Shadow of the Dragon Read online

  The scattering of debris was even worse here than on the main street, where at least she could see the street itself. The smithy she found with ease, for there in the midst of the splintered wood and crushed stone, was the smokestack standing tall like a metallic monument to the dead.

  Micayta stood beside the rubble, the hood of her cloak pushed back with the chill air making stray strands of black hair dance around her head. She waited for the sun to rise higher and give her more light by which to see.

  The pale, clouded sun did rise higher and it did give her more light. With the light came an end to the stubborn strands of hope still clinging to her mind. A single arm protruded from the wreckage and a hand reached for the sky in a silent plea for help.

  Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, Micayta climbed across the rubble toward something she had no desire to see, knowing that she must if she ever hoped to walk away from this place.

  She knelt and dug down through the debris, throwing aside bits and pieces of things she barely knew were there. Until there was no need to dig down any further. No need for anything but to sit back on her heels and sigh. Her father’s face was pale and there was a bluish tint to his eyes and lips. A single trickle of frozen blood stood out across the bridge of his nose.

  Looking down into his sightless eyes she knew the truth. How could she not? Still she stripped off one glove and reached down to brush her fingers across his cheek. His skin was cold and unyielding, like a block of ice with no life within it. Which she supposed was near enough the truth.

  She thought of the long years of silence. Of time spent avoiding one another, not wanting to look into each other’s eyes and see the hidden truth there. The strain of holding the lie together for so many years had distanced them until they were little more than strangers. She’d have left him long ago had it not been for Pytaki and they both knew it.

  She whispered a goodbye to the wind then rose once more to her feet. Turning her back on her father, she walked out of Talphan for the last time.

  All the long way back to the farmhouse, her mind kept turning round and round in circles. No sleep the night before, combined with all the horror of today, and she was feeling strung out. She made the walk in a kind of daze, hardly aware of what she was doing.

  Pytaki stood in the doorway of the farmhouse with the quilt from the bed draped across his shoulders. “Where have you been? I was worried when I woke up and you were gone.”

  Micayta stopped and forced her whirling thoughts to come into focus. “I went into town to have a look around.”

  “Did you…did you find anyone?” His gaze met hers pleading for her to say the words he longed to hear.

  “No,” she said. If she told him their father was dead, he’d go all to pieces and she just couldn’t deal with it right now. “I didn’t see any signs of anyone, alive or dead. The town’s empty.”

  “Oh.” He dropped his gaze to the snow. “What do we do now?”

  “This house is good shelter, but we don’t have any food or water. I think we’d best go to Bethseda.”

  “What about father?” Pytaki raised his head. “What if he comes looking for us?”

  She met his gaze without flinching. “He’ll expect us to go to Bethseda, like the other survivors. That’s where he’ll look for us.”

  “But we don’t have a wagon or even a horse. How will we get there?”

  Micayta thought of the ten miles of rolling, snow-covered hills that lay between them and the nearest town. “We’ll walk,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not that far.”

  Chapter Three

  “I can’t…have to stop…” Pytaki bent over with his hands braced against his knees, his breath rattling harshly in the still air.

  Micayta glared at him. “We can’t stop now or we’ll get caught out after dark. There might be wolves.”

  “But, I’m tired.”

  “Don’t be such a baby. We’ve hardly walked any distance at all.” Her knee ached from the stress of the long walk and she was cold as well as hungry. Other than that, she felt she could go on walking a good long way yet.

  “Sorry,” Pytaki muttered.

  “Don’t be sorry, just keep moving and stop whining.” Micayta was aware she was being unduly harsh, but felt that it was justified. Things were hard now and they were only likely to get harder in the days to come. She couldn’t have him coming to a standstill every time something wasn’t to his liking.

  They plodded on through the snow, the clouded sky a perfect mirror to the world below. The wind shifted, blowing against Micyta’s face, bitingly cold. But these were everyday things to her, and hardly worth notice. Besides, Micayta’s mind was entirely preoccupied with other thoughts.

  Bethseda wasn’t really that far from Talphan, especially if one could fly as the dragon could. What would they do if they found that city destroyed as well? Where would they go? She didn’t know and that was the worst feeling of all. It was a lack of control, a feeling she’d worked hard to never have again. Yet here it was sneaking up on her. That sense of being utterly at a loss, helpless to do anything but watch as life happened around her.

  She shook her head to break herself of those thoughts. They were useless, dangerous creatures. Despair was an enemy she knew well and one she’d been fighting for as long as she could remember. She’d watched it take a firm hold of her mother. She did not intend to follow that path herself.

  When Micayta and Pytaki topped the hill overlooking Bethseda, the sight before her was enough to bring her to a stop. Pytaki gasped, his already pale face completely draining of color.

  The city of Bethseda was nothing more than a smoldering ruin of ash and snow. Here and there a few buildings still stood partially intact, stark against the gray sky, but the rest were leveled.

  “Now what?” Pytaki asked, his voice small and frightened.

