He counted again, one, two, three, and four. He kept the rhythm steady, never dipping the end of the paddle too far into the water, but learning to adjust the depth of each stroke to maintain the direction without needing many corrections. He knelt and his knees were sore and wet. His shoulders ached. And he needed more sleep, but after a quick glance behind gave that last idea up. Dawn curled up and soon breathed heavily in a steady rhythm of his own.
Hunger reared its ugly head, a constant reminder for him. After they had slain his family in the attack, he had gone hungry for several days and after that time of daily hunger, finding food and eating turned into more of a priority than ever before. Seth planned his next meals but always eating when the opportunity arose. When walking in the forest, if he saw ripe berries he paused and ate them on the spot, knowing that carrying them meant one of the Salt People would take and eat them, for spite if nothing else.
He remembered it had been different before the attack, they had been good. As the weather had warmed, when he lived in his old home, his mother and father allowed him to play or splash in the water with his friends. They fed him regularly. He had chores, mostly consisting of helping his mother while his older brothers helped his father hunt, make weapons, or defend the family. His sisters had left the family at an early age, always with young men. They never returned.
Seth allowed those ideas to form in his mind as he fondly considered his earlier life. Since the attack on his family, he hadn’t had the time to review all of it, remembering the good times as well as others. His life consisted of either doing chores from daybreak until dark, or the Salt People beat him for being lazy. With darkness came time to sleep and after working all day he seldom remained awake after sunset.
His thoughts returned to Dawn. What would his father have said about him? Seth pictured his father as being taller and stronger than any other man, and his other sons tended to take after him, too. All but Seth. Seth was short and didn’t enjoy hunting, fighting, or strenuous work. Instead of doing things in the old ways, he devised new ones that made for less work.
His brothers used to dig for roots with a wide bladed shovel, each scoop removing a basket full of dirt at the cost of wasted energy. Seth took a broken shovel blade and reshaped it into a narrow blade that went into the dirt easily. Instead of a basket of dirt it removed a fraction of that, and dug deeper. The roots they gathered were easier to reach. In disgust, his brother had quit doing the digging tasks and given the job, and the narrow shovel to one of the sisters.
His brother believed that Seth had made a fool of him. The sister that inherited the job of root gathering hated him even more because of the extra work for her. But most of the time his ideas bettered their lives. While the men fished with a hook on the end of a hand line, Seth fashioned several hooks on the same line and often caught two or even three fish at the same time.
His family seemed to enjoy his quirky personality, even to the point of showing respect for him as he grew older. The concept that they were all dead seemed more remote each day as they faded from memory. There was one sister with long yellow hair who was almost old enough to marry. She ignored him in favor of showing her coy smile to any older boy from another village that would look in her direction. Seth could still see her face in his mind, but only dimly, and her name escaped him. All memories of his original family grew fainter with each passing day.
Would they all fade away in time? His morose thoughts kept his mind busy. When he looked up again, a smudge rose over the water ahead. Turning his head to each side to get his bearings, he found nothing else like it, but it seemed to be where the canoe headed so he resumed paddling.
The smudge slowly started to take on detail. Seth was sure it was the shore, but it looked so far away. What was it doing way out there in the deep water? More importantly, could Modoc find his way to it?
Seth didn’t wake the old man again. He must be worn out, an old body paddling all night long, with no warm fire or food. The wind from his left side tended to push the canoe to the right, so he pointed the boat at the left end of the land when he felt the boat shift under him. Dawn was sitting up.
“Yer, doing good, Seth. That’s where we’re bound.”
“Is there food? I’m hungry.”
“There is, but we’ll have to gather it. I’ll show you.”
Seth continued a few more strokes, then abruptly asked, “Will the people treat me mean?”
“No meaner than me,” Dawn said, the laughter clear in his voice and a now familiar smile on his lips.
Ahead, the land took on more definition. Tall cliffs met the water, cliffs made of solid rock. As if reading Seth’s thoughts and concerns, Dawn said, “If you don’t mind, we need to point this thing further to the left and go around that point. We can row ashore because there are beaches instead of cliffs.”
“Modoc will find me here. It’s too close.”
“He the big one that chased us? Well, I think you’ll be safe here. Want me to take the paddle?”
No matter what the old man said, Modoc would follow the shoreline until he found the canoe. One night’s travel was not enough distance, but Seth wouldn’t argue. He wouldn’t stay, either. The matter resolved in his mind, he handed the paddle to Dawn and settled back to watch the approaching cliffs and the green forests above.
Dawn made a wide circle, taking them further out to sea and then around the end of the point, only to reveal more cliffs. When Seth was about to comment on it, he noticed they were not as high, and beyond those closest, they became lower and seemed to disappear. Maybe Dawn was smarter.
A flicker of movement captured his attention. Up near the few puffy clouds, a dark spot emerged, appearing as if it flew out of the cloud instead of behind it. The wings were long and shaped like those of bats instead of birds. The body looked thin, the neck as long as that of a heron, but the overall appearance didn’t fit any bird he’d ever seen.
He watched it circle and descend. Although still too far off to see detail, the creature dove to the surface of the water and then flapped its wings furiously. It lifted into the sky again, carrying something with its feet. It flew a wide circle and headed for the beach.
Seth looked over his shoulder, questioning the old man.
Dawn said simply, “A dragon.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“A dragon?” Seth repeated. He hadn’t heard the word before.
“That great creature we saw flying was a dragon. Part bat, part horse, and part snake, if you ask me. It eats anything it can get talons into, including slow men and small boys in canoes.”
Dawn spoke too much, and as a result, Seth didn’t believe all, or even most of his wild tales, but recalling what he’d seen, he didn’t know what to discount. Every lie or exaggeration held a kernel of truth. “Does it live near where we’re going?”
“Course it does. That thing is part of what keeps us safe from people like your friends back there,” he jammed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction where the Salt People had last chased them.
Remembering the evil look in Modoc’s eye, and the many beatings from the angry old woman, solved the issue. The idea of living with a nearby dragon didn’t seem as bad. The general air of meanness from all of them in that family had kept him constantly on edge. A dragon couldn’t be worse. “We can keep a watch out and hide when it flies.”
“Now, that’s a plan if I ever heard one,” Dawn said. After a short time, he continued, “What do you expect we’ll do when the others fly?”