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Most of all, Adara saw the burned men. There were dozens of them in every column that passed, men whose skin was black and seared and falling off, who had lost an arm or a leg or half of a face to the hot breath of a dragon. Ten told them what the officers said, when they stopped at the i
For almost a month the columns flowed past, more every day. Even Old Laura admitted that she had never seen so much traffic on the road. From time to time a lone messenger on horseback rode against the tide, galloping towards the north, but always alone. After a time everyone knew there would be no reinforcements.
An officer in one of the last columns advised the people of the area to pack up whatever they could carry, and move south- "They are coming," he warned. A few listened to him, and indeed for a week the road was full of refugees from towns farther north. Some of them told frightful stories.
When they left. more of the local people went with them.
But most stayed. They were people like her father, and the land was in their blood.
The last organized force to come down the road was a ragged troop of cavalry, men as gaunt as skeletons riding horses with skin pulled tight around their ribs. They thundered past in the night, their mounts heaving and foaming, and the only one to pause was a pale young officer, who reined his mount up briefly and shouted, "Go, go. They are burning everything!" Then he was off after his men.
The few soldiers who came after were alone or in small groups. They did not always use the road, and they did not pay for the things they look. One swordsman killed a farmer on the other side of town, raped his wife, stole his money, and ran. His rags were green-and-gold.
Then no one came at all. The road was deserted.
The i
Adara wandered the fields above, played by herself in the damp summer heat, and tried to think of where she would hide if her father tried to take them away.
Last of all, the king's dragonriders came, and with them Hal.
There were only four of them. Adara saw me first one, and went and toid her father, and he put his hand on her shoulder and together they watched it pass, a solitary green dragon with a vaguely tattered look. It did not pause for mem.
Two days later, three dragons flying together came into view, and one of them detached itself from the others and circled down to their farm while the other two headed south.
Uncle Hal was thin and grim and sallow-looking. His dragon looked sick. Its eyes ran, and one of its wings had been partially burned, so it flew in an awkward, heavy ma
"No. Nothing has changed."
Hal swore. "They will be here within three days," he said.
"Their dragonriders may be here even sooner."
"Father. I'm scared," Teri said.
He looked at her, saw her fear, hesitated, and finally turned back to his brother. "I am staying. But if you would, I would have you take the children."
Now it was Hal's turn to pause. He thought for a moment, and finally shook his head. "I can't, John. I would, willingly, joyfully, if it were possible. But it isn't. Brimstone is wounded. He can barely carry me. If I took on any extra weight, we might never make it."
Teri began to weep.
"I'm sorry, love," Hal said to her. "Truly I am." His fists clenched helplessly.
"Teri is almost full-grown," their father said. "If her weight is too much, then take one of the others.'"
Brother looked at brother, with despair in their eyes. Hal trembled. "Adara," he said finally. "She's small and light."
He forced a laugh. "She hardly weighs anything at all. I'll take Adara. The rest of you take horses, or a wagon, or go on foot. But go, damn you, go."
"We will see," their father said noncommittally. "You take Adara, and keep her safe for us."
"Yes," Hal agreed. He turned and smiled at her- "Come, child. Uncle Hal is going to take you for a ride on Brimstone-"
Adara looked at him very seriously. "No," she said. She turned and slipped through the door and began to run.
They came after her, of course, Hal and her father and even Geoff. But her father wasted time standing in the door, shouting at her to come back, and when he began to run he was ponderous and clumsy, while Adara was indeed small and light and fleet of foot. Hal and Geoff stayed with her longer, but Hal was weak, and Geoff soon winded himself, though he sprinted hard at her heels for a few moments. By the time Adara reached the nearest wheat field, the three of them were well behind her. She quickly lost herself amid the grain, and they searched for hours in vain while she made her way carefully towards the woods.
When dusk fell, they brought out lanterns and torches and continued their search. From time to time she heard her father swearing, or Hal calling out her name. She stayed high in the branches of the oak she had climbed, and smiled down at their lights as they combed back and forth through the fields.
