The Dragon Coin (22 page)

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The Serendipitous Curse of Solomon Brandt

With Lisa Collicutt

(Please read on for a sample)

Chapter One

An explosion shook the ground—maybe the world. Senses returned, and with them . . . pain.

A blinding light carried me to the unknown. Commotion circled me, confused me. Searing pain swept though and over my body. Between matted straggles of dark hair, I watched a thick cloud of gray dust settle on the strange scene in front of me. When I tried to move, I felt heavy . . . battered . . . ripped apart.

People yelled.

"What the fuck?" said a man wearing a yellow hat, while brushing debris off his chest and arms.

"Who is this asshole?" said another, picking himself off the ground, holding the same type of hat, his body also covered in dirt.

With their looks of disgust pinned on me, I realized immediately I was the asshole they spoke of. With all the strength I could muster, I unlatched my fingers from the mane of a white horse I lay upon and straightened.

Excalibur.

I didn’t know how I knew the horse's name—I just did. But who was I? Where was I? And why did I feel bashed and beaten?

A cool breeze sailed over my skin, alerting me to my nakedness. The light pressure of the wind caused me to grimace out a moan. I tore my gaze from the seemingly confused and angry group of men and looked upon myself. Through the filth covering hard muscle, bright crimson gashes were visible. With a movement that caused me more grief, I brushed dirt-crusted lines of blood off one arm and blinked dust from my eyes.

Excalibur lifted his head and neighed. Particles of dirt slid down his coat. His action caused sharp pains to shoot into my groins, pressed against the horse's warm back.

One of the men broke from the agitated group and came closer. He stopped a few feet from me, gave the horse a look of unease, then looked up. A layer of dirt covered his deeply tanned body, and filled in the squint lines around his eyes. "Hey, are you drunk?"

Was I drunk? After brief consideration, I decided I was not drunk, although I wished I were and this scene was all a bad dream.

The guy spit to the left of him. "You got a name?"

The horse gave a soft nicker and turned, facing me in another direction. Instinctively, I flattened my hand out on its neck to calm it. In front of me, near the edge of the debris-littered road, a white ornate sign, framed in gold, hung from two posts. "
Welcome Home to Solomon Brandt Estates
", written in black script, stuck out at me from inside the frame.

"The idiot doesn’t know his own name," belted another voice from the crowd.

"I-I'm . . . Solomon Brandt." The weak rasp of my voice sounded unfamiliar. My seared throat begged for liquid.

Laughter rang throughout the circle of bystanders that formed around me and Excalibur.

"Yeah, sure you are. And I'm Abraham fucking Lincoln," said someone else.

More laughter.

Their jesting didn't divert my focus, however. My gaze was plastered to the name on the sign. My name. I was certain of it.

"Hey, Frank, did you call the cops?"

"Yeah, their on their way.

The guy called Frank removed his white hat; similar to the yellow ones, and raked a hand through his flaxen hair. "You're gonna pay for the damage to that sewer line, asshole."

After managing to work a wad of spit, flavoured with dirt and blood, down my parched throat, I turned toward him and answered in a stronger voice. "What is a sewer line?"

The grin Frank sported was a sign of trouble—I knew that much.

The muscles in my chest twitched under the lacerations, adding to the sting. Excalibur pawed at the flat, strange-looking ground. Even though I sat upon a horse, I could tell I was a good six inches taller than the guy glaring up at me, and broader. Although the muscles in his arms bulged from whatever he had been doing, I somehow knew I could snuff out his life with one blow in my best form. But I wasn't in good form, and I had to find out why?

A squeal like nothing I'd ever heard before pierced my eardrums. My mount crouched on its hind legs. With a white-knuckled grip on the horse’s mane, and my knees pressed hard against its sides, I clung to the beast beneath me, as his front hooves lifted and his upper body reared.

The screeching grew louder, and my heartbeat drummed against my chest wall, as I fought to hang on to Excalibur—my lifeline.

