Redheart (Leland Dragon Series) (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Riza stacked two gravy-smeared plates atop each other and balanced an empty mug in the center. She didn’t usually clear the plates from the tavern proper, but business was slow. With few meals to cook, she wanted something else to stay busy with, and to help keep her mind off the last couple of days.

“I’ll get those,” said Rusic, as he came around from the behind the bar. “Why don’t ye go drain the brine from the pickle crock, and re-salt ‘em?”

Riza waved him away and moved to another table of dirtied mugs. “I don’t mind clearing, Rusic. I drained the pickles yesterday.”

He glanced toward the door. “What about the meat pies? Isn’t it time to check ‘em?”

“I just did. I put them out to cool.” She followed his gaze toward the door. Outside, three farmers argued, their arms waving. One of them pointed toward the tavern. “Is that Jemiah Rode? He looks angry about something.”

“Never you mind about that. Just take those dishes to the kitchen, and get roasting some chickens for dinner.” He tugged her arm, rattling the dishes in her hands. He gave her such a push that she stumbled and nearly dropped them.

“Rusic! What’s—”

“Just go on, now. I’m expecting a crowd here tonight, and they’re going t’be hungry.”

She’d never seen him acting so nervous. But she obeyed, and, frowning, she went into the kitchen.

She plunged the dishes into a half-barrel of hot water. Then she set the spit in the stone oven and stoked the fire. She had the uncomfortable sense that Rusic didn’t really need a lot of chickens for dinner, but it wasn’t an unusual request, so she ignored the feeling.

She was just plucking out her third chicken when she heard a shout on the other side of the kitchen door. She wiped her hands down the front of her apron and crept toward the door. She gave a little push, and leaned her ear against the crack.

“The girl’s got to answer for what she done.” She didn’t recognize the voice. She tried to peek through the crack, but couldn’t see anything except a shaft of floor and bar shelves.

“The girl’s in my keep, and as long as she is, ye’ll leave her be. Ye got lies and rumors, and nothing else,” she heard Rusic say. “Yer cackling like a brood of old hens! I’ll not turn her over t’yer witch hunt.”

“She brung a dragon to my farm!” shouted Jemiah Rode. “We ain’t seen or heard of dragons around here until she showed up. Now she brung one to my farm!”

“There she is!”

The door swung open. Before she could pull back, hands grabbed her arm and wrenched it. A stranger’s face scowled down at her. He forced her around the bar, and planted her in front of a group of several men.

Rusic yanked the man’s hand off her arm and wedged himself between. “Yer stark crazy. Look at her, she’s a wisp of a thing. What’s her profit in bringing dragons down on us?”

“Ask her yerself! Look at her clothes!” Jemiah shook his fist. Clenched in his hand was a muddied strip of patchwork cloth. He held the cloth toward her nose, and his eyes hovered like a swarm of black bees. “How did a piece of yer clothes get stuck on my fence, girl?”

Riza felt the room lurch.

“Up t’yer room, Riza,” said Rusic. “Lock the door.”

“I don’t understand.”

Rusic spun her around and shoved her toward the stairs. “Now.”

She stumbled for her room.

Behind her, the men’s voices grew louder. “She’s got to answer for what she’s done! If she brought one dragon, she can bring two!”

“She’s a witch!”

“She’s worse than a witch, she’s a dragon-lover!”

Riza’s temples pounded, and her shaking hands struggled to move the door handle. Finally, the latch clicked, and she tumbled into her room. She slammed the door against the thunder of voices that bellowed up the stairs.

She didn’t understand. It all seemed fuzzy and unreal. She should take a bundle of things with her. Where was she going? Her bed wasn’t made. Her bird was gone. They took her bird. Odd thoughts jumbled against each other. Her brain wouldn’t work. She crumpled to her knees and hugged the empty bird crate to her chest.

The voices pounded up the stairs, and bashed against her door. What should she do? Should she just sit there in the room until the voices broke through the door and reached in to get her? Wasn’t there someone who could stop them? Rusic? Even Jastin? Kallon?

“Kallon!”

