He hesitated but knew what his next task must be and steeled himself. He directed Blackie to fly lower and scan the area near the gazebo. Immediately he saw the figure of a man lying beside it, arms twisted above his head in an unnatural manner. The gazebo had become the place of solace for his father in the last few years, the one safe place in the world where he would sit and communicate with Gareth for hours on end. Now it was a place of death and violence.
Gareth had hoped to locate the valley and provide help if the old man lay ill. He intended to rescue Cinder and have him fly to live with Blackie wherever they settled. If his father and his dragon were both dead, Gareth decided to have Blackie destroy their remains by coating them with dragon spit and letting the acid return them to nature so nobody could desecrate their bodies, but he wouldn’t risk the life of Blackie or himself needlessly.
His temperament turned as cold as a frozen lake in winter, and he set his mind, determined to accomplish his duty. He muttered, “Blackie, fly over that gazebo again, low and slow. Let me get a good look at the body.”
While avoiding the remains of the other black dragon again as he circled, Blackie seemed to have no problem in flying near the dead man. Blackie swooped lower as he turned and flew directly at the gazebo, his eyes focused on the prone body. It lay face up, a knife protruding from the chest. It looked like a farmer or merchant, not a soldier.
It was not Gareth’s father.
“Higher Blackie. Get up where you can see more.”
The dragon flew upward with long strokes of his wings as it passed over the jagged ridges at the upper edge of the valley, then turned for another pass at a higher altitude. This time, the dragon flew along the ridges that lined the valley on the sunward side. After seeing nothing of interest, it turned at the far end and returned to the house on the other side until it came to the remnants of a dirt road. The road left the valley between two peaks and entered the dense pine covered forest outside the valley.
Beside the road lay another man, an arrow protruding from his throat being the reason for his death. It had been a strong, young man dressed in clothing of yarn spun at home on a wheel. He lay with a spear near his outstretched arm. But it was not his father, either.
“What the hell happened, here?” Gareth said to himself, but the words slipped past his lips on Bitters Island and alarmed Paul, who sat with him.
“What’s wrong?” Paul asked, stiffening and half-standing beside him, which drew Gareth’s attention from the eyes of the dragon and back to himself, still in the chair.
Gareth silently waved for him to be quiet as he reached out and touched minds with Blackie again. To the dragon, he said, “Fly over the house and fly up and down the valley looking for any sign of other men.”
A third body was soon located, again not his father, and not a soldier. The cause of his death was not clear but that he was dead was not in doubt. Then Blackie found three more mangled and twisted bodies near beside the main house. All were located near the front entrance. Little was left of them. They were coated in black dragon spit, and nobody survived that. It must have been Cinder joining in the battle, for Gareth believed it to be nothing less than a fierce fight.
Gareth began putting clues together. Six men dead, so far. The one beside the gazebo told a tale in itself. The knife in the chest was probably put there by his father as he was attacked in his peaceful and serene place. He carried a knife to clean the fish from the lake. Another nearby died of an arrow, probably from a bow in the hands of his father, and the unknown cause of death in the next in line was also probably due to the old man, too. This idea was supported by the last three who died in an attack from Cinder—protecting his friend and master.
The scenario seemed to account for the deaths in the most logical manner. His father probably lay dead under a tree or in the house, or some other place that couldn’t be seen from the air. It didn’t matter. He was dead, and the bodies of so many attackers only confirmed it.
However, killing his father was one thing. The man was not superior in size, speed, or any other fighting attributes. In those regards, he was simply a man. But a black dragon? The largest and most powerful creature to ever exist? There were not even folktales of men defeating a black. That just left a single question.
Who killed Cinder? And how?
CHAPTER THREE
“Are you alright, Gareth?” His son shook his shoulder, alarm clear in his expression, again. “You’re mumbling about killing.”
“Who killed Cinder?” Gareth spat, pulling back from the mental contact with Blackie, Gareth found himself panting, his heart racing and sweat coating his body. He looked around, realized he’d abruptly left Blackie’s mind and was back at home sitting on his porch. A glance at his hands verified they were shaking. He wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
Paul asked, “Cinder’s dead?”
The words triggered Gareth to realize that while he was trying to find out what happened and flying over the valley, there was a danger for Blackie. Whatever had killed Cinder might still be there. He leaped to his feet wildly looking around the porch for his wife. When he didn’t see her, he grabbed Paul’s shoulders and shouted, “Sara. I need her.”
“I’ll go find her,” Paul ran inside, worry plain in his hesitation.
“Don’t worry about leaving me alone. I have to go back to Blackie again,” The words were too late as Gareth fell into his seat and closed his eyes and made contact with Blackie. He was pleased to find the animal was still in the air. Do not land again. Fly higher than an arrow can reach. Danger!
Gareth understood Blackie’s reluctance to land, and he was tired from flying so far. But Gareth felt uncertainty and fear in the dragon’s emotions, too. Never had Gareth ordered the dragon to do things in the sharp mental tone he’d just used. Locating his father’s remains became a secondary issue for Gareth, at least until he knew more. He couldn’t allow Blackie to remain in the area even if the dragon wanted to.
Cinder had been a full grown dragon for the last few hundred years. He was still in his prime. Nothing should have been able to kill him. Nothing. No force in the known world could take down an adult black dragon—And Blackie was smaller, not yet mature, being only thirty. If there were something that could kill Cinder, it could also kill Blackie.
Touching minds again, he glanced at the ground from a dizzying height. Blackie was doing exactly what he asked. Gareth ordered, Fly away from this place to that mountain you see far ahead. There you will be wary, but you can hunt and feed. Find a peak or cliff on the mountain men cannot climb. Eat anything you hunt on those slopes and remain there unless you see humans or another dragon. At the first sight or smell of them, you will leave and fly to another mountain farther away and wait for me.
It was perhaps the longest and most complicated message he’d ever tried to convey to the dragon. Usually, one simple directive at a time was all Blackie understood. If Gareth wanted it to fly higher and turn left, he gave it one instruction at a time, and often had to modify it until the dragon understood. Over the years either the dragon understood more and more, or Gareth became more adept at giving orders.