DragonFire (30 page)

Fire raged behind her. She heard another dragon fall, smashing trees as it plummeted toward the ground. This was farther ahead, and it would take her a few minutes to reach the place.

I must get to a clearing so Alton can pick me up. I hope he isn’t injured. Perhaps we can hide somewhere while he recovers. He needs to rest. Do I have the right medicine in my hollows if he’s burned?

She choked on the smoke from the rapidly spreading fire.

Those stupid fire dragons probably torched more than one section of the woods.

The minor dragons chittered a chorus of distress. Even without her talent she knew they expressed great agitation. She grasped the branches of two bushes and pushed them aside so she could scramble through. Her heart stuck in her throat. Ahead of her, a dragon’s body hung from the thick lower branches of the trees.

A sob tore from Kale’s throat. “Oh no! Alton!”

         
46
         

B
ETRAYAL

Heavy smoke stung Kale’s eyes and lungs. She struggled to make her way to Alton. Broken branches littered the ground directly under him. His head hung downward, ten feet above hers. The minor dragons circled him, making mournful sounds deep in their throats.

“Is he dead? Oh, I wish I could understand you.” She ran to the closest tree and shinnied up the trunk to the first unbroken branch. The smell of burned flesh assaulted her nostrils. She saw the damage a fire dragon had done to her friend. Red flesh showed through singed scales. She crawled over smaller limbs growing out from the main branch. Inching out to a place where she could reach Alton’s wing, she tried to see signs of life. Her fingers touched the soft leather that spread between thin ribs of bone.

“Alton?”

A tree in the distance exploded as the sap burst into flame. She heard the blast. “Alton! We have to get away. The fire is coming.”

The minor dragons surrounded Kale, pulling at her clothes with their tiny, clawed hands. Clearly, they wanted her down from the heights of the tree. Stubbornly, she crept farther out on the branch, reached with her foot to another limb, and crossed over. Now alongside his flank, she felt for Alton’s heartbeat in the hollow where the wing joined his body.

She hung over to a lower branch so that she was only a few feet from the dragon’s head. “Alton.”

The morose tone of the minor dragons’ chirrups told her Alton was beyond help.

She clambered back to the main trunk of the tree and looked over her shoulder. Flames shot above treetops not more than a mile away. Crying, she scrambled back down the tree.

Holding the edge of her cape over her mouth and nose, she followed Ardeo’s soft glow through the haze of smoke. Soon the other dragons took refuge in their pocket-dens. Kale stumbled on.

Other animals crashed through the undergrowth, trying to escape the blazes. Kale didn’t see as many as she heard. Most of the fleeing creatures looked like ordinary forest wildlife. Occasionally, an odd shape would pass too quickly for her to identify.

A breeze cleared away the smoke. She hauled in a lungful of fresh air.

Good for us, Ardeo. But not good as far as the fire goes. The wind will push the flames into more trees. I read that a forest fire makes its own wind. I wonder if that’s true.

You don’t hear me, do you? Of course not. But it feels good to think I’m speaking to you. Did that make sense?

A cloud of smoke dropped over them and concealed the trees a few yards ahead.

“Let’s go.” Kale followed Ardeo’s shimmering body.

Another animal slammed through the bushes and into Kale’s leg, knocking her over. The creature kept going. Kale struggled to her feet.

We must be going in the right direction. Don’t the animals know the quickest way to safe ground? Didn’t I see a couple of small lakes and a river from Alton’s back? Were they this way? I think so.

The air cleared again. The sound of burning woods drowned out the cries of terror from the woodland creatures. Kale followed Ardeo. The smoke thinned, then thickened. Kale made herself hurry even more. She refused to think of the flames reaching Alton’s body. She refused to believe that safety was more than a few more yards away.

Plowing through the clawing limbs of the bushes, she prayed Ardeo would be all right. He had no protection for his lungs. She held the cape over the lower half of her face and still felt the sting of poisoned air.

An animal screeched like a nocturnal bird that calls out as they hit their prey with sharp talons. The cry came again, above her and some distance behind, but closer than the first call.

Something landed on her back. Claws dug into her scalp. Searing pain tore through her flesh. Had she been struck by a burning branch? Kale twisted. Thin, hairy arms wrapped around her head. Small hands with long yellow claws scraped down her forehead and pulled the moonbeam cape away.

Kale fell forward. Still the animal dug its hands into her hair, pulling and scratching. She batted at it and tried to shield her head. Teeth sank into her hand. She shook her whole arm to dislodge the small beast. The last hard shake flung the creature into the bushes. Kale rolled in the opposite direction and got to her knees.

The animal came out of the thicket and stood glaring at her. Coarse brown hair covered its wiry body except the face that looked oddly like a face belonging to any of the high races. It pulled back its lips, showing long, pointed teeth. Screeching, it launched itself into the tree limbs and swung away, catching each branch with hairless hands at the end of long arms.

