The Dragon Wakes (The Land of Fire and Ash Book 1)

by Sarah Dalton

  Even with the stench of pig muck rising from the cart, she appreciated the freshness of the northern air. She had come to love it, almost. She turned back, to glance at the imposing sight of the Tasme Mountains north of the camp, then she looked to the haunted Dourwood Forest to the south. She stared at the forest for so long that she hit a stone on the path and almost upended her cart. She paused to catch her breath before continuing on. The long period of isolation in the tiny cell had weakened her body but not her mind. Reva straightened her back and went over her plan one more time.

  Much of it hinged on one assumption, which she prayed was true. Sister Mellie—the Sister in charge of the running of the kitchen—was an older woman in her sixties with a mind that was slowly unravelling. All the prisoners gossiped about how Mellie misplaced her wooden spoons. Once, Reva had found one in the chicken coop, and another time, one of the fieldworkers found a spoon hanging from an olive tree. There were rumours that Mellie cooked buttons and coins into the loaves of bread. Therefore, Mellie would not notice if a certain utensil went missing from the kitchens.

  Reva was sent to the mill in the afternoon, where she spent hours grinding grain into flour and bagging it into sacks. Karine was sent elsewhere, perhaps to the guard tower or the animal enclosures or out in the fields. Reva went through everything in her mind. On a daily basis, the prison was split into different work areas. A group of fifteen to twenty prisoners went out into the fields with five guards and three Sisters. The tower and living quarters of the Sisters had another ten prisoners cleaning clothes and chambers and working in the kitchens. Three Sisters and a guard watched over them. Then there were another ten to twelve prisoners working in the animal enclosures and courtyard, where four Sisters and five guards walked up and down. A group of five worked in the olive grove, with two Sisters and a guard, and ten in the mill, with one guard and a Sister. Every prisoner walked with restrictive chains on their ankles, stopping them from running. Every guard carried a sword, and every Sister carried a whip and a dirk.

  Somehow, Reva had to trick every guard and every Sister in the camp, including eagle-eyed Valeria, who had a habit of following her around the courtyard when she was moving pig muck or collecting eggs. Reva could tell when Valeria was watching her, because her skin prickled in the same way it had when she had almost turned into whatever monster her Menti power transformed her into. Valeria was Ammie’s screams and Karine’s wounds. She was cruelty itself, and her presence brought bile up from Reva’s stomach. Her mother used to say people got what they asked out of life, but Reva was not sure if that was true anymore.

  That night, after their regular meal of broth and stale bread, Reva sat close to Lottie and whispered her message. As they made their way back to the hall, standing in a line so that the Sisters could count them, Reva checked for Rosa. She knew that Rosa was a significant threat to her plan. She had to make sure that the girl was ignorant to what she was doing. But Rosa acted as she always did, as an outsider.

  Lottie came to her that night and lay on the straw between her and Karine. It was through quiet whispers that they told her the plan, and, like Karine, Lottie was quiet afterwards.

  Eventually, Lottie cupped her hand over Reva’s ear and whispered, “I’ll get it for you.”

  Reva grasped Lottie’s hand with her heart pumping. It was beginning.

  The next day, Reva ensured she was the last to leave for breakfast by pretending to oversleep and then fiddling with her ankle chains until the others left. Some of the prisoners wound footwraps around their ankles to prevent the chains from rubbing. She did that now, bundling the linens up and over her feet. When the others had left, including Rosa, Reva stuffed more of the linens underneath her patch of straw. The linens were replenished each morning and a small amount of stock was kept in their hall until they were locked in at night, when one of the Sisters would take them away. It was bold to steal linens, but Reva had watched Rosa and the Sisters carefully over the weeks she had been there. While they tended to count the number of tunics folded on the shelves, the footwraps were often bundled together to save time. She knew that if she took just a few at a time, the Sisters would not notice. After all, the linens were short and weak. Their uses were limited. However, Reva had an idea to overcome that issue.