  Micayta took a deep breath of the crisp air and caught a hint of the smell that had lingered over Talphan. “Now, we do whatever we have to do.” She started down the hill.

  Pytaki hung back. “We’re going down there?”

  She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. “We have to keep moving and to do that we’ll need food, water, and a couple of horses if I can manage it.”

  “You mean steal? We can’t do that.”

  “Desperate times, little brother. Besides, I doubt there’s anyone left to complain.”

  “I…,” He kicked at the snow, avoiding her gaze. “I don’t want to see any…people. You know, if they’re…they’re….” His lips trembled.

  An image of their father lying in the heap of rubble flashed through her mind. Did she really want him to see something like that? “Fine, stay here then. But if you see anyone, and I mean anyone, keep away from them. Come down to the city if they try to approach no matter how friendly they look or what they say.”

  “What if it’s father?”

  A sharp pain knifed Micayta’s heart for her brother’s sake. Because he didn’t know the truth, he still loved their father. “Sure, Py. If you see our father you can go to him. Otherwise, stay put.”

  Pytaki nodded. Still, he refused to look at her and she supposed that he knew the truth, or at least could guess at it. She was tempted to say something to him, some word of comfort, but such things were hard for her to find and so she let the moment pass in silence, then turned away.

  The nearer Micayta drew to the city, the stronger the smell became. She was ready for it this time and her stomach was empty in any case. Things didn’t look as awful to her here as they had in Talphan. She thought it might have been because Talphan was her home and she’d only been to Bethseda twice in her life.

  The streets were sheeted with ash not yet blown all away by the winter winds. Part of her hoped to discover some other survivors. But something on a more basic level wanted no competition for whatever supplies might be salvageable from the destruction around her.

  It was a guilty kind of feeling. As if she was a scav
enger skirting the bloated corpse of a dead animal. Only these weren’t animals. They were people no different than she and no more deserving of their fate.

  Micayta struggled to put such thoughts aside. To focus. These people were dead already. Thinking about them wouldn’t help. It was the living she must worry about now.

  After some aimless wandering, during which Micayta made a point of avoiding anything that even resembled a human, she spotted a bakery that was only partially destroyed. The inside was littered with shattered glass, broken wood, and a few things she couldn’t identify on sight.

  Part of the ceiling was collapsed, allowing in enough of the day’s gray light for her to see by. She kicked through the snow and ash, making her way to what would have been a bread shelf if she remembered correctly.

  The shelf had collapsed, but there on the ground were two loaves of bread that looked edible if you didn’t think about it too much. A shadow shifted in the corner and Micayta jumped, heart pumping. Clutching the bread to her chest, she held perfectly still and strained to see what might be there. Nothing moved. It must have been a trick of the light or a product of her imagination. What else could it be?

  She laughed; an echoing sound that only heightened her sense of unease. There was a feeling coming over her. A feeling of being watched. As if the crumbling walls themselves had eyes. She shook her head, wondering where such silly thoughts were coming from, and exited the bakery.

  Micayta was glad enough to step back into the street, where at least the horror was plain to see and not lurking in the darker corners of her mind. That feeling of relief only lasted a moment before the sense of being watched returned.

  Nothing moved but what was stirred by the ceaseless wind. No sounds reached her ears save for that same wind moaning as it passed through decimated buildings. Micayta tucked the loaves of bread up under her arm and reached for her dagger.

  Something moved, fluttered, at the corner of her vision. She whirled, dropping the bread as she drew her dagger. But what she saw was so incredible, so impossible, that she froze with her hand poised in mid-throw, unable to do anything but stare.

  Chapter Four

  A pair of gray eyes stared back at Micayta from the face of a large, black bird. She’d never seen a bird before, except in a drawing her mother had once shown her. That bird was small and blue, but there were similarities enough for her to be fairly certain that this too, was a bird.

  Only it couldn’t possibly be a bird. There hadn’t been any birds in this area since long before Micayta was born. Either they’d all died off as the winter had worsened, or else they’d flown away in search of warmer climes. Either way, they were certainly gone. So this couldn’t be a bird. It must be something else, but try as she might she could think of no other name to put to it.

  Micayta lowered her arm, but kept her dagger at the ready. For a long moment, she and the bird stared at each other, neither seeming eager to make the first move.

  Then the bird ruffled its feathers and flew off the pile of rubble it was perched upon to land on the roof of a nearby building. From there, it gazed down at Micayta with what she felt was a rather unbirdlike intensity. But what did she know of birds?

  The bird lifted into the sky and circled over her head twice, letting out a shrill call. Micayta got the feeling the bird was waiting for her to follow it, ridiculous as that thought was. She tried to recall the things her mother had told her about birds. Hers was secondhand knowledge at best, as her mother had never seen a living one either. Thinking of her mother was always painful, making it hard to concentrate.

  The bird called out again, shattering her thoughts. It flew off a little way, then came back and started circling again. Micayta looked around, half expecting to find someone watching this odd spectacle. But there was no one to see. No one to question. The bird moved away again, looking back at her with its pale eyes.

