by GARY DARBY
Not that I know where I’d go anyway, but it’s comforting to have something firm to aim toward. But between the rain and the wisps of rolling clouds with the occasional lightning bolt, there’s little to see or use as a marker of sorts.
I’m not sure how long I stumble around in the rain and wind before I find myself in a small meadow and stop to catch my breath. The rain has lessened, a mere downpour compared to the overwhelming torrent of before and the wind is a series of sharp gusts that’s practically nothing compared to the punishing gale that whipped us through the sky.
I take a few steps forward and stop. A single stroke of lightning crackles through the air and in the flash of light I see a ring of hard, angry faces.
Somehow, some of the villagers have found me, and now they’re closing their circle of death. They raise their axes across their chests, slowly hefting them up and down. Their eyes are like stone, menacing. They step closer, and I have no doubt that any one of them can slay me with one vicious blow.
From the pack steps the villagers’ leader, the same man who threatened us with death by arrow if we didn’t surrender. He holds an arm out to stop the advancing bloodthirsty mob.
With a hard glare, he holds up his ax and demands over a gust of wind, “Where is the golden one? Tell me and you live. Keep your lips sealed and I promise you that you’ll die slowly, painfully . . . ”
His voice trails off, but his meaning is clear. If I offer up Golden Wind, I live for another day. Otherwise, they will slowly hack me to death, ignoring my screams as they slowly slice me into pieces — tiny pieces.
I, of course, have no idea where the golden is, but I quickly think up an answer and open my mouth to speak. Abruptly there is a change in the wind, and to my ears comes a sound that forevermore I will recognize.
I snap my head up, and my eyes widen for just an instant before I throw one arm up into the air.
Talons dip down and wrap themselves around my arm, and with a hard jerk, I’m pulled skyward. I glance back and through the rain, I see the pack leader dash forward and with a roar of rage and frustration, heave his ax at me, but it falls far short of its target.
I’m swinging below the golden, with the wind and the rain blasting at my body. She doesn’t fight the wind. Instead, she sails along with the rush. Still, the rainfall is so heavy that I feel like I’m soaring through a roaring waterfall. I can barely breathe as my nose and mouth are constantly filled with water.
I know we have to get as far away from the crazed villagers as we can and so I let Golden Wind slide along with the wind but there comes a point where I finally gurgle, “Put me down, I’m drowning!”
The golden keeps going for just a bit before she swoops down. Somehow, in the thickness of rain and cloud, she finds an open spot in the trees where she hovers for a moment before letting me drop the short distance to the ground.
I hit with a muffled, “oomph,” and lie gasping for air.
The golden lands next to me and spreads one wing wide to shield me from the rainfall. A soaked and bedraggled Scamper splashes through the mud and tiny water pools to jump on my chest.
He pushes his little face into mine. Hrrrrrttt? he asks.
I take some deep breaths and answer, “No, I’m all right, but believe it or not, I almost drowned up there.” I half-laugh. “Drowning in midair. I bet no one’s ever died that way before.”
I feel a warm breath and glance up to find the golden’s muzzle close. “Thank you,” I mutter. “I don’t know how you found me, but I’m glad you did.”
I push Scamper to one side and sit up. “Any idea where the others are?” I ask.
Her eyes take on a worried appearance, and she murmurs, “I believe they were captured.”
I roll to my feet. “Captured! They didn’t sky out of there when the storm hit?”
She solemnly shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Captured,” I mutter, disbelieving. “How?”
“Just as I spread my wings,” she answers, “I heard what sounded like a whirring in the air.”
“A whirring? From what?”
“I don’t know. But what I do know is neither Wind Glory, Rover, nor Song took to their air. I never heard their wings.”
A whirring, I think to myself. Then, a thought comes to me, something I’d seen in one of Phigby’s books. “Golden Wind, Amil said that the village lay next to a river. Could it be that what you heard were thick fishing nets flying through the air?
“Nets that we didn’t see. They must have thrown them at the same moment that you skyed, and no doubt pulled Cara and the others off their dragons and to the ground. That’s why you didn’t hear the other dragons sky out of there.”
“That may well be what happened, Hooper,” she sadly replies. “All I know is that the only dragon wings I heard were my own.”
The rain and wind have noticeably lessened, and the lightning has moved off into the distance. I look around. We’ve landed in a tiny, oblong-looking glade. Tall, thin sprucelike trees hem the glade and form a natural windbreak.
I motion towards the woods. “Let’s get closer to the trees, they’ll keep out some of the weather, and I need to think.”
Once we’re settled, I ask anxiously, “Could you tell if any of the others were hurt?”
“No,” she murmurs. “The wind was too strong, and it took us before I could hear or see more.”
I run a hand through sopping wet, mud-filled hair. I twist around to face the golden and hold out my hands as if I were Scamper pleading for food. “If they’ve been captured, I — I don’t know what to do, Golden Wind. I’m not a warrior or a Dragon Knight.”
I pull my knife and hold it up for her to see. “All I have is this. No bow, no sword, not that I could wield either if I had one.” I hang my head and slowly plop down into the mud.