Kale sat back. Every scratch and bite burned like fire. Fire! She had to make herself move. “Ardeo! Ardeo!” The smoke made her voice scratchy. She stood and swayed. “Ardeo!”

Walking on trembling legs, she continued to call. “Ardeo!”

She stumbled and fell. A gray rock caught her attention. She reached out. Her fingers touched not cold stone, but Ardeo’s leathery skin. Tenderly, she scooped him up and once more got to her feet. Opening her cape, she placed him in the sling with Gymn.

She didn’t think she could go on, but if she didn’t, they all would die.

The woods thinned. A field stretched just beyond the last trees. A bisonbeck throng milled over trampled meadow grass. The fact that this was an army took a minute to sink into Kale’s mind.

There isn’t anyplace else to go.

She fell out of the last bit of underbrush. Rough hands picked her up.

“It’s Kale Allerion, the Dragon Keeper.”

“The master will be pleased.”

She’d fallen into the hands of enemy soldiers, and all Kale could hope was that they had some ointment to soothe the burning wounds inflicted by the strange animal.

Kale regained consciousness on an elevated canvas cot in a large tent.

“Send for Latho’s wife.” A deep voice, but Kale felt certain it was a female.

“They say she can deal with this vermin.” A different voice, lower than the first, but still having the sound of a woman.

The rustle of cloth. “I can’t wait to get these lizards out of my medic tent.” The first voice. “They hiss at me every time I go near this Dragon Keeper person. Go, now, Urssa. Don’t stand there talking. Go get Latho’s wife, Bends.”

That’s funny. I know a woman named Bends. Leetu Bends. If she were here now, we’d be on our way out of this camp.

Her mind drifted. People moved in the tent. She heard moans but sometimes couldn’t tell if the moans came from her or others. The claw marks from the beast burned. A cold, wet rag draped over her forehead and hair. Occasionally, someone would come and pour fresh cool water on her head. She tried not to move. She tried not to cry out.

Kale opened her eyes and stared into the face of a bisonbeck woman.

“She’s awake.” The woman straightened and gestured to someone. “Come, Bends, take these beasts so I can tend her wounds. Crim Cropper wants her alive.”

Another woman came to the side of the bed. Kale stared at the face. She did look like Leetu Bends. Kale blinked. No, it was a bisonbeck woman. Someone’s wife. The bisonbeck woman named Bends held a large woven container.

Kale watched her pick up the minor dragons and place them in the basket. She tried to protest. Her dragons shouldn’t be going with this woman. Why didn’t they resist?

Again the woman briefly resembled Leetu Bends, and then her features shifted back into the face of a stranger.

The woman frowned. “There should be a green one somewhere. Have you seen a green one?”

“Under that cape, if you can touch it. It burned my hand. But there’s a bulge under her tunic.”

The dragon gatherer pulled back the moonbeam cape with no trouble and located Gymn.

“You’ve got the touch, now, don’t you? I’m wondering where you picked up a way with dragons and the ability to handle things like that awful cape.”

The woman shrugged and picked up Ardeo. “I lived with Pretender some. This one’s dead. You can toss it in the trash.”

“I’m not putting that in my trashcan. It’ll stink by morning. Crim Cropper sent orders you were to take care of the dragons. You take care of them. That dead one as well as the live ones.”

Tears formed in Kale’s eyes and ran down her temples.

The woman hovering over her bent closer. She looked like Leetu Bends and then didn’t.

“Hurry up, Bends. I want to go to bed sometime tonight.”

“One such as this would have eggs on her. Did you look for a pouch with an egg?”

“Didn’t I just tell you I couldn’t touch her much with the cape burning me and the dragons hissing and spitting and snapping?”

Bends’s rough hands poked and patted Kale’s clothing. “Here they are. Give me scissors to cut this cloth.”

The other woman handed over the shears, and with a few snips, the eggs were taken from Kale’s beautiful blue scarf and put in the basket.

“Take that cape off her. Take it with you. Can you do that?”

“Sure I can. Help me raise her up.”

“Do it yourself. I’m not touching her till you’ve carried that thing away.”

The Bends woman pushed Kale onto her side. Searing pain overwhelmed her. The last thing she remembered was the moonbeam cape being pulled out from under her.

Shadows filled the tent. One lantern shone. Smoke clung to the air. Deep breathing set a rhythm in the background. Few noises seeped in through the canvas walls. Footsteps. A man’s voice in the distance. A scornful laugh.

Kale’s face and scalp burned. Someone had placed her on her stomach with her face over the edge of the cot. A rolled towel under her chin kept her face from falling forward. The bed was raised a good distance off the ground. She tried to lift her hands but couldn’t. Her wrists were tied to the wooden slats of the cot. She pulled. The binding held.

“You were clawing your wounds.”

Kale gasped. “Regidor?”

Black boots appeared before her. A man knelt, a black cape swirling around his bent legs. Regidor’s strangely handsome meech face appeared in her view. He smiled.

“Regidor, how did you get here? Did you come to rescue me?”