  She managed just one heel of bread that morning, but adrenaline kept her going throughout the day anyway. There was little else to do but wait until Lottie helped them in the kitchen. Karine offered small smiles of encouragement throughout the day, but they both knew that their hopes were pinned on Lottie. Reva walked a knife’s edge until evening. Even the slightest commotion had her startled. Her bones almost leapt out of her skin when a young prison girl smashed a plate as they ate their broth that night. When Reva collapsed onto her straw, she felt beneath for the linens. They were still there. Then Lottie lay down beside her and pressed a cold implement into her hand. Reva’s heart skipped a beat. She got it.

  When the others were asleep, Reva, Lottie, and Karine whispered their plans behind cupped hands. They had the bare bones, now they needed to lay the flesh. It would start with the leader of each work party. In the structure of the prison, there was no official leader for each party, but it usually happened that the oldest or most experienced of the prisoners became the natural leader for the rest. For the kitchen and tower cleaners, that happened to be Lottie. For the courtyard and animal enclosure workers, it was a thickset woman called Iva. For the field and olive grove workers, that person was Oona. It was agreed that Karine would speak quietly to Iva, and Reva would work on Oona.

  The next morning, Karine was the last to join the others for breakfast, while Reva kept an eye on both Sister Valeria and Rosa. It was better this way. Valeria and Rosa were suspicious of Reva, while Karine slipped by unnoticed. Only Reva saw Karine hurry out of the great hall and to the back of the queue, her face and neck bright red. Reva prayed Karine would calm herself before accepting the morning bread and water from the Sisters.

  There was a sombre mood in the prison today. The Sisters had been working the prisoners harder than ever. One of the oldest of the women—a woman in her seventies called Alis—had collapsed after a long day and been dumped in the prison hall by the Sisters. Reva and Lottie had laid damp linens on her forehead when they could, but the woman was weak. Lottie worked with her lips in a tight line, which made Reva worry that Alis would not make it. If Alis did not recover, it would be the first casualty since Reva joined the prison, though the others spoke of previous deaths. The most common cause of death was exhaustion after being worked long and hard by the Sisters. The young and hardy coped with the harsh regime, but the older and weaker soon struggled.

  That was exactly why Reva’s plan needed to work, though she suspected it was too late for Alis.

  Reva was a bundle of nerves as she pushed her cart out to the fields. She knew little about Oona and they rarely had a conversation. Sister Laurie stood chatting with one of the guards, barely paying attention to the prisoners. That was a stroke of luck. Reva thought back to that moment in the solitary cell when the guards had talked of relations between the Sisters and the guards; maybe there was some truth in it. Whatever the reason, it made it easier for Reva to sidle up to Oona as the woman oversaw the emptying of her manure cart.

  As the other prisoners busied themselves with emptying the cart, she spoke quietly to the woman. “If I needed your support, would I have it?”

  Oona was not a woman to cross. She was tough. Four years she had been in the prison, and she had survived that long by working hard, keeping out of trouble, and staying out of Sister Valeria’s way. Reva knew all of that from what Lottie had told her, but she hoped there was still a desire for a different life inside Oona. She hoped, and she prayed, that she was making the right decision to include her in the plans.

  “What support?”

  Reva swallowed as she avoided Oona’s penetrating green eyes. “Will the others follow you when the time comes?”

  “What time?”


  “Just answer me yes or no.”

  Oona’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and then they flicked up to Sister Laurie standing with the guard. She lifted a foot, unshod, covered in filthy linens. There was dried blood on her toes and around the iron shackles. Reva saw the woman contemplating her words and realised that she understood.

  “I will. If you’re smart enough to plan this.”

  Reva exhaled. She glanced across at Sister Laurie and the prisoners but none of them had heard. They had not said anything explicit, but even the slightest hint of a plan would be enough to ignite any of the Sister’s suspicions.

  “I am. Thank you.”

