Dragons of Summer Tide (The Dragons of Hwandor) (9 page)

“We didn’t attack you filthy bandits. The soldiers were after us. I guess you bandits will get the reward now. It is an old and noble house that you are helping destroy.” The old man managed to whisper with his last few breaths and then his eyes grew lightless as he left this world behind.

“What does he mean by that?” Shira asked.

“I don’t know
,” responded Veer. Just then he heard a groan from the younger man under the body of the older man. Veer shifted the body of the older man aside and looked at the younger man who was unconscious. The shirt of the man was covered in old blood and he was very hot with a fever. Veer pulled open the shirt and saw a wound which looked to be several days old and which looked to have festered. “Nothing to do for this one,” Veer said as he put the young man down. Looking at the face of the younger man Veer realized that he wasn’t much older than Veer himself.

“Well, as long as he is alive we can’t leave him. It just isn’t the way of the hills
,” said Shira.

Veer
looked back along the trail where the foreigner had fled and then up the trail where the soldiers had fled. “One of those foreigners got away so he will eventually be back with more people and they will know about the dragons. And a couple of those soldiers got away so whoever they work for will be sending more soldiers to find these guys. We can’t do anything for the dead ones but we can take this one with us. We will have to put him over a horse to carry him. We have to get our horses and packs and get his horse too.”

“There are a lot of stray horses walking around here, just cut the straps of the tack and
it will fall off of them and let them go lose.” Shira called as she set about gathering their horses and packs.

Within a short time the two had gathered their horse
s and the horse of the young man. They had also managed to remove the saddles and tack from all of the stray horses which were walking around. As they returned to the spot where they had left the unconscious young man they saw a young dragon standing near him licking and sucking at his wounded chest.

“We should take a couple of these ropes with us, the ones that those foreigners dropped; they might come in handy
,” said Shira. Then she bent to pick up one of the coils. Overhead she heard Green Eyes screech and several of the other small dragons reacted to it by joining the screaming.  The dragon which had become some close to Shira charged over and pushed Shira back away from the rope. “Ok, I guess no ropes. I wonder why they don’t like the ropes.”

“I don’t know but help me get this guy tied over his horse so we can get moving.”

“No, if he isn’t dead yet, that will kill him,” said the girl. “Help me get him up into my saddle and he can ride in front of me, I’ll hold him up.”

Soon they were mov
ing once again and trying to hurry the horses in order to make it to the Wall and get themselves into the low hills. Shira rode with the stranger sitting in front of her and Veer took the lead. They both wanted as much distance between themselves and the scene of the battle as they could cover by nightfall.

After about an hour on the trail Shira spoke. “His fever seems to be getting better, he is cooling off. And his breathing is easier. Maybe that dragon licking his wound helped. Do you think…?”

“I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know if that one did it to him. I don’t know if those other ones did it to us. I do know that the wound he has is gone sour and he shouldn’t live.”

They rode on for the rest of the afternoon in silence only stopping long enough to let the horses rest and drink and to relieve themselves when they could hold their water no longer. Around an hour before sunset
Veer said. “We’re in the Wall hills so we should leave the trail and go cross country through the hills and head south like Slance said.” As he said this, he reined his horse off of the trail and headed into the light forest of the low hills.

They rode until the darker side of twilight.
Veer and Shira were both exhausted and they could see that the horses were tired; even the dragons seemed to be tired. They both knew that they would be keeping a cold camp for at least a few days. They rolled the unconscious stranger up in a blanket and they ate a meal of raw herbs and dried venison before bundling up in their own blankets. They were too exhausted to set a watch and they both dropped off to sleep knowing that if anything or anyone tried to sneak up in the night the dragons would sound an alarm. A sound woke them in the night and as they both lay there and listened they could hear the voice of the young flatlander as he talked in his sleep. They both returned to their own dreams before long and slept until the morning bird songs woke them.

As
Veer woke he realized that Shira was coming awake too. They had made a cold camp near a stream, so they had a morning wash as was the custom of the Hillfolk. They also noticed that each of the baby dragons had hunted in the night and had been eating various small animals. They had finished washing and they were refilling water skins from the stream when they heard a weak cry from camp that told them their stranger was awake.

They quickly sprinted back to the camp to find that the stranger had crawled out of his blankets and was gripping a tree and trying to stand. “Get away! Away!” He yelled at one of the baby dragons which seemed trying to get close to him. He saw the two people approach and called to them weakly. “What is that?” And he pointed at the baby dragon.

“A dragon,” Shira answered in a matter-o-fact voice. “If you look around you’ll see more of them too.”

“Have you taken me prisoner? Are you taking me to the Duke for his reward?” The confused looking young man asked as
he sank to the ground unable to hold himself up any longer. “Where is Gofreys?”

“
If by Gofreys you mean the old man who was with you, I’m sorry but he was killed yesterday, maybe by the soldiers, maybe by the bandits,” said Shira. “I’m not sure which but one of them killed him. You were very sick with a fever from an old wound and we brought you with us and I think that dragon saved your life. And no if you were a prisoner you would not have woken up with your knife next to you. Now who are you?” Shira stood there waiting for an answer.

“I am Cyerant D… Just Cyerant is all
,” the young man answered awkwardly.

“I am
Veer. Eat this.” Veer held a piece of dried venison out to the young man who took it with a nod of thanks.

“Why am I so weak?” Cyerant asked.

