The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) Read online

  “I needed supplies,” she said, releasing my arm. “This household doesn’t run itself.”

  “She also said you never let her go into the city.”

  She frowned at me. “I never let her? She was needed around here.”

  I look toward the door. My father was still outside, and I wondered what he was doing out there. What trouble was he getting into now? I wasn’t in the mood for any of it. All I wanted was to finish my chores and get some rest.

  “We are all needed around here, aren’t we?” I asked.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  I shook my head, heading to the door, pushing it open and looking outside. My father was there standing in the yard, staring at the road. He wasn’t going anywhere. He had the same lost expression he had before.

  A soft moan from the back of the house caught my attention, and I turned, hurrying over to Thenis’s room. The room stank, a mixture of sweat and urine. “I can’t believe you left him like this,” I said, reaching his room. Thenis had rolled, and he lay at the edge of his bed, almost tumbling off the side. I shifted him, sliding him back onto the bed, but he was completely rigid against me.

  I looked back behind me. My mother had left him like this.

  It sent a new wave of frustration surging through me. I knew better than to let this get to me, but I couldn’t help feeling irritated with her, angry at the fact that she had allowed him to remain like this.

  He deserved better.

  “Just relax, Thenis,” I said.

  He moaned.

  That was new, as well.

  Even though he was ill, Thenis usually had a clear mind. That he would be this off bothered me. Worse, I didn’t know if there was anything that could be done for him.

  I pressed my hand against his forehead. It was incredibly damp, slick with sweat.

  “Get in here. I need your help with him.”

  She stepped up to the doorway, standing there for a moment. She seemed to hesitate, lingering in the doorway as she looked past me and to Thenis. As I watched her, an expression of disgust crossed her face.

  “You need to get help. He’s sick.”

  “He gets like that from time to time,” she said.

  I waved my hand toward my brother and shook my head. “He doesn’t get like this. I’ve been around him enough to know.”

  She frowned. “ You keep yourself so busy with chores outside that you wouldn’t know what happens with your brother.”

  I straightened and wiped my hands on my jacket before turning to her. “We aren’t going to get into this right now,” I said. “He needs us.” I glanced back down. His whole body was rigid radiating heat. The sweat streaming off his brow was even more pronounced now. “Can you help me?”

  “Help you with what?” she snapped.

  “Help me get him out to the wagon.”

  She tensed. “Why would you need to do that?”

  “Look at him,” I said, motioning to Thenis. “He needs a healer.” I hated the idea that we would have to take him into the city, but what choice did we have at this point? Hopefully with the caravan gone, regardless of whether or not Alison had gone with it, the city would empty out a little bit. Just enough so that we would be able to find a healer relatively quickly. There were several within the city we’d used over the years, though we’d been forced to use them quite a bit recently. There were a few on the outskirts of the city we hadn’t used. Those healers we had tried to avoid, though they were often more inexpensive than the healers found further into the city. They preferred a different type of medicine, oftentimes mixing claims of magic with it.

  “We could get the healer to come here,” she said.

  “Not fast enough,” I said. “Thenis needs our help. If we go to the city and bring a healer out here, not only will it be more expensive—” most of the healers who did house calls were far too expensive, if they were even willing to do so “—it will take too long for them to get out here.”

  Scooping my arms underneath , I lifted him. He remained stiff in my arms, his entire body drenched with sweat. There was the stench of urine mixed with it. When was the last time that he had been changed? All of the work I did to help care for my family and my own mother wasn’t willing to do what she needed to help her son? I carried him through the doorway carefully as I navigated back through the living room, stepping around the table and chairs, glancing over to the crackling hearth and remembering that my father wasn’t inside. When I stepped outside, I didn’t see him.

  Groaning to myself, I hurried to the barn. The door was open.

  I paused for a moment, but there wasn’t time to linger. Instead, I carried Thenis into the barn, navigating by feel. With the fading sunlight it was difficult to see much , though I knew exactly where to go. I hurried to the wagon and set him in the back. He deserved more comfort than what I could offer him , but hopefully a blanket would do. He was still burning up, and I didn’t think that he needed anything else to make him even hotter.

  I hurried over to Gray’s stall so I could hook him to the wagon, when I realized Adela was missing. “Where did you go now?” I whispered.

  “What was that?” She called from behind me.

  I turned and nodded to Adela’s stall. “Dad took off. He took Adela.”

  “Where could that old fool have gone now?”

  I shook my head, though I had my suspicions. I had to wonder if he had decided he was going to go after the caravan, thinking that maybe he would be able to catch up to the king’s men.

  “You’re going to have to bring him into the city,” I said. “I’m going to have to go after him.”

  She looked over to Thenis lying on the cart. “I still think we should get the healer to come to us,” she said.

  “And I think you’re wrong. You don’t know that the healer wouldn’t be able to get here in time,” I said.

  I looked over to Thenis. He still hadn’t come around, moaning occasionally. I shook my head. “He doesn’t get like this. This is something else. I don’t know what happened to him, but he needs help. He needs a healer. A real healer . Now stop arguing with me, and get Thenis the help he needs.”

