Dragons of the Watch (26 page)

Bealomondore studied her face for a moment, wondering if there was any argument that would knock that innocent hope out of her head. Then he decided he didn’t want to erase the glow in her eyes. He held the grate open for her and helped lower the baskets to the ground outside.

“Maa!” Tak stood at the gate to the library park.

Ellie stopped to scratch between his horns. “You can’t come this time.”

The goat stamped his front feet and butted the gate.

“No, I’m not taking you. Don’t you remember the children being unkind to you? We have to teach them manners before I will let them get near you again.”

Bealomondore looked sternly at the goat. “I back your mistress, Tak. This is a dangerous mission, and you need to stay here. We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Ellie scoffed at his words. “Dangerous? They’re only children.”

He took her arm and headed her toward the circle fountain. “You’re to humor me and be ready to run for your life if I yell, ‘Go!’ ”

They did no running. For more than an hour, they walked the streets where the children usually played. At one corner, Bealomondore climbed a drainpipe to retrieve a blouse belonging to Ellie. She looked it over carefully once he handed it to her.

“They haven’t been rough with it.” She turned it over in her hands. “It’s a bit dirty but nothing I can’t wash out.”

She folded it and put it on top of the cloth in her basket. They strolled down the street of shops until she paused to look in the window of a clothing store. “You know, I really admire all the things the urohms have in their shops. In the village, the mercantile had one rack of ready-made clothes. Old One mentioned industry. Is it industry that makes the difference? Everyone at home spent time making for themselves, with little time left over for making things to sell.”

“In my explorations before you came, I found that many of the urohm homes on the west side of Rumbard have a cottage at the rear of the property where different things were made—cloth, candles, furniture, clothing, hats, boots, anything one might need. Those homes are more modest than the ones we’ve visited.”

“So as a town, they were pretty much self-sufficient. My gramps
says that when the first farms were built, they were so far apart that each family took care of their own needs.”

“I suppose that’s so.” Bealomondore gently nudged her into once again walking down the sidewalk in front of the stores. “And I suppose those in Rumbard City were intent on displaying their accomplishments in all areas.”

Ellie pursed her lips and shook her head. “That hardly seems the way to make friends.”

“I doubt it ever crossed their minds to make friends with the people of Chiril.”

“No?”

“Paladin gave them the task of explaining the ways of Wulder to the people of Chiril. It would have been a better method to ask the urohms to come and help in any way they could, to serve the people.”

“Is that how Wizard Fenworth, Librettowit, and Verrin Schope told you about Wulder?”

He laughed. “They didn’t tell me much at all. We were busy saving the country. They talked among themselves about Him. But basically, they never laid out rules and facts at all. I became intrigued by the way they acted and how they helped one another … and me.”

“So how did you learn about this Wulder?”

“Once my curiosity was aroused, I began to listen more carefully, then I asked questions, then one of them gave me a copy of Wulder’s Tomes. Actually, a set. There are three of them.”

“Do you have them here? May I see them?”

“I left them outside the bottle. Of course, I would have brought them with me had I known I was going to be trapped in Rumbard City. But I had just walked over to find a spot to paint. My moonbeam cape,
my books, my luggage, and all my personal effects are in the cart beside the road I traveled.”

He walked for a moment in silence. “That was over two months ago. I’m sure someone has taken the horse and cart to the nearest town.”

Ellie ignored his lament over the horse and his things. “What is a moonbeam cape?”

The memory made him smile. “The cape was presented to me by Winkel, one of the matriarchs of a kimen village. It’s woven from the fibers of a moonbeam plant and has the impressive property of camouflage. If you remain still, you blend into your surroundings, except in bright sunlight. And inside they sewed hollows, deep pockets where anything can be stored.”

He looked at her puzzled expression and knew he had to do more explaining. “Anything that fits in the opening of the hollow disappears. When you wear the cape, you can’t feel the weight of all that the hollows hold. No bulges or lumps or sagging material give away the fact that you carry weapons and food and clothing. Librettowit once produced a raft out of his hollow. In pieces. We had to put it together.”

Ellie remained silent.

Bealomondore let out an exasperated swoosh of air. “You haven’t gone back to not believing me, have you?”

“I … I believe you, but I would like to see these marvelous things. My mind would more easily picture such a thing. Seeing would make it
easier
to believe, but I do believe you, Bealomondore. Don’t you understand that I could imagine these marvelous things if I had at one time seen something like them?”

“Not necessarily.” Bealomondore noticed a movement at the corner of the next building. He slowed down. “I wore the cape and would
forget its ability to hide me. I would put things in the hollows, which just looked like pockets, and then marvel over the lack of evidence that the items still existed. Many times I plunged my hand back in to draw the object out just to prove to myself that it hadn’t disappeared.”

He edged closer to his companion and spoke quietly. “Ellie, I think we have finally found the children. At least one. Ahead of us, at the corner of the music hall.”

Ellie looked ahead. “I see her. I think I’ve seen her another time. Yes, I noticed her before when I was the guest of the children.”

Bealomondore made no comment about her use of the word “guest.” She’d been abducted. Right now he focused on not allowing that to happen again.

Ellie’s voice came in a breathless whisper. “She’s smaller than the others, and I thought perhaps she was younger.”

“She must be small for her age. She’s still taller than either of us.”

“True.”

The girl came out in full view and sat on the edge of the wide step into the large hall. The front of the building had huge glass-covered posters of programs. The child watched them approach. Bealomondore inspected the surrounding buildings. “Careful,” he whispered to Ellie. “She may be the enticement for an ambush.”

Ellie drew near with caution. “Hello, my name is Ellicinderpart Clarenbessipawl. I remember you.”

