Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

Raven squawked and took to the air, landing quickly on Nick’s shoulder. He didn’t object. It seemed proper, now, that the bird should be there.

“At last,” Obar said, and now his smile was back completely. “At last?” Jason demanded. “At last what?”

“I think we have what we’ve been looking for at last,” Obar answered. “You see, the dragon is calling you.”

The Day the Oomgosh Met Hut Match

O
nce upon a time there was a man who was more than a man. And it wasn’t just that he was taller than other men, with skin the color of leaves and bark. One day he had simply stepped from the wood, from the darkest part of the forest where the shadows always seem to hold onto a little piece of the night. He had walked straight from that maze of greenery, as if the forest itself was his mother and his father, and all the trees his brothers and sisters.

The people from the village rushed to meet him.

“Greetings, stranger,” their leader called, holding forth his proud oak staff, which was his badge of office. “How may we welcome you?”

The tall man looked down at them and smiled, and when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice boomed from one side of the valley to the other.

“What is this place,” he called as people gathered around, “which is made out of wood which no longer grows?”

And the people told him that this was the village where all of them lived and farmed, and that they used the wood to protect them from the rain and wind and cold.

The large man thought about this for a moment and at last replied: “If the wood must be taken, then this is a good purpose.”

So he stayed in the village for a time, to learn the way of his human brethren as well as he knew the way of the woods. And as he stayed the days and weeks and months, the children of the village would follow him about, like a dozen acorns rolling about a great oak. And the children called him Oomgosh, because he was a man and a half. After all, what else would you call someone so big and surprising?

So it was that the Oomgosh learned about the human ways of sowing seed and growing grain, and taking the wood and stone and mud of the earth and building things with their hands.

“You give to the earth as well,” the tall man remarked when he saw the villagers sow their seeds, and again when he watched them bury their dead. “This, too, is good.”

And the people found a certain peace with the Oomgosh, for he moved slowly and gently for all his size, like a great maple swaying in the wind.

So it was that all was peaceful in the village until another came: a man who was constant movement, as if he wanted everything that his eyes fell upon, and whose face was so bright that you would have to turn away or be blinded by its brilliance.

The villagers gathered again to meet this stranger and to marvel that their home could attract two such wondrous visitors.

“Greetings, stranger,” the village leader called, once again holding forth his proud oak staff, which was his badge of office. “How may we welcome you?”

“What I want,” the newcomer said, “I take.”

He touched the leader’s staff, and with a single flash of light, that staff was reduced to a pile of ash.

All in the village shrank back from this new arrival, save for their tall visitor, for the Oomgosh did not seem acquainted with fear.

The tall man of green and brown stared down at the ashes with a frown. “This, then, is not good at all.” He looked at the one who was new to the village and asked, “Are you a man, or are you something else?”

The newcomer’s smile was horribly bright as he replied, “I am nothing so pitiful as a human. I am Fire.”

At this, the Oomgosh nodded, for he had met this creature’s smaller cousins, who helped the people with their cooking and gave them warmth in the cold of night.

“Welcome, Fire,” he said in his gentle voice. “There is a place for you in the village, too.”

But Fire replied, “I need no welcome. I go where I will and take what I want!” And, having said this, he strode to the nearest of the village’s dozen huts and stroked the wall of the hut only once. In an instant, the whole wall was consumed by flame.

The villagers cried in alarm, but the Oomgosh took another step forward. “You have done what you must,” the tall green man called. “Now move on, so that the villagers may live as well.” But the bright one only shook his head and grinned even more fiercely than before. “Fire only grows. I eat a staff and I want a wall. I take a wall and I want the house. I consume the house and I desire the village. The more I eat, the more I hunger.”

“There are no new beginnings here, only endings.” The Oomgosh stepped between this Fire and the rest of the village. “I must say no.”

The tall man clapped his hands, and branches of nearby trees reached out to grab the bright one. But where their wood touched his arms, they burst into flame, and the limbs quickly turned to blackened stumps.

“Whether my food is living or dead,” Fire replied, “makes little difference to me.” With that, great flames shot from his fingers to engulf the Oomgosh, so that there was again nothing left but a pile of ash.

