Dragon Clan #2: Raymer's Story

CHAPTER THREE

Raymer waited impatiently for three full days until he felt the tingling sensation on his birthmark again. He closed his eyes and tried to issue warm, friendly, and welcoming thoughts, as he’d heard some of the clan elders did when telling their dragon tales. They said that someday he would be able to “call down” dragons in battle, but the specifics were for adult ears. A year ago, he’d been only fifteen and beardless. Children were not entrusted with clan secrets.

But he’d heard rumors all his life.

He pulled himself up to the window and watched the sky. The dragon flew into view. It flew with a leisurely appearance about it. However, it turned and twisted the head on the end of the sinuous neck as if it was now searching for something. I’m here.

The dragon suddenly turned and flew directly at him. His heart went wild. He shook his head at the beast. It was too soon. His plan was not developed. Raymer’s face paled. Should he cheer or faint? But first, he had to make the dragon fly away.

No! Turn away. Turn to your left.

The dragon looked confused, the beating wings hesitating as if it didn’t understand, or didn’t know what to do. Dragons don’t know what the left is, he corrected himself. Turn to the sun. Fly to the sun.

The dragon swerved as it looked to the west, and the setting sun. As it flew faster, Raymer felt the tingles on his back diminish, but the sensation of communicating remained in his mind. A smile crossed his lips for the first time in days as he again projected friendly, warm thoughts that he hoped the dragon could understand and that it would return for more of them. The feeling of touching the dragon mind finally ceased.

His plan needed refinement. If the King or one of his minions realized the dragon was in contact with Raymer, his life would last about as long as it took for one of them to descend the stone stairs to the dungeon, swords in hands. Still, he felt like dancing around his cell as if he’d lost his mind. When the euphoria wore off, he sat and considered what to do.

The problem was two-fold. Raymer needed the dragon to understand his wishes well enough to do what he needed. He also had to keep it secret from anyone in the Summer Palace while perfecting it. But for now, he smiled.

For the first time in a year, he held a measure of hope. He began thinking of all that could go wrong, and even calculated his odds of escaping, but soon quit. It didn’t matter. He had a plan. A possible future, if slim.

“Quint, are you gathering that mortar?”

“Who’s this strange voice speaking to me?”

“There’s only you and me down here, Quint.”

“In that case, I’ve been far too busy to do manual work.”

“Well, un-busy yourself. The timetable for escaping has been accelerated.”

“Accelerated, you say? You use words like accelerated and accuse me of being overly educated?”

Raymer saw the guard with the two missing front teeth crouched behind a storage unit containing chains, saws, nails, and hammers, none of which were intended for carpentry. Dried blood, bone, and bits of flesh coated them. He raised his voice so the guard would hear. “Quint, I heard the night guards talking.”

“What’d they say, or do I care?”

From the corner of his eye, Raymer watched the eavesdropping guard move from the storage container to the corner of the hallway where a shelf stood. “They said two of the children belonging to our guard looks more like some of the night guards.”

“Not true, Raymer. I can tell you that for a fact. His ugly girls look like the spawn of the king’s stallion.”

The guard stood, pulled his blade and charged the cells, as if not knowing which to attack first. He shouted spittle flying. “You two can thank whatever demons you worship that you’re inside those cages where I can’t get at you.”

Quint spoke first, “Hey, it’s fine with me if you want to let me out of here so you can get at me.”

Raymer added, “Or, feel free to let yourself inside.”

The guard had pulled to a stop before he was close enough for either of them to reach through the bars and grab him. He sputtered in his anger and stalked away, only to return a moment later carrying a wooden bowl in each hand. When he was ten paces away, he tripped and spilled the contents of the bowls on the floor, while wearing a sly smile. There would be no dinner tonight.

Quint’s voice drifted from his cell, as soft as if it g on vapors. “Guard? You do understand that if I ever manage to escape from behind these bars, you will surely die a day or two later?”

The guard backed up with that threat as if the floor had suddenly become hot and he needed to move his feet to cooler stones. “You can’t threaten me.”

“So give me another life sentence if you don’t like what I’m saying,” Quint drawled, his voice dripping with false amusement. “But I will kill you by forcing two empty bowls down your throat.”

The guard threw the bowls back down the hallway. “I’ll be glad when you two are dead.”

Raymer smiled at the guard, “You know I’m working hard on a plan to escape from this place but Quint is holding me back.”

“Lime, again?” Quint growled. “You want lime and won’t let up.”

“Lime,” Raymer confirmed.

The guard huffed and disappeared around the corner. His footsteps echoed down the corridor. Raymer heard a new sound. A scraping, repeated over and over, steady and rhythmic, a sound he had never heard.

“Quint, what’s that sound?”

“I found this little piece of rock with a sharp edge. I planned to use it to cut a guard’s throat someday, but what the hell? Maybe I’ll scratch myself a bit of mortar from between these bricks and make a present of it to a friend of mine.”

