Dragonoak (33 page)

Patting
me on the shoulder, Akela said, “There, there, Northwood. I am sure
we are finding plenty of chances for me to bake more
cakes!”

Free of
my thoughts, I focused on the line ahead of me. It led into a tent
that had been hastily assembled for this very reason, desks strewn
across the width of it. Four people were working behind them,
taking down the names of those who filtered in without much regard
for them as people. None of those around me had a home to call
their own, and half hadn't eaten in far too long; I got the
impression that they were being sent to Kastelir to be kept out of
the way, rather than to help.

Those
taking down names did so with their faces pressed closed to their
books, and when I was called over, I almost didn't recognise the
woman I was stood in front of.

She
looked up by chance, brushing her hair out of her eyes and froze at
the sight of me. She realised she knew me before she could say from
where, and when it suddenly hit her, she leant back in her seat,
covering her mouth with her hand.

“You're... you're the healer,” she murmured. “You saved my
child, didn't you?”

“I—yes,”
I said in a panicked whisper, leaning forward. It'd been years
since that day, since I took her baby from her arms and eased the
rot out of him. “Please don't say anything. I just want to go to
Kastelir to help people, but if they know I'm a healer before I get
there, the soldiers will want me to stay in Felheim.”

The
woman nodded, eyes flashing as if she owed me so much more than her
silence, and said, “Do you remember who I am? I'm sure you've
helped countless people, so...”

“I
remember! I helped your son, back when he was a baby. His name is
James, isn't it?”

She
blinked back something dangerously close to tears and shifted to
the side, so that I could see behind her. James, almost three years
old now, was sat on the ground, eating a sticky bun. I waved to him
and he stared blankly, shoving more of the bun into his
mouth.

“You
both seem to be doing well,” I said. “I'm really glad.”

“After
you helped us, I was able to find work. Our luck started when we
met you. I doubt either of us would've lasted much longer, had you
not been here that day. And now... now James and I have a home of
our own, thanks to you,” the woman said, squeezing my hands in her
own. One of the soldiers cleared his throat, signalling for her to
keep the line moving. I didn't get the chance to tell her that it
was alright, that I was only doing what I had to; that seeing her
do so well was all I'd ever needed. “I'll need to take your name,
if you're to cross the border.”

“Um...”
I said, almost tripping into the truth. “Varn. Varn
Southsea.”

Committing the name to memory, the woman wrote it down, and a
soldier directed me to the gate leading into Kastelir, along with
the other volunteers. I'd been distracted by the woman and Akela
had gone through first, and I jogged to catch up with her. Hands on
her hips, she looked around, scowling. We'd taken that first step
into Kastelir, yet nothing felt different.

“Hm. It
is not as dramatic as I am imagining it,” Akela hummed. “The sun,
there is too much of it. The storm clouds, where are
they?”

Laughing, I hooked my fingers around her elbow and tugged her
along. We'd intended to break away from the group as quickly as we
could, but beyond the wall, there was nothing but open space, and
the soldiers had horses. Akela could sprint like a pane, but I
couldn't outrun them indefinitely.

The
two-dozen of us on Kastelir's side of the wall were led down to a
cart and packed into it like cargo. Those already in the cart
coughed like they were trying to be rid of their lungs, and as the
cart rattled and groaned, I decided the least I could do was draw
sickness into the air and banish it to I knew not where. Akela
guessed at what I was doing and squinted playfully at me, but the
moment Riverhurst came into view, there were no good feelings left
within either of us.

It was
what we'd been waiting for, what we'd expected to see, but we still
weren't ready.

Riverhurst was but a collection of crumbled walls.

Its
foundations remained, but there was hardly any rubble to speak of.
I remembered its silhouette, and the memory crumbled as the town
had, turning to ash in the wind. The stone roads were smooth,
melted and warped by dragon's breath, and I knew this was only the
beginning. Riverhurst was half a mile from the border; I didn't
dare to think what the cities further from Felheim had been reduced
to.

Jaw set,
Akela looked at me, then at the soldiers stationed in the ruins of
Riverhurst. Those who'd brought us down had returned to Benkor, and
the ones tasked with looking over us went to lengths to be
distracted by anything at all. In all likeliness, we were going to
be there until a sizeable amount of people had been brought
over.

The
soldiers leant against what had once been the wall of a house,
sharing a flask of what most likely wasn't water between
them.

“I don't
get it,” one of them remarked. “When did Kastelir ever help us out?
Hundreds of years dragons have been plaguing Felheim, and not once
did they send supplies or help our way. And now we're rebuilding
the damn country!”

His
companion grunted, took the flask, and said, “Just be grateful
you're not fighting the rebels. Heard they wiped out another squad
last week.”

Without
a word, Akela pointed to one of the remaining walls. Following her
lead, I darted behind it, pressing my back to bricks I
half-expected to still hold heat. She stood next to me, counting
down from ten on her fingers. She had two fists and no one had come
looking for us, had called out for us to rejoin the group, and she
decided it'd be best to break away now, before anyone could make
the effort to remember what we looked like.

Pointing
towards the edge of a forest leading away from Felheim, Akela
pushed off the wall, and together, we sprinted out of Riverhurst,
down the side of a hill and towards the row of trees that seemed to
pull further from us with every stomp of my feet against the
grass.

I caught
my foot on a protruding root and very nearly cracked my head open
on a tree trunk. Hands splayed across the bark, I gulped down a few
lungfuls of air, and dared to glance behind me. Riverhurst was
still. It'd be hours before they realised we were gone, and by
then, they wouldn't care that we were lost to them.

