Taming Fire (36 page)

That much I could believe. I remembered the dragons fighting just miles from this town. I couldn't have been the only one to see it. This man was a helpless farmer, forced to take his cart down the long miles of the empty road. I remembered the loneliness, the emptiness of the land all around me. Whether I went back to Joseph's cabin or on down the road to Tirah, I had that desperate solitude to look forward to.

That decided me. I'd impressed him with my show of fire, but I wouldn't be half so handy against an attack as he hoped. But his horses could move me faster, and I'd appreciate his company as much as he hoped for mine.

"Daven," I said, extending my hand, and he grinned again.

"Rann." He said. I nodded my head, once, and he led me back to the stables to fetch his cart.

His farmhouse sat on a plot that would have made Jemminor jealous, with a stable of his own and a house for the farmhands besides. His Becky made a fine meal indeed, and he showed me to a bed more comfortable even than the one I'd had at the Academy. I woke an hour after dawn, still sore and still tired, but better for the rest. The farmer had his cart already packed and waiting, and I watched his wife fret and fluster over him for a dozen minutes before he finally kissed her once, warm and firm, and said his sweet goodbye.

"I'll be back tomorrow," he promised.

And then we took to the road. He asked for my story and ended up telling me his. He was the second son of a minor baron. His older and younger brothers had both gone off to war behind the royal banner. One for love of country, one for fame. Either one, it seemed, would have made a better farmer than young Goodman Rann. The family home was fallen on hard times, and he had to make this journey.

The story passed the time, but it cut at my heart. He didn't tell me how his brothers died, or exactly when his father passed along. He didn't tell me what it was that drove the farmhands from his fields, devoured his livestock, and ruined his crops. He spoke of accidents and fickle fortune, the way a farmer would, but I could see the edge of darkness he dared not address outright.

There were dragons in these hills. I saw no sign of them by daylight, as we rolled swiftly south along the farmers' road to Tirah, but I could see the signs of them in Rann's story. I could feel their effects in the mob's response to my appearance last night. The dragons had brought hard times, chaos, even where they hadn't yet shown their true forms.

I thought again of running off to Joseph's cabin. It was a wish, a dream, but not one I could long indulge. I knew too much. I knew what wrecked the farmer's lands. I knew what screamed in the night. And I knew it was just the beginning. We would need more than brave men or hiding places. We would need an army. We would need organization. We would need order.

A memory of the rebel wizard Lareth flared in my mind, sharp and clear. He knelt beside me, almost giggling, and told me he would kill the king. I had no love for the king, but the nation needed order now. Lareth's reckless stroke would doom the world. I looked over at the farmer on the seat beside me, set my jaw, and turned my eyes toward Tirah.

We passed through Nauperrel and Undermest and a dozen little towns with names known only to their farmers. We passed beneath a clear blue sky, sun riding high, and lunched in an inn where three of the King's Guard bragged of a recent victory over a band of rebels. Or perhaps a band of brigands. It was hard to tell from their description, and I got the sense the Guardsmen didn't much care.

We passed the afternoon in pleasant silence, the morning's gloom long lifted. Birds sang in the air, cattle grazed in unfenced fields, and Rann began to hum a merry tune. The dragon threat was easy to forget.

I carried it in my heart, though. I remembered what I had seen, the dragons' fight at dusk, and even as the goodman whistled, I watched the sun sink down. How much of it was timing? Would the dragons come out as evening approached? The road bent from east to south, and shadows stretched across it as we moved closer to the hills. I felt a shiver chase down my spine. Timing and terrain. There was more here to fear.

But nothing came for us. Evening settled down, and my eyes ached from staring at the land rolling by on our right, but Rann noticed nothing and soon he had us rattling over cobblestoned streets and settling to a stop near an inn as large as any I'd seen outside the City. Stableboys came to fetch the reins, and Rann hopped down to the ground.