  She clenched her jaw and opened her mouth briefly as if she were going to argue with me, but then shook her head, as if thinking better of it.

  I hurried through the motions of getting Gray hooked up to the wagon and guided him out of the barn. When I let them through the gate and onto the road, I motioned for my mother to climb into the seat. She did so reluctantly.

  It made me look at her in a different light. This was the way that Alison had seen her. Alison had spent so much time with her, and knew how she had been acting, and she had suffered because of it. All of this was because my mother hadn’t wanted to care for Thenis? She climbed into the driver’s seat, then started off. Gray guided them along the road toward Berestal. They moved quickly, Gray’s hooves clopping along the road.

  I raced forward, catching up with them, and touched Thenis on the hand for a moment, resting there as I breathed out. “Get better,” I whispered.

  My mother glanced back at me, saying nothing, and I ignored her as I turned back.

  Now it was time for me to find my father.

  Returning to the barn, I needed another horse. We had four horses, though we once had more. When my father and Thenis had been injured, we’d been forced to trade one of them for medicine. In hindsight, my mother’s objection to that made a lot more sense now.

  I found Flop looking at me. He was a bit spirited, and one of our young green horses, but he was awake. Catching Adela in the dark required an animal that wouldn’t object to racing out into the growing night.

  Pulling him out of his stall, I patted him on the side as I strapped the saddle to him. “I’m going to need your help, Flop.”

  He pressed his head up against my hand, almost as if he were agreeing. Maybe it was just my imagination.

  We started off, racing toward the forest where I believed my fathe
r had gone. There was a mixture of tracks in the muck, making it difficult to follow. I had no idea whether or not he was out there, but I suspected. If he’d taken Adela, she wouldn’t object to heading toward the forest. She was our best horse, which bothered me even more than the fact that father had taken her.

  She had never been his horse either. That had been Gray. Adela had been Thenis’s, and then when Thenis had gotten injured, I had taken over caring for her. In the last few years, I had grown closest to Adela. I wasn’t about to let my father do anything that would harm her.

  Flop moved with a spirited gallop, and though I tried to rein him in, to keep him from racing along the road, he moved quicker than I intended. This was part of the reason I didn’t like to bring Flop with me all that often.

  I remained focused, trying to steer him around obstacles I knew were found along the road. When we reached where the road had washed out, I pulled on the reins to slow him, and he finally came under control, allowing me to guide him down the small ravine where he splashed through the now narrow stream before heading back up and onto the King’s Road. He started sprinting again.

  I didn’t fight it. I wanted to find my father before anything happened to him, before he ended up getting tossed by Adela. Hopefully she wouldn’t do that—she was far too dignified for that. Well trained too, for that matter. I had made sure of that. But it was dark, and horses could get spooked in the night.

  I saw movement in the distance.

  I kicked his sides, and Flop raced forward.

  We neared the forest. It looked like a dark shadow against the backdrop of the night. Moonlight shone overhead, bright and full, and yet not nearly enough for me to tell whether or not the movement I saw was my father or another rider. I doubted that it would be another rider out this close to the forest, and at this time of the night, but it could be. The movement ahead of us veered off the road suddenly.

  I frowned, slowing Flop, guiding him away from the road, and after the figure. It wasn’t the shadow of an animal. Not a wolf, and certainly not a camin. It looked like a horse and rider.

  Thunder suddenly rumbled.

  It was distant, but it was the threat of another storm. It had been several days since the last one, and if another came through, with even half of that violence, I would have a hard time finding my father. I had to move a little slower now that we were off of the King’s Road. Partly from my own uncertainty, but also because Flop started to walk slower, as if he recognized the danger out here. At least Flop was getting smarter in his years. In the past, he had been impulsive.

  Thunder rumbled again, and a burst of lightning exploded.

  It took all of my effort to keep Flop from jolting, trying to turn on me. It took a moment for my eyesight to clear, the bright burst of light blinding me. When it did, I didn’t see the horse and rider anymore.

  I urged Flop to move faster.

  Thunder rumbled again, it sounded closer. Almost too close.

  How could the storm move so quickly? The first burst of thunder had been far off enough that I thought we had time, but each successive rumble of thunder had been closer than the last, and it seemed to be rolling toward us with incredible speed. There weren’t many storms like that. Any storm we got that came in with that much of a raging intensity was in the heart of the wet season, not right before the dry season.

  Which meant that I needed to be careful. I might not have nearly as much time as I thought I would. A wet season type of storm moved far faster than the usual dry season storms. We still got rains in the dry season, though they were typically gentler, and they moved slower. The storm we had only a few nights ago had been severe, even for a wet season storm.

  I urged Flop to keep moving. He slogged through the muddy ground, and when another peal of thunder came, he jerked, almost tossing me.

  “Easy,” I snapped at Flop before cursing to myself. He deserved better than that. It wasn’t his fault there was a storm I understood he was stressed, no differently than some people struggled with storms like this.

  I patted him on the side, trying to soothe him, and talked to him as much as I could, running my hands through his mane. I leaned down toward his ear, whispering. “ I know it’s scary out here in the dark, but I need for you to help me as much as you can.”