The crowed parted, and in between them, burst a shiny, white, motorized vehicle, with swirling red and blue lights on top. With a jolt to my entire body, the horse landed on all fours. A man and a woman, wearing some sort of identical uniform, exited the vehicle and swaggered toward me. My gaze drifted over the strange-looking couple, until it landed on a hand gun in a holster fastened to the woman's belt.

Powerless as I was, my urge to flee the lynch mob suddenly grew stronger. With amused expressions, the uniformed couple stopped a few feet from my mount, closing the gap in the circle. As the man opened his mouth to speak, I leaned forward and spoke low into Excalibur's ear.

"Run."

Without hesitation, Excalibur reared once more before lunging at two men, who sprung to the side, creating a tight opening in the circle. The horse dashed between the frantic-looking people, then veered right and jumped a white picket fence.

The force of the wind stung my skin as Excalibur carried me up an oak-lined driveway toward an enormous white house with a row of huge columns across the front. For a fleeting moment, I felt as if he was taking me home. Familiarity picked away at my brain as we hurtled up the drive closer to the mansion. As familiar as the structure and sweeping grounds seemed, the place also looked foreign, leaving me more confused than ever.

When we rounded the side, leaving the cool shade of the oaks behind, an expanse of well trimmed lawn, with paths laid out in rose bushes, lay before me. The sun beat down on my exposed skin as Excalibur galloped through the floral-lined labyrinth, as if he knew exactly where he traveled to.

Shouts from the mob carried across the breeze then diminished altogether as we neared the woods edging the back field. But Excalibur didn’t slow until we were well hidden amongst the moss-covered trees in the dense forest. I loosened my grip on the mane and straightened, flexing my cramped fingers.

The inside of my thighs chafed against the horse's hide, and I was sure by the bouncing I received on our escape, my most sensitive areas would be blue and blistered. But despite the agony, I remained on my mount, for I knew nothing else.

A canopy of twisted branches shaded us from the sun as Excalibur wove his way through the old forest. Before long a chill settled over me, awakening wounds, transforming misery to new heights. But the unbearable thirst soon overpowered all other conditions that assailed my body, awakening my sense of survival. There had to be a water hole, a puddle, somewhere in this damp, mossy shelter.

With little strength left, I hunched over the horse, closed my eyes and focused on the sounds surrounding me. Overhead, the canopy of leaves rustled softly, and then stilled altogether. Small birds chirped somewhere in the distance, and sticks snapped beneath the weight of the stallion. These things, along with my raspy breathing, and a low snort now and then from Excalibur, kept me company.

The sweet scent of honeysuckle and magnolia carried through the forest and settled under my nose. Although their perfume blended together in the air, I could distinctly pick each apart, as if embedded in a memory. A warm lull blanketed me, tranquilizing my body and spirit.

Maybe the end was at hand—my last few breaths.

As I flitted in and out of consciousness, hoping death would soon take me; darkness crept in, ripping away the blanket of comfort, and seeping into each of my wounds like salt. Moaning hurt my throat. The dark shadow stretched over the forest, bringing with it, raw coldness; its musty, earthy scent swallowing all that was good. My goosbumped skin came alive, and I knew death had averted me once again.

And that made me angry.

Despite my parched throat and the agony I knew yelling would cause, I lifted my head in the air, pulling the veins in my neck, and forced out a noise that sounded like something in between a roar and a growl. Feeling more satisfied than I had imagined, I repositioned my grip on the mane and dug my heels into the horse's sides.

Excalibur picked up speed, weaving through the trees that I could barely make out traveling this speed. But the darkness traveled with us. If I didn't know better, I would think dusk had fallen upon us—in a hurry. But by the position of the sun in the sky before we entered the woods, it could be much past midday.

As we rode through darkened forest, my wounds sizzled and bled as if sharp tree limbs raked over my skin reopening them. Trails of blood ran down my body, accumulating on the white fur I sat on.

Just when I thought I would go insane, we broke into a rocky clearing and back under the afternoon sun, leaving the mysterious shadow, and all its foreboding behind. The bleeding stopped, along with the latest batch of pain. I tilted my face towards the bright globe in the sky, set my shoulders back, puffed out my chest, and took a deep breath, feeling the welcomed warmth wrap around my body. When I checked over my shoulder, the forest behind me seemed as tranquil as when we had entered it. But although the darkness had disappeared, I felt the evil lurking nearby, waiting for its chance to swallow me.

