The Last Dragon 2 Page 9

  I helped her mount by holding the reins of her horse, and we rode, our heads bowed down to protect us from the wind directly in our faces as if it wished us to go the other way. My teeth chattered. I wanted something to put over Alexis’ face. I pulled the blanket over mine and closed my eyes. I rode blind, letting my horse pick the way.

  The wind picked up, driving the rain almost parallel to the ground, the individual drops striking the bare skin on my face like pelting hail or pieces of sand thrown at me whenever I lowered the blanket to look ahead. The wet, wind and cold fought every step our horses took.

  Later, I heard a startled child yelp in fear or pain. The oddity of the sound snapped me to attention, and my eyes opened. We’d ridden into a mother and two small girls with her who were struggling to walk in the same direction. They must not have heard us approaching in the howling wind as we came at them from behind. Kendra’s horse had bumped into the mother, and she had sprawled on the muddy road. A small child knelt beside her. Another watched from a few steps away.

  We leaped off our horses and tried apologizing, but the woman simply picked herself up and encouraged her two girls to keep walking with a voice more dead than alive. Her eyes never looked at us. She told the girls to be strong, and all three tried pushing on.

  The older girl was thin and limped with each step. She held her forearm in front of her eyes as she tried to move a few steps forward. She couldn’t continue. A blast of wind pushed her back several steps, but she gamely trudged ahead again without complaint. The youngest one was about six and almost as bad off as the other who was eight or nine.

  I asked the mother, “Are you injured? Can you walk?”

  “I’m fine,” she managed to say. “It’s them that can’t. They’re too young.”

  Her intent was clear. Kendra gave me a nod. We could take the girls, one on each horse with us, and the mother could make it on her own. However, I didn’t believe it. The mother was struggling as bad, or worse than the girls. She was trying to send them on so they would live.

  Our horses were struggling to stand in the rain and wind, lacking food, and mud sucking at their hooves at each step. They couldn’t carry all of us.

  Kendra leaned close to my ear and yelled against the shrieking wind and driving rain, “Want to go for a walk?”

  We placed the two girls on Alexis, the smaller one in front, and we pushed the mother up on Kendra’s horse despite their objections. Then we took the reins and walked. One step at a time, heads and bodies bent forward into the wind that pelted the tops of our heads. Now and then, I looked behind to make certain the little girls were still on the horse, finding them also leaning forward, their faces covered with my spare blanket. I took the lead.

  Kendra followed Alexis and at times fell so far behind it was hard to see them. I trudged on, slower to allow them to catch up. Stopping was not an option, or I might not have the strength to continue. My legs ached and protested every step. Worst was my ears. They became wet and cold, and the wind tore at them. I pulled my collar so high a stranger would think me a part turtle.

  Lightning split the sky. The girls screamed in fear, but weaker—or the increasing wind whipped the screams away and sent them back to Kendra.

  The rumble of thunder followed, then another streak of lightning. My head was turned, and I saw the other horse and rider, but not Kendra with the reins.

  I stopped and wondered as I waited, ready to rush back and rescue my sister. The horse was a shadow in the gloom and the sheets of rain. Letting go of Alexis to return was not possible. The horse might panic and race off with the girls.

  The other horse pulled up beside me, and Kendra leaned down to shout at me. “She died. The mother died.”

  I turned and walked without answering. One step. Two. The mother died and now what were we going to do? I didn’t know for the long term, but I did know that if we didn’t get out of the weather soon, we’d all die. There was no shelter, no houses, no hills or trees, and no gullies to hide in. We could return to Andover or continue on the Port of Mercia. Those were the only two choices. We were much closer to the port.

  The day turned even darker, and the clouds grew heavier, and we struggled to make headway all day long, despite the previous times we’d made the same trip in a half day. Soon night would fall. The temperature would plummet. Shivering took control of my entire body and wouldn’t stop. Kendra pulled up alongside me and slipped down to her feet. Her hand touched my shoulder, and I knew she understood the dangers we faced. The wind grew even stronger, we were weaker and didn’t need to waste energy to talk, even if we could. She helped me climb into her saddle, and she walked.

  We reached the City Gate of the port soon after dark and rode directly to the Blue Bear Inn. Nobody was in the stable to care for the horses, so we helped the little girls to the ground, put the horses inside with food and water nearby, and closed the gate without removing their saddles. We were simply too tired. Each of us took the arm of a girl and steered them to the rear door of the inn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  T he door latch wouldn’t cooperate and open for my fumbling fingers, so I weakly beat a fist on the oak. Someone opened it, and we stumbled inside more dead than alive. Several patrons in the dining room rushed to help before we fell face first on the floor. We were placed beside the roaring fire, hot stew and warm tea were spooned into to the four of us, and heavy dry blankets were wrapped around our shoulders. More logs were tossed on the fire. Questions were asked of us, but none that had to be answered that night. At one point, I either saw or imagined the little server who couldn’t stay away from me.

  Water thinned the stew, and more food was spooned into each of us. Wine and tea warmed our insides as steam rose from our wet clothing. We dried in the heat of the fireplace that held more logs, and the flames leaped higher as people talked in hushed tones about the intense storm, the worst any had ever seen at this time of the year, or any other.