The girl looked up but didn’t return the smile Ellie had given.

“What’s your name?” asked Ellie.

“Soo-tie.”

“I’ve just recently met a dragon named Soosahn. He’s a laughing dragon and is funny.”

The child stared at Ellie.

Ellie tried again. “I’d like you to meet him someday. Today, we brought you a treat.”

She pushed her blouse and the cloth aside to pull out a daggart. The child rose immediately and grabbed the offering. She darted off, but another child ran out from between the buildings. He pushed her, knocking her over. Stepping on her wrist, he leaned over and wrenched the prize from her hand. He ran off.

“Oh!” Ellie ran to Soo-tie’s side. “Are you all right?” She helped the child sit up and dust off her clothes. Then she handed the girl another daggart.

Bealomondore surveyed the area, looking for more children ready to ambush Soo-tie. He heard a rush of stomping feet behind him, but he only managed a half turn before three sweaty boys barreled into him and knocked him over. The basket of daggarts left his hand and made its way down the street amid hooting and hollering by the successful raiders.

He rolled into a sit and saw Ellie and the small child surrounded by a ring of girls. The barrier did not face inward, threatening the daggart carrier, but formed a defensive circle. Boys surrounded them. They stayed out of reach of the girls’ clawing hands, but feinted attempts to charge the defensive band of six-year-olds. The girls carried sticks, and the boys hefted rocks.

Bealomondore got to his feet and drew his sword. “See here,” he called. “You are going to back off and treat these ladies with respect. Miss Clarenbessipawl has brought you daggarts. You may each have one, but there will be no fighting.”

One of the boys turned and hurled the rock directly at Bealomondore. He raised the sword and knocked the stone away before it could
hit him. He heard Ellie squeal and saw that the girls had converged upon his friend and the smaller child she attempted to protect in her arms. The boys joined the fray, hitting the girls as well as Ellie.

The girls pounded on Ellie and Soo-tie with the sticks. The boys didn’t need any weapons other than their fists. Some of the girls turned and attacked those attacking them. Besides poking and hitting with their weapons, the girls pinched and slapped at the boys.

Bealomondore roared and charged. The flat of his sword swatted the backsides of several boys. They hollered, but it took more than one swing to dissuade them from their rough game.

The tumanhofer wielded his sword with precision. It didn’t even come close to cutting one of the children. Bealomondore gave thanks for the sword that had taught him how to fight and, in battle, directed his aim. To maneuver among this crowd without really inflicting harm required concentration and precision. But he suspected the edge was as dull as it had been the last time he used his sword to ward off grimy urchins.

One bully reached through the fray and grasped the handle of the basket. He wrenched the prize of daggarts from Ellie and took off. Screeches of protest filled the street, and most of the children raced to catch the successful thief.

“Why are you crying?” asked Soo-tie. She looked at Ellie with concern. “No one is supposed to cry. They’re extra mean to you if you cry. You need to stop. They’ll come back and pull your hair if you keep crying.”

Bealomondore sheathed his sword and came to help Ellie get up.

“Oh, look.” She pointed after the gang.

Two children lay in the street. One held his head and moaned. The other wiped a bloody nose on his sleeve. Ellie limped to where the first
one was stretched out on his back. Blood dripped from between his fingers where he had them buried in his long, tangled hair.

She knelt beside him while Bealomondore went on to the second child. Soo-tie followed, seemingly more interested in the tumanhofers than in her fallen comrades. Bealomondore helped the boy with the bloody nose get up and come back to Ellie’s side.

She pulled out a handkerchief, folded it, and applied it to the first boy’s head. The child interfered by trying to get his hands back to the wound.

“Stop it,” Ellie fussed. “Your hands are filthy, and the cut will become infected. It’s a small wound, but head cuts bleed a lot. Stop it and let me hold this. It’ll quit bleeding if you just let me hold the pad there. Am I going to have to sit on your hands? Stop it!”

Soo-tie laughed. “Sit on his hands!”

Bealomondore sat the other boy down, told him to lean his head back and apply pressure under his nose. He found the abandoned cloth from Ellie’s basket, wadded it up, and shoved it into the boy’s hand. “Use that.”

He moved closer to the boy with the head wound. “Let me see, Ellie.”

She pulled the cloth pad away for a moment.

Bealomondore inspected the boy’s scalp. “It probably could use stitches, but it will have to do without. If we keep it clean, he’ll heal up just fine.”

Ellie returned the pad. She took a deep breath and sat down next to her patient. Leaning him against her in a more comfortable position, she managed to get a better hold of the wiggling child to keep pressure on his wound. Tears still stained her cheeks, and she hunched first one shoulder and then the other to scrub them away.

She sighed again. Bealomondore couldn’t quite determine whether
she was weary or disappointed, disgusted or resolved to carry through with her agenda.

“My name is Ellicinderpart Clarenbessipawl. What is yours?”

Bealomondore looked away, grimaced, and turned back. She hadn’t given up.

The boy sniffed. “Porky.”

“Well, Porky, you and your friends have no manners. But that is going to change.” She addressed the bloody-nosed boy. “And what is your name?”

“Cinder.”

“Cinder, you are going to learn to enjoy life. You will find it is good instead of bad, fun instead of boring, and safe instead of dangerous.”

He lowered his head to look straight at her. The rag muffled his question. “Do you have more of them daggarts?”

“I do.”

He put his head back again. “I don’t think we want manners. Daggarts are all right. But I don’t know about the manners.”

“No manners, no daggarts,” said Ellie.

Bealomondore shook his head. How did she plan on withholding daggarts until she got the manners she wanted? So far, they’d engaged in two battles with the horde.

And the horde had won both battles.