Rise of the Dragons Page 8

  All through the day Allie surreptitiously collected her meager stock of possessions and packed them into the small backpack she had arrived with two long years ago. She hid it under her straw pallet and distractedly went about her work: scrubbing the floors, keeping the fires supplied with wood, peeling the vegetables, and washing the mud-encrusted clothes of the farmhands. By the time twilight was falling, Allie was exhausted, but the thought of very soon flying to freedom kept her going.

  Allie was clearing up the farmhands’ supper when at long last the cook went to her room and Allie found herself alone in the kitchen. Outside, the compound was deserted, and heavy footsteps in the Zoll’s private chambers above told her that the seigneur had come in from the watchtower. Allie left the pile of dirty plates and with a feeling of excitement ran to get her backpack. It was time to go.

  She slipped out of the side door and stopped to check that all was clear. The wide compound was empty: swept clean, neatly stacked with wood, and all the work done for the day. From the long, low farmworkers’ annex set along the far wall came a sudden outbreak of shouting. Taking advantage of the noise, Allie moved quickly through the shadows at the foot of the wall, heading for the door. She was no more than a few yards from her goal when the door opened—and Joss and the traveler walked in.

  It was all Allie could do not to gasp out loud. Trembling, she watched the two figures walk across the compound. The traveler had her arm around Joss’s skinny shoulders and they were talking to each other as easily as if they were mother and son. Allie leaned back against the wall to steady herself. She felt weak with shock as the prospect of freedom suddenly turned to dust. And then, as Joss and the traveler disappeared into the farmhouse, Allie began to feel very annoyed. What did Joss think he was doing?

  There was nothing for Allie to do but creep back the way she had come and hope to sneak into the kitchen unnoticed. Minutes later, fighting tears, Allie was back at the sink, washing the dirty dishes with shaking hands, her mind racing with a hundred questions. She was so immersed in her thoughts that she did not notice the kitchen door opening and the housekeeper—a gaunt woman who had never spoken to Allie directly before—walking in. “Allinson,” the housekeeper said, “your presence is required in the Great Hall.”

  Allie spun around and gawped at the woman, her hands dripping cold, greasy water onto the floor.

  The housekeeper looked at Allie as though she were a piece of dog dirt. “Dry your hands, girl, and take that filthy apron off. Put a comb through your hair too, if you have one. Be outside the hall in five minutes and I will announce you. Do not be late.”

  As her mind whirled with all kinds of scenarios—all of them horrible—Allie did everything the housekeeper had demanded of her. And five minutes later she walked down the wide passageway, her feet sinking into the deep, soft rugs, toward the stark upright figure of the housekeeper, who stood grimly on guard outside the Great Hall—an executioner waiting for her victim. Allie felt as though she were sleepwalking toward her doom. If she had not known that Joss must be somewhere near, she would have turned and run and taken her chance. But right now, there was no choice. She must present herself to the housekeeper, offer her clean hands up for inspection, and wait while the housekeeper rapped sharply on the heavy double doors.

  The doors opened and the comptroller of the household—a large, round man with a glistening bald head and a tendency to hit first and ask questions later—put his fat, heavy hand on Allie’s shoulder and marched her in. Allie took in the scene, trying to understand what it meant. A fire blazing in the huge fireplace … the soft light of candles … the shine and scent of polished wood … and at the far end of the hall, the high table where three figures had turned and were watching her walk toward them: Madam Zoll, the traveler, and Joss. All of that Allie could just about make sense of—but what she could not understand at all was the expression on Joss’s face. He was smiling broadly and his eyes were shining with genuine excitement. Joss looked, Allie thought, as though someone had lifted the cares of the world from his shoulders.

  The comptroller pushed Allie forward, and as she walked slowly down the length of the hall, she felt the warmth of the fire seeping into her and realized that she had been shivering ever since she had seen Joss with the traveler. Joss made a move to run to her but the traveler laid a warning hand upon his shoulder. He held back but the excitement in his eyes did not diminish. Joss was on a high and Allie had no idea why.