Night fell, and those villagers not burned in the conflagration fled, as Fire took one house after another, until he had consumed half of the village.

But when the morning came, there was movement in the ashes, and a tall man of green and brown stood once again.

“I am still here,” the Oomgosh said in his great slow voice, “as all things grow, and all things must die.”

Fire only laughed. “How can you challenge me? Not even your great strength can stand against someone like me!”

“You take,” the Oomgosh replied, “but you cannot learn. Now I have seen you destroy both the village and its people, I have found pain and suffering.”

“What good will that do you?” Fire chortled, ready to bum the tall man all over again.

But the Oomgosh thought of the pain, and felt the suffering, and he began to cry.

And Fire screamed, for the Oomgosh’s tears fell from the sky, and the rain came down in torrents to kill the bright one’s flame.

And where the fire had been, there was nothing, but where the trees and houses had stood, new green shoots rose from the ashes.

“This, too, is good,” the tall man said. And then he returned to the wood.

T
odd was ready to kill something.

He felt like he was trapped again. These new soldiers held them prisoner as surely as those earlier troops who had been leading them to Nunn. Sure, they acted friendly enough, but Todd was sure if he tried to leave he’d end up with an arrow in his back.

There was no way to get away. And the soldiers were taking him back to his father.

Even on this broad dirt road that they traveled, he felt like the woods were closing in around them. Every step seemed darker than the one they had taken before, the wind above their heads no longer giving a glimpse of the sun, but only shifting layer on layer of dark branches and leaves.

“About this dragon,” Wilbert said abruptly. “We talked about the mumbo jumbo, wizards telling us the dragon was to blame. Didn’t tell you the important part, though.”

Todd looked ahead and realized that Wilbert and the others, Bobby included, were already twenty steps in front of him.

No one was paying much attention to him. He glanced over at the moss-covered bank by the side of the road and what looked like another path to a brand-new clearing. Maybe, if he was quiet enough, he could get away, after all.

“Todd!” Thomas called sharply. “Don’t leave the trail!”

Todd froze, waiting for the arrow. None came. He still almost stepped off the road, just to piss them off.

A rough hand pulled him back to the center of the dirt pathway. “Lord, Todd!” Stanley shouted in his ear. “Can’t you see the Man Trap?”

“If he could see the Man Trap, he wouldn’t be wandering off by himself, would he?” Wilbert ventured.

Wandering off? Todd was sick and tired of these guys patronizing him. “Man Trap?” he demanded. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Stanley looked around quickly, then picked up a good-sized branch that had fallen from above.

“Watch,” he instructed as he tossed the branch four feet in front of Todd. The moss-covered ground collapsed. There was a pit down below, maybe six feet deep, filled with sharpened spikes.

“Man Trap,” Stanley remarked.

“Hey,” Wilbert added. “Wolves have got to eat, too.”

“Wolves?” Bobby called out in a voice every bit as upset as Todd felt.

“Clever things,” Wilbert continued by way of explanation. “Vicious, too, when you get them in a fight. Not that they like to fight.”

“Wolves are all cowards, hey?” Stanley said. He turned away in disgust and paced back up the road.

“They’d rather kill their prey through tricks like this.” Wilbert paused to scratch at his beard. “At least they do around here.”

“So stay close!” Thomas called from up ahead. “We want to keep everyone alive as long as possible.” He turned away and marched on, as if used to having the final word on a subject.

“But about these wolves,” Bobby insisted. “You mean they build these traps themselves?”

The wind stirred the branches above them, not so much a breeze as a whisper. Todd thought about clever wolves. He had already accepted them, and he knew why.

“Bobby,” he called. “Think about Raven.”

Maggie, Stanley, and Wilbert all groaned at the mention of the bird’s name.

“Not that bird!” Wilbert exclaimed.

Maggie laughed. “Oh, he’ll be in the middle of it. He always is—”

“Is either of you any good with a bow?” Thomas interrupted as he scanned the forest before them. Todd wondered what Thomas could see that he couldn’t. “Or a sword?” He glanced back at Todd. “We may need to use them shortly.”