Finally she drifted off to sleep, dreaming about the coming of winter and wondering how she would live until her birthday.
It was stilt a long time away.
Dawn woke her, dawn and a noise in the sky.
Adara yawned and blinked, and heard it again. She shi
There were dragons in the sky.
She had never seen beasts quite like these. Their scales were dark and sooty, not green like the dragon Hal rode.
One was a rust color and one was the shade of dried blood and one was black as coal. All of them had eyes like glowing embers, and steam rose from their nostrils, and their tails flicked back and forth as their dark, leathery wings beat the air. The rust-colored one opened its mouth and roared, and the forest shook to its challenge, and even the branch that held Adara trembled just a little. The black one made a noise too, and when it opened its maw a spear of flame lanced out, all orange and blue, and touched the trees below. Leaves withered and blackened, and smoke began to rise from where the dragon's breath had fallen. The one the color of blood flew close overhead, its wings creaking and straining, its mouth half-open. Between its yellowed teeth Adara saw soot and cinders, and the wind stirred by its passage was fire and sandpaper, raw and chafing against her skin. She cringed.
On the backs of the dragons rode men with whip and lance, in uniforms of black-and-orange, their faces hidden behind dark helmets. The one on the rust dragon gestured with his lance, pointing at the farm buildings across the fields. Adara looked.
Hai came up to meet them.
His green dragon was as large as their own, but somehow it seemed small to Adara as she watched it climb upwards from the farm. With its wings fully extended, it was plain to see how badly injured it was; the right wing tip was charred, and it leaned heavily to one side as it flew. On its back, Hal looked like one of the tiny toy soldiers he had brought them as a present years before.
The enemy dragonriders split up and came at him from three sides. Hal saw what they were doing. He tried to turn. to throw himself at the black dragon head-on, and flee the other two. His whip flailed angrily, desperately. His green dragon opened its mouth, and roared a weak challenge, but its flame was pale and short and did not (each the oncoming enemy.
The others held their fire. Then, on a signal, their dragons all breathed as one. Hal was wreathed in flames.
His dragon made a high wailing noise, and Adara saw that it was burning, he was burning, they were all burning, beast and master both. They fell heavily to me ground, and lay smoking amidst her father's wheat.
The air was ftilt of ashes.
Adara craned her head around in the other direction, and saw a column of smoke rising from beyond the forest and the river. That was the farm where Old Laura lived with her grandchildren and their children.
When she looked back, the three dark dragons were circling lower and lower above her own farm. One by one they landed. She watched the first of the riders dismount and saunter towards their door.
She was frightened and confused and only seven, after allAnd the heavy air of summer was a weight upon her, and it filled her with a helplessness and thickened all her fears. So Adara did the only thing she knew, without thinking, a thing that came naturally to her. She climbed down from her tree and ran. She ran across the fields and through the woods, away from the farm and her family and the dragons, away from it all. She ran until her legs throbbed with pain, down in the direction of the river. She ran to the coldest place she knew, to the deep caves underneath the river bluffs, to chill shelter and darkness and safety.
And there in the cold she hid. Adara was a winter child, and cold did not bother her. But still, as she hid, she trembled.
Day turned into night. Adara did not leave her cave.
She tried to sleep, but her dreams were full of burning dragons.
She made herself very small as she lay in the darkness, and tried to count how many days remained until her birthday.
The caves were nicely cool; Adara could almost imagine that it was not summer after all, that it was winter, or near to winter. Soon her ice dragon would come for her, and she would ride on its back to the land of always-winter, where great ice castles and cathedrals of snow stood eternally in endless fields of while, and the stillness and silence were all.
It almost felt like winter as she lay there. The cave grew colder and colder, it seemed. It made her feel safe. She napped briefly. When she woke, it was colder still. A white coating of frost covered the cave walls, and she was sitting on a bed of ice. Adara jumped to her feet and looked up towards the mouth of the cave, filled with a wan dawn light. A cold wind caressed her. But it was coming from outside, from the world of summer, not from the depths of the cave at all.