  “Allinson. At last.” Madam Zoll’s squeaky voice broke the silence.

  “Yes, madam?” Allie said meekly.

  “You are a fortunate girl. Not that you deserve it.” Madam Zoll indulged her trademark sniff of disapproval. “You and your brother will be leaving us tomorrow. Out of the goodness of her heart, our guest has bought both your indentures for an exceedingly generous sum.”

  Allie now noticed that Madam Zoll was holding a soft leather bag stamped with the sign of the Lennix mint. With the bitter taste of disappointment on her tongue, Allie looked uncomprehendingly at Joss. Why was he so happy to give everything up just as they had been about to shake off their indentures forever? How could he abandon their plans for freedom so easily? Tears pricked Allie’s eyes. She felt utterly betrayed.

  The traveler now spoke. “Allinson, I can see you are understandably concerned for your future,” she said. “Let me assure you, you will be going to a place where you and your brother will no longer be servants. And when you reach your age of majority, I will tear up your indentures and you will be free. Until then, I promise that I will not expect any domestic chores from you. Neither will I expect any shepherding duties from your brother.”

  Allie was stunned. “But … but why?” she asked.

  The traveler smiled, and Allie saw that it did not reach the cool dark eyes. “In payment and appreciation for saving me from the ravening pack of wolves this morning.” Allie looked puzzled, forgetting for a moment the story she had spun in her panic.

  Madam Zoll sniffed once more. “We saw no wolves,” she said.

  “Ah,” said the traveler, “but it is the creatures you do not see that are the most … troublesome. Is that not so, Joss?” Allie saw Joss’s face light up with shared understanding and her heart sank: The traveler knew about Lysander.

  “I trust you will behave yourselves for your new mistress.” Madam Zoll’s drilling squeak cut into Allie’s panicky thoughts. “Now, Joshua and Allinson, you may both eat your supper in the kitchen tonight, and Allinson, your brother will sleep in your room.”

  Allie nodded. At least she’d get a chance to talk to Joss soon.

  Madam Zoll sighed at the problems of losing two servants, which were not at all easy to replace with the increasing shortage of young humans. She caressed the soft bag of gold to remind herself that the trouble was well worth it. “Well, girl,” she barked at Allie. “Say thank you to your new mistress.”

  “Thank you, mistress.” Allie forced out the words.

  “Thank you, mistress,” Joss said brightly. “Thank you very much!”

  “Good-bye,” Madam Zoll told them coldly. “I doubt we will meet again.”

  Not if I have anything to do with it, Allie thought. Not in a million years.

  Madam Zoll saw the unspoken words in Allie’s expression. “Get out,” she squawked, and aimed a swipe at Allie’s head. Allie ducked. She grabbed Joss’s hand and pulled him roughly along behind her as she headed for the double doors at the end of the hall.

  Allie closed the kitchen door behind them. “What’s going on, Joss?” she demanded. “What happened to all our plans? We were going to be free and you’ve just gotten us sold again! And what about Lysander—have you sold him too?”

  Joss retreated to behind the huge, scrubbed table in the middle of the room. He had never seen Allie so upset. “Allie, I know what it looks like—”

  “I know what it actually is, Joss. You betrayed us. But what I don’t understand is why?”

  Joss sat down at the table
and put his head in his hands. “Please, Allie. I did my best for us, I promise you.”

  “Huh!” Allie snorted in derision as she paced around the table. “I hope I don’t ever get to see what your worst is.”

  Joss looked up. “Sit down, Allie, please. Just let me explain.”

  Noisily, Allie scraped the chair back opposite Joss, sat down, plonked her elbows on the table. “Okay, Joss. Explain away.”

  Joss took a deep breath and began. “After you went, I fell asleep. I was so tired … so anyway, I got woken up by Lysander licking my nose.” Joss smiled at the memory. “I saw it was late afternoon already, so when I heard a kind of rustling noise outside I thought it was you and you’d gotten away early. I just didn’t think. I called out your name and ran outside and—”

  “It was her. Snooping around,” Allie finished for him.

