Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

Again Todd didn’t bother replying. The way Bobby was going, he seemed to be able to hold up both sides of the conversation all by himself.

“What about our families?” Bobby asked. “I mean, what if something’s happened to my parents? Maybe we should try to find them or something, too.”

Todd grimaced at the very mention of parents. Now that he was out here, and free, there was no way he was ever going back to his father.

“We have to find out where we are before we can figure out where to go,” he answered Bobby, his voice much more reasonable. “Now, quiet down. The less noise we make, the less likely something bad is going to find us.”

Bobby seemed to consider the wisdom of that for a moment before replying.

“Anything you say, Todd,” he said, his voice quieter already.

Todd frowned at the forest before them. They had almost reached the trees.

“So which one should we climb, huh, Todd?” asked Bobby, still not willing to shut up.

Todd didn’t have an answer. The trunks were so thick and the limbs so high that there would be no way of climbing any of the trees on this edge of the forest. Todd looked speculatively at the great clinging vines that ran down the great boles. Would one of them support his weight?

Todd grabbed onto one of the vines, yanking it from where it hugged the tree.

“Remember those ropes in gym class?” he asked.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Bobby said in a voice that was half astonishment, half misery. “How the hell are we going to get out of here?”

Something hummed close by Todd’s ear as he hoisted himself off the ground. He froze.

An arrow thunked into the tree in front of him.

“Cripes!” Bobby yelled. “We’re
not
going to get out of here!” He took a couple of running steps.

“Stay there,” a voice called from somewhere farther along the curve of the forest, “or the next arrow won’t be so polite.”

Bobby froze, and looked back at Todd. The arrow had shut Bobby up at last, but his eyes wanted Todd to do something, anything, and do it fast.

Todd lowered himself carefully back to the ground, trying to figure out where that arrow had come from. He stood very still. What sort of a match were his fists, or even Bobby’s knife, against arrows that came out of nowhere?

“Clever fellows,” the voice called again from the wood, the words slow and deliberate, almost a drawl. “We’re not gonna hurt you. At least, we won’t if you can answer a question or two the way we like.”

Without another word, four people stepped from the darkness beneath the trees, so silently it almost seemed as if they simply appeared. They were all dressed in ragged gear stitched together from dark brown pelts. It looked like they had covered their faces with mud.

“Whose side are you on?” one of the four asked sharply. His was the same voice that had spoken before. He was taller and thinner than the others, with a long, sour face. He looked like he never smiled.

“Side?” Todd asked. “We don’t know anything about sides.”

“They don’t want to answer,” another said. Todd realized from the timbre of the new voice that the speaker was female. With the shapeless clothing that they all wore, it was difficult to tell. She was shorter than the others, her hair cut close to her scalp.

She notched an arrow in her bow. “I think we can hasten their reply.”

“Your side!” Bobby called. He raised his hands over his head. “We’ll be glad to be on your side!”

“Sorry, fellas,” the man answered lightly. “But that answer’s too easy.” He nodded to the woman. “Mary Margaret, you called it, you start it.”

Todd wasn’t about to let this happen. “Wait a moment!” he shouted. “We were dragged out of our home by soldiers, who were taking us to some guy named Nunn. But we got away, and ended up with some crazy old guy named Obar. Except something that looked like it was made of light grabbed us.” Todd realized he was waving his arms. He let them fall to his side as he finished, “We ended up here!”

“Fair enough,” the man replied, as if Todd’s explanation was the sort of thing he heard every day. “But we still haven’t heard your answer. Which do you follow, Nunn or Obar?”

“What?” Todd asked, incredulous. These guys were making him even angrier than he was before. “I don’t want to have anything to do with either one!”

The long-faced man made a sound like a laugh, even though he still didn’t smile. “Put down your bow, Maggie. That’s the best answer of all.”

The woman lowered her bow and sheathed her arrow, then turned back to Todd and Bobby.

“Name’s Thomas,” the first man to speak introduced himself. “You already met Maggie. Next to her are Wilbert and Stanley.” The two other men nodded in turn. Wilbert had a heavy beard, the hair caked underneath the mud. He smiled as his name was mentioned, a flash of white against the mottled muddy brown. Stanley, on the other hand, had hardly any hair anywhere on his head. He squinted at the newcomers without expression.

