Burke relaxed. He crossed his arms and said, "You've picked up a fair little army with this 'join or die' tactic. Do you have any other plans up your sleeve? If you had sleeves, that is?"
The prophet smiled, his yellow teeth gleaming amid the dark tangle of his beard. "It's not by chance we travel the Forge Road."
Burke nodded, as if Ragnar had just explained everything.
Chapter Nine:
Fever Dreams
Bitterwood dreamed of fire. He fled down corridors of flame-wreathed stone in Chakthalla's castle, holding his breath to avoid the deadly smoke. He emerged into a courtyard to find his home village, Christdale, ablaze. All the wooden buildings glowed apple red, yet were still intact; the black cinder bodies of women and children stood in doorways, beckoning to him. He stumbled through the inferno of the village, his lungs aching, blisters rising on face, to arrive at the church he'd built board by board with his own hands. The structure collapsed in a spray of bright sparks. As the burning walls fell away, stands of living trees were revealed. It was the temple that had stood in this village long ago, the temple of the goddess.
He peered through the smoke into the heart of the temple, toward the statue of the goddess. In Bitterwood's youth, the goddess had been a wooden carving, immobile, but in this dream she was walking toward him, a voluptuous female form with skin of rich mahogany. Where her hair should have been there were gouts of flame, slithering together like glowing snakes, flicking their tongues in evil hisses.
The fire spread across her polished skin as she drew closer. The goddess stumbled, her glowing arms stretched toward Bitterwood, as if begging him to catch her. He tried to run, but couldn't move as the goddess fell against him and his own skin caught fire. In his panic, he jerked his eyes open.
He was lying under a stone outcropping. A small, pathetic campfire sputtered at his side. White smoke drifted from the coals and wrapped around his head like a cloud. With every breath the acrid stench filled his lungs. He was under a heavy wool blanket that smelled like manure. He was awash with sweat. The breath that passed between his shivering lips was hot and dry as a summer wind. He tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes. The hand he lifted was barely recognizable as his own; it was a yellowish gray streaked with purple. Bitterwood tried to wiggle the swollen fingers and they didn't move. He dropped the limb limply to his chest.
Glancing around the shelter, he couldn't see Zeeky or Poocher, but the boy he'd saved was near, leaning up against Killer's massive body. Both were sleeping. Killer's legs were covered with brown bandages. Bitterwood tried to speak, but wound up coughing. The intended effect was the same. Killer and the boy opened their eyes.
Bitterwood licked his dry lips and whispered, "W-where's Z-Zeeky?"
The boy shrugged. "Gone," he said.
"G-gone where?"
"Dead Skunk Hole," the boy said.
Bitterwood nodded, as if the boy's words made sense. Then he closed his eyes and slipped back into dream.
The first dragon Bitterwood had ever killed had been a sky-dragon. The beast had been flying overhead, little higher than the tree tops. Bitterwood had been practicing with a bow since the fall of Christdale, never wanting to again be unprepared to defend himself. Bitterwood hadn't needed to defend himself from this dragon. The sky-dragon never even glanced down as it passed. Bitterwood had been, quite literally, beneath its notice. Bitterwood could have ignored it and continued his training. Instead, he'd made a lucky guess as to how far ahead of the beast he needed to aim and loosed the shot. The beast had yelped a single word-"What?"-when the arrow caught in its breast, then spiraled through the air as its damaged chest muscles tried to maintain its flight. It crashed at neck-snapping speed.
Bitterwood had stood over the dead dragon a long time, trying to feel something. Guilt, perhaps, for killing a creature that had nothing to do with the deaths of his family. Or, satisfaction, at least some small flicker, that his shot had found its target and the population of dragons was now reduced by one.
He'd felt nothing. Intellectually, he was aware he'd just killed a fellow intelligent being, capable of thought and speech. Until this moment, the only large thing he'd ever killed had been a deer when he'd hunted with his brother Jomath. He'd felt some small twinge of remorse looking down at the deer, though that emotion had changed to satisfaction when he'd later dined upon a steak cut from his kill.
Remembering that meal, he'd cut the dragon's thigh free from the body and left the rest to be picked over by buzzards. That evening, he'd roasted the thigh over a fire. He could still smell the aroma of dragon fat as it dripped from the leg and sizzled on the coals below. He remembered the way the tough, chewy meat played upon his tongue, the gushes of smoky grease. He could still be warmed by the glow that filled him after that meal as he stretched out under the stars, his belly full.
To this day, there was no sound more satisfying to his ears than a startled dragon yelping, "What?"
Deep inside his dream, Bitterwood was aware of his nostrils twitching. He was keenly tuned to the smell of dragons, the way their hides stank of fish, the way their breath smelled of dead things. His nose served as an extra eye, alerting him when dragons waited in the dark, unseen. His lids cracked open the barest sliver.
A dark red shape loomed at the mouth of the cave. Then it was blotted out by a second shape, scaly like a dragon, but shaped like a woman. The woman's face drew closer. Did he know her?
"Recanna?" he mumbled before his eyes closed again.
"He's burning up," the woman said, pulling the blanket and taking away a fair number of scabs with it. The smell of rotting meat wafted through the air. The woman audibly gagged. "By the bones," she said softly, strange words from a human's lips. It was normally an expression of dragons.
"That's a lot of pus," said a deep voice. Bitterwood recognized the timbre of the sound, the bass formed by a belly wide enough to digest a man. A sun-dragon. Was he still dreaming?
He opened his eyes once more. A sun-dragon peered into the small cave, his eyes glowing green in the firelight. Bitterwood was certain that he was looking at a ghost: Albekizan, coming to claim his revenge. Yet, despite the similarity, this dragon was younger than the king. Bodiel? No, Albekizan's youngest son was dead too. Who was this?
This dragon didn't seem to be watching him. His eyes were focused above Bitterwood. Bitterwood tilted his head to find the woman he'd glimpsed kneeling over him. He flinched as her fingers probed his wounds. Yellow fluid oozed beneath her fingertips as she applied pressure. She closed her eyes. Bant struggled to recall where he'd seen her before. Her helmet was familiar… it looked like the one the wizard-dragon Vendevorex had worn.
"J-Jandra?" he asked. It had to be her. She looked different since their time together in the Free City. Older, somehow, though only weeks had passed.
"I'm here," she said. "What the hell did this to you, Bant?"
"Dragon," he mumbled. "N-never seen one like it."
"I can't believe you're still alive." Her voice sounded distant and distracted. Her eyes were closed, flickering back and forth under the lids. "I've never seen so much infection."
"I-I've felt w-worse," he said.
"You'd lose your left leg if I weren't here," Jandra said. "Still might. This is going to take some work."
She said something else a moment later, but her voice seemed far away, lost beneath some hiss, like the fall of a hard rain. Was it raining? He couldn't see anything beyond the veil of black mist that slid across his vision, blotting out Jandra, the dragon, and the fire beside him.