The Dragon's Slave

Chapter 8

  Dark, looming trunks surrounded me, towering into the night sky. Branches tangled and entwined leaving very little starlight to find its way to highlight my path. Vines brushed against my arms and roots jabbed into my naked feet.

The wild forest was an unforgiving route, especially in the dark, and I would have stopped hours ago, except I kept hearing that sound. Always faint, and always behind me. So even though floundering through the trees was a fool's errand and likely got me nowhere, the overwhelming suspicion that I was being followed urged me to continue on.

Muggy heat settled into the ground, forcing scents from the earth like the steam of a warm brewed tea. The damp dirt, rotting leaves and perfumed blossoms filled my nostrils. I breathed it in as I ran—or rather, stumbled—forward.

I sniffed at my arm as I moved, trying to detect what a superior nose might. Twice now comments were made about my fear smelling strongly, and I would be damned to the deepest level of the underground if my own fear brought me down now. But just like the other times I had tried, I, of course smelled nothing.

The choosing house held no hounds, but I was familiar with them from the streets of the city where I grew up. A stray could scent a piece of hidden scrap from three streets away, I lost more than my share of food that way. Even buried beneath rags for later a mongrel would find it first. I learned fast to eat what I had when I had it.

The high lords too, always kept hounds for security and to deter their slaves from escape. A higher breed of dog than those who ran the streets, but similar in their abilities. From those experiences I guessed my bare feet and sweaty palms left a nice wide path to be followed. Should one of those wolves decide to trail me.

I frowned, my fingers tensed around the skirts I had bunched at my waist. My overworked and overtired mind kept producing images of the black wolf with his creepy grin sniffing his way through the trees behind me. It left me feeling exposed and insecure.

But I had a plan. I pushed forward to the sound in the distance, a gurgle of a stream or river. Water itself wouldn't slow a hound—or wolf, I assumed. But part of my skirts had torn, I worked the fabric as I moved, separating the trailing ruffles while trying to remain upright and not make too much noise. If I dropped the loose silk into the water to be carried downstream and moved upstream myself I might confuse someone on my scent for a short time. Maybe gain enough distance to rest. Or climb one of the massive trees and work my way through the branches. Some of the limbs above my head were as wide as my torso. I shuddered at what a misstep from that height might mean. But a wolf would have trouble climbing right?

Until he turns into a man.

...I was doomed.

My body agreed with me, urging me to stop and accept whatever fate awaited me. To rest. Fortunately, my mind knew that death might be part of that equation.

No, I couldn't give up. I reminded myself of the impossibilities I had already overcome. I escaped the aerie, a fortress for dragon lords, of all things. Wasn't it just hours ago I thought that was impossible? I would find my way through this. Probably.

It took longer than I expected to reach the water. The gurgle, I discovered as I walked, was less of a slow tinkling and more akin to a raging river from a distance. I looked out over the moonlit water. Gauging the twinkling flash where the rapids dashed over stones and broken tree trunks and frowned. I couldn't swim that, even if I wanted to. The current would drag me around and bash me as easily as it did the loose branches it whisked along. I winced as one particular branch snapped against a boulder.

Worse, the far side was not a smooth even landing, but a cliff that rose past the height of the trees on my own bank. I gauged that too, but with no access to the cliff there was little point debating if I could climb it.