“Together,” Thomas continued, “we’re all that’s left of the Newton Free Volunteers. And just who are we speakin’ to?” Todd stared at the four for a moment before replying. He supposed he had to trust somebody here. What harm, after all, could come from giving these people their names? Todd introduced both of them.

“You don’t come from here?” Bobby asked.

“Thankfully, no,” Thomas replied. His expression softened a bit with that, as if he really did want to smile but had forgotten how.

“I don’t think any humans do,” Maggie added. “Of course, I could be wrong.”

“You could be wrong about anything going on around this place,” Wilbert said laconically. “We could all be wrong about everything. Probably are, too.”

“We hail from the United States of America,” Thomas said. “Newton, New Jersey; members of the Free State Militia. We were out on maneuvers one weekend—”

“War games,” Wilbert added with a laugh. “Thought Teddy might need us! Never did get a chance to help.”

“Never made it home.” Stanley spat on the ground. “Ended up here, hey? With a bunch of self-styled wizards!”

“They told us the dragon brought us,” Wilbert offered with a wry grin.

“The dragon?” Stanley grunted. “A bunch of mumbo jumbo, if you ask me.”

Thomas opened his arms to take in his surroundings. “Mumbo jumbo or not, we ended up here. You boys don’t look local, either. Where do you hail from?”

Bobby blurted out a short and confusing summation of the arrival of Chestnut Circle in the middle of the woods.

“So we’re countrymen?” Thomas asked. “And you say there’s more of you?”

“Yeah, a lot!” Bobby agreed. “There’s probably still two guys with Obar, and then there’s my parents and Mary Lou and all the other adults stuck with those soldiers.”

“Nunn’s men,” Thomas remarked. The four Volunteers all looked from one to another, as if that meant something none too pleasant. “We know their camp a little too well. It ain’t too healthy for your parents to stay there.”

“Do we get them out?” Stanley barked. He rested his hand on the sword at his belt, as if he already knew the answer.

Wilbert smiled and pulled on the shoulder strap of the quiver on his back. “I haven’t shot anyone in weeks.”

“I think we gotta try,” Thomas agreed. “And then?” Stanley demanded.

“Things have changed,” Thomas said as he nodded toward Todd and Bobby. “There’re new people here. Fresh blood. Maybe we can all get home together.”

“We can do some fighting for Teddy, after all!” Wilbert agreed. “By now, that trouble in China’s gotta be done, hey?” Stanley observed in a much less cheerful tone.

But Wilbert wasn’t going to lose his good mood that easily. “There’s bound to be a fight someplace! Bully and all that!” Todd frowned, not really listening to their talk of battles and some guy named Teddy. The last thing he wanted to do was to go back and get his father.

He tried to calm himself down. Whatever these so-called Volunteers planned, he guessed that they wouldn’t appreciate him wanting to split. Maybe the others deserved to be rescued. He especially wouldn’t mind rescuing Mary Lou. He thought about the way her breasts jutted from her chest, her dark hair fell across her shoulders, the warm, milky smell of her skin. Sometimes she acted like she didn’t like him very much. But he saw the way she looked at him, out at the bus stop in the morning, when she thought he didn’t notice. But not his father. His father was crazy. Maybe there was some way around this.

“So we go back and rescue those guys with Nunn,” he said. “What about Nick and Jason? They’re with the other wizard.”

“Not the same problem at all,” Stanley announced.

“Obar’s a little easier to deal with,” Wilbert explained when Stanley did not. “He tries to keep it under some control.”

“Actually, I’m rather fond of Obar,” Maggie said with a strange little smile. She ran a hand over her short and mud-caked hair.

“That’s our Maggie,” Wilbert said, the smile once again breaking out on his face. “Always the worst judge of character.”

“Hey, it comes with my profession.” She smiled graciously in return, and then glanced at the boys.

“Former profession,” Stanley snapped.

“Hey, now,” Wilbert said more softly. “It’s an ancient and honorable profession. Well, ancient, at least.”

“Former profession,” Maggie agreed. “I’ve retired to become a soldier.”

“Still, you can live with some wizards,” Wilbert said. “As long as you don’t have to trust them.”

