Fistanadantilus Reborn

CHAPTER 18

374 AC

Fourth Misham, Palesivelt

Danyal's feet pounded the smooth dirt of the trail as he relied on subconscious memory to avoid the rocks and roots that jutted forth from so many places. Certainly he did not see these obstacles; his eyes were blinded by tears, and his mind refused to let go of a specific picture: the remembered shape of a child's body, someone his own age charred black and stretched on the ground, reaching with outstretched arms toward the edge of the village, the stream, toward Danyal himself.

It was that last recollection that all but shouted aloud, dominating his awareness. Somebody had been reaching out for him, had desperately needed his help, and he had not been there.

He had identified none of the bodies in that first horrified glimpse, but a new wave of tears spilled freely as he thought that any one of them could have been his father or his mother, or Wain. And if they hadn't been there, in the small commons square, then they had certainly been killed in the crushed barns or the incinerated char of the torched outbuildings.

In truth, Danyal didn't want to know any more. His only comfort was running in this mindless dash through the streamside woods.

Eventually, however, the straining rawness of his lungs, the stinging ache in his side, slowed the pace of his flight. Shambling with fatigue, he stumbled over a thick willow root, staggering a step farther before he collapsed. On the ground, he sobbed until he had no tears left, until his panting breath faded to raw, painful gasps. His eyes, clear once more, stared at the twisted trunk of the aged willow tree, saw sunlight flicker from the rills of the stream.

Numbly he tried to absorb the fact that this was the same stream he had seen that morning, but it didn't seem possible. His grief had gone, a fact that he thought very strange. Trying to think about that, he realized that he had no feelings of any kind. He lay there for what seemed like a very long time, considering the reality of this, amazed that he wasn't crying or frightened.

Or angry.

When he was able to summon the strength, he rose to his hands and knees and pushed himself around to sit with his back to the smooth bark of the huge-boled tree, watching the water. He recognized this place, and it amazed him to see that he had run so far upstream. In fact, he had already passed the last of the trout pools that had seemed so remote that morning.

A fish jumped, a beautiful flash of silver scales in the sunlight, spattering a rainbow cascade of shimmering drops before splashing back to the rippling water.

Strangely, Danyal wasn't hungry. Only then did he notice that his throat was quite dry. He rose, stumbling awkwardly to the bank, and when he knelt on the bank, he had to catch himself as he almost pitched forward. The surface of the stream danced and dipped in ways he had never noticed. It was as if he had never seen flowing water before. Lowering his cupped hands carefully, he lifted the clear liquid to his lips and slurped draft after draft of the drink.

Thirst quenched, Danyal blew his nose, then looked around the sun-speckled valley. It occurred to him that he would have to decide what to do. He thought of the village again, and his next breath was ragged, but when he shook his head sternly, the numbness returned. The secret, he saw, was not to let himself feel anything.

Again he faced a decision. He knew he couldn't stay here, though a small part of him quibbled with the notion, suggesting that he might as well flop down right here and sleep till he died.

But where was he to go, then? And what to eat, how to live?

With a flash of hope, he thought of his fishing pole, knowing he must have dropped it around the time he first saw the dragon. His feet took to the trail and he backtracked, again amazed that he had run so far.

It took a long time to reach the pole, and by then he could smell the acrid stink of the burned village. Crows jeered each other from the trees overhead, and he saw buzzards wheeling high in the sky.

He picked up the supple shaft of willow. Again he thought of the village as he had last seen it, and he told himself that he could go no farther. His eyes filled with tears and he shook his head in frustration as a nagging, unwelcome question intruded into his thoughts.

What if somebody had lived, had miraculously survived the onslaught of fire and destruction-a person who was injured, maybe badly, someone who needed help?

Uttering a sharp, bitter laugh, he knew the notion was ridiculous. The devastation was too complete. Still, he also realized he couldn't leave, couldn't go away from this place, until he knew for sure.