“Because you almost died,” Shira answered. “I am Shira.”

“Gofreys is dead too?
” They young man asked nobody in particular as he looked exhausted and dejected.

“Before he died he said something to me about destroying a noble house. What did he mean?” Asked
Veer.

“Nothing;
he meant nothing,” said Cyerant.

“He had to have meant something
,” said Shira. “You’re not from the hills so you’re a flatlander. From your clothes you’re not a poor flatlander either. You were running from soldiers so the flatlander king must want you for something.”

“They weren’t soldiers,
well not soldiers of the king, they are guards for a noble who killed my family. I escaped – or really Gofreys escaped and led me away from danger. And now he is dead too. The king thinks by now that everyone in my family died in a fire during a storm.”

“So why were those soldiers hunting you?” Asked
Veer.

“To make sure that I died in that fire too
,” Answered Cyerant.

“I have to go south
,” said Cyerant as he slowly tried to rise. “It isn’t safe for you to travel with me because there are going to be more of those guards following.” As he finished he collapsed back to the ground. He noticed that the little dragon was moving toward him and he tried to scramble away but only managed to move a little distance toward his blankets where his sword had been left when he was put to bed last night. “Keep it away from me,” he said weakly.

“It won’t hurt you, and if it wanted to there isn’t much that you could do about it
anyway. I’ve seen them kill wolves,” Veer said. “Besides no mater what you do he isn’t going to stay away from you. There is one that won’t leave me alone and there is one that follows Shira around too.”

It was then that the newcomer to their little party of orphans
finally noticed the other dragons hanging around the edge of camp. Cyerant sat there on the ground looking around in amazement and fear.

“You look exhausted, that wound is still very nasty
and you had a really high fever,” said Shira. “Roll back up in your blankets and eat that meat and drink some water. We have to talk about what to do.”

“Those soldiers who got away are going to be bringing more to search for him and the foreigner will go back to that camp and they will send lots of men to find these dragons. We’
ll just all head south together,” said Veer

“We should wait until he is stronger
,” said Shira nodding her head toward Cyerant.

“
No, we can’t lose the time. He’ll have to ride the way he did yesterday.”

“Within the hour the three of them were mounted but this time Cyerant was sitting in front of
Veer who was holding the other young man stable on the saddle. The day passed quickly and they stopped a few times to rest the horses and themselves. During these stops they gathered a few edible plants and refilled water skins. After each stop they would trade who rode with Cyerant and they would also alternate packs and people between the four horses so that no horse ever had to carry two people for very long and in this way they were able to keep a good pace. At the end of the day they made another cold camp and ate gathered herbs and dried meat while the dragons hunted small animals for themselves. They slept very well and got up the next morning and repeated everything.

They quickly fell into a rhythm and after t
wo days journey southward Cyerant was able to ride on his own. Despite the constant moving the young man was healing very rapidly and was gaining strength. On the fifth day Cyerant said, “I wish that we could take a road it would be faster?

“Soldiers will be looking for you on the roads and are going to find you
. Foreigners are searching the trails looking for us so if we take the trails they will find us and if we get away they will just find us again. But if we stay in the Wall and go cross country they might not find us and if they do we have a better chance of getting away,” Shira explained.

“Why do you call it the
Wall?” Asked Cyerant.

“It’s always been called the
Wall,” answered Veer. “It is between the true hills and the flatlands. And most flatlanders won’t cross it so we call it the Wall. That old man Gofreys. Was he family to you?” Continued Veer.

“He was like family to me. He worked for my father and was our house master of defence so he taught us all how to fight and ride and everything that a noble or a soldier needs to know.”

“So you are a flatlander noble are you? Veer asked

“I guess that I used to be
,” said Cyerant. But my family is dead and the house is gone and another house will claim our lands and people.”

“So why go south?” Shira asked

“Maybe if I can tell the king everything he will do something about it. That fire wasn’t caused by a storm. It was set by a guest under bonds of hospitality. Most of the doors were barred from the outside and our guards had been killed in the night by someone who was supposed to pose no threat. I only got out because Gofreys and I were awake training in night fencing. He knew a secret way out and as it was when we got out we had to cut our way through a lot of their guards to get free.”

I don’t see that old m
an cutting his way through many,” Observed Veer “He must have been very old.”

Cyerant seemed to bristle. “Gofreys Berond was known as the deadliest swordsman in the
kingdom. He cut our way though dozens of men. And yes he was old but he was still the greatest master of the blade who has ever lived.”

“Can you use that sword very well?”
Veer asked pointing to the blade hanging at the side of the young nobleman.

“Yes, I can. Gofreys said that I was the best student he ever had next to my father. He trained me since I was seven so that makes eleven years of sword training with a sword master. He even had me teaching my younger brothers to use a blade. As the young noble said this he thought of his family and tears filled his eyes and the others could see his struggle to maintain control. Shira and
Veer rode a little ahead so the young noble would not be embarrassed.

That evening Cyerant asked
Veer. “Can you use that sword hanging at your side?”

“Not yet
,” Veer answered.

“Then tomorrow we will make camp an hour ea
rly and I’ll start teaching you,” Cyerant said.

“Why should you teach me and why should I listen to you?” Asked
Veer, a bit brusquely.

“Because you need to learn
to use a sword and I know how to use a sword. Besides my life and her life might depend on your knowing how to use it, so you have a duty to know how,” Cyerant answered.