Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 (25 page)

“You can just set it anywhere,” Lawrence told him.

The man sat the chest next to the road and Lawrence reached into his purse and pulled out a few coppers and handed them to the man.

“Thank-you sir! Thank-you!” The man said exuberantly as he made a small bow to the wolf-head.

“You are very welcome.”

In a moment the last rider of the day joined Jesse and Lawrence. He was a jackal-head, nicely dressed like Lawrence and wore spectacles that stretched back up and looped over his pointed ears. Jesse felt the same mixture of fear and hate that he had first felt when he had met Lawrence, but since they would be spending the day riding together Jesse decided that he’d better be friendly to the an-nef and so he extended his hand.

“The name’s Jesse. And your’s?”

The jackal-head did not reciprocate his overture, but just snarled and said, “Children don’t speak unless spoken to!”

“Pleased to see you again, Jesse,” Lawrence said.

“Please to see you, Lawrence.”

By then the coach had arrived, and the three of them, including Enoch, started to get in.

“Dogs aren’t allowed in the coach,” snapped the driver.

Jesse handed the man a coin.

“Unless accompanied by a human,” the driver concluded.

Enoch hopped up into the coach.

“I refuse to ride with some smelly dog!” complained the jackal-head.

“And I refuse to ride with some smelly jackal-head!” countered Enoch.

For a moment the driver said nothing, but just stared at Enoch. Then he announced to all of them, “I don’t care who stays and who walks, but I’m pulling out as soon as I’m finished loading. I have a long drive ahead of me.”

With that he turned and grabbed Lawrence’s chest and heaved it up on top of the carriage. After strapping it down he climbed up into the driver’s seat and grabbed the reins. The jackal-head jerked open the coach’s door and quickly hopped up in, mumbling to himself something about ill-mannered humans and smart-mouthed dogs.

As the coach slowly wound its way up the mountain the farms became fewer and fewer, and the trees changed from oak and maple to towering pines growing up out the side of steep terrain. No one was speaking, so Lawrence pulled out his scroll and began to read again.

“What are you reading?” the jackal-head snapped.

“
Prophecies of the Prophet
.”

“The
human
prophet?” As he said the word, “human” Jesse could hear the disdain in his voice.

“Yes.”

“Baah! He’s a phony.”

Suddenly, Jesse could feel himself getting defensive over a man that he had attacked in the same way not a day before.

“Do you really believe that stuff about the Emperor of Atlantis coming back to life?”

“Yes, I do.” Lawrence never took his eyes off the scroll.

“You know, our prophet in Eden has prophesied that Emperor Canaan will come back from the dead, too.”

“That so?”

“Sure is.”

Lawrence lowered the scroll and peered over it at the jackal-head, “Did Emperor Canaan die recently?”

“No.”

“Then how can one come back from the dead when he’s still living?”

The quip angered the jackal-head, but he said nothing—just turned and looked out the window. Jesse did the same. Up ahead he could see the remains of a burned-out farmhouse. Little remained of it except for a few charred timbers and a fireplace and chimney. He leaned back and tried to rest, noting that Enoch was already snoring on the floor. He was about to drift off to sleep when he noticed in the valley below another farm that lay in ashes, its farmhouse, barn and stable still smoldering. Throughout the day the scene was repeated at least twenty times, and as they neared Mountain Shadows that afternoon, charred ruins dotted the landscape of the hills surrounding the ancient city. Jesse knew that only one thing could have done this. He had seen the villain gliding through the air the previous evening. He had seen a real, fire-breathing dragon.