Slowly, hesitantly, he stepped along the trail, following the bend away from the stream, stopping for a moment, taking the time to carefully lean the pole against a gnarled willow, then climbing the low bank that marked the end of the trees. He was grateful now for the smoke that seeped through the air, trailing upward from countless burned beams and charred foundations. At least he could only see a small portion of the place at once.

He went first to his own house, the largest building in the village. It was hard to recognize the building he remembered amid the twisted wreckage of broken stone and charred, splintered timbers. He saw the paving stones of the front walk and a pit full of black timbers that he tried to tell himself was the cellar.

But it wasn't, couldn't be. Surely this was some strange location, a spot in some infernal realm that bore only a surface resemblance to the place where Danyal had spent the first fourteen years of his life.

The blacksmith's shop was recognizable by the anvil and forge that still stood in the midst of charred wood and the splintered stone of the building's back wall. Danyal staggered away, gagging reflexively at the sight of a brawny hand, burned fingers stiff around the hilt of a heavy hammer, the limb and tool extending out from the base of the rubble.

And everywhere else it was the same. He stepped around the pool of wine and the blackened bodies that had been gathered around the wine tuns in the commons, vaguely deducing that most of the villagers had died here-probably in the first lethal blast of the dragon's attack. Many of the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable, and he kept telling himself that these were just carvings of wood or charcoal, inanimate things that had been formed into grotesque caricatures of actual people.

In the small pasture on the far side of the village, he turned away from the sight of the shepherd boys- including Wain, he knew-who had met death from the dragon's rending claws. These bodies were even more horrifying because the former humanity was apparent, undeniable, in the small, cruelly torn shapes.

Danyal wanted desperately to turn and run, to leave this place behind forever, but he forced himself to complete his grim circuit. In the center of the village, before the remnants of his house, he turned through a circle, peering through the smoke for any sign of life.

"Hello!" he shouted, startling a hundred crows into loud, cackling flight. "Is there anybody there? Anybody at all? Can you hear me?"

He waited while the birds grew still and the soft echoes faded. The stillness, then, was absolute, and he accepted the truth: He was the only living person here.

Before he knew it, he was back in the woods, at the streamside, where he had set the fishing pole before entering the village. And again he wondered, Where should I go?

For the first time in his life, Danyal considered the fact that he really knew very little about the world beyond this valley. He knew that somewhere downstream, far along a distant forest road, there was a city called Haven. His ancestors had come from the city. Occasionally some adventurous person from the village would go there and return with stories of exotic people living strange, crowded lives.

Upstream, to the north, there was wilderness, and there was the dragon. The creature had come from that direction, then returned along the same path. Danyal knew the waterway rose in some of the mountain heights that a person could glimpse, on a clear day, if he found a vantage where he could get a view through the trees. It seemed likely that the dragon lived there, too.

As soon as he reflected on the two options, he knew he would be going toward the mountains. An emotion was beginning to creep through his curtain of numbness, a feeling of anger, of bitterness and of hate. The dragon had taken everything about his life from him. He would do the same thing to the great crimson serpent!

The notion gave him a surge of energy. Excited about the prospects of a real objective, he was immediately ready to start out. He could worry about the details of his mission later.

Picking up the fishing pole, the youth started on the upstream trail. His step was firm, his intentions clear. He had a fine creel and a sharp knife, as well as flint, tinder, and the warm wool blanket wrapped at his waist.

Anger propelled him as he strode quickly along the trail. He decided he would walk until sunset and then hope to catch a fish or two before dark. As to where he would sleep, he had a good chance of finding a river-bank cave or a hollow tree. Often he had camped with his brother, using nothing more than the arching foliage of a weeping willow as their shelter. If he had to, he could do that tonight as well.

But Wain wouldn't be there, would never be there again. Thoughts like this kept intruding on his anger, threatening once again to drag him down with grief. He resisted courageously, though more than once he was startled to realize that he was crying.