  “She wasn’t snooping, Allie,” Joss protested. “She was just walking past the sheepfold. She said hello and I said hello and then … well, we got talking. She seemed really nice.”

  “Okay, I get that you had to talk to her once she’d seen you, but there was no need for you to show her Lysander,” Allie said.

  Joss shook his head. “I didn’t show her. Lysander came out.”

  Allie sighed. “And then what happened?”

  “Well, she was amazed. I mean, of course she was. And she told me all about her dragon—she’s got a Blue—and how much she loves him and how she’d nursed him through scale fever and that flying with him was the only thing in her life that made her happy. So I told her how happy I had felt when I flew with Lysander and she looked horrified. She asked if I knew how dangerous it was for a Silver to fly with a human—even one as small as me—before they are fully grown. She said Silvers have really soft backbones and you can actually bend them permanently, which I didn’t realize.” Joss dared to glance up at Allie. “So you see, I knew then there was no way we could fly away tonight. I knew we were stuck here. And that very soon the Zolls would see all the crows above the quarry and discover the sheep were dead and then they’d find Lysander and …” Joss trailed off and put his head in his hands.

  “So when she offered to buy our indentures, it seemed like a way out,” Allie said flatly.

  “It is a way out,” Joss protested. “She’s offered us a home, Allie. A proper home where we can keep Lysander and not be servants anymore. I know it’s not what we wanted but it gets us out of here. And Lysander. And you. I insisted she took you too.”

  “Well, thanks for that,” Allie said sourly.

  Joss looked at his sister miserably. “Why don’t you like her?” he asked.

  Allie shook her head. “She’s creepy, Joss. Can’t you see? Her eyes are dead. I don’t think she cares one bit about you. And I know she doesn’t care at all for me. She just wants to get her hands on Lysander.”

  Joss shook his head. “That’s not true. You didn’t hear her talk about her Blue. No one who loves a dragon so much can be a bad person. No one.”

  “I just hope you’re right,” said Allie.

  At that, the cook came into the kitchen. She slopped two bowls of stew on the table and left, slamming the door behind her. Joss and Allie ate their gristly mush in silence.

  Joss and Allie left early the next morning with the traveler—who, Allie noted, had still not told them her name. They headed out along the path to the sheepfold, footsteps dark in the early morning dew, Allie trailing behind.

  Lysander was lying in the empty sheepfold gazing dreamily up at the sky. At the sight of Joss, he got to his feet and went over to nuzzle him. Warily, Lysander allowed the traveler to stroke his soft snout, but with a dragon’s inborn suspicion of divulging his identity to a stranger, he would not give Joss permission to tell the traveler his name.

  As they stood by the sheepfold fence, the traveler explained that it was a whole day’s walk to her home and she hoped that would not be too tiring for them all. She then suggested that it would be wise to lead Lysander—or the Silver, as she called him—on a halter just in case something spooked him and he flew off. Young dragons were very skittish at times, she said with a smile as, from the depths of her voluminous robes, she produced a large, leather halter with heavy brass buckles.

  Allie stared at the halter in disbelief. “You’re not going to let her do that, are you?” she whispered to Joss.

  Joss watched the traveler gently tickling Lysander under his chin—a hypnotizing skill at which D’Mara excelled. Joss noted how Lysander’s eyes were slowly closing and felt a feeling of calm emanating from his Lock. In fact, right then Joss was feeling pretty mellow himself too.

  Allie, however, was not. “Joss, look at that halter!” she hissed. “It’s horrible.”

  “It’s all right,” Joss said in a low voice. “Lysander will be fine. Anyway, she’s right, he might fly off. We might lose him. Which would be awful.”

  “But he’s your Lock, Joss,” Allie hissed. “Lysander’s not going anywhere without you.”

  The traveler looked around at the outbreak of whispering behind her. She gave Allie a long, cold stare and then said sweetly to Joss, “Joshua, would you like to help your dragon put this on?”

  Allie watched in dismay while Joss helped to fit the halter around the back of Lysander’s head and over his snout. Lysander submitted, although Allie thought the dragon seemed uneasy.