  Reva joined the other prisoners to help shovel the manure onto the fields, then she pushed her empty cart back to the courtyard. She spent the rest of the afternoon clearing out the chicken coop and collecting eggs to take to the kitchen. There, Lottie nodded and smiled at her. Reva could see the bright shine on Lottie’s eyes, and the slight flush on her cheeks. The plan was coming together. Reva’s stomach fluttered like bees trapped in a jar as she finished off her chores for the day. Since she had decided on the course of action she was going to take, she had actively attempted to regain her strength, which meant eating and drinking as much as she could, taking breaks whenever she dared, and sleeping well. The latter was the hardest. Her nightmares had calmed, but she was constantly too excited to sleep through the night. She usually ended up staying up late to whisper plans with Lottie and Karine.

  That night, Lottie brought another stolen item from the kitchen, which Reva hurriedly hid beneath the straw, which was already padded out with linens. This was the last item they needed, and the most difficult to conceal. It meant that they would have to carry out the plan tomorrow night, and they had to make sure it all went smoothly. Reva thought of the guards who stood sentry on the prison wall next to the gate with some trepidation. Then she began to tie the linens together, weaving a strong rope.

  The next morning, Reva whispered in Oona’s ear, Karine went to Iva, and Lottie spoke to her kitchen and tower staff. No one was to tell Rosa. In fact, Reva worked closer to Rosa than she ever had before, finding excuses to move to and from the courtyard to the fields to check that the girl was busy with her work and oblivious to what was happening in the camp. Each time she expected Sister Valeria’s hard hand to grasp her by the shoulders and pull her off to the cell in the dungeon again.

  But those hands did not clasp her bony shoulders. Rosa did not look up from her work. Valeria was occupied with chastising another weak girl struggling with her work. Reva balled her fists and continued on. She thought about her plan to stop herself interfering; she thought about the guards on the wall and the chains on their ankles and the things she was asking of Lottie and Karine. It would all be worth it. She hoped. It would stop Valeria from bullying these girls. But the guards… she worried about them. There were some guards that worried her more than others.

  Their nightly broth tasted of nothing. The prisoners walked slowly to the prison hall, all in silence, and waited patiently for the Sisters to count them as they filed into their chamber. Reva walked over to her bundle of straw and tried to calm her pounding heart. Close the door, she thought. Close the door and leave. She glanced back at Karine, who had moved behind Rosa without Rosa knowing. You can do this, Karine. She smiled at the girl with the honey hair, the girl who was every bit as brave and loyal as Ammie. No. Reva closed her mind against that last thought. Karine would not end up like Ammie.

  Her heart thundered in her ears as the thick door dragged along the ground and came to a close. There was the sound of the draw bar dropping into place, and the prisoners let out a sigh of relief. Reva waited until she heard a muffled cry followed by a thump, then she took out her hidden treasures from under her straw and hurried back. It was dark and she bumped into other women, but they guided her to where Karine had hold of Rosa. Together they gagged and bound the girl. Rosa squirmed and screamed through her gag, but it was nothing but a muffle. They dragged her to the back of the hall so any guards outside would not hear her.

  Reva crouched low next to Alis. The older woman was still suffering from exhaustion. “We are escaping the prison. I want to take you with us—”

  “Oh, leave an old crone like me behind,” she said with a croaky laugh. “I’ll be watching this one.” She cocked her head towards Rosa. “And making sure she shuts her fat mouth. Pull me over to her, will you?”

  Reva and Lottie lifted the old woman and carried her towards Rosa. They set her down carefully, and propped her back against the wall.

  “Thank you,” Reva said.

  When she turned her back on Alis, Reva’s stomach lurched. But they all knew that they could not take Alis with them. It hurt to leave someone behind and, absurdly, Reva thought of kings and how they made decisions to benefit the realm as a whole at the expense of the few. She took a deep breath, and recovered the stiff iron ladle from behind the linen cabinet.

  “Are you ready, Lottie?” Reva asked.