Finally, they were on a paved road again—the first that Jesse had seen since they left Atlantis—and the coach rolled through the high gates of the city. Mountain Shadows was larger, and cleaner, than either River Bend or Whitehurst, and its buildings were higher, some reaching the fantastic height of five stories. It’s streets inside the city walls were paved with cobblestone, and the buildings were built of gray stone. The nicer ones all had slate roofs, but many—including most houses—had roofs of wood shakes. A great boulevard ran down the middle of the city, and at the city’s heart was a park which divided the boulevard into two, one-way avenues. In the center of the park was a statue, which Jesses estimated at ten paces high, of the late Emperor Herculous I. He stood in full battle-gear, his spear outstretched greeting visitors to the city that he had liberated and rebuilt. Jesse could not help but notice the large number of an-nef in Mountain Shadows. Perez had been right, “They act like they own the place.” Jesse saw jackal-heads, wolf-heads, bull-heads, ram-heads, lion-heads and panther-heads. He had no idea that so many different versions of an-nef existed. They could be seen on the street shopping—and in many cases—running the shops. Truly, Mountain Shadows was a cosmopolitan city. And that was not all: Jesse also noticed humans that looked very different than the ones he knew of in Atlantis. These had very dark—almost black—skin, and had short, curly black hair. These were the “dark people” that Enoch had told him about on the road, the ones that had been driven out of the Foothills in the years prior to An-nef War.

The coach turned off the avenue and drove down a narrow side-street no wider than an alley. Enoch jumped up on the seat next to Jesse. He stared out the window with as much interest as Jesse himself.

“The last time that I was here was with the Atlantan legion. The city was in ruins.”

“You were one of the Atlantan murderers?!” the jackal-head exclaimed.

“You’d better remember where you are,” cautioned Lawrence.

“And you,” Enoch spoke to the jackal-head, “had better remember who you’re talking to. You’re not the only one that can bite now!” Enoch bared his teeth and growled at the jackal-head.

“Filthy mutt!” the jackal-head snapped.

Without warning, Enoch bit into the jackal-head’s leg and started to whip his head back and forth. With a ripping sound the lower part of the jackal-head’s trousers came off and the man began to yell.

“Heeeelp! Stoooop! The dog’s attacking me!”

The driver brought the team of horses to a halt and jumped down.

He yanked open the coach door and yelled, “Out! The three of you! I’ve had enough of your bickering!”

Jesse, Enoch and the jackal-head climbed out, and the driver jumped back up into his seat. As the coach pulled away Jesse waved at Lawrence, who nodded back. Not all an-nef were jerks, Jesse had concluded.

The jackal-head limped down the street, yelling all the way that he had been attacked by a dog with mad-dog disease. Enoch just sat next to Jesse, wagging his tail. “C’on Enoch,” Jesse said. “Let’s find a place to spend the night. Tomorrow we buy a horse and wagon.”

Jesse walked in the direction that the coach had been headed, and learned from a passer-by that there was an inn just two blocks up the street. They found the inn, a pleasant-looking place called “The Gray Knight,” across from a small park with a fountain at its center. They were just about to go in and see if The Gray Knight had any rooms available when they were distracted by a commotion from up the street. Jesse looked to see a column of smoke rising from some place obscured by the roofs of the adjacent buildings, and people running in the direction of the smoke carrying buckets of water.

“It’s the dragon!” someone shouted. “He’s back!”

Jesse saw a large shadow race across the park and looked up just in time to see the dragon swoop in low over the roof of the neighboring building. It was a huge quetzalcoatlus. Jesse estimated its wingspan at some fifteen paces from scaly tip to scaly tip. It flew out of sight, but in a moment it was back, breathing fire on a wooden spire on a tall building across the park. Now two roofs were burning. The flames from the first attack could be seen leaping into the air a block away. The dragon worked its wings hard as it flew upward in a spiral over the park. No sooner had it leveled off then several men came running out of The Gray Knight armed with bows and started to fire arrows skyward at the greenish-gray winged amphibian. Jesse stepped back for cover under a wooden awning as some of the arrows began to fall back down, breaking as they hit the cobblestone street in front of him. The dragon seemed to almost hover as it flew in a tight circle above the park. Many of the arrows came close, but the dragon always seemed to stay just above their reach. Still, the men continued to fire skyward in a futile attempt to strike it.

It’s toying with them, thought Jesse. It knows how far the men can shoot, so it taunts them by remaining just out of reach. While he was staring up at the circling fire-breather, he heard Enoch speak to him, “Get your longbow, Jesse. Do it now!”