  They set off along the track that led away from the stone circle, and soon they reached the borders of the Zoll farmlands where the grassy pastures turned to stony ground and scrub. Joss walked beside the traveler, chatting happily about dragons while Lysander followed, head bowed awkwardly with the restricting halter, and Allie trailed after them. And so the day progressed: every step taking Allie away from a place she loathed, but toward somewhere that she could not help but dread. As they trudged over the bleak landscape, past empty, eyeless cottages and through eerily deserted villages, they drew ever closer to the jagged line of the Black Mountains, dark against the clear blue sky. Slowly, Allie began to piece together a jigsaw in her mind—and she didn’t like the picture she was making one bit.

  At midday they stopped by a small stream to eat the bread and cheese Madam Zoll had reluctantly provided and to allow Lysander a much-needed drink. In response to Allie’s questions, the traveler explained that they were heading for the foothills of the mountains. “The foothills below Fortress Lennix?” Allie asked. “Isn’t it dangerous living there, so close to all those Raptors?”

  “Not to us,” the traveler answered smoothly. “They pay us no attention at all.”

  “They might when they see a Silver dragon,” Joss said anxiously.

  The traveler was dismissive. “They have far too many of their own dragons to bother with such a little runt as yours, Joshua.”

  Joss looked offended at Lysander being called a runt, but he said nothing. Allie wondered if he was at last beginning to sense that something was wrong. It’s about time, she thought.

  The journey continued through the height of the day as they trudged along the dusty tracks that wound over the empty, parched plains, the sun hot on their skin, their mouths sticky with thirst. They stopped for water at another stream but the traveler seemed anxious to keep going and would not let them rest. By late afternoon they were wearily climbing across the gravelly uplands that led to the Black Mountains and even Joss was beginning to feel scared. It seemed to him that the closer they got to the mountains, the less friendly the traveler became. Twice she snappily told him to “get a move on,” and then, as they neared the shadows of a huge, dark canyon that led into the mountains, Joss tripped over a rock and went sprawling. Allie ran to help him but their new mistress got there first. She grabbed Joss’s arm and pulled him roughly to his feet, gripping him so hard he could feel her nails digging into his skin. “Look where you’re going, idiot boy,” she snapped.

  Joss suddenly felt afraid. He glanced at Allie and saw his fear echoed in her eyes, and at last Joss understood that he had made a terribl
e mistake. Run, Allie! Run! he mouthed.

  Allie nodded, eyes wide. Now, Joss, she mouthed in return. Now!

  Joss wrenched his arm from the traveler’s grasp and in a moment he was free. At once Lysander understood that things had changed—his Lock no longer wished him to submit to the halter. Lysander reared up and the weight of him pulled the halter snaking out from the traveler’s grasp, burning the palm of her right hand as it went. She gasped with the pain and sank to her knees, nursing her hand.

  Joss, Allie, and Lysander took their chance. They went hurtling down the gritty slope, stumbling, sliding in their desperation to get away. For a few heady seconds, Joss and Allie thought they had done it. The traveler was still on her knees, screaming at the mountains, “Krane! Krane! Krane!”

  Lysander drew to a halt. We fly away, he sent to Joss.

  “Why’ve you stopped?” Allie demanded anxiously.

  “Lysander wants us to fly with him. But remember what the traveler said?”

  “She’s a liar,” Allie told him. “Come on, Joss. If Lysander says it’s okay to fly, then it is. Hurry up. Get on.”

  Joss looked back at the traveler, who was now staggering to her feet, still yelling, “Krane, Krane, Krane!” which he assumed was some kind of mountain swear word. “Allie, let’s not risk it. Please. Let’s just run. What can she do anyway? It’s three against one.”

  And then, at those very words, it was three against one no more. Framed in the patch of sky between the towering walls of the canyon was a massive blue dragon swooping down—and on its white underbelly, Joss and Allie saw the trident Raptor tattoo. And that was not all; behind the Blue came a huge Green, and then an arrow formation of five more Raptors.