Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

“Todd,” he managed. “Enough.”

“Yeah,” Todd agreed. He broke his stride and almost fell. “I guess you’re right. I guess we lost them by now.” He made a noise that probably would have been a laugh if he had any breath left in him. He staggered to a halt, leaning at last against a tree. Nick fell down, exhausted, on the leaf-strewn ground.

“You know, Nick?” Todd said from where he was still barely standing. “I guess you’re not as much of a chickenshit as I thought.”

Nick forgot about anything he might say back to Todd when he heard new footsteps crashing through the leaves. He looked up and saw the two younger boys, Bobby Furlong and Jason Dafoe, Mary Lou’s little brother.

Bobby waved at the older two, then turned around and looked at the forest, as if expecting others. Even though he was short and stocky, he acted like he did this kind of running every day of the week. Skinny Jason sank to his knees and pushed his glasses back up his nose. He seemed even more winded than Nick.

The forest behind them was silent and still.

“C’mon, guys!” Bobby called out to the trees. “Where are you?”

The kids were the only ones who had followed. What had happened to Nick’s mother? Or Mr. Mills? Where was Mary Lou? There was no sign of any of them.

But there was no sign of the soldiers, either.

“What do we do now?” Jason spoke for all of them.

“We could go back to our houses,” Bobby suggested with a big smile, like he was getting away with something. “That is,” he added, his smile falling a little, “if we could find them.”

Todd shook his head. “Bad idea. That would be the first place the soldiers would look. Besides, from the way that the Captain spoke, I don’t think our houses are going to be there very long.”

Something growled out in the woods. “Oh, God,” Jason whined. “What’s that?”

Nick knew they didn’t have any answer to that, either. He stood and felt in his pockets. “Do we have anything that we can use as a weapon?”

“I’ve got my dad’s old Boy Scout knife,” Bobby volunteered. “I was trying to learn how to whittle.”

“Whittle?” Todd asked with his usual sneer.

“Yeah,” Bobby said defensively. “My grandfather used to do it. I’ve got a couple of cool pieces of wood he fooled around with.”

“Let me see it,” Todd demanded. Bobby handed it over. Todd flipped out the biggest of the blades. “Not much.” He crouched and held the open knife in front of him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Nick looked back at the spot where he thought he’d heard the growling. Was there a dark shape out there, running between the trees?

All four of them yelled when they heard a barking growl only a few feet behind them. Nick whirled around, ready to either strike out or run.

A dark brown shape barked back at him. “Hey!” Nick called. “It’s Charlie!”

He would recognize
his
dog anywhere, even looking as bad as that dog did now. Charlie’s fur was ruffled and dirty, as if he had had to make it through briars or some other rough going. It looked like he might have a new scratch on his nose, too, like he’d been in a fight. Nick hoped it wasn’t anything serious.

The dog bounded forward and leapt up to lick Nick’s face. It was Charlie, all right. No other dog’s breath could smell that bad.

“All right!” Jason clapped his hands and whistled. “Now we’ve got some protection!”

As if on cue, the dog gave up greeting his master to pace about in front of the four. He started to growl again.

“Charlie?” Nick called. “What is it?”

The dog turned to bark up at a nearby tree.

“Is that any way to greet your savior?” a voice called from a low branch overhead. Nick peered up, and made out a great black bird in the gloom.

It was Bobby who spoke this time. “Who are you?”

The bird—the talking bird—fluffed his feathers with pride. “I am Raven. I am the creator of all things.”

A great, booming laugh erupted from the trees behind the four of them.

“No doubt you were about to mention my part in this?” a very deep voice added. All four sons of the neighborhood turned around. There in front of them was a well-muscled fellow who also happened to be eight feet tall. His skin was some tone halfway between tan and green, and his head was covered by something that looked more like tiny leaves than hair. His smile, however, was very friendly. Nick found his fear retreating again, to be replaced by a familiar confusion. How could someone that large not make some sort of noise as he approached?

The large man smiled. “Greetings, and many welcomes.”

“Who are
you?
’ Bobby asked once again.

The large man laughed as if the question was highly amusing. “There are those who call me the Oomgosh.”