  The girl nodded. Reva strode across the hall, almost tripping over the bundles of straw. She saw the glint of the knife in Karine’s hand. They were the two items Lottie had stolen from the kitchen. The ladle was easy. It was no great stretch that Sister Mellie could misplace a ladle, but the knife was another matter. It was not the first knife to be stolen from the kitchens. The prisoners often gossiped about plucky prisoners cut down by the guards after attempting to escape with a knife in their hand. Reva knew that Sister Mellie was easy enough to fool, but she imagined the other Sisters checked the kitchen for utensils such as knives. They had a small window in which to utilise their advantage. And it started now.

  Reva pressed her ear to the door. Over the last few weeks, she had spent a lot of time asking the right questions and listening at the right time. She had long suspected the guards were more concerned with the courtyard gate than they were the gate to their chambers. That was because the guards—and the Sisters—figured that the prisoners would not be able to travel far beyond their sleeping quarters, and they were right. But Reva had an idea to overcome that weakness.

  She listened intently, her heart the loudest sound as it thrummed in her ears. There was nothing. No movement, no sound whatsoever.

  “The guard has gone,” she said. “They are eating supper in the tower.”

  That was another part of her plan. Each night, as the Sisters closed the door and left them in darkness, Reva had counted the seconds in her mind. She figured out that it was mere minutes after the doors shut that the sound of laughter came from the towers, sometimes accompanied with music. That was when the Sisters and the guards took their supper. That was when they were the most vulnerable. Reva knew there had not been an escape attempt for a number of years. The occasional prisoner made a run for it in the fields, but they were underprepared and always fell at the Dourwood Forest, only to be cut down by a guard. The guards and the Sisters were so confident they had thought of everything that they had become complacent, and Reva was ready to take advantage of that complacency.

  Satisfied they had picked the correct moment, Reva lifted her head and felt along the edge of the door. There. The rusting hinge at the bottom of the door. She jammed the handle of the heavy ladle against the lip of the hinge and worked it. She pressed so hard that when it gave way, she fell forward and hit her head on the frame. But it hardly hurt one little bit. She brushed the bruise with her fingers, and set to work on using the ladle on the second hinge. This one was tighter, but she was able to use the slight give gained from removing the first hinge to get the handle of the ladle into the slither of a gap between the hinge and the wood. But once it was there, the ladle was stuck. Reva was not strong enough to prise open the hinge. She pushed and pulled but the hinge would not budge.

  “Let me help, Raina,” Karine said.

  The two girls put all their weight into the operation, and at one point, when the solid iron handle bent slightly, Reva was convinced the ladle would snap.
But it did not. It held, and the hinge worked its way out of the wood. Reva smiled, and wiped sweat from her forehead. They had removed two of the three hinges from the door, but there was still the draw bar on the outside to consider. It was a heavy, iron bar that rested on two holders on the outside of the door. But Reva had an idea for dealing with it. First, it meant pushing the door to the right, which she directed Karine to do, then she had to slide the handle of the ladle through the gap between the frame and the door, wiggling it little by little until it rested beneath the heavy iron bar. Then she had to try and lift the bar up, which was not going to be easy.

  Reva thought of the guards and the Sisters eating their supper in the guard towers. They would not be in there all night. At some point, at least one guard would come to check on them, and they had much to do yet. The sweat rolled down between her shoulder blades as she pushed the ladle upwards. Karine was joined by Lottie and another girl as they hoisted the door as far as it would go while still bolted on the outside. Reva pushed the ladle up, and finally the bar began to move. She heard the scrape of iron against iron as the metal bar moved up. She gave it one last push and the bar slipped out of its hold, loosening the door. It was still locked on the right side of the door, but they had released the bolt, and taken out two of the three hinges on the door. Now they needed to open the door wide enough to let one of them out. Someone small. Lottie.

  This was the part Reva was dreading. She gestured for Karine to give Lottie the knife and then looked at the small girl.

  “Are you ready?” Reva asked.