Shatterwing: Dragon Wine 1

by Donna Maree Hanson

  Brill glanced around the dark room. “No, not here—but somewhere like it. Wing dust! I can’t bear that stink.”

  “Doesn’t bother me. I can’t smell much, except my own blood.”

  “Stinks all right,” said one of the men shuffling around behind them.

  Danton stood shakily and took a few steps, slowly treading toward the only door to the room with the lantern held high. Before he reached it, his cry of anguish brought the rest of them to his side. He knelt there in the dirt clutching some dirty fabric that Brill quickly recognized as Salinda’s dress. A fresh wave of sickly stench wafted in Brill’s direction, more potent than the general stink of the place. He stepped around Danton and into the pool of darkness behind the light cast from the trapdoor. In the gloom he could make out the large, decaying body. Ange!

  Revulsion overcame him, then the memories stabbed through his mind as deadly as the nails from the booby trap. Ange, that foul, depraved rapist. A moment of red pain shrouded him. He didn’t know that he had kicked the corpse viciously and repeatedly until Danton’s voice roused him. Rich, reeking odor snaked up and around the corpse. Brill backed away, grinding his boots in the soil to remove the decaying fluids that had spilled onto him. “I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly, when he saw how the men gaped at him. “He was a real bastard.”

  Earl nodded, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. The rest of the men looked away, drawn to their leader’s movements.

  “Through here,” Danton called. He opened the door and ducked through into the next room, taking the lantern with him. Brill had to follow the faint flicker of shadows to see what Danton had found.

  Inside the familiar room were the torture tools. The expression on Danton’s face clearly spelled out his horror. That Salinda had suffered was evident, but her body was nowhere to be found. Danton fingered the witch brand. “Salinda,” he whispered audibly and then flung it at the wall, where it impacted with a dull thud. Brill shook his head. At least the Inspector hadn’t branded him. He shuddered at the thought of what the Inspector had done to Salinda.

  More destroyed wine casks littered the space. Danton ordered his men to salvage what they could of the wine remaining in the few broken casks and make ready to leave. Luckily the water bladders they had brought were empty or near empty so they could be used to carry the wine. But the loss of the cache was a worry. It was clear to all of them that the Inspector and Salinda and the wine were gone. If the Inspector had allied himself with the Infra-pact rebels then he now had the largest store of dragon wine on the continent, and possibly in the world. If they had managed to escape on Plu, then Salinda was in grave danger. Either way, it was clear that the rebels had the wine. That made them dangerous and a powerful enemy. The fate of all rested on that wine.

  “Danton,” Brill called softly.

  “What is it?” Danton was tense and it was clear that his strength was fading. Brill couldn’t understand how he was holding himself together. On the other hand he understood the call of leadership—Danton was strong because he had to be.

  Brill drew close to Danton and whispered, “Maybe we should rest here for a while.”

  Danton’s mouth tightened with refusal until he looked at his men, seeing the wounded and the weak alike. The cellar was as good a place to rest as any if they shut the door between them and the rotting body. Brill knew it and Danton knew it, too. “You’re damn right, kid. Everyone, bathe your wounds in the wine, it has healing powers. But use it frugally. We may have further need of it.”

  Brill nodded, agreeing, even though the room they were in brought back to him the torture he’d endured. Danton found a comfortable place to rest while Brill found a discarded goblet and dipped it into one of the breached casks. He tasted the wine first, then dribbled it over his hands.

  “It smarts something terrible, doesn’t it?” Danton said.

  Just then a high-pitched shriek startled them as one of the men treated his wound. The rest looked on nervously, glancing at the wine with trepidation. Danton smiled and relaxed somewhat.

  “Yes,” Brill replied. He lifted the goblet. “And you, you look uncomfortable. You have all those nail holes on your back and … your …”

  “I’m not wasting it on my arse. Give it here. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted pure dragon wine.”

  “Yes, but after you’ve taken a drink I think we should at least put some in your eye again and then bandage it up.”

