Chapter Twenty-Six
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The child’s ashen face and blue-tinged lips were hard to look upon, but I believed it was the least I could do, acknowledge the too-young life that raced to escape our world. Her mother wept with her face plunged into her hands. As he had done since we arrived, her father stood behind us, shiftin’ his weight back and forth.
“She was runnin’ around laughin’ yesterday mornin’,” he said. “How? How could this have come on her so fast? She threw up her lunch and her fall never slowed after that.”
I wished I could be anywhere but here. The anguish of the two humans filled the tiny room that was their austere home. Escape, get outside and dig the grave the child would require. Anythin’ but endure the sufferin’ of mother and father. The dragon that dropped us onto the tiny plot of land between the trees wished to leave too.
Kyn, the bull sibling unbound to any two-legged kind, had met us since Iza didn’t have room to land here between the ancient pines. Outside, he hummed a dragon song that resonated through my bones. It sounded like water pourin’ too-slowly over a cliff, in melodic waves.
“Suffered three winters up here,” the father wailed. “For what? To watch our only daughter die?”
The mother mid-sob swung a spastic arm at him, but it struck empty air. She pressed her hand back against her head.
“We’re done here,” the settler continued. “The promise of Black Lake was a fool’s welcome. We head north as soon—” His voice splintered as he struggled for air.
The mother’s cries penetrated my temple. Even the ethereal denied the child a chance. It failed to enliven Bacchus, barely made Delia’s gift glow. Were the two of us too tired from healin’ Asr, Aedwin, and Ike? Or did the other side simply know there was no hope? Why, this silent, innocent creature?
I sensed a final beat from the child’s heart and my own air rushed from my lungs. I stood frozen for several moments before steppin’ aside and pullin’ the father forward so that he could say goodbye to his daughter.
The man was brief. He kissed the child’s cheek, hand rested upon her forehead a moment, before lookin’ up at me. Anger replaced sorrow. I followed the man outside to their shed, which was bigger than their home. Inside stood the family’s prize possession, a dairy cow. She bellowed to be released to graze, forgotten that mornin’ under the haze of disaster.
The human pulled the latch over the fencepost and the cow pushed past the gate. The man lovingly patted the beast’s haunches as it lumbered by. But little of the anger had left his face. I found a pickaxe hangin’ on the wall, and a shovel, which I handed to the human. Our eyes didn’t meet.
We strode quietly up the hill, stayin’ near the tricklin’ creek. The father probably imagined the right place to lay his daughter to rest hours earlier. A realist. The small willow we approached struggled in the shadow of the loomin’ forest, but the tendrils of growth swayed just above the ground in the tiny breeze makin’ it through the canopy above.
The man marked the spot and stepped aside. The short handle of the human pick didn’t allow me to stand and use it, so I knelt on one knee and plunged the tool into the rocky earth. The crackin’ noise of iron on stone echoed morosely through the clearin’, into the forest. It seemed to even sadden the willow, its limbs saggin’ lower.
We alternated effort, the human clearin’ the depression of the soil and stone I freed with the pick. Within inches there was more rock than dirt, makin’ the goin’ slow, but neither of us were in a hurry. Blisters formed on my workin’ hand within ten minutes. Blood spotted the pick handle within twenty. The human caught sight of it and held his hand out. I gave him the pick and we exchanged tasks.
The little girl was buried with few words, an abundance of tears. The fur-covered bundle at the bottom of the grave shook me more than I’d ever been affected by anythin’ before. Tears blinded me and I struggled to stand still. The Earth seemed to mourn with us.
A lock of yellow hair poked out from under her fur shroud. I closed my eyes but the sight wouldn’t go away. More would perish, like that tiny little human girl.
Prayers complete, Delia, me, and the father took turns with the one shovel fillin’ the grave. When the yellow lock disappeared, my life seemed to rush out of me. I proceeded, numb, tryin’ not to think.
Enough emotion returned to a sense of anger as Delia led me toward Kyn. The witch had never given up one tear. Her face remained impassive, wooden. How could she remain so seemin’ly unmoved? A child’s death should— I didn’t want to take the thought further. But it kept itchin’ at me.
I didn’t offer Delia a hand after climbin’ upon Kyn. Didn’t have the guts to be outwardly hostile though. I busied myself, fussin’ as though there was something amiss with my coat. Delia climbed up wordlessly. Kyn bowed to the human man who had just lost his daughter, and launched.
