Daughter of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  "Public bathroom," Kira rasped. "Over that way."

  After all of that time stuck in the baggage compartment, Jason didn't argue. Kira wasn't sure that she'd make it to the bathroom, but she did.

  Jason was already waiting just outside when she was done. He was somehow managing to look exactly like someone who was trying not to be noticed. Kira led him away from the coach stop, her legs still protesting every movement. "How are you doing?" she asked.

  "Everything hurts," Jason said.

  "Yeah. We're in Danalee, but we can't stay. We need to head north, but if we get spotted leaving the city heading north, that would give away that we're going to Dorcastle, so we need to head west."

  "We need to go north so we're going west?"

  "Right."

  "Sure," Jason said. "That makes sense." He looked up, as if searching for something.

  "What are you looking for?" Kira asked, irritated by his last response and by the lingering aches in her body.

  "Drones. The ship only has a few. I don't know how long it will take it to make more, and I don't know if they have everything they need to make very many. But they'll probably deploy what they've got to places like this, that people have to go through to get somewhere else."

  She stopped walking and punched his shoulder, angry. "Why didn't you tell me about that before?"

  "Because it's so obvious!"

  "No, it's not! You can't assume that—" Kira suddenly realized that their argument had attracted the attention of a nearby police officer.

  "Keep it down, young lovers," the officer advised in a voice that carried warning but not hostility.

  "Yes, ma'am," Kira said, tugging Jason into motion again. "Stars above, that was stupid of me! She noticed us! We need to get out of this city now!" She took her bearings and turned at the next corner. "Young lovers! How embarrassing!"

  "For you," Jason said. "It's a pretty big compliment to me."

  "Don't even start," Kira warned him. "We need to get into the rail yard without being spotted so we can sneak aboard a freight train. Mother and Father did that to escape a city once."

  "Another train?" Jason said, suddenly wary.

  "Yes. We'll hide in a freight car until we get out of the city." Given Jason's attitude, Kira decided not to tell him anything else about her plans.

  The streets of Danalee were full of people at this hour of the day, the sun shining down on crowds Kira couldn't help thinking were all watching for any sign of the missing boy and girl so they could collect the reward from Urth, or because they were worried about the daughter's girl. To make it worse, Jason kept staring at passing horse-drawn wagons and carriages as if they were an amazing sight.

  An open market in a square offered food and drink at some of the stalls, reminding her of how long it had been since they'd finished the last of the food Izbelle had provided. Despite the need for haste and worry about being recognized, Kira swung by to get enough for Jason and her to make a walking lunch out of.

  The crowds got thicker around the entrance to the rail yard. Kira tugged Jason to one side, working down a side street next to the rail yard with a lot fewer people. "If my father was here he'd just imagine a hole in that wall around the rail yard and we'd walk through," Kira told Jason. She hesitated, half-worried and half-hopeful, as she wondered if her Mage skills might someday allow her to do that. It didn't matter, though, because she certainly couldn't do it now.

  "How about that door?" Jason said, pointing to a side entrance.

  Kira walked up to it, seeing a large padlock on the door. "This is just what we need."

  "We don't have a key," Jason said. "Are you going to shoot the lock off?"

  "Shoot the lock off?" Kira asked. "I have no idea how hard that would be, but I do know it would make so much noise that we'd have half the city on us before we got the lock open." She dug in one pocket and pulled out a small leather case. "I'll pick the lock."

  "You can pick locks?"

  "Mother taught me how," Kira said. "Sort of a mother/daughter bonding experience, I guess," she added as she pulled out some picks and went to work.

  "Mother/daughter bonding experience?" Jason asked. "Yeah, learning how to pick locks sounds like the sort of thing most mothers and daughters bond over."

  "If you're done making bad jokes, I need you to stand so no one can see what I'm doing," Kira said.

  He had to stand uncomfortably close to do that, but she couldn't complain, instead doing her best to focus on her work. The lock clicked, she pulled it open, and Jason stepped back as she put away her lock picks. "What's the matter?" Kira asked him. "Why so gloomy? We're doing all right at the moment."

