Tugging the goat’s lead, Gareth sidestepped from the road into the edge of the trees and waited for his heart pounding. They hadn’t seen him, and his breath came easier. He eased a few steps further into the underbrush, keeping a partial view of the wagon while hiding himself and the goat.
Their swords remained sheathed, but their body stance belied any peaceable intent. The four looked angry even from a distance. One appeared to be the aggressor and spokesman for the group as he did most of the talking. The old fisherman sat and answered his questions calmly, but the soldiers appeared agitated and waved an arm in frustration. He took one step forward and raised a fist at Tom, but only for effect. Tom drew back but didn’t look as if he’d given up on whatever the argument was about. Then one of the others stepped forward and flipped a coin high into the air.
Tom snatched it. He reached into the bed of his wagon, pulled a handful of ears of sweet corn, and passed it to them. More tense words flew between the soldiers and Tom. He reluctantly handed them a few more ears of corn before slapping the reins of the mule beginning his slow travels again.
Gareth wondered why Tom had not simply given them the corn to begin with, but then realized the obvious answer. A farmer on the way to market wouldn’t give away his crop to anyone without payment. Doing so would raise suspicions. Besides, Tom probably suspected Gareth was close behind and wanted to delay the transaction long enough to warn him of the soldiers on the road.
The soldiers settled down in a small clearing beside the road. One went to work with steel and flint building a fire while the others gathered additional dry sticks and branches. They were going to roast the corn and eat it for breakfast. A young man with a goat traveling down the road might find himself “donating” his goat to the army for them to enjoy a meal or two. Worse yet, they might search him, including his shoulder bag, for whatever else he might have that they could relieve him of.
His mind played over a scene of them searching him and one of them reaching into his bag and pulling out his hand with only four fingers remaining as the dragon stuck his head out and licked his bloody lips. The scene in his mind continued with his arrest and the dragon killed. He didn’t see any favorable outcome.
Moving slow and easy so the goat didn’t make noise and warn the soldiers, he ducked deeper into the trees until coming to an animal path heading more or less parallel to the road. Before long, it joined another, wider path. When it crossed a stream, he stopped and spent the time required to wash the dried blood off the goat’s leg, and examined the wound again. It seemed stiff, but otherwise showed no signs of infection. The clean leg should not attract any attention from the Brotherhood. The goat drank its fill of water and Gareth scooped several handfuls for himself.
Do dragons drink water?
Gareth hadn’t seen it drink, but it was only the third day they’d been together. When they stopped, he had placed his blanket and shoulder bag near the edge of the stream. Glancing around, he saw no sign of the dragon, only a deflated leather bag.
“Where are you, this time, you little beast?”
“Snort?”
He turned. The animal stood downstream a few paces, balanced on a rock at the edge of the water. It looked at him for a brief second, then quickly turned and watched the stream. In a move almost too fast to for human eyes to follow, the head darted into the water, and the mouth lifted a small fish the size of his little finger into the air, wriggling and twisting. The dragon looked to Gareth as if asking permission. When he didn’t object, it tossed its head back and swallowed.
“You’re not going to need me to provide food for you much longer, are you?” Gareth laughed and reached out grabbing the dragon’s neck to hold it still. With his other hand, he splashed water on the dragon and cleaned some of the caked blood and grime from the loose skin. The dragon turned and twisted in his grip, baring teeth and hissing with each splash of water, but Gareth managed to clean most of him off. He held the flap of the bag open. “Now get in here and let’s be on our way.” The dragon leaped from the side of the stream and raced inside. As if you’re going to need me any longer. You’re doing fine without me. The creature darted inside the bag, seemingly wanting no more of Gareth’s attention.
The road Tom followed had been on Gareth’s right when he departed from it. It would be somewhere in that direction now unless the road had taken a sharp turn. The four soldiers eating corn should be well behind, but he hesitated to approach the road, again. Those soldiers had been deployed by their officers to search for him. He felt certain of it. There were probably many more of them on the roads nearby, and more on the road, Tom traveled. Teachers and the king’s army both hunted him, casting a loose net that they seemed to draw in tighter and tighter with every step. He left his things, including the bag with the dragon sleeping inside, beside the stream while he jogged through the thin underbrush to check on the road and look for Tom. In less time than he expected, he came to it.
Nobody in sight. No sound of the creaking wheel of the wagon.
The road appeared to go straight ahead as far as Gareth could see. Fresh wagon wheel tracks told him Tom was somewhere ahead. He ran back to the stream and gathered his belongings. Instead of returning to the road and all the danger of teachers and soldiers, he chose to continue traveling on the path. The goat seemed to have more spring in her step, and they made good time. Twice more he checked on the road for the army or the Brotherhood, or Tom, before returning to the path. The third time he heard the rumble and squeak of the wagon long before seeing it.
Instead of calling out and possibly alerting unseen enemies, he decided to get further ahead of the wagon and find a private place on the road to wait where they could speak. Drakesport couldn’t be too far ahead, and if they couldn’t talk beforehand, he remembered the name of the inn Jenson suggested while floating down the river. The Sleeping Lion. Tom would too. If necessary, he could sell the goat at the market and use the coin to eat a meal and get a room while waiting for Tom.
The path he walked was wide enough to travel without slowing. Animal tracks of many kinds showed in the patches bare dirt, but never the footprint of a man, nor a boot. The forest thinned into spreading trees with wide leaves, covering rolling hills. Many of the shallow valleys were alive with fields of lush wild grass. He saw no signs of farmers or their homes. While crossing one of the small clearings in the forest, he stumbled to a stop and knelt down because he felt dizzy – the same feeling as earlier. A fever? He looked for something to grab onto to steady himself. Inside his mind, the blurred vision crystallized. He saw the cloudless blue sky with a massive red dragon flying just above the far off treetops, near the next ridge. Gareth had never seen a red dragon and hadn’t known they existed. He had only seen the female black dragon that sometimes flew over Dun Mare, and that only for the mating season the last spring and early summer.
He shook his head and the vision blurred. He saw from his eyes as normal. Feeling his forehead, there was no indication of fever, and he felt fine. He spun and looked off to his left where he saw a ridge like in the vision. It was the same one his dragon now watched intently from the bag he carried. Yes, it was all there as in his sight, the ridge and a red dragon in the distance, against the pale blue of the sky. It was flying low and fast.
From inside the shoulder bag, he heard an angry hiss and glanced down. The black head extended as far as possible from under the flap. The small dragon growled and hissed. Then it quivered and stilled, eyes still fixed on the far off dragon. It inhaled deeply, drew its head back and spit a minuscule dot of black spit at the red dragon.