The dragon headed northeast, not due east toward my home, where Ike fought his own fever. I chose not to ask why. If there was someone new we were supposed to treat, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to feel more anguish, yet.
It took Kyn noticeably longer to cover the distance the enormous queen traversed with more soarin’ than thrustin’. I tried to focus on the clouds, even the staccato up and down motion of the dragon, anythin’ but the pain I absorbed from that father and mother behind us.
The rumble emanatin’ from Kyn’s chest made me look down. I traced the waterfront, overlookin’ at first what concerned the bull dragon. The encampment to the east of the Hamlet now spread nearly to the tree line south. In addition, there were new camps to the east. Kyn trumpeted, a long screechin’ howl, jerkin’ me out of my thoughts.
Movement near the Inn drew my eyes back that way. The enormous queen extended her long wings, coverin’ a hundred feet of the front lawn that sloped toward the Lake. She had said she would return to her lair, let Kyn bring Lucas home. She obviously decided to stay close. I wished I could sense more of her thoughts, other than those she wished to share. I’d wager the creature had more sympathy for the two-legged races than she let on. But it was still doubtful she cared for me.
I smiled, thankful for somethin’ else to occupy my mind.
Kyn continued northeasterly.
“We should get back to Ike,” I told him.
“Taiz’lin would warn me if his health paled,” he said. “Let’s see who else is on the northern road.”
I tried to imagine another excuse to return home. Accepted I could find none, and relaxed to enjoy the ride. I was gettin’ used to the rise and plummet of my stomach with each wing thrust. The dragon ascended, and hills flattened, peaks became mounds. The forest thickened into brush. The horizon never looked so intriguin’, reachable, yet so far away.
I actually felt drowsy when Kyn dipped his shoulders and dove. The wind whipped my dreadlocks and pulled at my coat. I squinted as the air whistled over the claws that edge the dragon’s wings.
I lurched from a disturbing pre-sight.
“No! No, Kyn. Don’t give them anythin’ to rally around.”
“If ya’re nosin’ in my mind, sorcerer, I’ll rip ya in fours and clean my teeth with yar breastbone.”
“Ya’re talkin’ like yar hen sibling,” I shouted over the wind noise.
“Thank ya.”
“Didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“Careful. Another reason to rend ya into pieces.”
The forest lay far behind us. Only clumps of trees dotted the fields left and right of the rutted, north-south road traversin’ the plain. A troop of twenty militia rode double file.
“Ya don’t want to start a different kind of war,” I shouted. “What the Hamlet’s facin’ now is bad enough.”
The dragon continued directly for the line of mounted humans who glared up at us, mouths agape. Many pointed. The ground stopped speedin’ toward us, but raced beneath in a sickenin’ rate. The tilt of the dragon changed. The wind felt different, a different hiss. Kyn had dropped his legs, more importantly, his long talons, directly below him. The twenty inch weapons could effortlessly cleave a line of humans, as I saw in my vision.
“No. Please, Kyn.”
Kyn trumpeted and every horse within the contingent rose up. By the time we were over the troop, half of the mounts had bolted. Humans pelted into the air, one dragged behind his horse, ankle dangerously hung in a stirrup. But I felt no bump of a striking talon.
The trumpet changed into what I would best call a chortle, more like an ogre’s grunt than a human’s chuckle.
“Ya’re proud of yarself, aren’t ya?” I asked, as the dragon arched up and to the left.
“None of those will want any part of a dragon,” he said. “Should’ve been doin’ this all the prior week.”
“They would have eventually greeted ya with a sky filled with arrows.”
“Puny sticks just an irritation.”
I shook my head. “Ya’re made of flesh too.”
Dragons are a stubborn lot. Nothin’ like ogres. Pointless to argue with ’em.
“Ya have any more fun to play? If not, ya want to consider gettin’ us back to Ike?”
“For an ogre ya’re a whiny sort.”
I laughed.
“What’d he say?” Delia asked.
I’d forgotten about her she had been so quiet for so long. I reconsidered my anger for her coldness over the girl’s death. She must have reasons for her aloofness.
“He feels ogres are too diplomatic,” I said.
“Perhaps that will come in handy with that militia.”
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