My voice trembles as I murmur, “How am I supposed to help them when all I’m good for is to fetch wood and water, or shovel manure?”
I raise my eyes to her. “What do we do? How am I supposed to get into the village and try to rescue them?”
She doesn’t immediately answer, and when she does, her response is like a lightning bolt that comes close to knocking me off my feet. “We’re not going to the village,” she states bluntly. “They won’t be there, but elsewhere.”
My mouth sags for a moment. “Wha — ” I begin, but the golden doesn’t let me finish.
She swings her head close. “Hooper, do you want to help your friends?”
“Friends?” I choke. “I don’t have — ”
“Nonsense! Of course, you do. Scamper is your friend — the sprogs are your friends.”
She leans closer. “I am your friend as are the others. You just don’t know it or don’t want to believe it.”
Her eyes are intense, questioning. “Now, do you want to help them?”
“Of course,” I snap, “but I can’t. If I were a Dragon Knight — ”
“But you aren’t,” Golden Wind cuts in, “so stop wishing for what cannot be, and start imagining what can be.”
“Oh?” I demand. “And just what am I supposed to imagine?”
“That you and I together can rescue our friends,” she answers.
She stares unblinking at me, and I return her gaze with my own hard stare. We stay that way for several heartbeats until I feel a pawing at my knee and look down. Scamper chitters angrily and I listen for a moment before I say, “All right, all right. Yes, I know she’s right, I just hate to admit it, that’s all.”
I let out a deep breath and mutter, “So, do you know where they’ve taken them?”
“I believe so,” she answers and glances up. The rain and wind are slowly slackening, and the lightning flashes have moved off; the storm is abating somewhat, but it would still be a formidable task to try and sky through.
“There is only one place that they would take them that is nearby and suitable,” she goes on to say.
“And where is that?”
“Dunadain,” she states.
“Dunadain?”
“Yes,” she replies. “The royal keep that guards the river pass at Angbar’s Meld on the River Lorell, just below where the Stord River enters the Lorell. But we must wait until the storm clears before skying. Darkness will cover our flight, and then we must wing swiftly.”
Wing swiftly. I’ve had enough of skying rapidly through the air. “Do we have to sky swiftly?” I ask with a little groan. “I don’t do well with swift.”
She looks at me as if I just made a silly statement. “Of course you do. You held on with an arrow in your shoulder when I flew so fast that the sapphires were hard put to keep up.
“We cannot be slow about this, Hooper. You can be certain that those who have captured our friends will move very swiftly to collect their reward. They will march through the night and the promised reward will be more than enough for them to ignore the storm and its dangers.”
“All right, I understand that, but why,” I sigh, “can’t we go slow about this? Especially the skying part.”
“Because,” she answers, “most likely, Dunadain is lightly guarded and will present our best opportunity to effect a rescue. However,” she goes on to say with a grim look, “if we wait too long, it would indeed take a whole company of Dragon Knights, perhaps more, to breach the fortress.”
She pauses and then says, her voice ominous and dark, “And worse, if we tarry in our rescue, we face not only more archers and men-at-arms, but she will come.”
She lowers her head until we are eye to eye. “And Hooper, we do not want to face her alone, not yet, anyway.”
Thoughts of Golden Wind
Hooper doubts his own courage. But haven’t we all at one time or another? As we wait for the storm to move off, I ponder, just what is bravery?
Hooper placed his body between a death arrow and Helmar and paid a high price. Physical agony, yes, but worse — he had to endure the wretched presence of the Evil One.
Is bravery the act of dying for someone else? Or is it the willingness to die for another? Must one do one or the other to be considered truly valiant?
Is it the soldier who makes the ultimate sacrifice for his comrades, or who makes a heroic charge against an overwhelming foe, survives and lives to fight another day? Is that bravery?
Yet, what about the mother-to-be who is willing to go to the brink of death itself to bring her little one into the world? Is she not being as courageous as that soldier?
What about the father who may not have to face death arrows, yet gets up every morning and toils all day under a merciless sun to feed his family? Is that not heroic?
Consider the individual who is faced with an overwhelming temptation that is tinged with evil. They sorely, sorely want to give into the enticement but instead shun the desire and choose the right, instead?
Or the person who is surrounded by friends or family, or both, who live immoral lives and expect him or her to do the same? Only, the person chooses a different path, one based in light and goodness. Is that not being intrepid and fearless as well?
It would seem that courage comes in many forms. Perhaps the only true way to recognize it is by how it makes you feel inside, a testimony of the spirit, and that certain sense that what you have done was the right thing.
26
By late evening, the skies clear. Golden Wind, Scamper, the sprogs and I have nestled close to the windbreak. Except for the golden’s protective outstretched wing that flutters in the wind, none of us make a sound or move. We’re too fearful that a search party will hear us, or stumble across us before we can make our escape once the storm passes.
Normally, Scamper would be off and about, searching for a tasty morsel, but this time, he must sense our precarious situation and stays put, curled up in sleep along with the sprogs.
I huddle close to the golden, shivering in my soaked clothes, trying to draw what warmth from her that I can. There’s no dry wood to be found for a fire. Besides, bright flames in the forest would be a dead giveaway and lead our adversaries straight to us.