  “It came up so suddenly,” one woman said.

  Another contributed, “There are buildings blown down, they said. Whole buildings.”

  A different voice said, “At least one ship sank right here in the harbor. The sailors walked ashore to safety.”

  The inn shook with the gusts, and the wind tore at it, but other than a few shivers that may have been mine, it withstood the storm. While it might seem that there were other things to think about and do, such as caring for the two little girls, my exhaustion was so great that people had to continually wake me to spoon food into me. My eyes were unseeing. My mind blank. My body had given out. If the inn had been ten more steps away, I might not have made it.

  I woke in one of the tiny rooms we’d rented, on the straw bed. Beside me, wrapped around one of my legs, and curled up next to my back were three other bodies, all of us snug under four or five blankets. One was Kendra, the others were the two little girls. They were all safe. I went back to sleep.

  The second time I woke was because of the shifting of one of them. I opened my eyes to find an inquisitive little face looking at mine from a handbreadth away. Her hair hung in limp brown curls, her face was filthy, and a cut over one eye had bled and dried into a dark streak. But she smiled when I met her gaze.

  It was the youngest. The older one and Kendra were still asleep. She pointed to her crotch. I carefully moved the covers aside and crept to my knees. The girl and I pulled blankets around us and in the early morning light we walked lightly out the back door and headed for the three outhouses. The wind had ceased. The air had warmed to almost pleasant.

  After taking care of business, we raced back to the main dining room and to the morning fire a man was fueling, where we laughed and warmed ourselves in the new flames. Several of the other guests appeared and were happy to see us. I ordered hot tea and bread with butter and jam.

  “I’m Damon,” I said to her as we sat across from each other at a small table.

  She smiled at me. I wet a rag and dabbed the blood from her cheek.

&
nbsp; “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She smiled some more, tilting her head from side to side as if teasing.

  The bread came, and after slicing and buttering it, I asked, “Jam?”

  She smiled again, shyly and completely without comprehension. For the first time, the totality of her odd appearance struck me. Dark skin, thin features, brown hair—like my own. She didn’t seem to understand my words. On impulse, I said, “Kondor?”

  She smiled wider and nodded eagerly at the word.

  If I guessed correctly, the girl was telling me she was from Kondor and didn’t speak our language. That raised a hundred more questions. Perhaps her older sister could speak with us.

  The girl climbed down and pulled her chair around the table in order to sit beside me. Then she climbed back onto it and started eating, the two of us ignoring the smiles and warm comments from the other patrons, some of whom I recognized as helping us from the night before. For at that time, the two of us were bonding.

  We ate in silence while I tried vainly to understand what was happening. Was she mute? I didn’t want to draw attention to it if that was the case. A sideways glance at her reminded me of Kendra at that age so much a lump formed in my throat. A seaman stood at another table, finished with his meal and ready to depart.

  “Sir,” I called to him as a thought occurred.

  “I’m no sir, I work the riggings, but what kin I do for you?” The man was thin, near forty, his beard short and wild with a tinge of gray, and his eyes merry.

  Stilling my pounding heart, and not wishing to throw too much information around in a common room filled with big ears eager to hear my business, I said, “I find myself in need of a man from Kondor, one who speaks the language. Would your ship happen to have such a man?”

  “We would happen to have several,” he spoke loudly for the amusement of all the diners. “Would you prefer a scoundrel, a thief, or a cutthroat?”

  A few chuckles erupted. I said in a voice to match his, “Are those my only choices?”

  More laughter. He said, “Well, there is one deckhand you may strike an honest deal with. Who shall I say he is to ask for?”

  “Damon. Send him here this morning, if you will. If there is a cost to your ship for his absence, tell your captain I’ll pay it.”

  The sailor grinned. “If I tell that to the officers on my ship, they will find a suitable charge, but if I say nothing, they will only grumble. Which is it to be?”

  “My pay should go to the one you send me—and he should split it with you.”

  A woman clapped her hands and giggled as if watching a puppet play. The sailor touched the brim of his hat with two fingers and departed with a smile. I spread more jam on bread, and my new little friend at my side ate it as if she’d never had a sweet before. From the adoration in her eyes, I was her new hero, then she eyed another slice of bread and pooched out her lower lip to beg for more.

  To top off my day, the little redheaded waitress appeared with a pair of mugs filled with warm, fresh milk. She sat down at our table and pinched off a hunk of bread for herself. “Damon, who’s your new girlfriend?”

  Now, that was a leading question if I ever heard one. I could tell her it was my daughter and I’d never see the redhead called Flame again. I could tell her she was my little sister and then the question of why we didn’t speak the same language would quickly appear and make me a liar. Admitting I didn’t know who she was seemed a better response than at first.

  In short, I was tongue-tied again, a rare happening. Kendra and the older girl emerged from the hallway with the rooms, and her eyes found first me, then the server sitting with us. Her fake smile fooled nobody.

  “Care to introduce all of us?” Kendra said with a honeyed voice directed at me.