  Danton’s shoulders sagged. “As much as I hate the thought of it, you’re right. Maybe I’ll have more than one or two sips of that delectable wine.”

  “Why not?” Brill replied with a smile as he handed over a goblet full to the brim.

  After Brill had treated Danton’s eye, he managed to dribble more wine into the man’s other wounds despite his objections. He had waited until Danton had turned on his side to try to sleep. Danton wasn’t happy about it, but as he fainted soon after, he couldn’t give voice to his complaints. Brill hunkered down himself to rest without worrying about immediate retribution.

  *

  Brill dreamed, fractured images of home and torture and Salinda’s smile. The sound of heavy rain, a good downpour, woke him. No; the noise was more like thunder. Dust and dirt billowed through the partially opened doorway. Light flashed and a dull roar above his head woke the others.

  Danton still slept. Brill knelt down and shook him gently. “Danton. Trouble. Dragon, I think.”

  Danton woke, weak but alert. He scanned the room and sat up. “The bodies? We left them up there in our haste. Bad move.”

  The memory of Ange’s stink surfaced. “Not only that. There’s a body down here with us, ripe and reeking. Do you think they’ll dig for it?”

  “Might. Don’t know much about dragon habits.” The rebel leader stood and nodded to his men. A clump of roof dislodged and fell with a plop. “Check the rear. There must be another way out.”

  “How can you be sure?” Brill asked.

  “I’m not, but it’s worth a try. If I were the Inspector, I would have built an emergency exit.”

  “Right.”

  The dragon above them sounded frantic as it groaned and delved. Soon the roof would collapse, bringing the beast down on top of them. Danton led them to the back of the room, and ran his hands along the wall. It didn’t take him long to find the tunnel entrance. One by one they squeezed into it. Brill brought up the rear with the sound of the dragon’s fury close behind him. His fear of the dark enclosed space was second only to his fear of the enraged beast. Their progress was slow. Many times Brill lay there unmoving, not knowing what was happening ahead of him. He coughed dirt from his lungs and then crawled slowly when the man ahead of him moved. It seemed like hours, suffocating, fear-inducing hours, before hands pulled at him from above, scooping dirt from his back and then his face.

  Danton was there and reached for him. “Hurry, we must hide. More dragons approach.”

  “Into the village.”

  As they hid among the burned-out ruins, Brill surveyed the charcoaled spines of buildings slumped together, licked by a tongue of white mist. When the dragons had come and gone, they followed the tracks in the muddy road. It was dead quiet until the rain pecked tiny holes into the silence.

  Dirt-brown water pooled in the ruts and gouges left by the carts and harpoon trolleys used by the Infra-pact rebels. Water splashed and mud sucked at their boots as they ran as fast as they could along the easily recognizable path. The thieves either hadn’t cared whether anyone discovered they had stolen the wine or had been indifferent to pursuit.

  After about an hour, the road ended suddenly. Instead, geothermal areas dotted the marsh-like landscape surrounding them. A smattering of shrubs and withered trees, along with mounds of grass-covered earth resembling a severe outbreak of hives, masked the dangers lurking beneath the soil. Behind rose the ridge where the dragon hatcheries were, culminating in a peak of russet-colored rock, which effectively hemmed them in.

  Shifting his gaze
to the land in front of him, Brill saw rising steam and heard the sound of bubbling mud and the vicious hiss of boiling water. There was a road hidden there, known only to those with a map, he reminded himself. But now, clear as day before them was the path the Infra-pact rebels had ground into the earth with their carts, showing them the way.

  Brill nodded. “What’s the word, Danton?”

  “We follow this trail until we find Salinda.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Which Way?

  A surge of pain prodded Salinda to wakefulness. Coarse cloth wrapped around her rubbed against her various wounds. Even though the man was clearly trying to carry her with care, every place he touched hurt. He was striding purposefully through the dark of the night, always clinging to the shadows, tensing his body while he listened for any sign of human or beast. Once, Salinda caught a glimpse of Gunner in the distance, saw the glow of a fire. Already he had put a sizable gap between them and the town. The sun was rising. Very soon it would reveal her absence.