  Flop didn’t pull quite so hard on the reins. It was almost as if he understood me, but more likely it was that he understood the tone of my voice. He moved onward. I didn’t even know if we were heading in the right direction, or if the figure I’d seen was anything to be concerned with, only that it was most likely my father. Who else would be out here like that?

  No one, that was who. Especially not with this storm on the way.

  Thunder rumbled again, and lightning followed.

  The storm kept moving closer.

  The lightning wasn’t nearly as bright as the one that had preceded it, but still intense. I reacted quickly this time, as I patted Flop’s side to calm him as much as I could. I leaned forward, whispering soothing words to him, waiting for the thunder to end.

  We continued onward, and I still didn’t see any sign of the figure, but I believed there was something out here, and all it would take would be for—

  Another peal of thunder rumbled suddenly. It exploded with a surge of violence.

  I wasn’t able to keep Flop under control. I was tossed and fell to the ground, my breath knocked from me. Flop reared, bringing his forelegs up before stomping down. I was forced to roll off to the side to avoid him crashing down on me.

  When another burst of thunder rumbled, he turned and jolted.

  At least he raced back toward our home. If nothing else, I would catch him there.

  But I was on foot. Out near the edge of the forest. And with another storm coming my way. Worse, I had no idea if my father was anywhere nearby.

  10

  I stood in place, debating whether to race after Flop or follow what I’d seen before. I couldn’t decide which way I needed to go, but it might be best to at least see if that was a horse I’d seen before. If it was Adela, maybe she would resist my father trying to lead her away, and she would slow so I could catch her.

  The way I saw it, he was either my father decided to head back on his own—and knowing him recently, he most likely wouldn’t—or he’d continue to wander around. Knowing that she was a good horse, the last possibility was that Adela would decide to bring him back. This was what I was hoping for, knowing she wouldn’t intentionally lead him away from us, not if she understood.

  It was possible I was giving Adela too much credit. She would follow my father’s command. How could she not?

  I hurried forward, heading toward where I had seen the figure.

  When the thunder rumbled again, at least I didn’t have to worry about soothing Flop, but I did have to worry whether the storm would come before I had a chance to find my father. The lightning that followed illuminated everything, and with that flash , I could make out a shape in the distance.

  I stumbled.

  The ground was soft, though not completely muddy. I couldn’t run nearly as fast as I would along the King’s Road, but fast enough that I might be able to catch up to the figure in the distance. As I ran, I caught sight of it moving away.

  “Adela!”

  Lightning burst again, and the horse turned toward me.

  She wasn’t moving.

  Strange.

  I raced forward, hurrying to where Adela was. There was no sign of my father.

  At least, not sitting atop her. Someone was laying on the ground next to her.

  My breath caught, as I grabbed her reins, not wanting her to bolt. My father lay motionless. I touched his forehead, brushing his hair back from his head, and realized that he was cold. It was a sharp contrast to my brother, who had been so hot.

  “Dad!” I yelled.

  Thunder rumbled around me emitting a deep, brassy note, practically shaking the ground. I shook my father’s shoulders, but there was still no resp
onse. I lifted him, putting him up in Adela’s saddle, and then climbed behind him, holding on to him. Everything about him was freezing. If the rain came, he was going to get even colder.

  I didn’t have any other choice but to try and get back home. Hopefully he could warm up there. I had a sinking feeling he was more injured than that, though. He didn’t make any sound, and didn’t moan. When I checked his neck, he had a pulse, though it was faint and thready.

  I had no idea how much time we had. Probably not long.

  My sister was gone. My brother had a raging fever. I feared my mother and brother might have gotten caught in the same storm, and the gods only knew what happened to them. Hopefully they had reached the city before the weather turned. And now my father was dying.

  I patted Adela on the side, and leaned forward. “We need to go as quickly as you can,” I said to her. “I know you don’t want to run in this weather, but we need to get back to the farm.” I nudged her sides, and Adela started off, trotting as quickly as she could. I had been around her enough times to know she had some speed to her, though she wasn’t that fast.. But I had to hope she would be fast enough.

  'When we reached the King's Road she set off at an even faster pace. The thunder seemed to chase us, as if the storm was taunting us. The wind whipped around, chilling the air around me.

  It wasn’t long before the rain hit. It was gentle at first, drenching me, but not with the same ferocity as the storm a few days ago. I held on tightly, squeezing my father, trying to keep him in place as we rode. I was afraid of losing control of her, but she was sturdy and quick. When we reached the small ravine where the road had washed out, she trotted down as if to tell me that she knew the path to take, before ascending back up, and hurrying onward.

  It was late by the time we neared the farm. The thunder and lightning was a constant companion. The rain had yet to increase in intensity, and I offered a silent prayer in thanks for that. I soon realized something was off. There were lights on in the windows. My mother had gone off with Thenis to the city, and I couldn’t imagine she would be back by now. It would’ve taken a while for her to get to Berestal and back, let alone have time to have spoken with a healer.