  With a resigned sigh, Micayta sheathed her dagger, retrieved the bread, and followed the bird. Down the street, the bird turned and led her up what was once an alley. They continued on this way until they came to the edge of town. Here, Micayta paused, glancing uneasily around.

  The bird called to her, flying over to land on the roof of a partially collapsed stable. The structure had been large, that much was clear from the wide berth of debris around the area. From somewhere on the other side came the audible sound of a whinny, followed by a snort.

  A horse. Micayta was sure of it. Her heart leapt at the thought. But she knew she must proceed with caution. A horse could mean people and people could mean trouble. With a hand on the hilt of her dagger, she walked slowly around the side of the stable.

  A dun-colored mare stood with her head lowered. The reins of her harness were caught in the tangle of a crushed wall. The mare’s sides were heaving with her breath. Her coat was slick with sweat despite the chill and the whites of her eyes showed wide and clear. Another, somewhat smaller horse stood trembling some feet away.

  Micayta laid the bread down in the snow and approached the trapped mare. “Easy, girl. Easy. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The mare snorted, stamping her feet and tugging on the reins. The smaller horse backed away, but seemed reluctant to run despite its obvious fear. A similarity in their markings made Micayta think the two might be mother and child.

  Micayta moved around to approach the mare as much from the front as she could manage, careful to keep herself well within the mare’s line of sight. Horses were one of the few animals she’d ever dealt with.

  Delane always managed to keep a small herd for the town’s use. Anytime a stranger would drift through with a stallion, which wasn’t often, he would finagle an agreement for a breeding with one of his mares.

  “It’s all right, girl.” Micayta held her voice low and steady as Delane had taught her. She laid a hand on the mare’s face, between her eyes. “Aren’t you a pretty girl?”

  The mare stilled, ears flicked forward toward the sound of Micayta’s voice. “Okay girl, we’re going to take it easy now while I get you untangled. No kicking me in the head or biting off any of my fingers, or anything like that. Okay?”

  Micayta turned to survey the mess. The reins weren’t too tangled, only enough so the horse couldn’t get herself free. She could get them untangled without having to cut them. At least she hoped so.

  It was a slow process but Micayta had patience and in time, the mare was freed. She held tight to the reins. “There we go. You’re fine. And you can come along with me now.” She stroked the mare’s check.

  The smaller horse came closer. It too was bridled, suggesting to her that though it was young, it had been ridden before. Neither horse had a saddle, which was a problem, but the day was growing short and she feared there wasn’t enough time or light to go combing the destroyed stable looking for one.

  Micayta gathered up the two loaves of bread and then set off. She kept to the outer edges of Bethseda so the mare wouldn’t be spooked by the smells inside the city. The smaller horse followed them from a distance at first, gradually moving closer until he was trotting right beside his mother.

  Pytaki was exactly where she’d left him, sitting in the snow with his head on his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You’re going to get wet and then you’re going to get cold and then you’re going to get sick and then what am I going to do with you?”

  He shrugged, sniffling. “We’re the only ones left anyway. What does it matter?”

  “We don’t know that. There could be others nearby, somewhere.” She didn’t believe it though. Her gut was telling her that they were utterly alone out here in the snow.

  “Father isn’t going to come for us and there’s nobody else. We’re going to die out here.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “We are not going to die.” She grabbed hold of his arm and hauled him to his feet. “Stop crying. I’ll take care of you like I always have.” She pulled the mare forward. “See? I found horses like I
said I would. They don’t have saddles but they’ll get us where we’re going.”

  Pytaki blinked, reaching out to pet the horse. “Where are we going?”

  That was the question, and one Micayta had no ready answer for. She supposed they ought to go south, as so many others had. But there was something tugging at the corner of her mind. Something she could feel but didn’t understand.

  “West,” she said. “We’re going west.”

  Chapter Five

  Miles and miles of snow in all directions and the sun moving low in the sky. Too much time had passed since they left Bethseda and still there was no sign of any shelter for the night. Micayta was beginning to think they should have stayed in the city, somewhere, even if it did upset her brother. Better upset than dead.

  Pytaki huddled within his cloak, a pained expression on his face. “How long until we find a town?”

  “Soon. We only have to go this way a little further.”

  He glanced up at the sky, but didn’t say anything. Not that he needed to. She could guess at what he was thinking.

  The temperature was dropping slow but steady, and Micayta was starting to feel the chill even through three layers of clothes. A growing wind was pushing the gray clouds from the darkening sky at an alarming rate. Once the sky was clear and the stars became visible, the temperature would drop much faster.

  The biggest danger came from sudden snowstorms that could whip up with little or no warning, dropping the temperature to a lethal level in a matter of seconds. Micayta had used wolves to spur her brother to action but they were the least of the sibling’s worries.

  “Are you…are you sure we’re going to make it to town before night?” Pytaki asked, looking at Micayta from the corner of his eye.