“There are those who call him other things, too,” Raven snapped. “Oomgosh is my preferred name,” the large fellow explained patiently. “You may address me as such.”

“And you can call me Raven,” the bird interjected as if he wanted to regain the center of attention.

“You say you made all this?” Nick asked the bird with a certain skepticism. Todd snorted derisively.

“Raven does not make,” the bird replied imperially. “Raven is, and all else follows.”

Nick shook his head and turned to the Oomgosh. Somehow it was easier to talk to someone who looked at least vaguely human. “Why should we believe a bird?”

“Raven is very believable,” the Oomgosh replied.

“The Oomgosh agrees with everything I say,” Raven added drily.

“Of course,” the Oomgosh agreed. “Raven is also a great liar.”

The bird squawked. Nick wondered if that sound was Raven’s laugh.

“Well, Raven did save you!” the bird insisted. “That is, Raven and the Oomgosh.”

At that, the large green man lost his smile. “You were saved, but at a cost.”

“Cost?” Raven protested. “What cost? Almost all the trees were dead.”

“Not all, no,” the Oomgosh replied sadly. “Not all. Still, it had to be done. The newcomers are most important.”

Todd got an odd smile on his face. “More important than the raven here?”

This time the bird’s squawk sounded angry. “Please. Address me as ‘Raven,’ not ‘the raven.’ The use of that extra word implies the existence of others.” The bird ruffled his feathers and tossed his head. “Raven is unique.”

Nick looked from one strange creature to the other. “You felled the trees, then. Did the two of you also do that”—he couldn’t find the words—”that other thing, too?”

“Raven can do anything,” the bird replied.

“What other thing?” was the Oomgosh’s more pertinent response.

“I don’t know.” Nick tried hard to describe the feeling he had. “There was this moment, when everything seemed to fall away—”

“Yeah!” Bobby added with a yelp. “The whole place whirled around, and the air got funny—”

The Oomgosh laughed. “You give Raven far too much credit. That was the voice of the dragon.”

“The dragon?” Jason piped up. “You mean there’s a dragon around here?”

“Oh, most assuredly, no,” the Oomgosh answered. “If the dragon were close, truly close, we would all be dead. But the dragon heard the soldiers. And the dragon called.”

“Even Raven admits,” the bird added, “as good as my ears are, the dragon’s are better.”

Nick still didn’t understand. “What did the dragon hear?”

“Loud noises, perhaps,” the Oomgosh ventured. “They make him stir in his sleep.”

“Or the force of a great anger,” Raven added. “Remember the stories.”

“The dragon has slept for so long, no one quite remembers,” the Oomgosh explained.

The bird fluttered its dark wings in agitation. “Even Raven’s memory slips now and then. But we must be going.”

“You are right,” the Oomgosh agreed. “We are on a mission.” He stretched out his arms to include the four boys. “We are all on a mission now.” With that, he turned and marched off into the woods.

“Better keep up,” Raven cautioned. “The Oomgosh can move quickly on those legs of his.”

Charlie looked back up at the bird, a growl deep in his throat. “And keep that creature away from me!” Raven cautioned. “You wouldn’t want Raven to hit it with a bolt of lightning!”

“Lightning?” The Oomgosh’s laugh boomed from up ahead. “Oh, Raven, you are most assuredly unique among birds.”

“Most assuredly, my Oomgosh,” Raven replied as he flapped his wings and flew from his perch to shadow the giant. “Most assuredly.”

“What do we do now?” Jason whispered.

The four young men from Chestnut Circle all looked at each other for an instant. And then they followed.

S
he should have gone with them.

Mary Lou looked at the spot where the four boys had disappeared into the woods. She had wanted to run, to get free of this nightmare, to go with her brother and the others, to somehow be away from everything.

But before she ran, she had turned and looked at her parents.

They clutched each other tight. Mother buried her face against Father’s chest. And the way her father looked at Mary Lou; her parents were so upset, so afraid. What would they do if she left them?

Don’t go
. Mary Lou had seen it in her father’s eyes.
Don’t go
.

What a good daughter you are
. Her father said it all the time. She did her best to make her parents happy. And a good daughter could never run away. Especially not now.