She heard his name explode into the room with her own voice. The voices outside were suddenly silent, and Kallon’s name bounced around in echo. She came to, kneeling beside her bed. She stared at the door, at the bird crate in her hands. Had she tumbled from bed with a nightmare?

Then, outside the door, someone asked, “Did you hear that?”

“Who’s she talking to?”

“Someone’s in there with her!”

The door erupted again in pounding. She jumped to her feet. She grabbed at the oak washstand and grunted as she tried to force it against the door. The door groaned and began to split beneath the barrage.

A coo whispered. She whirled to find her pigeon calmly resting on the ledge outside her window. She ran toward it and peered outside. A long drop. She’d never survive. Where was Kallon, when she needed to fly? “I need to fly,” she told her little bird.

“Mattress,” the little bird told her.

She stared. Now she was really losing her mind. She didn’t have time to think about it, though, because a wood panel of the door shattered, and an arm poked through, grabbing for the handle.

She ran to the door and swung her oil lamp at the arm. “Bloody ‘ell!” shouted a voice, and the arm disappeared. “She broke me arm! The witch broke me arm!”

She tossed the lamp and grabbed for her mattress. She dragged it, lost her grip several times, and left a trail of dust and straw. She paused, wheezing. A jolt knocked the door handle to the floor.

“Push! Almost got her!”

“Shut up, I’m pushing!”

“Something’s blocking!”

She hoisted the straw mattress over the sill. It hung like a dead goose, half in the room, half outside. She pushed. Her feet slipped. She slammed her shoulder against it. It caved into itself, nearly swallowing her. She tugged and lifted and screeched! The mattress finally whumped to the street.

She didn’t look back. She climbed onto the sill, swung her legs to dangle them, and dropped. For a second or two, her stomach went sick with weightlessness. Then she landed hard. Her ankle slapped to the cobblestones. She lay stunned.

A whisper tickled her ear, rousing her. Her pigeon watched her with a tilted head, his wings flapping. Voices spilled out in a tumble from above, and she looked up to find the faces of the men at her window, leering and twisted like gargoyles.

She rolled over to stand. Her left ankle blazed with pain and she cried out. Her leg crumpled beneath her.

“She’s over here,” called someone a few feet away, waving a torch. She tried to climb to her feet again, and managed to stand, balancing on her right foot. She couldn’t see. Her eyes were fuzzy. It took her several moments to realize she was crying. She hobbled blindly along the inn’s wall, away from the stranger and his torch.

“Come on, she’s here,” he said again. Her pigeon swooped up from the mattress and dove straight for the man’s face. The man waved his arms, and then dropped the flaming stick when he stumbled.

Then she felt hands gripping and bruising her arms. Her ankle jarred and she screamed again in pain, but her own ears couldn’t hear it; it was invisible against the wall of the mob’s roar.

So many faces, swirling with shadows and torchlight, mouths open and taunting. So many hands, thrashing and grabbing, tugging her arms in their sockets. A yank at her hair snapped back her head. Her face sizzled from the heat of torch flames. She saw a rearing fist, and then pain detonated her cheek, shooting bright lights into her eyes and rattling her teeth. She whimpered, knowing she was going to die. Her muscles went slack.

Moments later, the hands were gone. The cobblestones were a cold compress against her cheek. As the ringing in her ears faded, she heard a new voice call out, “People of Durance, you’re making a mistake!”

She managed to lift her head. The voice belonged to Jastin Armitage. He sat atop Blade, his arms raised. She sobbed in relief, and dragged herself toward him.

Black boots hit the ground and strode closer. Then Jastin crouched, and drew her up to sit. “Riza,” he said. “You should have listened to me.” He stroked her hair away from her aching face.

“What did I do?” she asked through a pinched throat. Flickering light cast over his features, deepening the lines of his bearded face.

“She brung a dragon to my farm!” came a shout.

“She’s a dragon-lover!”

Jastin released her and stood to face the swarm. “You idiots! She’s a girl! Look at her!”

Murmurs erupted. Looks were exchanged. “She’s a dragon-lover and a witch!” someone shouted. The swarm re-gathered and shifted forward, fists and torches waving.