  She had me stumped. I didn’t know the name of the little girl, as she well knew, but that wasn’t the reason for her question. She was fishing for information to see if I’d managed to break the language barrier. To forestall having to explain, I said, “This is Flame. I’m sure I mentioned her to you more than a few times. And if you’ve forgotten, you met her when we stayed here last time.”

  Flame was giggling at my response. She understood Kendra was teasing me, even if she didn’t know the specifics. She stood and offered her chair to the older girl and asked what they would like to eat. I quickly asked for sausages and hard bread, along with butter and preserves for all of us. The milk would do for softening the hard bread. For some reason, withholding the information that we didn’t speak the same language as the girls seemed appropriate.

  When Flame departed, I asked Kendra, while looking at the older girl, “Can she speak our language?”

  Kendra shook her head. As if he had perfect timing, a skinny man with a missing tooth entered the dining room, peered around, and strode directly to me while observing the room as if he’d never been in an inn before. He wore the floppy brown pants favored by sailors, a thin tan shirt, and a cap with a chin strap to hold it in place in high winds or rain. The pants were not a fashion statement. If a sailor fell overboard, they slipped off easily instead of getting wet and heavy and dragging him to the bottom.

  He asked respectfully, “Would you be Damon, good sir?”

  His speech had a hint of an accent, and his manners and attitude were friendly if reserved. I stood, reached out and shook his hand and asked if he’d eaten, yet. He hesitated, but finally accepted my invitation to sit and eat with us.

  I’d watched his eyes as he approached, and they told me a story although I wasn’t sure what. They had darted around the room and then to each of us four, clearly puzzled. There was no sign of recognition, but a clear sense of familiarity between him and the girls. Picturing myself in his place, he’d been asked to go to the inn in search of me for a reward by speaking in his native tongue. He’d know me by name, not appearance. He may not have been told it was about his language, so he was confused when he found a table of four who seemed to be from his homeland if judged by their appearance.

  As he sat, he muttered a phrase that was probably to say thank you, and both girls responded instantly with an answering phrase. I pushed the plate of sausages in front of him while saying, “My sister and I do not know your language, customs, or anything else about Kondor. We wish to learn all we can this morning.”

  Again, the puzzlement showed as he glanced at the girls who had responded to his statement, then he selected a single sausage and placed it on the plate in front of him. He said as if suspecting a trap of some sort, “I’m just a poor sailor.”

  “Who speaks two languages,” Kendra said more harshly than made me feel comfortable. “Which is more than we do.”

  We were trying to learn from him, not drive him away. His reaction was the same as a dog that has been kicked too many times. His arms drew closer to his chest in a protective mode, his gaze fell to his plate, and he sat still. I said, “Please eat. Our first request is that you ask the names of the two girls.”

  He cast me another odd look that we didn’t know their names, which was a reasonable response, then he turned to the older girl and grunted what may have been a question. She replied with a bright smile, “Anna.”

  Simple enough. He turned to the other, the one that snuggled up next to me. She replied, “Emma.”

  Again, simple—if you knew how to ask in words they could understand. Anna and Emma. Similar to names in our language, only the emphasis on each was slightly different. Instead of speaking each name as an entire one-syllable word trailing off at the end, they were two distinct utterances. Emma became Em-ma, with the emphasis on the first part. An-na the same.

  “And your name would be?” Kendra asked him.

  “Penna.” He said before he stuffed a large bite into his mouth and chewed while his eyes watched us.

  He’d used the same inflection for his name, speaking the Pen portion harder than the ending, which remained as a second syllable. “Tell me something about Kondor,” I said. “The weather, for insta
nce.”

  He chewed faster and swallowed. “Hot. Dry.”

  “You’re wondering why that question was asked,” Kendra said. “We have never been there. Now you’re wondering why not since we look as if we sailed directly from Kondor. Is that right?”

  He nodded, his eyes on his plate as if wondering was a sin. I continued in a pleasant tone, “So it is hot and dry?”

  “It’s located on the north edge of the brown lands far to the south, across the Dire Sea.”

  At last, a full sentence. He spoke almost without accent, if a bit rushed. Another large bite of sausage disappeared into his mouth. Kendra said, “But you want to know about us and have not asked. My brother and I are from the Kingdom of Dire, from Crestfallen Castle, in the north. We are on a mission ordered by Princess Elizabeth, fifth child of our good king. We have never encountered anyone from Kondor. Does that answer your questions?”

  His eyes went to Anna to Emma. To his credit, he didn’t ask about our relationship with them, but he still had unasked questions.

  I said without him having to ask, “Obviously you still have things you wish to know. We rescued these two girls along the road during the terrible storm yesterday. Their mother didn’t make it. We know nothing about them and wish to have someone talk to them for us. Where is their father? Where do they live so we can return them home or send them to their relatives? We will gladly pay for your services since you speak both languages so well.”

  He hesitated, then relented, “I will spend the morning with you for no fee—for their benefit. Then, I must return to my ship to catch the tide.”

  “That should be fine, Penna,” I said, trying to pronounce it as he did.

  “Ask about their father,” Kendra said. “He must be frantic.”