A man with a spear stepped between her and freedom. She took a step back toward her father and quickly looked around her.

For what? Whatever chance she had for escape was gone by now. The trees had stopped falling, and the leader of the soldiers had gotten his men to surround the remaining captives. Four of the soldiers cautiously climbed across the new barriers and followed Nick and the others into the forest.

“No more talking!” barked the man who called himself Captain. Mary Lou hadn’t noticed anybody talking. They were all too scared. She twirled a strand of long brown hair around her finger. It was a nervous habit. Her mother yelled about it all the time.

The leader scowled at all of them. “I want nothing more from any of you,” he added hurriedly. “Nothing.” He turned away from them and marched ahead.

She heard something new in the Captain’s last remark. She had expected him to be angry. She hadn’t expected him to be as full of fear as the rest of them.

The soldiers prodded the neighbors on with their spears. Mrs. Smith had more trouble than ever keeping up. She tried to smile when Mr. Mills and Mrs. Blake helped her, but the pain showed through, making her look older than ever. Mr. Jackson looked angry. His wife and the Furlongs looked afraid. Only Mary Lou’s parents managed to look cheerful. Her parents smiled in public, no matter what.

The Captain shouted something from where he marched at the front, almost out of sight of the rest of the party. A pair of soldiers hastily fashioned a litter from some dead branches and strapped the old woman inside. Mary Lou guessed that their leader didn’t want to risk losing another one of them.

The neighbors started to walk, Mary Lou following close behind her parents, all of them surrounded by the soldiers. They marched quickly, and, to Mary Lou’s surprise, not for all that long, halting a few moments later in the first clearing she had seen since they had left what remained of their homes. The open space was almost square, around the size of the baseball field behind the high school.

The clearing was also the first place Mary Lou had seen that was completely free of the dark ivy. In fact, nothing grew in the packed reddish-brown dirt, which looked as if it had been beaten down by thousands of boots. At the center of the clearing was a large building made of logs, topped by a tower; Mary Lou guessed it was a lookout post. No one emerged from the building as they approached. The place seemed deserted.

The soldiers stopped and pointed at the neighbors with their spears.

The neighbors stopped as well.

“This is all of them?” someone spoke from their midst. “Was I misinformed?” The question was followed by a laugh. “I am never misinformed.”

There was another man standing in their midst, although Mary Lou had no idea how he had gotten there. She blinked as the scene in front of her shifted, as if she was looking through a shimmer of heat or a sudden sheet of rain.

A moment ago, she could have sworn he was wearing some sort of dark-colored robes. Now he was dressed in a dark blue business suit with wide lapels, a white shirt, and a grey tie with silver stripes.

Did he think this would make them more comfortable? The new costume made Mary Lou trust him even less than before. He reminded Mary Lou of that salesman who’d sold them their new car. He smiled at the assembled crowd.

Mr. Mills stepped forward. He stood as tall as the soldiers as he stared at the other man. “What do you want with us?”

The man in blue nodded agreeably. “Only to help you, really,” he said easily. “You’ve had the misfortune to be dragged from your homes, into a hostile environment. And that, I assure you, was none of our doing.” He waved at the soldiers, who had now all put down their weapons. “Excuse us if our methods seemed harsh. Better, though, that you are physically moved from a dangerous place than to face some of the other things that live on this island.”

“Then we’re on an island?” Nick’s mother asked.

“Yes,” the man replied in a tone that reminded Mary Lou of her teachers, “one of seven islands, clustered together in this little corner of the world. Our world, that is.”

“What?” Mr. Furlong demanded. He was so upset that his whole face turned red, all the way up to his thinning hair. “Where have you taken us? Is this some of that crazy flying-saucer stuff?”

“We haven’t taken you anywhere. You have been brought by something else—” He paused and frowned for the first time. “Something difficult to explain. It is something very powerful, that tries to control everything that lives here, and everything that comes here. We call this thing the dragon, although it is more than a simple creature.”

“Who’s trying to control us?” Mr. Jackson demanded. “I don’t take orders from anybody!” Mary Lou thought Jackson looked a lot like his son when he was angry, only thirty years older and thirty pounds heavier. With the way he held his fists, he also looked like he wanted to hit somebody.