  Jason shrugged. "You can do anything. I can't do anything. I'm totally helpless here."

  She rubbed her face in exasperation. "You should have figured out by now that I can't do everything. And you are doing things. You're helping."

  "How?"

  "You…kept people from seeing me pick that lock."

  "Yeah," Jason said scornfully. "I make a good portable wall."

  "If you don't like who you are, then change who you are!" Kira told him. "If we can keep from being caught you'll have a chance to learn how to do other things."

  "You don't like who you are," Jason pointed out.

  "You know what? This is not about me. Come on." The door, having apparently not been opened for a while, protested but eventually gave way to their combined tugging. Kira motioned Jason inside, then followed, trying to act as if they were doing something completely normal. As far as she could tell, none of the people on the street had reacted with suspicion to her and Jason's actions.

  Inside the wall, this part of the rail yard was a bit isolated, spare rails and ties stacked so that they had almost blocked the door. Kira stood a moment, looking around, listening to the sounds of locomotives and hammering on metal and the other achingly familiar noises she associated with happy times with her mother and her friends.

  Sighing, Kira opened her jacket and loosened her pistol in its holster, ready to draw.

  "Why are you doing that?" Jason asked. He wasn't still moody, but looked like the kid from Urth again, someone who played strange games and was out of his depth in a place where real things were happening.

  "Jason, there's a much bigger chance that anyone we meet in the rail yard will know my mother or have seen her," Kira explained. "Or maybe even have met me. I worked in this rail yard for a couple of weeks last summer."

  "Why did you bring us here if people knew you?"

  "Because this is the fastest and surest way out of this city and on our way!" Kira ran a hand through her hair, fighting down nerves. "If anyone notices us, we probably won't be able to talk our way out of it. So let's not get noticed."

  She remembered enough about the layout of the yard to take a path toward the outgoing rail lines that minimized their chances of encountering anyone, approaching a line of coupled freight cars from the side opposite where people should be working on them. "There. That's a boxcar carrying general freight. We don't want one with livestock that would act up and give us away, and maybe hurt us, and we don't want an ice car. If these cars are ready to go, they'll have been inspected and locked, so I'll just have to pick another lock to get us inside."

  She knelt down, examining the lock, Jason kneeling nearby to watch her anxiously.

  "What are you doing there?" a sharp, authoritative voice demanded.

  Kira hand moved the small distance necessary to reach under her jacket and grasp her pistol, her thumb releasing the safety as she spun about and leveled her weapon.

  Chapter 7

  Kira's pistol lined up on a young man in the jacket of a Mechanic apprentice. She stared at him as he stared back, wordless.

  "Gari," Kira said.

  "Kira?" Gari stared at her pistol. "Why are you threatening me?"

  "I need to know that you won't give us away," Kira said, the words almost sticking in her throat.

  "You don't need to hold a pisto
l on me to know that," Gari said, offended.

  "I guess not." Kira set the safety and put away her weapon.

  "You know this guy?" Jason asked.

  "Yeah. Gari is one of Aunt Alli and Uncle Calu's boys. He's sort of my big brother."

  Gari shook his head at her. "Do you know what my mother would say if she knew you'd pointed your pistol at me? What are the rules, Kira? Don't point unless you're willing to shoot!"

  "I was willing to shoot," Kira said in a low voice. Gari stared at her again, this time in shock. "I'm sorry. This is really, really important. We can't get caught, and we can't get stopped."

  Gari's eyes shifted to Jason, appraising him with cold distrust. "We. That's the guy from the ship from Urth?"

  "Yes. His name's Jason. What do you know about this, Gari?"

  "What the Urth ship has broadcast several times. And my father got a far-talker message to us telling me and Andi not to help the Urth people."

  "Which means you have to help me," Kira said.

  "No, it doesn't. What are you doing out alone, sneaking around a rail yard, threatening people, with some guy—"

  "I'm not with him," Kira said. "It's not like that at all. I have a job to do."