Yes, he thought. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Immediately he dropped his pack and pulled his bow off his back. In a second it was strung, and he grabbed an arrow from his quiver and ran into the street where the other archers were preparing to fire another volley. As they did, Jesse aimed and released his arrow. The other arrows raced skyward, slowed, then turned and fell back to the city below. Jesse’s arrow, fired from a bow a pace longer than theirs, continued on its trajectory until it slammed into the circling dragon. The arrow hit the quetzalcoatlus with such force that it pierced its chest and the arrowhead could be seen sticking out of its back. The wounded creature let out a shriek, and when it did fire flared from its beak. Suddenly, frantically, it began to fly upward, and as it did Jesse released a second arrow that ripped through one of its wings. Below red drops were hitting the cobblestone like rain. Then the dragon seemed to stop altogether, and it seemed almost suspended in mid-air for a second before it began to fall end over end toward the street below. Jesse and the others ran from the street as the great beast crashed into the cobblestones with a loud “thud” that shook the buildings on all sides of the park.

“You did it, Boy, you did it!” said a man standing behind Jesse as he slapped him on the back. “You’re a reallive dragon-slayer!”

Suddenly Jesse found himself mobbed by well-wishers and spectators that all wanted to shake his hand.

“Come inside, Boy, and I’ll buy you a drink!” said the man that had slapped him on the back.

Jesse picked up his pack and he followed the man into The Gray Knight. Enoch started to follow, but a bull-head inside shouted at him, “No dogs allowed!”

“He’s with me,” Jesse replied. “And if he can’t come in then I don’t come in.”

“This is the boy that just killed the dragon!” his new, unnamed friend announced. “Are you going to throw them out?”

“Killed the dragon, you say? Well, I guess we could make this one exception,” the bull-head replied.

Jesse sat down at a table and Enoch curled up by his feet. The man paying for the beer introduced himself as, “Irad,” and Irad had a long line of fellow congratulators who crowded in around him and were more than willing to buy him all that he could drink. The meal was free, as well, and the serving-girl gave him a kiss on the cheek when she brought it. He turned to say, “Thank-you” and she winked at him. He discovered that he could eat and drink blushing as well as not. The innkeeper came by his table and offered him a night’s stay at the Knight on the house. He had become an instant celebrity. Throughout that evening he was constantly being slapped on the back and having another full mug placed in front of him. He had not drunk like that since the night of his ninetieth birthday, almost two months back. Perhaps he had never had that much to drink. He was enjoying his celebrity so much, in fact, that he didn’t even notice when this big local guy came and sat down at the table beside him and began to press him with questions.

“What’s your name, Son?”

“Jezzie”

“Where you from?”

“The Futhills, in Atlantish.”

“From what house?”

“The housh of Nashun.“

“Nashun?”

“Nooo! Nashun!”

“Oh, I see. Nashon, is it?”

“Yesh.”

“A good house, Nashon. What cha doin in town?”

“I’m in town on biznesh”

“What type of business?”

“I’m gonna kill a jackal-head.”

“Why’s that?”

“I hate him…hate him…hate him.”

“Why do you hate him?”

“Becauz...”

“Because, why?”

“Becauz he kilt my fatha and brotha.”

It has been said that alcohol never made a man do anything, but it does impair one’s judgment. It lowers inhibitions and loosens tongues. Jesse’s tongue was about as loose as it could get that night. Enoch might have encouraged him to stop talking earlier, and retire to his free room were it not for that fact that Jesse kept pouring his excess mugs of beer into a bowl on the floor which Enoch continued to slurp up over the evening. Enoch was now passed out under Jesse’s chair. Had he been awake he would have seen the big man at Jesse’s table lift up his vest to show Jesse his shiny tin badge. He might have seen the big man and his two deputies remove Jesse’s sword and then have the bull-heads carry Jesse out the door as Jesse complained that he was feeling sick. He might have, but beside impairing judgment, alcohol also makes for a fine sedative, and Enoch was himself unconscious when one of the bull-heads came back into the Knight and carried Enoch out back and deposited him in the alley.