I admit it, I’m not good at waiting. Especially when every little sound causes you to jerk upright, afraid that the band of wild axmen will come storming into the thicket and take you prisoner — or worse.
Finally, the storm moves off. Golden Wind murmurs, “It’s time, Hooper.”
I rapidly place the sprogs and Scamper in back of Golden Wind’s skull sheath and clamber aboard. The sprogs promptly go back to sleep, hardly rousing even when I shoved them under the golden’s carapace.
Baby dragons sleep a lot.
Scamper makes a little nervous circle before he snuggles against the sprogs and closes his eyes. Cautiously, stopping to look and listen with every step, we ease out into the thin glade’s middle to a point where it’s wide enough for Golden Wind to spread her wings.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Ready, I guess,” I reply and tighten my legs around her neck.
She bolts skyward. I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was. Even holding onto two of her curved spikes, she bounds so forcefully upward that my head is snapped back, and I see new stars in the heavens for a moment.
She skims just above the treetops, skying so fast that we send the trees swaying in our wake. The wind rushes against my face, but after a bit, I feel comfortable enough to lean over and ask, “I assume that you know the way to Dunadain?”
“No,” she calls back. “I thought you knew.”
“Me?” I yelp. “How would I know the way?”
I can hear her chuckling over the wind and realize that she’s teasing me. That’s another thing I never knew about dragons, they have a sense of humor. “Don’t worry, Hooper,” she answers, “I know where we’re going.” She dips her wings slightly to the left and then levels out.
With the storm’s passage, the night air is clear, crisp, and most importantly, calm. We fly low over the dark countryside. I find that if I snug myself down behind the golden’s skull plate that the wind’s force is not so great, and I don’t have to grip her horns quite so tight.
The moons rise early tonight, sending a gentle light over the landscape. We haven’t skyed all that long when we soar over some high hills and dip into a broad valley. In the near distance is a sparkling silver-tinted carpet that runs the wide vale’s length.
The golden calls out, “The Lorell River.”
She brings us into a tight curve to the right, downriver, and puts herself squarely in the river’s center. Less chance of being seen from the riverbank, I guess. As we sail close to the glistening, smooth water, I mutter to myself, “Hooper, as Phigby would say, m' boy, for someone who’s never traveled farther than Draconton, you’re a long way from home.”
At this point in its course, the river takes several grand sweeping bends before straightening and then narrowing. An odd-looking paleness in the distance catches my eye, and I peer keenly ahead.
On each side of the river rise two gigantic mounds of a gray-white rock that appear to glow with a ghostly pallor under the moons. Split in half, the rock forms tall domed pillars between which the river flows through and onward to the sea.
As if she knows what I gaze at, the golden says, “They’re called Angbar’s Meld. Look to the giant rock on the right hand and to its base, you’ll see Dunadain Keep.”
I lean forward just a bit and find, just below one of the bastions of granite, a fortress that seems to be cut out of the rock. A high battlement runs between three low turrets and connects to a high tower which forms the fourth corner. Apparently it’s the main keep, several stories high and snugged close to the rock wall.
Though Dunadain has no moat, it has a drawbridge that opens into the inner ward but with nightfall it’s now drawn tight against the walls, sealing off the castle. There are only a few torches on the battlements, and the only other light I can see is high in the keep itself.
Abruptly, the golden dips her wings to the right, and we rush over a series of squat, wooded hills
before angling down to a shadowy meadow. Golden Wind sets her talons down, and we land. She quickly lumbers into a nearby grove and Scamper and I dismount.
At just that moment, the sprogs wake, letting out loud screeps, as if they want to get down too, but I quickly order with a finger in their faces, “Hush! Don’t move and stay put!”
They meekly scurry back under the golden’s skull sheath and huddle together.
“What’s next?” I ask Golden Wind.
“Were you able to see into the courtyard?” she asks.
“No, why?”
“Because that’s where they have Glory, Song, and Rover chained. We’ll have to get closer to see if we can tell where the others are held. I suspect that they may be confined in the keep’s topmost chamber.”
“Great,” I murmur. “So just exactly how are we going to get all of them out? You did say that the fortress had guards.”
She turns away and says over her shoulder as she plods through the thicket, “Let’s go see what we can and then perhaps the answer to that will show itself.”
We quietly and quickly make our way through a thin birchen stand until we come up to a small knoll that keeps us from actually sighting the keep below. The golden scrunches herself as low as she can, and crawls like a dog on all fours while Scamper and I do our best to stay with her. We peer over the small hilltop to study the small fortress.
The keep lies in darkness except for a few torches on the walls, and a tiny light high in the landside tower. It’s so small that I can’t help but think that the glow is made from a solitary candle and a meager one at that.
“Hooper,” the golden whispers, “do you see the lone light up high?”
“Yes.”
“From there, follow the tower wall down to the ground, what do you see?”
I let my eyes follow the line from the tower’s high point to its dark base before I shrug. “Other than being a little blacker than the rest of the walls, I don’t see anything.”