I moved automatically, following him, and for the first time really looked around. "Where are we?" I asked.

"Ammerton," he said, as though it were obvious. "You've never been?"

I blinked at him. I looked back up the road, the way we'd come. "But you said—"

He nodded. "We made most of a hundred miles, in time for supper." He jerked his head toward the inn. "Come on. They make a fine pork cutlet here, and Simeon's going to be waiting."

I started to go with him, but I remembered I had no money to my name. The farmer had bought me my lunch, but I could hardly expect the same courtesy at the end of our journey. Still, I had no desire to be out on the road with dark coming on, and his company would find me welcome at the fire. I could find a place in a corner to sleep and strike for Tirah in the morning.

So I followed at his side as he opened the door. The place was huge. And empty. A bartender nodded to us as we came in, and a worn old man hunched over a beer in one corner, but otherwise the common room was deserted. Rann grunted with the same surprise I felt.

I nodded toward the old man. "Is that Simeon?"

"No," Rann said. His voice was distant. "Simeon is Becky's cousin. He's supposed to have seed and stock for me." He stood for a moment, then shook his head and started across the room. "Ol' Gregor," he called. "You seen Simeon? He was supposed to meet me—"

The bartender shook his head, grave, and Rann's pace faltered. He read something in the bartender's expression and his face went pale. "Something wrong?"

"Just got news an hour ago," the bartender spat back. "Something happened out at Drew Gail's farm."

"What?" Rann asked. "What happened?"

"Hard to say," the bartender said, and he dropped his gaze. "Crazy rumors coming in, but whatever it is, it's bad. Folks went out to check on him, Simeon among 'em."

Rann didn't listen to the rest. He turned on his heel and sprinted for the door, clutching at my sleeve as he passed. I knew what he was thinking, and I didn't like it. He bolted to the stable, caught a stableboy by the collar, and screamed at him for his cart.

"Rann, wait," I said. "Wait for word to come back. We don't know what's happened."

"I know," Rann said. "And you do too. These people won't admit it, but I've heard the things that scream in the night." His face went ashen. "Oh, Simeon."

"How far is this farm?" I asked, while stablehands bustled to prepare the cart. "Do you know even where to find it?" I had to ask it again before the farmer heard me.

"A couple miles outside town," he said. He nodded, almost frantic. "Not far." His breath caught, and I saw his lip tremble.

I put a hand on his arm. "Rann," I said, trying to comfort him, and he whirled on me.

I saw rage flash in his eyes, but it was born of fear and it fled a heartbeat later. "I tried to warn him," he said. "The hills aren't safe. Nobody listened, but I noticed it was worse in the hills. And in the woods."

I swallowed. "You don't actually know," I said. "It could be anything."

He shook his head. And then his eyes found mine, and I saw compassion settle in them. He sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go, Daven. I have to go check on him. He's family. But this is no business of yours. Go on."

I shook my head. "No, I'll come with you."

He reached into a purse on his belt and counted out a handful of coins. He offered them to me. "I know you can't afford a room. Get yourself something to eat."

I pushed his hand away. "I can't take that," I said.

"You did as much as I needed," he said. "You made my trip a brighter one." His eyes flashed at that, and he dropped his gaze. He swallowed.

I looked back at the inn one last time then shook my head. "I should at least see it through to the end," I said. The cart rattled up and I nodded to it. "This is what you wanted me for anyway, isn't it?"

His eyes widened in surprise, then moistened with gratitude, and I felt a stab of shame. I couldn't offer him the help he wanted from me. I couldn't do anything to stop a dragon. But he needed company more than anything else. He needed hope. I hauled myself up onto the seat and then stared down at him. "Come on," I said. "Let's see what all the fuss is about."

Darkness fell as we rattled out of town, and a chill wind sprang up. Rann paid it no mind, but I had to huddle in on myself for warmth. Out on the king's road again, the farmer kicked his horses into a trot, and the little cart flew along. The moon was not yet risen but the stars shone bright from a clear sky and gave enough light to see.

