said. “Is there anything I can get you before I go?”
“No. Just leave me in peace with my books.” Clearly there was going to be no teaching this evening.
I bowed and scampered off with Red hanging in the sling around my neck. He was still lethargic after the mouse he had eaten earlier. He looked up at me, blinked, eyes widened as he glanced at the moon and then closed his eyes again. He made a sawing sound that might have been snoring.
I detoured around the fire where Vorster and his circle sat eating, made my way towards the coaches, hoping to see Ruth but there was no sign of her, only whimpering noises from within the pavilion that told me Lady Alysia was no better.
I did not see Ghoran and Jay anywhere near the cook fires, so I walked down to the beach and found them there. Ghoran was swimming in the water, at home as any fish. Jay stood up to his knees in the waves, staring out to sea. His weapons lay on the sand, along with his tunic and his pack. Many of the soldiers had left their weapons in the sand. If we were attacked now, things would go badly for us.
I looked back, and saw Spider moving around harrying troopers into taking up sentry duty, and I was reassured. There were armed men on watch. He moved over to where my mistress’ tent was set up and said something to her. I felt a spell surge into being.
We had sentries and we had Mistress Iliana’s magic. We should be safe as anyone could be camping beside the road. Still I scanned the sky, looking for something, I don’t know what. Maybe devilwings or shadowbats or flying Old Ones.
Perhaps it was just the sea that made me nervous, or the prospect of arriving in Solsburg soon. I had become used to the rhythm of the march. It was something I understood. It was the new life I had acquired since I left home. The idea of another change upset me.
“You know how to swim?” Jay asked, when he saw me.
“Not really,” I said. I tapped the sling gently, and said, “Red is sleeping.”
“Dragon no good swimmers,” said Ghoran. “Puts out their fire.”
“You would know all about dragons, I suppose,” said Jay.
“We have dragon in Northlands. Big white ones. No breath fire. Breath ice and snow.” He stood up in water that came up to the top of his belly. It streamed from his hair and over his broad shoulders. Old scars covered his chest.
“You’ve seen a dragon?” said Jay. There was a note of doubt in his voice that I could not blame him for. With Ghoran it was hard to separate the truth from the jokes.
“I see dragon. Lot bigger than little Red. Big as house.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell us you fought it,” said Jay.
“I brave, not stupid. Dragon size of house not for fighting. Not unless you have no choice.”
Jay said, “When did you see this dragon?”
“Near Halisfjord. Skarsbad hills. Was flying over mountains, hunting mammoth.”
“You saw it kill a mammoth?” Jay said.
“What’s a mammoth?” I asked.
“It’s like an elephant only hairy,” said Jay. “Big thing. Nose like a snake. Can lift a man with it. Ears bigger than Ghoran’s.”
“Belly almost as big as Jay’s,” added Ghoran.
“This ice dragon was big enough to pick up an elephant?” I asked.
“I never saw. Only mammoth after dragon eat. Not much meat left and it frozen, cold as ice, hard as iron.”
I pictured Red sprawled over his mouse and tried to image something like him crouching over an elephant. Apparently, I was not the only one giving my imagination free rein. Jay said, “Do you think Red might grow that big?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I had never thought that far ahead. He was just a little thing now, but he had already grown. Who knew how long he would do that for, and what he would look like when he finished? I had never heard of a dragonling growing to the size Ghoran was talking about.
“Better find out,” said Ghoran. “Maybe have to buy cows for his eating. Be expensive.”
“I’ll ask my mistress about that,” I said.
Jay looked at me sidelong. “You think she’ll tell you?”
“I won’t know unless I ask.”
“Rather you than me,” said Jay. “Just the thought of saying one word to her makes my balls shrivel.”
Ghoran emerged from the water. He splashed out onto the sand, and began to dry himself off with his cloak, then he sat down on it and stared out to sea. Jay stopped paddling and sat next to him and I joined them. It was getting dark. Shadows flickered around the fires. The smell of wood smoke hit my nostrils and mingled with the salt tang of the air.
“Remind me of summer night in Long Fjord,” said Ghoran.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“The Northlands, of course,” said Jay.
“Home,” said Ghoran. “Big valley between mountains, filled with sea. Lot of village along water edge. Dragon ships beached there. Hall overlook water edge.”
He sounded as nostalgic as I had been feeling earlier. “It’s a long way from here?” I asked.
“Very long way. Out of Dragon Sea into World Ocean and north, far north till sea turns white and mountains of ice float by.”
“Mountains of ice? Floating? Man, you know how to tell a story,” said Jay.
“Mountains of ice real. They break off glacier, drop into sea, drift south. You sail north far enough, you see.”
It sounded as exotic as an ice dragon. I was starting to get an image of Ghoran’s homeland, of ice and snow and monsters.
“Does it snow all the time in the North?” I asked.
He shook his head. “In summer it warm as here almost. In winter, it cold, cold, cold.” He mimed shivering.
“I can understand why you came here then,” said Jay. “If it’s all snow and ice dragons and floating mountains of ice. Giants and trolls too.”
“Nah! It accident I here.”
“Accident?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Shipwreck. Picked up by slavers. Escape. End up here.”
He made it sound simple, as if escaping from slavers was just like hopping over a fence or diving into the sea.
“How did you escape from the slavers?” I asked.
“Break chains. Kill guards. Run. How else?” Once again, his voice suggested it was easy but there was something in his expression that told us that it might not have been as simple as he would have us believe.
He looked out at the sea as if remembering something dark. There was a stillness in him and a menace. His hands clenched into fists and his lips were a thin line. A frown trenched his forehead.
I looked at Jay. He shook his head slightly. I decided to change the subject. “How did you end up a soldier?”
He took his cue. “I joined the militia in Solsburg. They wanted people who could provide their own armour and crossbow and sword. Then the Old Duke put out a call for soldiers and I signed up for the life of adventure and loot.”
Jay would not meet my eye as he spoke, and his voice held tiny hesitations. There was something shifty in his response, but I could not figure out what. It was not that I suspected him of lying, but just that he might not be telling us the whole truth. Perhaps he had not been so keen on a life of adventure as he claimed.
“You must have been doing well to buy your own gear.”
“Well, my father provided the money. He was a locksmith. But after that that he had a run of bad times and lost his shop. I was never a very good apprentice. The life of a locksmith did not agree with me. I was a good shot.” Once again, the hesitations and an odd stress on the word locksmith.
“You ever been in a battle?”
He looked at his feet and seemed embarrassed. “I’ve hunted bandits. I’ve helped put down the riot in the Stew.”
“The Stew?”
“East Tower. The poor quarter of Solsburg. It’s a bad place, as you’ll find out soon enough. A couple more days and we’ll be in sight of the Lighthouse. A day after that and we’ll be home.”
I almost said you’ll be home, but I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I said, “The Lighthouse?”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Jay said. “It’s not something you can miss, even from a long way out.”
Ghoran dragged himself back from whatever abyss of memory he had fallen into. “Big magic tower. Glows with sunlight. Keeps Old Ones out. Guides ships in. Sits at the end of pier in Solsburg.”
“It was built by the Solari,” said Jay. “They say it’s as big as the one in the King’s palace in Siderea. It has good magic in it. Lights the streets at night. Keeps out evil magic. It gives us the blessing of the Holy Sun.”
“Is impressive,” confirmed Ghoran. “Nothing like it in Northlands.”