Raymer settled himself in his favorite spot against the wall to rest, but then changed his mind. Instead, he stood and started to run again, his eyes almost closed with pleasure, his mind’s eye seeing the path he often used from his village to the high pasture where the sheep and goats grazed in summer.

He ran slowly at first, but his head filled with memories until he wanted to brush aside low hanging branches and leap over a couple of the smaller streams. His legs pumped faster and faster, although he ran nowhere. The cell seemed to have disappeared, but he knew as soon as he stopped he would still be in the center.

Later, he lay on the straw panting for breath, and the scraping in the next cell ceased. Raymer asked, “How’d you do?”

“Got a small handful. I’ll get more tomorrow and pass it to you.”

Raymer settled himself to rest without dinner, but feeling satisfied, nonetheless. He heard another new sound, this time, a steady slapping. “What are you doing now?”

“Running.”

Raymer grinned. “Why?”

“Because for the first time since they put me in here, I feel like I might need to run to keep up with you.”

“If they’re going to just catch one of us when we get out, I plan on it being you.”

“My plan’s a little different, Raymer. You better be ready to run like the wind.”

Raymer waited for more, but all he heard was the steady slapping of bare feet on the stone floor, one foot after the other, for so long he started wondering if he could outrun Quint. Tomorrow he’d increase his training. He fell asleep on an empty stomach and a smile on his face as he listened to the steady pat, pat, pat of Quint’s feet.

“What’s this mess?” the morning guard shouted as he discovered the slop spilled on the floor outside the cells. He woke Raymer with his loud complaining.

Quint said reasonably, “Don’t look at us, my friend. We didn’t open these cell doors and dump our slop way over there so we could go hungry last night, and then lock ourselves in again. We know better that to make you angry.”

“Damn toothless old man is going to lose a few more teeth if he doesn't clean up after himself,” the guard snapped, a youth barely old enough to order ale at a public eatery.

“He said he didn’t have to clean it up. He told us you’d clean it for him,” Quint drawled, sounding almost sincere and honest.

“I heard him say it, too,” Raymer added without looking behind him to watch the guard. He had pulled himself up to the window again and was holding onto the bars and looking outside, mentally deciding how many steps to the gate and then how many more to the dense forest lining the sides of the road on the other side. Run out the gate and perhaps a dozen more steps to the nearest trees. If he reached that far, he might get away.

But that’s all the lead he needed. A hundred running paces from his cell to cross the marketplace and a dozen more steps to the edge of the trees to give him a chance. Once in the forest, he could outrun almost anyone. He’d take paths so narrow a horse couldn’t follow. No soldier or palace guard could run as fast or be as motivated. A hundred and twelve steps to freedom.

“You looking outside again?” Quint asked over the soft scraping as he continued to gather mortar.

“I figure a hundred steps to the gate, and then twelve more to the forest. That’s all we have to do.”

“You actually think we might get the chance?”

Raymer nodded, then realizing Quint couldn’t see him, he said, “I think so. I think we might. . .”

The dragon’s spit destroyed almost anything. There were a few things that made it inert, or innocent, as his family called it. If he could call a dragon down and have it spit on the iron bars of his cage, they would melt.

The problem was that if he tried to squeeze through the opening, the black substance would melt his flesh, too. But enough lime thrown on the dragon spit after the bars melted would make it safe. Even a few handfuls might work. He might get a few burns while escaping, but it seemed a small price to pay.

He let go of the bars and turned, watching the guard wipe up the mess from their missing meal, just for something different to do. Then he went back to the window and watched the first people entering the farmer’s section of the market, the early shoppers searching for bargains and the farmers setting up their tents for shade, getting ready to spend the day selling produce. The dungeon cell window was set at ground-level on the outside, but the cells were below ground level, so he had to raise himself off the floor to see.

A pair of dirty feet attached to dirty legs stopped so close to the tiny window Raymer could have reached out and grabbed them. He couldn’t see who the feet belonged to, but the legs looked like a young boy who carried a sack made of course material. The boy tripped—or seemed to. Red apples spilled from the sack and fell to the ground. Apples like Raymer had not seen or tasted in a year. Any fresh fruit or vegetable had been scarce in the dungeon, and he had missed his meal the day before. At least twenty apples lay in the dirt. A boy wearing a gray striped shirt with a hood pulled low over his brow bent to retrieve them.

The boy flicked his heel and an apple flew between the bars and fell to the floor of Raymer’s cell with a dull thud. A meal beyond worth. Raymer was so stunned that he didn’t move to gather it. He held onto the bars and watched the apple lying on his cell floor with a sense of awe. The boy moved quickly to gather the rest of his apples. His toe sent another rolling inside the bars. Raymer caught it. The boy scooped the rest of the apples into the bag and stood.