A crashing in the brush nearby nearly sent him sprawling. He drew the thin-bladed fishing knife reflex-ively, brandishing blade and pole as he heard a large form pushing through the trees. Then a black shape burst into view, ears flattened against its skull as it uttered a shrill neigh of fear. With a thunder of hoof-beats, the animal turned to gallop along the trail, swiftly disappearing from view.

"Nightmare!" he cried again, his hopes bizarrely inflamed by the sight of the once familiar creature, however ill-tempered, that had shared the village with him.

But then he was weeping again, this time in frustration, as the horse vanished from his view. He plodded along, his earlier energy rapidly dissipating into bleak despair.

Nearly an hour later he came upon the animal once more, now standing passively at the side of the trail. Walking softly, approaching from the rear, Danyal was startled to hear a gentle, feminine voice-someone who sounded very much like one of the girls from the village.

"Have a taste of this, you poor old mare. I know you've had a bad scare. Believe me, I know what that's like. There, take another bite. There's plenty more apples on the ground in the orchard."

Danyal's next step brought him in view of the speaker, and he was surprised to see a kendermaid. He recognized her race immediately. Several times a year, one or more of the diminutive wanderers would travel through Waterton, to the dismay of honest and gods-fearing folk. But they had always been friendly and entertaining to the village's children.

This one was the size of a human girl, but wisps of gray streaked her thick, dark hair, a mane that she had bound in the typical kender topknot, except that it split into two tails, one draped over each of her shoulders. Her face was round and becoming; only the spiderweb of wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes suggested that this was other than a pretty girl. That, and the pointed tips of her ears, Danyal realized, as he recognized the elfin shapes framing her face. She wore practical and well-worn leggings, moccasins, and jacket, and had an assortment of pouches and purses dangling from her neck, shoulders, and belt.

Her eyes widened as she saw him, but then she smoothly raised a finger to her lips, silencing him before he could speak. She pulled an apple from a voluminous bag at her side and allowed Nightmare to nibble on the ripe fruit. At the same time, she slipped a halter line over the horse's muzzle and carefully drew the rope over the now upstanding ears.

Danyal, having previously seen this maneuver attempted upon Nightmare, inevitably with disastrous results, was surprised when the horse nickered softly, then probed toward the pouch in search of another apple.

"There, there." Now that he watched her speak, he could see that the stranger spoke with a maternal, soothing tone that belied her diminutive size. She gently patted the horse on the neck, and Nightmare's head bobbed in response-or perhaps the motion was simply an effort to chew the next apple.

"Hello," she said at last, looking at Danyal with an expression of sympathy and concern. "I saw the dragon. Are you from the village?"

He nodded dumbly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I guessed that this horse came from there. Is there anyone else…?"

She let the question hang in the air, and this time his mute response was a shake of the head.

"Well, here," she said, offering him the end of the halter. "I think you should have him."

Reflexively Danyal took the rope, though he was vaguely surprised that Nightmare didn't immediately take off running. "Th-thanks," he said, also by reflex.

"I wouldn't try to ride him just yet," she said. "He got kind of burned on the shoulder there. I was thinking that maybe a mud poultice would help it heal."

"You're right!" The youth was suddenly infused with enthusiasm, with the thought that there was something he could do to help. "I'll be right back."

He skidded down the slope, into a silty patch of the streambed, and quickly scooped a double handful of the smooth, gooey stuff. Scrambling back up the bank, he struggled to keep his balance without using his hands. At the horse's flank, he reached up to gently place the poultice over the hairless, seared patch of flesh. Nightmare shivered, his pelt rippling along his flank, but he didn't shy away from the ministrations.

"That was a good idea," he said, speaking softly to the kendermaid, who had been standing on the other side of the animal. Questions suddenly occurred to him, and he blurted them out: "Who are you? What's your name? Do you live somewhere around here, in the valley?"

When he got no response, he dipped his head, looking under Nightmare's neck. He felt a chilling sense of surprise, wondering if, for a moment, he had imagined the kendermaid's presence. She was nowhere to be seen.