“We did it!” I said, slapping my palm against Akela's when
she held a hand out. “We're in Kastelir. We're
really
here, and... and what do we
do now?”

“Ah, Northwood, you are worrying too much, yes!” Akela said,
slumping against a tree. “I am knowing my homeland well enough, of
course. This forest, it is thick, but perhaps we are passing
through in a day. No more, if we are not wasting time. Many
settlements have been built up on the other side, and I am
thinking... I am
certain
that some of those, they are still standing. We
are finding them, and we are buying horses. How is that
sounding?”

“Much
better than my plan of picking a random direction and hoping we
reach Orinhal in less than a month,” I told her, stepping carefully
over the next root reaching out of the dry ground.

The
forest was as Akela had said; it felt too dense to spread out
endlessly, as though a whole Kingdom's worth of trees had been
confined to a small scrap of the country. It was nothing like the
jungles of Canth. The birds sung to a different tune and the shade
of oak trees kept any potential heat at bay. It was, however, just
as difficult to navigate. Every so often Akela would stop, place
her hand on her chin and hum, and abruptly change
direction.

I'd no
idea what she was basing her decisions on, but I knew it had to be
something other than her whims.

Other
than being a little hungrier than I cared for, I couldn't have felt
better about the way things were going. From the moment we'd
stepped off the boat, things had gone our way. We'd made it back to
my village and found my father – all without having to deal with
the villagers – and we'd made it into Kastelir without using an
ounce of force. Not only that, but the soldiers spoke of how the
resistance was taking down entire squads of Felheimish soldiers. At
this rate, we'd arrive in Orinhal, find the resistance thriving,
and be there just in time to see them reclaim their
Kingdom.

Akela
and I moved noisily, snapping fallen branches underfoot, causing
deer and rabbits to flee, illustrating all the paths we could take.
There were no wolves within the forest, nothing any more vicious
than sleeping owls, but an hour into our trek, our surroundings
shifted around me.

It was
so subtle that I couldn't tell what had unnerved me. It was almost
as though the sun was setting, causing the gaps between shadows to
darken, but it was barely midday, and I didn't think it could get
much brighter out. Birds continued to chirp at one another, but
there was something in their song that could've been mistaken for a
warning.

“Akela—do you feel that? It's
strange.
It's almost like...” I
mumbled, blinking hard. “There's something in here with
us.”

“This is
a forest, and we are passing through it. Of course we are not the
only ones here! What is wrong, are you becoming afraid of
rabbits?”

“No, I
just...” I tried to grasp at words that wouldn't come to me.
“Nothing. Never mind.”

Glancing
back at me, she said, “Perhaps you are getting a headache, yes? Do
not be fretting. Soon, I will be finding us something to
eat.”

I didn't
have time to hope she was right. I came to a halt in the same
moment she did, staring at the wreckage ahead of us. Trees had been
knocked over – some torn from the ground, others snapped in two –
and deep ruts were scored into the earth. Akela held out a hand,
trying to stop me from walking into some trap or danger, but I
stepped around her, knowing what it was that I felt.

Death
and rot swarmed the forest, clinging to the air like a thousand
circling flies.

The ruts
in the dirt were deep enough for me to step into, reaching halfway
up my shins, and I followed them as Akela said, “Northwood, what
you are doing, I do not think...”

The rest
of her words went unspoken when she saw what I did. At the end of
the forest's scar, beneath torn foliage and snapped branches, was a
dragon.

My heart
pounded, though it had been dead for a long, long time. Weeks. A
month, perhaps.

It was a
fhord, but the creature was so young it couldn't have ever come to
know its place amongst its tribe. Its body was no bigger than the
cart we'd been brought in, and its wings stretched out, worn thin
in places. The scales had turned from purple to a murky, festering
brown-green, and time had softened its skin. Birds had pecked at
it, and holes were torn into the side of the cheek turned up
towards us.

A
dragon-bone spear dug deep into its side.

Perhaps
the Felheimish had still been raising this dragon when they lost
control of it and had to put it down; perhaps it had flown as far
as it could with a blade dug deep in its chest, before crashing
here.

Or maybe
the Felheimish were so desperate they were sending young dragons
into Kastelir, and the resistance were fighting back.

Either way, none of it was fair. I knelt by the head that was
bigger than I was and Akela hissed, “
Northwood.
That is a
dragon
. You are stepping
away from it right now!”

“It's
dead, Akela,” I pointed out, but she wasn't given the chance to
reply.

All at
once, we had more things to worry about than a decaying
dragon.

Cheerful
whistling rushed between the trees and branches snapped underfoot.
Akela grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out of the clearing,
and backs pressed flat to oak trees, we listened as a group of
soldiers approached. The sound of their armour clattering together
gave away that much.

“At
bloody last!” a woman declared. “A week it's taken us to find this
bastard.”

“And
look at it. Barely worth the effort,” another soldier added. “What
do you think we'll get out of this one? Half a dozen swords? It's
already rotting. Anyone know if they're supposed to do
that?”

I
glanced at Akela. She was staring at the path ahead of us, trying
to discern how far we could get without making a sound. No more
than a few feet, I thought, and then the soldiers would be on
us.

“Makes
it easier to get the scales off,” a third soldier chimed
in.

There
was a great deal of fussing as bags were dropped to the ground and
the soldiers hummed out loud as they decided how best to approach
the task they'd been handed. I would've had to fight to remain
hidden, if not for the dragon itself sating my curiosity; I had no
urge to turn and look.

What I
felt from it was new. Different to anything I'd experienced before,
whether I was using my powers to kill, or to bring someone back. It
was as though the fear it had been forced to endure in its last
moments resonated around it, seeping into dirt, tangling itself in
the leaves.