A third apple still lay on the ground within reach of Raymer.

The hooded figure moved off in a hurry. Raymer managed to lunge and grab the apple before he slipped and fell down to the rock floor, his hand cradling the last apple protectively. Three apples. A treasure for a prisoner who spent most days hungry.

To anyone watching, the boy had simply tripped, and a couple of apples fell inside if they saw that much. What they probably saw was the boy retrieving his apples as fast as possible, and left one behind in his haste. Just an accident.

“Hey Quint, you won’t believe what just happened.”

“You grew a third eye?”

“No, but that’s a better guess than you’d think. I have three apples.”

“Now you’ve gone and planted a damn apple tree in your cell and grew yourself some apples without telling me?”

“No, I was looking outside, and a fruit seller spilled a bag.”

Quint’s voice sounded closer, which meant he’d moved to the edge of his cell. Raymer said, “Lay down and reach your arm out to me as far as you can.”

“Wait a while. The guard is due back.”

As if he heard them, the young guard strode around the corner of the hallway that led to the stairs with a swagger of a new guard. He paused at the iron cuffs and chains they removed from new prisoners before throwing the prisoners into the cells. They now hung on the wall pegs. He glanced at the two occupied cells. “Quint, why are you looking at me that way?”

“I was just wondering. Do you own any pretty dresses?”

“You’ve been here way too long. The word is, you’re gonna die in that cell and never see me or anyone else in a dress unless it’s outside that little window of yours.”

“A man can dream, can’t he?”

“As long as he’s not got me wearing a dress in those dreams,” the guard laughed. He continued on his rounds and disappeared as he went to inspect the cells on the floor above. Dungeon guards who sat or slept found themselves locked in cells, as they well knew.

“I got my hand outstretched,” Quint hissed.

Raymer dived to the floor near the wall that separated them and held out his hand to meet Quint’s. He felt Quint’s fingers and carefully passed an apple to him. After standing, he moved to the hay he slept on. He shoved the sour remnants of dirty hay with his toe. He scooped it into a bed almost as thick as his little finger and laid down, facing away from the guard.

When he returned, Raymer didn’t want him seeing the apples. If the guard discovered them, they might brick up the window. He held both of them near his middle, too scared to take a bite, but savoring the anticipation.

Footsteps of the single guard on duty approached and retreated. Raymer raised one apple to his nose and sniffed, his eyes closed as he took in the faint scent. He bit into the apple and rolled his eyes at the myriad of flavors, smells and conflicting tastes of sour and sweet.

The bite transported him from the cell back to his childhood. The Dragon Clan had planted apple trees as they traveled for as long as anyone could remember. The seeds of any apple eaten were cherished, dried, and carefully planted, not always along roads or even traveled paths. He remembered eating apples near his home, and he remembered carrying the seeds for days in his pocket until he found an appropriate place to plant them.

In his mind’s eye, he saw those seeds he’d sown had sprouted and grown into tall, strong trees. The apples he held in his hand might well have come from one of the trees he or one of his ancestors had planted. He took another bite, a very small one, and allowed his mind to wander far from the cell.

“Hey Raymer, I take back half the awful things I’ve said about you.”

“One apple is worth all that?” Raymer chuckled.

“You kept two for yourself, right?” his voice sounded concerned.

“Yes.”

“Tell me again how you got them.”

“A boy was carrying a bag of apples passed the window of my cell. He spilled the bag, and somehow his foot kicked one into the window.”

“I can see that happening by accident. But you got three?”

“Yes, it’s strange. He accidentally kicked another my way. Then he had all of them picked up but one he left by the window. And then, he took off running. I reached out and grabbed it.” Raymer took another bite and chewed while waiting for a reply that didn’t come for some time.

The apple Raymer savored and lingered over was almost gone when Quint spoke again. “I can see an apple accidentally falling into your cell the way you said the first one did.”

“I know. But, the second is too hard to believe, let alone the third.”

“I’ve been thinking. The apple vendor did it on purpose. You have a friend on the outside.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

Raymer listened for Quint to add to the conversation, but instead heard him begin snoring. Still, the idea of three apples falling into his possession hadn’t happened in a year. Could it really have been on purpose? Did his family know where he was and were they helping him? No words had passed between him and the apple peddler, let alone an exchange of eye contact. Still, such an amazing coincidence as three apples falling into his hands was impossible to comprehend.

Raymer finished the apple, eating the core last. He set the seeds on the window ledge to dry, as was the custom of his people. Hopefully, at some time in the future, he would be free to plant them. He eyed the other apple and carefully hid it from the guards by covering it with a handful of straw.

He had a lot of thinking to do.

If the apples were a gift, and he believed they were, because what else could it signify? Since apples are special to his family, it must have been a message.

He went back to the window and watched for the legs of the boy to reappear while he planned his escape with renewed vigor.