Dragon Clan #7: Shell’s Story

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Shell ran all the rest of the way. Henry lay motionless in the mud in his front yard. Shell sprinted to his side, falling to his knees. The boy breathed, but he’d been beaten. His eye was already turning color, blood ran from two places on his forehead, as if he’d been struck with a club.

The boy weighed almost nothing as Shell carried him into the house. His left arm seemed to be hurt, and as he squinted to open his right eyes, he smiled. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

“Who did this?”

Henry pointed to the north. The words came forth slow and slurred. “Smithson and his sons.”

Shell spun and walked outside to where he’d found the boy. Footprints left and headed north. Shell followed them, a cold anger growing with every step until he was filled with rage.

A man stood ahead, hands on hips. “Want something boy? Maybe sell me a farm for nothing?”

Four others stood behind him, all bearing similar features, and smiling false smiles. They held clubs, shovels, and one a pitchfork. Shell should have taken the time to grab his staff. But fighting five farmers were a task few would accept. His fists balled.

Run. The thought came from the wolf. But Shell didn’t feel like running. He felt like fighting. Then he felt another sensation. A tingling grew on his back. His eyes flicked to the sky. A small red dot approached from behind the men.

He shouted, “You beat the boy. I’m here to avenge that beating, and all of the rest that you did to him, and to his parents.”

The older man strode confidently ahead, a sneer on his lips. “You’re going to end up dead, just like them.”

“Pudding isn’t dead. Not yet. But I am going to even things up. Pay him for all the damage and I’ll let you go. All of you.

“You’ll let us go?” the man chuckled, as the others laughed. One moved ahead; his hay-rake lifted high.

“This is your last chance,” Shell said, feeling the small red dragon’s anger on his back and refusing to retreat a single step.

The hay-rake swung and missed as Shell ducked. The red dragon screamed as it attacked unseen by the farmers, knocking down one man, slashing open the stomach of a second, and landing long enough to tear at the arm of another with a mouthful of teeth. It leaped into the air and flew higher, then spun and attacked them again. On the third pass, all five men lay in the mud, broken but alive.

Shell reached out and felt for the mind of the wolf, and pulled back in shock and loathing. It raged red, as Shell’s had a few minutes earlier, as it attacked and tore the throats from every farm animal it encountered in the Smithson farm. Cows, sheep, chickens, horses, and goats all lay dead. The wolf snarled in anger and searched for anything else alive to kill.

The dragon flew higher into the sky and circled the farmhouse where smoke rose from the chimney. It turned and flew closer, spitting balls of acid that burst into fireballs when they touched an open flame. If not, they ate their way through wood roofs in minutes, leaving oval shaped holes.

When nothing else happened for a few long seconds, and the five men were struggling to stand and help each other, as they eyed Shell again readying themselves to attack him, three women ran from the house, screaming in terror. The screams drew their attention. The dragon was heading back, falling from the sky as it spit again and again. One of the acid balls touched a candle or fireplace. Flames erupted from the door and windows as if from an explosion, and in seconds the entire house was on fire.

Shell was sickened by what they had done. He knew he was responsible and it was things like this that made the Dragon Clan hated by all. The men before him didn’t know what he was, but the talk would start before he left the valley. They’d ask why a dragon chose that time to attack, and only to attack one farm. The fingers would point.

In this valley, he believed most people would appreciate what happened, more than condemn, but the tales would still have effects. Good people had banded together to burn Dragon Clan villages in the past, more to hunt them down and kill them.

Shell stumbled across the farm to the small house where Henry lay on the floor, eyes closed, bruises already darker than before. One of his eyes had swelled totally shut. A pool of blood spread from his head. “Come on; we have to get out of here.”

Henry moaned but tried to stand and failed. Shell helped him up and grabbed two of the filthy blankets. He filled cooked venison into his backpack with his spare hand and placed Henry’s arm over his shoulder to help him remain upright. He headed for the hillside and the concealing tangles of brush and low trees.

A glance over his shoulder showed the Smithson farmhouse still burning, and no sign of the small red dragon. The tingle on his back was absent. He paused long enough to take a second look. There were no wagons filled with people rushing in the burning farm’s direction, no men and women on foot racing to offer help.

The smoke rose high enough to be a beacon for the entire valley, yet not a single neighbor was in sight. Shell thought that perhaps there hadn’t been time for them to react, but knew that was wrong. There had been plenty of time for any who wished to help the Smithson family. His eyes found people at the next farm standing and watching, an unthinkable action in most communities when others needed help.

The people Shell had spoken with on the farms were reserved in their expressed opinions, but solid, as was usual for most rural communities. Sharing dirty laundry with strangers was frowned upon. They must hold more hate for the Smithson family than I knew. That family must have gone out of their way to bully everyone else in the area. Standing and watching their house burn helped them get even.

Maybe I’m reading it all wrong. Henry sagged, and Shell lifted him higher and pulled him ahead. The wolf waited ahead, protective but angry. No, angry was not the right word, and neither was protective but somewhere between. The wolf had killed, but not to protect. It killed the farm animals in retribution, and it had done so when all Shell could think of was avenging the wrongs done to Henry and his family.

Did I cause the wolf to kill? The thought discerned him. He thought back to the wolf attacking the farm animals. The sheep and cows hadn’t threatened him, only their owners. Then there was the same small red dragon that came from nowhere to attack the men and spit acid at the house. Why had it come at that time? And why did it attack them?