  Jason spoke in that self-mocking way. "She doesn't even like me."

  "Neither do I," Gari said. "Not if you've gotten her into some mess."

  "Excuse me," Kira said. "I am perfectly capable of getting myself into a mess. Isn't that what the Senior Mechanics tried to say about my mother? That someone else was leading her astray? I'm in this mess because of my decisions." Somehow that didn't sound as good as she had thought it would. "There are lives riding on this, Gari. Millions of lives."

  He paused, eyeing her. "Millions? How?"

  "Jason has a device from the Urth ship that tells how to use Mage skills to create new weapons. The ship was going to take it back to Urth so they could make lots of those weapons. That's why Jason stole it, and that's why we have to stay hidden until the ship has to leave."

  Gari frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Are you sure that's true?"

  "I'm positive."

  "I…guess I have to not interfere."

  "Don't tell anyone you saw us," Kira added.

  "Uh-uh. I'm going to tell my parents as soon as they get back to Danalee. Don't even try to convince me otherwise."

  Kira shrugged. "Aunt Alli and Uncle Calu should understand. But my mother can't get involved. You know why."

  "She might be getting involved anyway. I can't tell for sure with the Urth ship interfering with far-talkers. But I know what you mean. I'll leave it up to my mother and father when they get back."

  "I can't ask for better than that," Kira said. "Gari…have you ever heard people talking about me? About me…" The idea was so absurd that Kira had trouble forcing the words out. "Inheriting my mother's responsibilities?"

  He paused long enough before answering to make the reply obvious even before he spoke. "Sometimes."

  "Sometimes?"

  "Yeah, I mean, it's something that people talk about. Sometimes."

  She gave him a disbelieving look. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't any of my friends tell me?"

  "Kira, we thought you'd freak out if you heard it."

  "That was really perceptive of you guys. Because I am freaking out!"

  "Kira—"

  "You know me! How could you possibly think I'd be able to equal her?"

  "Not yet, maybe, but—"

  "Stars above, am I the only sane person in the world? And everybody I know seems to think I'm crazy!" She gestured toward the freight cars. "This is heading west, right?"

  "Yeah. Slow freight to Julesport. Due to leave in about half an hour. I'm supposed to be checking the locks on each car," Gari added.

  "You already checked this one and it's fine," Kira told him.

  He hesitated again. "All right."

  "Thanks," Jason said.

  Gari gave Jason a hard look. "Kira really is like a sister to me. I'd be really unhappy if she got hurt."

  "So would I," Jason said. "I tried to talk her out of it. I…I promise that I will do anything necessary to protect her."

  Kira split her displeasure between both boys. "I don't need to be protected."

  "Yes, you do," Gari said. "That's why when you were here last year there were bodyguards watching you. And I know how you hated that, but there are people who'd do terrible things if they got at you, Kira."

  She shuddered, remembering the words of the rider north of the Glenca. "I know. Thanks, big brother." Kira walked closer and gave him a hug, feeling the tension in Gari's body. "Trust me."

  He hugged her back. "I do. Get the blazes out of here before I have an attack of common sense."

  * * *

  About an hour later, the morning sun having risen to near noon, Kira stood in the partially opened door of the freight car, fields of crops going past as the train left behind the outlying buildings of Danalee. "We have to jump now."

  "Jump?" Jason shook his head, holding back. "You didn't say anything about jumping again."

  "Because I didn't have time to convince you that we'd need to do this!"

  "There's no river to jump into!"

  "We're not going very fast yet!" But the train was slowly speeding up. Jumping would get more hazardous with every moment that Jason delayed them. "There's a nice soft spot right up ahead. It looks like sand."

  "Sand?" Jason came up to the door, leaning to look out.

  Kira grimaced and shoved, then followed Jason out the door and onto the dirt and grass lining the tracks.

  She rolled to a stop right next to the first row of crops, breathing heavily, trying to figure out whether she had acquired any hurt worse than bruises. Kira waited until the rest of the train had passed before she stood up, cautiously testing for anything sprained.