  The strange man, Nils of Barr he had called himself, Salinda recalled, paused on a rise and looked back toward Gunner, too. “Fret not. I have set the pyre. Hopefully they will think you burn within it.”

  Surprisingly, Salinda found that she could speak. “And if they realize I’m not there?”

  Holding her close, he lifted her, pressed her against his side and began to move again. “They will follow my trace, scant though it is.”

  Nestled in the folds of his shroud, Salinda smelled his strange scent, something akin to fresh water and crushed earth. Then she sighed. There was so much relief in being free of the town, but one thought loomed large. “He will not believe I am dead unless he sees my flesh pucker and turn to ash. I know too much.”

  Nils concentrated on carrying her with his awkward loping gait. “He?” he asked eventually as he sent his gaze out ahead of them.

  Salinda began to fade again. “Master Gercomo. The Inspector.”

  His strange eyes searched her face. “Who is he?”

  “My … er—the one who did this.” Salinda clung tighter to Nils. He paused to swap her to the other side, so that with every second step her feet touched the ground, giving him some respite from her weight. Other than that she couldn’t help him, except to hold on.

  At full sunrise he paused and fed her a few sips of water from a small metal flask he had within his silvery shroud. By midday, Nils spied signs of pursuit. He had stopped to rest, laying her gently on the bare ground. “They will catch up with us soon, I think. I cannot be seen or caught or I will suffer a greater ill even than you. Heavy is my responsibility. I cannot easily shed my duty for death.”

  “I know what you mean.” Salinda looked around and tried to calculate how far they had come. Then as her gazed passed over Nils, she saw the signs of fatigue. He could not travel much further, not carrying her. “Leave me here. There is no point in your death, too. I will die before they arrive. If I am lucky a dragon will come and feed on me.”

  A breath hissed in as Nils came to kneel by her side. “I thought you said you must not die.” He dampened a cloth and wiped her face.

  Wanly, Salinda returned his look, took in more of his outlandish clothes, discerned more of his accent, the old words that the cadre seemed to understand. “Yes, but death is near. I feel it.”

  He looked away, his gaze scanning the landscape around them. “You live … That will be sufficient for now.” Turning back to her, he said, “You are not surprised by me, or afraid.”

  Salinda whispered, “No.”

  “Why is that?”

  She tried to keep her eyes open, to watch his expression. “I recognize you … somehow … a hint of you … at least.”

  He cupped her face with his hands and drew close to her. “How could that be? Are there more of my kind living with the Sundwellers?” A look of hope and disbelief crossed his face.

  If felt strange to be cradled in such a way. “Sundwellers? No … I have not seen or heard of any such as you.”

  She must have passed out again for when she was next aware he was carrying her again. This time he carried her in his arms as one would a child. He was tired and his pace was slowing, his breathing ragged. At times he fell to his knees, laying her on the ground while a coughing fit seized him.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “They are closing. I cannot make it back to the Way.”

  “Way?” she replied thickly. “Which way?”

  Nils stood and turned full circle, his gaze raking the landscape as he bit his lower lip “Yes, which Way. Why did I not think of that? There may be another closer.”

  Nils studied the landscape. His expression was clouded and his skin reflected the setting sun, making it almost red. His hair wafted in the wind while he searched. “So much has changed. But surely the signs remain.”

  “Signs?” she replied, growing more and more alert. The scratching of burden beasts sounded in the distance. “Help me,” she called to Nils. “I must stand.”

  “What are you doing? You do not know the Ways.”

  “Yes, I know. I don’t even know what a ‘Way’ is, but I do know we’ll never reach it. Help me stand.”

  Nils held her loosely. The cadre throbbed with power now. Fear. She felt no fear anymore. That was the key. Fear and uncertainty disconnected it. Only one with a clear and confident mind could hope to grasp the cadre’s power. She had endured the worst pain and humiliation and survived. Her old self was recast. Scarred though she was, altered, she had not been destroyed.

