The Book of Earth (13 page)

Erde blew out her candle and stowed it in her jerkin. The light from above was just bright enough to see by. She decided to make a quick search for more firewood, and started up the crumbled slope. The dragon swayed uneasily from side to side and broadcast its alarm until Erde put her hands to her ears and begged it to stop. She turned and looked back at it, its head down between its claws like the Devil’s hunting dog, a dog of living rock, all gray and dusty in the dim light.

I will be back
, she thought at it carefully, in simple words, as if speaking to a small child. It lay there listlessly, with a dog’s tragic gaze, and she was sure it had not understood.

But it was not just firewood she needed. She needed to be up top under open sky, for a moment at least. The more she thought about it, the more urgent the need became. She headed upward again, her boots skittering across the brittle surface. Small cascades of broken rock rattled down behind her. She knew she was not being careful, but caution came too late. She did not hear the bear entering from above, or see him until he had already seen her, blocking the passage to his winter den.

It was a large bear, and very touchy. His eyes squinted. He could not see well, but smelled her out instantly. He snarled, and one huge paw slashed out warningly. Erde slid backward down the slope and shrank against the wall, but mere retreat did not satisfy the bear. His roar echoed
through the tunnel like thunder as he launched himself down the slope. She fumbled uselessly for her dagger, caught in the folds of her shirt, then lost her footing and fell sliding backward.

Dragon!
she thought blindly as she plummeted downward in a hail of gravel and angry brown bear. She hit bottom and rolled into a ball, awaiting the crush of rough fur and the terrible rake of claws. Her last tumble brought her face up, in time to see the dragon snatch up the bear, the whole head in its mouth as if that great hairy bulk weighed nothing. While Erde scrambled up, backing against the cavern wall, the dragon shook the big bear once, very hard. It held the limp corpse dangling in its jaws for a moment, then shambled over to lay it down with delicate formality at Erde’s feet.

The baron’s daughter had found a new champion.

Y
our dragon awaits you.

And indeed the dragon was waiting, with an expectant look in its eyes, glancing from the pile of dead bear to Erde and back again. The bear was beginning to leak blood from its mouth. Sickened, Erde backed away. When the dragon snatched it up once more and dragged it off into a corner, she understood it was only waiting for a sign, for her permission. Turning away while the dragon noisily devoured its meal, Erde recalled Alla’s words again, and wondered how the old woman had known.

Perhaps Alla had been a witch after all. Erde knew that she’d put no spell on Rainer, but she’d had many unusual skills and knew many mysterious things. If being a witch meant being like Alla, Erde didn’t see why people thought it was such a bad thing.

She risked a glance over her shoulder. Each time she looked at the dragon, she felt that same surge of wonder and joy. But this time she was glad for the faintness of the light, as faint as her heart became at such a sight. The loud crunching and rending was bad enough. This dragon was not a tidy eater and it was ravenous, as one might expect a newly awakened dragon to be if one knew one’s dragon-lore, and Erde considered herself a bit of a lay expert.

She was glad to learn that the dragon had spared her not because it was sated or an herbivore or even particularly mild-mannered. It was hungry and possessed a proper dragonlike appetite, yet it had left her alone. Whatever torturous pathways of thought she followed, she reached the same conclusion in the end: her sense of connection with this implausible creature was a true one.

Your dragon awaits you.
She wished Alla had given her just the smallest clue as to what it awaited her for. Dragons, like all magical beings, had a distinct reason for being. You didn’t just acquire one out of simple good fortune.

The Mage-Queen was dragon-bound, but the Mage-Queen, a benevolent power, had been Erde’s own fantasy, even if she did sometimes wish she was real, or sometimes forget that she wasn’t. In the true dragon-lore, such connections with dragons were spell-wrought. They were generally sought by evil mage-lords, who sacrificed their firstborn or sold their soul to the Devil for the privilege. Erde was fairly sure that killing a man in self-defense, though surely an awful crime, was not quite the equivalent in black magic terms, so this small bit of knowledge left her no more enlightened than before.

The dragon finished bolting its meal. Erde sensed this by the expectant silence that settled in behind her and she knew, just
knew
, that the dragon was waiting for more. Her fleeting concern that once its appetite was whetted, it might move on to her was dispelled by the supplicant quality of its waiting, like a giant nestling, mouth slightly agape, helpless but demanding to be fed. The demanding part she could accept. All dragons expect service from humankind. But helpless?

It thinks I brought it the bear
, she realized.
And it wants another.
Erde shook her head. Service was all very well and good, but she was going to have to disabuse this creature of the notion that a fourteen-year-old girl, a fugitive at that, could provide it with a steady supply of dragon-sized dinners. She was just coming to grips with the problem of hiding out alone in a cold cave and feeding herself. The little bits of food she’d brought with her wouldn’t last more than a day. Feeding a dragon would require entire barnyards. Why couldn’t it feed itself?

Overwhelmed, Erde sank to the cave floor in despair and put her head in her hands.

Oh, Alla, what have I done? What can I do now?

Alla had said, hide out until the priest leaves or go to the king. But Alla had not expected her high-born nursling to effect her escape in blood. Erde could not ask even temporary shelter of the villagers now, or for their help in getting to the king. The man she’d murdered had three
children, one of whom was sickly. She would have to remain in the caves, sneaking out only at night to steal whatever food she could find, until life returned to normal at Tor Alte. She was sure her father would be less bothered about her having killed a common soldier in defense of her honor. But then, it seemed her father did not believe she had any honor left. Womanly honor, at least. She wasn’t sure he valued any other kind, since he’d shown himself so spendthrift with Rainer’s.