I swept my gaze over the new terrain. Nothing about the clearing looked familiar. But something had to stick out. I had to belong somewhere. I couldn't have just appeared on a horse in the middle of a street I never saw before, half dead, and with no memory of my identity, no memories of anything before an hour ago.

My gaze fell to the back of the horse's head, the spot between his tall pointed ears. "Who am I?" I said, patting one side of his regal neck. "You know, don't you, boy?"

Excalibur replied with a soft nicker.

"I'm Solomon," I answered back with a nod. "Solomon Brandt."

Chapter Two

Halfway across the clearing, a pulsing wail—the same dreadful sound that came from the white vehicle—shattered the silence. Before I could nudge him, Excalibur picked up speed and headed for the hills looming ahead. As I bounced on the horse's back, gritting my teeth, as if it helped the pain any, I searched the area, but other than various sized boulders and ground bush, nothing strange stuck out. However, I still had the feeling of being chased.

They searched for me, whoever
they
were.

The piercing sound screaming danger chased us as the pebbled ground beneath turned lush and green and we began to ascend. Excalibur soon found a path that took us into the hills where low lying trees provided airy shelter from the sun as well as refuge from our pursuers, wherever they were. The loudness of the siren lessened.

From the summit of the first hill, I could make out in the far distance, the tops of buildings—strange looking structures with shiny silver domes, equal in height with the surrounding trees. Maybe I lived there. The mansion we rode through on our escape from the lynch mob flashed in my head. The place had felt like home for a brief moment, yet foreign all at the same time.

As we rode on, the landscape turned into a wooded area, less dense than the last forest. The siren had either stopped or we had enough distance between us, I couldn't hear the heart-pounding noise anymore. Weariness settled upon me again, and my head began to droop when Excalibur's ears perked up. I heard it the same time he did—frogs. Hope filled me, temporarily dousing the agony. Where there were croaking amphibians, there would be water. Excalibur twisted his way through a web of alder bushes leading me closer to the glorious sound. A few minutes later, we came to a stream, lined with rocks and mossy banks. Excalibur stopped for the first time since fleeing the mob, and pawed at the ground.

I hadn't really thought about dismounting the horse until now. Excalibur neighed softly, as if feeding me a line of encouragement, or maybe he too wanted a drink of the life-sustaining liquid.

"Okay. Have some patience," I said.

Using my hands, I lifted my right leg over the horse's back until I sat side-saddle, and then slid down his side. But when my feet hit the ground, I collapsed to my knees with a groan. But pain didn't matter in that moment. I crawled over the forest floor until I reached—gold.

Excalibur and I drank together. I filled my grimy hands and brought the cool offering to my parched lips. The cool water, rushing down my throat, revitalized me as I sucked the liquid back as fast as I could scoop it up. Then, despite the cold, I positioned myself so that I sat on the edge of the stream then hung my feet in the water.

As I lay back on the moss, I heard something that shot a jolt of fear through me, and I sprang back into a sitting position.

The sound came from a woman . . . she was singing. I held perfectly still, as did Excalibur. Then the voice ended abruptly, followed by bushes rustling. I jumped to my feet, expecting my knees to give out, but they didn’t. Frantic, I flicked my gaze to the horse. Panic set in as I wondered how I would get on his back. I was a tall human, but he was a tall stallion. He lowered his head until our eyes levelled with each others. The lustrous honey flecks stood out against the browns of his irises, as he stared at me. Then he did something I didn’t expect, he nudged me in the shoulder, and again, until I made a half turn.

"What are you doing?" I whispered

Whether he ignored me or this was his answer, I didn't know, but he snorted and nudged me again, this time between the shoulder blades. I took a step in the direction he pointed me in and glanced back.

With my head, I gestured towards some bushes, and what appeared to be a path worn between them. "This way? Do you want me to go this way?" I already walked as I spoke.