“You lay another hand on that girl,” Jastin said, his sword drawing out from its sheath, “and I will remove it from its wrist.” He waved the tip of his weapon toward the crowd, which swept back with a hush.

“Ye warned us,” said Jemiah Rode, and he stepped out from the crowd. “Ye said dragons was coming, and they did! Right as this girl showed up!”

“She’s brought trouble on us!”

“We got more trouble ‘n we need already!”

Jastin waved his sword again. “All of you be quiet! Your dragon troubles are over. The Red is dead.”

An invisible wind froze Riza’s bones. Kallon? Dead?

“And just how do you know that?” Jemiah’s eyes narrowed.

Jastin reached into a pouch at his side. In the darkness, Riza couldn’t make out what was in his hand until he pitched it to the ground. It rolled, withered and dusty, toward her knees. A toe. A red dragon toe with a curving claw. She screamed.

Then she went numb. She reached for the shrunken thing, but couldn’t even feel it in her hand. She hugged the body part, Kallon’s body part, to her chest. She sobbed. It was all her fault. He’d never wanted a friend. She’d pushed him and followed him. And she’d killed him. She arched forward, pressed her forehead to the ground, and died inside.

From somewhere far away, she heard Jastin again. “Your superstitions have harmed an innocent girl who was only trying to help you. She lured the beast to me, as I asked her to do.”

“No!” Riza’s voice came out with more strength than she realized she had. She stood and tried to glare at Jastin, and at the mob, even though it welled the pain in her body. “I won’t lie! I don’t care what you do to me. I did not, and would not, help anyone harm that dragon. He was my friend!”

The crowd surged toward her, and even Jastin couldn’t stop them. They knocked him to his feet and covered him like a swarm of ants over a dry leaf. Riza’s legs trembled from the effort of standing, but she held tightly to all she had left of Kallon and watched them come.

Then, near her feet, the ground spat up a tongue of flame. The heat knocked her back to the ground, and the scaly toe bobbled away. Another flame erupted toward her left. Townsfolk dropped torches and ran, pointing and screaming toward the dark sky.

She looked up. A great, black cloud drew in fast on flapping shadow wings. A dragon-shaped mouth opened, and a spout of fire belched out to strike the ground behind her. Then the cloud descended, and was lit up by a wall of its own flame. It wasn’t really black, and it wasn’t a cloud.

“Kallon!” Riza called through crackling heat. She didn’t care if she was imagining it. She reached for him. Then she went limp.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kallon lunged and caught Riza before she hit the ground. She bore scratches and fist marks. Her clothing was torn. She looked just as she had the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He shook with a rage he’d forgotten he could possess. He cradled her, feeling her like a feather against his chest.

“You did come,” said the voice of the dark human.

Kallon lifted his eyes. The human limped toward him, his shape distorted through the haze of fading heat and smoke. Around him, villagers continued to scatter, except for those few that beat sticks at a thatched roof that had caught flame.

“Tell me,” said Kallon. “How is it that a race of creatures so filled with hate and destruction can produce such a gentle spirit as in this girl?”

“I suppose in the same way that a race of hearty, flying beasts can produce such a miserable weakling as you.”

“It’s you who didn’t save her.”

“She didn’t want to be saved. She’s being infected by your poison.”

Kallon growled. “Poison?”

The human stooped, wrapped his hand around his weapon, and pointed the blade toward Kallon. “You were a fledgling when you first stared up at me with eyes that wanted to die. You looked at me today with those same eyes.”

The dark human. The sword. Kallon finally remembered, and his stomach churned. “You.”

“And I’m only too happy to oblige.”

Kallon’s voice roiled out with a billow of smoke. “You killed my father.”

“Your father was already dead. I only made it official.”

Kallon lunged. He snapped at the human’s head, but the man dodged and spun. Riza was snatched from his arms before he realized what had happened. The human held her, dragging her feet as he backed away.

“You coward!” said Kallon. “You would use her as a shield against me?”

“Oh, no. I’m removing her as your shield against me.”

Riza jerked and moaned.

“Be careful! You’re hurting her!”