Ah, Rainer.
In the distraction of the dragon, she’d all but forgotten. How could she? No, she’d never forget. Erde called once more to mind the surprise of his kiss and wrapped the memory deep inside where it would always be safe.

The dragon shifted about in its heavy-limbed dance of impatience. Erde lifted her head and signed in its direction. It had left the bear’s head and claws uneaten. She would have to clean up the mess before it began to smell and attract other dangerous wildlife. The dragon moved a step closer and resettled itself doglike on its haunches. It could not lick its chops—its tongue was not flat and so easily manipulated. It was more like a lizard’s tongue, thick and oval, tapering to a blunt point. But Erde had noticed that it often let the slender tip hang out of the side of its mouth, where a space was left between its big canines and its double rows of bicuspids. However endearing, this habit was not dignified, and Erde had always believed dragons to be deeply concerned with their dignity. Apparently not this dragon.

As she sat there staring at her new companion, she found herself thinking of sheep, seeing them rather, fat sheep on a soft green hill, like a daydream, only clearer. Very real in her mind’s eye. Oddly, these particular sheep were large and brown and very shaggy, not at all like the thin, gray ewes kept by local herdsmen. Yet they were there in her head and she knew they were sheep. Odder still, the landscape surrounding these strange sheep wasn’t familiar either. The hills were much too low and gently rolling, the meadows far too green. There was too much sky. Yet this image in her head was as clear and present as one of her own memories.

Erde peered at the dragon speculatively. Was it the source of these alien visions? Could it conjure and send them at will? Even better, could it receive?

Erde cast about for a way to test her hypothesis, and her eye fell on the grisly bear’s head. It was easier to look at now that it had given her an idea. She watched the dragon closely and called to mind, as quickly and forcefully as she could, her last sight of the bear before she had covered her eyes, all fangs and claws hurtling down on top of her. The dragon’s head jerked toward the upward tunnel. A fleshy crest that Erde had not noticed before raised up along the curve of its head and neck like the hackles on a dog. When no bear appeared, the dragon looked back to find itself being studied and seemed to understand that Erde had been testing it. It lowered its crest, shook its great head and let its tongue-tip loll out the side as if ready and willing to play this new game. But the only thing that came to Erde’s mind were more images of sheep.

Erde’s shoulders sagged. The dragon was either stubborn or stupid, or her theory was incorrect. Or perhaps it was so obsessed with its hunger, it could not think of anything else. She wondered how long it had lain asleep deep inside this mountain, working up an appetite.

Despair overwhelmed her again. But Alla had always said that action was the antidote to despair, so Erde decided to follow her original upward urge. She did need more firewood, and maybe some dry grass for bedding. She sent the dragon an image of herself returning to the cave with her arms laden, though she was careful not to promise it food. She didn’t wish to face a dragon’s disappointment. She laid a reassuring hand on its snout, still full of wonder that she was actually touching a real dragon, then headed for the surface.

*   *   *

She listened at the cave mouth for a long time, but heard nothing stirring, not even an early hawk or raven. The mountain was shrouded in dense fog. Except for its clinging chill, Erde was grateful for the cover it provided. A wind during the night had swept the rock ledges clear of snow, though it had gathered in the nooks and crannies to remind her once again of the unnatural state of the weather, snow
in August. For several hours, she clambered back and forth from her cave to the tree line, gathering up every loose branch or fallen sapling that she could carry.

By midmorning, the fog was clearing. Erde stowed a final armload of twigs inside the cave, then climbed to the top of an old rock slide. From there, hiding behind a large boulder, she could see safely down the other side of the mountain.

A half mile away, the towers of Tor Alte crouched on their own lesser summit, like a lost city rising out of the gray mist that filled the valley in between. It did not look at all like home to her. The massive walls were faceless and bleak under the lowering sky. Erde gazed at it for a long time, searching for a sign of life other than the black and green flag of the von Altes, wind-whipped on the highest tower. She sensed she was waiting for an omen of some sort or a feeling from inside, just the faintest homesickness or longing, enough to tell her she should give up her mad flight and throw herself back on her father’s mercy. Nothing came. Only the submerged razor edge of the pain she was running from. Only the memory of Rainer’s breathless grin as he glanced up at her from the practice yard. She couldn’t think of it. She wouldn’t. If a memory was too painful to bear, she would put it aside. That dark pile of stone was someone else’s childhood home. Every thing that Erde von Alte longed for there was dead. Now she was glad for the numbness, which had returned as soon as she’d set her eyes on those grim towers and grim walls.

So she could not go home, since she had no home to go to. Besides, to return would imply acceptance of Alla’s death and Rainer’s murder. But knowing she could not go home did not tell her where to go instead, or whether she should leave the dragon where it had found her. Sneaking away without it would surely improve her own chances of escaping undetected, but the notion came and went as if it did not even bear considering. Just when she’d lost everything, the dragon had appeared. This was certainly the sign she was looking for.

Yet she waited, staring down at the fog-wreathed fortress, so still that the arm she leaned on went to sleep. She woke with a tingle when movement below caught her eye and she jerked upright.

A party of several dozen riders appeared outside the Dragon Gate, milling and dodging, no standard raised to identify them. The hounds were no more than a crowd of tiny dancing blurs, but their excited baying carried easily through the mountain quiet. Erde knew the hungry cry of the Baron’s Hunt.

Erde flattened herself against the boulder, then scrambled back down the rock slide. Her panic didn’t loose its grip until she was well inside the cave, far from searching eye of daylight, where finally she let reason take hold. She laid her cloak out on the floor, piled on as much of the firewood as it would hold and dragged it down the inner tunnel toward her hideout and the dragon.
Her
dragon.