Todd shook his head. There was an archery team, and a fencing team, at high school, but he had never found much use for them. He guessed he never expected to find himself—well—here.

“I’ve tried them some,” Bobby admitted. “Bow and arrow, that is. Jason’s sister, Mary Lou, showed us how. She’s really good. She came in second in an all-state championship.”

Thomas waved for the others to follow as the road they traveled narrowed to a path. They would have to walk single file.

One Man Trap was enough for Todd. He decided he would keep up with the rest and deal with his father when they came face-to-face.

Wilbert followed Thomas. Todd and Bobby took up the next two places in line, then Maggie, with Stanley watching their rear.

“There’s other ways to defend yourselves, too,” Wilbert offered. He tugged distractedly at his matted beard. “I was going to tell them about the dragon’s eyes.”

“Damn the dragon eyes!” Stanley objected with a surprising vehemence. “You remember what they did to Douglas?”

“He was one of us,” Maggie explained to the newcomers. Todd glanced back at her and saw her looking from Wilbert to Stanley and back again, as if willing the both of them to calm down. “A dragon’s eye killed him.”

“He was our leader, hey?” Stanley snapped. The anger seemed to rise in his voice with every word. “Eye didn’t kill him. Used him up!”

“But he went out blazing,” Wilbert replied with a firmness of tone Todd hadn’t heard before. “Not left behind like us, to eke out whatever miserable existence we can manage.”

Thomas stopped abruptly at the head of the line. “We will get back to our homes,” he stated firmly. “Never forget that.” His voice held the kind of finality Todd’s father used when he didn’t want an argument. Thomas pulled a flat-bladed sword from his belt and turned away from the others. He gripped it with both hands, hacking at a mass of vines that blocked their way. His next words were shouted over his own effort and the screams of the vines: “We will get back to our world!”

“And pigs can fly!” Wilbert retorted. He paused and looked at the top of the trees with a grin. “Well, actually, around here, maybe pigs do fly. Haven’t seen it yet, but you can’t take anything for granted.”

“Exactly,” Thomas agreed as his arm swung down toward the greenery. The vines separated with the same pained cries Todd had heard before. “You can’t assume anything. Not even about the dragon’s eyes.” His arm rose again, the sword rising in a great arc above his head. “We’ll be more careful than Douglas, but we’ll use them if we must.” The sword fell again. “We’ll use anything to get back to where we belong.”

Thomas stopped abruptly, his sword suspended in the air. “Hold it!” he whispered.

Todd looked around the trail, waiting for wolves or dragons or God knew what. In the distance, he heard a high, bloodcurdling wailing. It lasted for about a minute, and then faded away.

“Sounds like the Anno,” Wilbert said after another minute had passed.

Stanley shook his head. “That’s not the Anno. Least not the way I’ve ever heard them.”

“Maybe,” Maggie added, “this place has some other new visitors.” The noise had gone as quickly as it had come. Whatever it was,

Todd wasn’t looking forward to meeting it. The forest was quieter than before, as if even the small animals and insects were waiting for what might come next.

“Prepare for the worst,” Thomas ordered. He pointed to Todd and Bobby. “Give them a couple of knives. Make young Bob a bow when we get the chance.”

Stanley lifted the dark animal-skin pack from his shoulder and pulled loose the rope that held it together. The pack unrolled on the ground before him. There, in a couple dozen pockets, were knives, short swords, hatchets, a whole arsenal. For some reason, Todd found himself thinking that the pack had to weigh a ton. Maybe skinny Stanley was stronger than he looked.

He pulled out two more or less identical knives and handed one each to Todd and Bobby. Bobby curled his hand around the leather-clad handle. The knife felt remarkably light for something with that large a blade. It looked something like a Bowie knife. That was one thing that Todd knew something about; he had seen
The Alamo
three times.

“Use them to defend yourselves,” Thomas said to the boys, “only if you have to.” He paused and listened for another moment to the woods around him. Satisfied, he unsheathed his sword and attacked a new mass of vines.