  Jason was lying still, unmoving. She walked over to him, fearing the worst, but his eyes were open, gazing upward.

  "Are you all right?" Kira asked.

  "You throw me off a train again, and then ask if I'm all right," Jason said, his voice flat. "Why do I doubt your sincerity?"

  "I don't want you to be hurt, Jason, but we needed to get off that train."

  "You really are crazy. I know you're not thrilled to be stuck with me, but at least I'm not homicidal!"

  "Can you walk?" Kira asked.

  "I don't know. I'm beginning to think I should let the bad guys find me. What are they going to do to me that you aren't?"

  "Very funny. Get up." She offered him her hand to help.

  He glared at her, ignoring the offer as he rolled to his side and then stood up, refusing to say anything else.

  Kira shrugged and led them north through the fields.

  Jason didn't speak again until the day was nearly over. It had been a long walk past the outer edges of Danalee, the banks of the Silver River beckoning ahead.

  "I can't believe that I fell for that again."

  "I'm sorry," Kira said.

  "Are you? You're pretty good at shoving people off of moving trains."

  "Jason, before I met you I had never shoved anyone off of a train."

  "I guess that makes me special," Jason said. "And you must have a natural talent for it."

  She smiled for the first time in hours. "It's nice to know I'm good at something. Do you forgive me?"

  "I guess so. Kira, I've already tried several times staying mad at you and I can't do it." He looked ahead. "That river is flowing north, isn't it?"

  "Yes. The Silver River. That's our road to Dorcastle." Just like her mother, nearly twenty years before. "There are always barges moving downriver. We'll hitch a ride on one."

  "Is that safe?"

  "If you pick the right barge. I was told to look for a family, young children, on a barge kept neat and tidy." The banks of the Silver River were low along here, just outside the city of Danalee, so it wasn't hard to approach the water. Kira stood looking upstream while Jason sat on the riverbank
watching the water go by. She wondered how often he had ever done things like this, simply observing the world instead of being "linked" to lots of people yelling at each other.

  The first barge that she saw going past had a group of young men visible topside and several kegs of whiskey tied on the top of the deckhouse. Kira didn't need the raucous shouts directed her way when they saw her to know that getting on that barge would be a really dumb thing to do.

  The next barge that came past had an old man at the tiller and no one else visible. Many barges on the river had been riding the waters for decades, but this barge looked its age. Kira nodded to the man as the barge went past but that was all.

  A third barge followed not far behind. Also not new, but neatly kept. A string of laundry flapped in the breeze, including a few diapers. Kira could see the small shape of an older child onboard, playing alongside his mother as she sewed, and the man at the tiller had the tired, respectable look of a hard-working father. Kira waved and called. "On the barge! Can you give us passage to Dorcastle?"

  The woman looked at her and stood up. "Two of you? What do you offer?"

  "Two Tiae crowns!"

  "Not enough! Make it six!"

  The barge drew steadily closer, riding the river current, as Kira yelled her reply. "Three!"

  "Five."

  "I'll pay four." She would have paid more, but acting too eager would have aroused suspicions.

  "Four it is! Gabe! Swing us in near them! Mind the shoal."

  The man guided the boat close to the riverbank as Kira and Jason hastily pulled off their boots and socks. Kira waded out into the river as far as she could, wishing that she'd remembered to roll up the legs of her trousers. Jason came behind, looking around as if fearing sharks.

  The deck of the barge was only about half a lance above the river's surface. The woman tossed down a line and Kira grabbed it, hand-over-handing up until she reached the deck, then turning to help Jason.

  Kira counted out the crowns and gave four to the woman. The woman looked them over, finally smiled, and pointed to the deck. "Have a seat."

  They sat down, backs against the deckhouse. After the exertion of walking for more than half a day, Kira thought being able to sit, stretch out her legs, and watch the riverbanks slide by was delightful. But she had to shift position as the hard wooden deck made it clear that Kira had acquired more than one new bruise when jumping off the train.