“She’s no concern of yours anymore.” The human laid Riza to the ground and touched his fingers to her pale cheek. “When I heard her call out your name in the cave, I thought she was there. I thought somehow she’d followed me.” He stood, pointing the tip of his sword at the linking stone around Kallon’s neck. “What is that crystal, that we heard her through it?”

Kallon touched the stone at his throat. It was still glowing a vibrant purple. It had begun a short time ago, in his cave, when Riza’s voice had called out just as the man’s sword had lifted to strike Kallon’s tail. Both the human and Kallon had been startled.

There hadn’t been time to think. The man dug the glowing crystal from his pocket, and he and Kallon had stared, listening, as Riza’s voice cried out again, and screamed in fear. Kallon snatched the stone and pushed the human out into the darkness. “Go!” he’d shouted. “They’re hurting her!”

Kallon had been left alone to listen to her strangled pleas. He’d shrunk farther and farther into the cave’s darkness, living her fear through the stone. He’d clamped his claws around it, trying not to hear, trying not to know that the human would be her hero.

Except the man wasn’t. Kallon had felt Riza resist. And when she’d thought he was dead, he’d shared her agony. She’d thought he was dead, and she’d shattered. In that moment, his own broken will suddenly set. He’d shot out into the night. He hadn’t even needed the stone to guide the way. He’d just followed his heart.

Now he stood watching the human and calculating his distance. Kallon would be able to scoop up Riza in two wide steps. “I should have killed you. I shouldn’t have trusted her to you.”

The human gripped the base of his sword with both hands. “I left
you
alive, not the other way around.”

“And I was forced to come because you failed!”

“Forced? Did you say forced?” The human crept closer. “She stood up to that pack of wolves and told them you were her friend.” He poked his sword again toward the crystal. “Did the stone show you that?”

“I heard it.”

“And you’re offended that you had to help?” The man glared. “I’ll be doing her a favor by destroying you before she has the chance to find out what you really are.”

Kallon bellowed and charged the human. As the man parried, the sword slapped Kallon’s shoulder. Kallon swept his tail at the man’s feet and knocked him flat. Then he grabbed for Riza.

“Leave her!” The human jumped to his feet and stabbed. Kallon felt a sting in his ribs, but ignored it.

Kallon was about to lunge again, when a distant voice cried out, “It’s the dragon!” He froze. The villagers had stopped panicking in time to notice him again. Faces peered from around buildings. “Weapons!” someone shouted.

Chaos broke out as villagers raced to action.

The dark man cursed. “Get her out of here. Go.”

Kallon turned, but spotted a red, withered dragon toe on the ground. His father’s body had been missing a claw on his left rear leg. He scooped up the toe, and, with a snarl, stuck it in the human’s face. “This isn’t over. I will kill you.”

The man’s blade chopped the toe in half. “Not today.”

Arrows clanged into Kallon’s scales. The dark human shouted and waved his arms. “Be careful! You’ll hit the girl!”

Hugging Riza, Kallon thrust airborne. The bedlam faded behind him, and the beating of his wings in the warm night drowned out the shouts. He’d come very close to crunching off the human’s head tonight, and he still trembled from the thought of it. He was filled with disgust at the violence of it all. At the humans. At himself.

“Kallon?” Riza’s fuzzy voice came from near his throat. “Am I dreaming?”

“No,” he said.

Her soft arms gripped his neck. “I thought you were dead.”

By the sound of her words, he could tell she was crying. He wished he knew what to say. For a while, the only sound between them was the whuffle of air as his wings pumped. Then he took a deep breath. “Riza?”

“Hm?”

“You told me once you thought your mother did a courageous thing by just closing her eyes and dying. Do you remember?”

She shifted in his grasp. “I don’t really know if that’s what happened.”

“But if it is. Do you really believe her choosing to die was brave?”

She paused before she spoke. “I believe it can be brave to die when you want more than anything to live,” she said. Then her voice grew very soft. “But I think it’s just as brave to live, when you want more than anything to die.”

After a few minutes, she went still, and he thought she’d fallen asleep. He looked down to find her bathed in the amethyst light of the linking stone. Her eyes were open. “I wish she’d lived,” she whispered.