Thomas glanced at the sun poised just above the trees. “We’d better get going if we want to raid them after dark. Tell me more about this light-creature that grabbed you.”

Wilbert and Stanley shifted their bows onto their backs. Stanley took a moment to arrange the bow and a bulky pack he carried on the other shoulder. The two started to move without any further orders. Bobby shrugged at Todd and fell in behind the other two. Maggie smiled at Todd and tugged gently at his elbow. He started to walk beside her as Thomas took up the rear.

“Have you eaten lately?” Maggie asked.

Todd realized he hadn’t had any food since the ice cream bar from the night before. “No, ma’am,” he said. Even though Maggie was only a few years older than he was, “ma’am” seemed the proper way to address her. There was something different about her, about all of them, really, the way they held themselves, and the way they talked. It reminded Todd of his grandfather, the major, when he was still alive.

It made sense; Todd guessed—the military connection, that is. Maggie said she’d retired to become a soldier. Todd wondered what she’d done before that.

“I’ve got some jerky here in my pouch,” she offered as she opened a small bag at her side. “It’s made from sand lizard, I’m afraid.”

“Tastes sort of like dried squirrel,” Wilbert added from up ahead. “Well, I don’t know,” Maggie spoke up. “That might be an insult to the squirrels.”

She passed him a piece of dried greenish-brown meat. As odd as it looked, Todd found his mouth watering. There was no reason they would poison him, was there? If they wanted him dead, it would be much simpler to use one of their arrows, or the knives that hung at their belts.

Bobby had started to tell the four what had happened with the light-creature. It wasn’t quite how Todd remembered it. The way Bobby told it, there was more of a fight.

Todd took a small bite of the jerky, tearing the piece free with his teeth. It was a little salty, but not that bad. He swallowed, and tasted something sour.

“It’s the aftertaste that’ll get you,” Maggie agreed, apparently reading the displeasure in his face. “Wilbert says you have to watch out, or the lizards will sneak up on you from behind.”

“It gets better!” Wilbert called back. “After a while, your taste buds die!”

Well, Todd thought, it really wasn’t all that bad. Sort of like strange Chinese food. He took another bite. He felt like his mouth was drying out.

“I could use a drink of water,” he suggested.

“Ah,” Wilbert called. “The food is free, but water will cost you!”

Everybody seemed to laugh at that but Todd. Todd’s tongue felt like it would stick to the roof of his mouth. This stuff was salty.

He managed a grin when he realized that the pouch Maggie held out to him was a waterskin. The meat might have been sour, but he never tasted better water anywhere.

“Never go out on the sand without water nearby,” Wilbert said soberly. “Stick with us, young fellow, and you’ll learn a thing or two.”

Like the fact that wizards couldn’t be trusted? Todd thought.

Unless, of course, he couldn’t trust the Newton Free Volunteers. Especially if they were taking him to see his father. Todd decided, for now, that he’d better keep his options open.

E
van Mills looked with up with a start.

Rose Dafoe stood so suddenly that even the soldiers who were still eating reached for their weapons.

“Where’s Mary Lou?” she demanded.

“Rose, calm down,” her husband, Harold, hurriedly reassured her. “I’m sure she’s got to be around here somewhere.”

Mills wondered how Dafoe could be so certain of his daughter’s whereabouts when he refused to look up from the table.

“I will not calm down!” Rose Dafoe retorted. Her well- manicured hands pounded the table before her. “I want an answer!” Mills realized this was the first time he had ever seen the woman without a smile.

The soldiers looked at each other uneasily.

“Are all the children gone?” Joan Blake asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“What’s happening here?” Carl Jackson demanded. “We don’t have to take this!” He rose to his feet as well, his hands balling into fists. It reminded Mills why nobody in the neighborhood ever talked to Jackson. He could be counted on to explode anywhere, at any time.

Two of the soldiers silently notched arrows in their bows and turned away from Mrs. Dafoe, pointing their shafts toward Jackson. Both soldiers looked much less uncertain than they had before.

“Carl,” Constance Smith said softly. “This might not be the best time to object.”

Jackson’s jaw tightened. He looked at the elderly Mrs. Smith as if he was about to attack her instead. His eyes flicked quickly to the soldiers and just as quickly away. He nodded curtly and returned to the table.