Rann barely needed it, though. He seemed to know the way by heart. He urged his horses on, faster and faster despite a hard day's work, and when he turned them off the main road onto a rutted little path back to a farm in the hills, he barely slowed at all. We were half a mile from the road before I saw the firelight.

It was a furious, mad flickering, and with it came a rustle of noise. I had trouble distinguishing much over the thudding of horses' hooves and the clatter of the jouncing cart, but there was certainly a clamor in the night ahead. Rann took us around a curve, up over a hill, and a rundown farmhouse came into sight below us. The farmer slowed the cart and jumped from the seat before we had even stopped. I leaped after him.

Beyond the farmhouse stood a little clearing, a fenced yard perhaps a hundred paces across. The small pond at one end of the yard would have made good watering for a modest flock, though there were no farm animals in sight. But near the pool, in the mud at the edge of the water, was a dragon. Inky black, larger than a house, and wounded.

It lay sprawled, one hind leg stretched out awkwardly behind it. Its sides heaved, and I saw great gashes gouged through the armored hide. Black blood stained the earth, and more slicked its long, sharp teeth.

And then I recognized the sound. It wasn't the scream of fighting monsters, but the shouts of an angry crowd. They gathered on the field, in a half-circle around the stricken dragon, wielding crude clubs or cheap swords or, more often, sharp-edged farm tools. They carried torches, too, flickering firelight that threw hideous shadows among them. They were the townsfolk of Ammerton. Perhaps even Simeon was among them, and Goodman Rann sprinted down to join them.

But I did not move. Something like cold water washed down my soul, and I lost the focus in my eyes. I could hear the angry rumblings of the crowd, feel their living fury, but I felt something else, too. I felt pain, deep and deadly. I felt despair and impotent rage. The dragon huffed and grunted, and I saw the closest humans press away from it, but instead of a gout of flame the dragon only managed a little growl and a puff of light. The farmers took confidence from that, and crowded closer yet.

They hoped to kill it. And something of that other presence in my mind told me they could kill it. It was too weak, too wounded. Instead of elation, I felt sadness. I felt a flash of frantic desperation. I took a step forward, into the silver starlight, and looked down on the mob below me.

And then something took hold of me. An eerie sense of hope flared in my chest, and without meaning to I fell into my second sight. I looked down on the army of men, pressing close and deadly, and I saw the slashing steel of their weapons like living death. I reached for it, as I had reached for wind and rain, but no effort of my will could touch the worked-metal. I saw it straining, yearning toward the empty blackness of the dragon—and the pulsing thread of red that danced within.

But there were other powers here. There was earth all around them, and water behind the dragon, and even the biting wind that had risen while we drove. I ignored them all. Something in me bent my mind on the fire that danced above a hundred waving torches. I felt my lips pull back in a silent growl. I stretched out a hand, grasped the living flame from the torch of the foremost farmer, and hurled it like a stone to the ground at his feet.

It exploded in a burst of sparks, and the grass caught fire. The farmer screamed in terror, and I heard a roar of victory from the dragon. Then without thinking I did it again, with a flame in the heart of the group, and I heard their panic as they tried to escape the wild fire. Then I grabbed ten flames at once and hurled them to the ground. I grabbed a dozen more and snuffed them out. And then the rest, so darkness fell between one heartbeat and the next, apart from the vicious fire spreading out around their feet.

And then they broke and fled. I saw Rann among them, and he supported another man who hobbled at his side. They came toward me, and a flush of shame and confusion that were entirely my own washed over me. Then of my own volition I turned and fled, darting into the shadows beneath a nearby grove of trees. I hid there as the stampede of terrified townsfolk flooded past. I hid there as Rann helped his injured cousin into the cart. He called for me, three times, but then Simeon groaned and the dragon roared again below and Rann broke and sent the cart careening back down to the road.