  Once again, the power of the words vibrated against her skin as she called to Plu, hoping beyond hope that the young dragon had stayed close, alert to her danger.

  “Stop, please. You bring them right to us.”

  Again she sent her command across the plain and beyond the Fire Ranges. Part of her traveled with her words, seeking out her dragon friend. Nils tensed beside her as if he detected the power too.

  A cry from the direction of the sunset made her turn. Behind them the land fell away; ahead lay scrub and rocks. Gercomo with his constables and Punishers was close. Their voices and the jingle of their gear grew louder. In less than ten minutes they would take them.

  “Hurry, Plu,” Salinda called out. “Hurry.”

  “Come, we must put more distance between us. I fear I can carry you no further.”

  Distant wing beats answered her call. Buoyed with new hope, Salinda took a step and faltered. Nils held her arm to steady her. Gritting her teeth against the agony his touch caused her, she took another step, then another. Guided by Nils, they slipped from shadow to shadow.

  The familiar sound of Plu’s tail scraping on rocks drew closer. Salinda’s heart leaped. But she knew that if she could hear it, so could Gercomo, and he had little fear of dragons.

  Another turn and there Plu was. His scales glowed healthily mauve in the setting sun. A tremor rippled up his wings. He was pleased to see her.

  Nils gaped at the vision before him. “Dragon?” he said in awe. “You can summon a dragon?” He turned to her. “Then you are truly a witch.”

  “Not a witch, no,” she answered tiredly. One look at Plu and she drew on the last of her strength. “You wished for knowledge, Nils of Barr. Well, now you are going to get it firsthand.”

  A glimpse behind and she saw them. The gap was narrowing. Soon they would launch spears.

  “Quick,” Nils urged.

  “Wait, I have an idea. It is dangerous, though.”

  “More dangerous than this?”

  “Yes.”

  Half-mumbled instructions to Nils were all she could manage to help him mount as she was concentrating once again on the cadre. With words of power she sent out a call, urgent and strong. After a moment of agonizing silence, she felt the dragons’ minds respond. Strange how she could sense them now, when only Plu had responded to her before. Had Gercomo’s tainted brew left some lasting effect on her? The dragons’ powerful presences reacted to her with curiosity, or perhaps merely hunger
—she couldn’t tell. She sent images of food, pictures of the humans chasing them. Some of the dragons were near, already drawn to the passage of man on the plains. Shrill dragon cries cut through the air.

  Her grip on the cadre lessened; whatever strength it had given her was fading fast. Nils pulled her up on Plu’s back. She saw Gercomo and his entourage look up to the sky, searching, then fall back to hide in the scrub. A spear clattered nosily on the ground near Plu’s left forequarter.

  “Go, Plu,” she whispered. As she urged Plu to flee, other dark shapes loomed. The air filled with dragon call and the scent of sulphur. The presence of so many people, so much potential prey on the ground, provided the distraction she had hoped for. Plu dodged and edged around the larger, older dragons that had come to feed. The cries of those taken by the dragons did not upset her as they once would have. It was their choice to be there. Now she could let the power ebb, let the tendrils of the cadre recede. The aftermath, though, left her weak and reliant on Nils’s embrace to maintain her place on Plu’s back.

  Next thing she knew, Nils was shaking her awake. “Come, you must tell the beast where to go. There,” he said, pointing to a tumble of dark red rocks in the distance. “There is the Way. Ask the dragon to land us near there.”

  Salinda spoke to Plu, her words clumsy and imprecise. She lapsed into unconsciousness again. The next thing she knew she was on the ground, barely able to stand, as Nils held her up. It took all of her strength to thank Plu, stroke his tongue, and to bid him to go. The young dragon lifted off, although not before Nils had stepped forward and copied her gesture. His curiosity seemed to override his fear of the beast, and the desire to know more about them shone brightly out of his strange eyes.