Shell reached an area where the hill leveled out and ran parallel to the valley floor. He turned west and started walking as the rain began to fall again. It would cover some of their tracks if anyone were stupid enough to chase after them.

Henry seemed to be doing better, almost standing on his own. He said, “Are we leaving for good?”

“I don’t know if for good is the right choice of words, but yes. We’re going to find a place to build a fire, and we’ll go to sleep and in the morning, we’re going away from here as fast as we can.”

“I can still walk,” Henry lied.

Instead, Shell half-carried him, searching for shelter, and after a while, he found a saddle that led over the hill they were climbing, into whatever lay beyond. He went that way, hoping to travel far enough that he couldn’t see the valley behind and below. If he couldn’t see it, the residents there couldn’t see a fire he’d build.

The wolf swept the area in front of them, and a small game trail leading in the same direction made travel easier, although the ground again absorbed so much water that they were more wading in mud than walking. A glance behind showed only muddier water where they had walked, and that would soon clear again to match the rest. They left no tracks.

Once across the saddle, walking was easier as they moved down on a long incline. When they reached a rock shelf where they didn’t sink into the soft mud, Shell lowered Henry and covered him with both sopping wet blankets. The bare rock was not as comfortable, but it was drier. The mud and water had already leached their body-heat. Both shivered.

A dead pine trunk drew Shell’s attention. It stood stark and almost limbless. Shell shuffled to it and found around the base dozens of fallen branches of every size. The outside bark was wet, but the rain hadn’t had time to soak into the inner wood. He selected several hefty branches and grabbed them by the large end to pull them free. He dragged them to where Henry lay.

The wood inside the bark was dry as expected, but with rain still falling by the time he skinned the bark and shaved dry wood to spark to flame, it had already absorbed enough dampness to resist. He needed the fire. Henry needed it, worse.

Reluctantly, Shell removed the two blankets from Henry and twisted them until most of the water squeezed out. Then he pulled them over his head, making a small tent while he ignored the foul stench of them. He again scraped slivers of dry wood and reached for his flint. After only a few strikes, one spark took hold and spread. He gently blew until the flame erupted. He fed it more dry slivers until the fire grew so large it threatened to burn the blankets.

He placed larger twigs on top, and once the fire burned well, he spread the blankets over Henry again and gathered more dead branches. The pine caught fire quickly, the sap popped and snapped. But pine is a soft wood and burns quickly. It is also full of pitch that is not affected by damp. Pitch burns hot, quickly drying any dampness from the wood with hisses and sizzles as the water turned to steam. He would need most of what lay at the bottom of the dead trunk to last through the night. Even that might not be enough.

The rain slacked off near sunset and then stopped. Steam rose from the blankets, and from Shell’s clothing. He removed his blanket, and it was almost dry. It was also warm to his touch. He removed the other from Henry and placed the warm, drier one on him, then spread the other on top of that one for additional warmth.

His blanket had felt like it weighed ten times as much as normal even though he’d wrung it out several times. He sat on the wet ground trying to dry his clothing without taking it off because of the cold, and trying to avoid catching it on fire, which he’d almost done twice.

But without the drizzle, and with the fire cheerfully burning, he gradually warmed. Henry lay still under all three blankets, but breathed hard through his mouth and he probably had a broken nose. It was swollen closed. Shell’s anger returned, then his thoughts again turned to the wolf.

He reached out and invited it to join them at the fire. The wolf refused. Shell had the impression the rain hadn’t bothered the animal, and it didn’t like fire.

Instead of sleeping, Shell tended the camp fire for most of the night, drifting off to sleep now and then only to wake damp and cold to add wood to the dying fire. While adding more wood, he let his mind wander as he planned his next moves. He asked the wolf to reposition herself to the top of the saddle between the hills and warn him if anyone followed.

Then he sat in the dark under low, dark clouds. So far, his great adventure had placed him on the run from a whole valley full of people. His actions endangered the Dragon Clan. He traveled with a mutant wolf, a miniature dragon, and a wounded boy who couldn’t take care of himself.

Besides those things, Camilla had spurned him. He didn’t like her, probably. She didn’t like him certainly. He thought he was lost in the mountains. Quester, his only friend, had remained at Bear Mountain, so he was alone. And his attempt to do a good deed for the young stranger sleeping beside him had totally gone wrong.

He glanced around. His staff and bow were missing. How had he been so stupid to go after the Simpson family without taking his staff? It had been there right beside Henry, but he had rushed out to seek revenge and left it. Then, in the confusion of escaping, he forgot it.

He considered going back. The staff had been with him most of his life and his hands would feel empty without it. But it was gone.

Depressed, he finally fell into a fitful sleep, only half-waking several more times to feed the fire. When dawn broke, he refused to wake even though he knew it was time to get up and be on his way. He felt stubborn and resistive. His world had crashed in on him during the last few days, and he wanted to fight back.

Finally, he rolled to one side and looked at Henry. The boy looked back from one eye, the other swollen completely shut. Red and yellow bruises covered most of his face. Blood crusted on his forehead. Henry twisted his jaws attempting to open his mouth, but it refused. Between swollen lips, he struggled to speak and eventually said, “Good morning,” which sounded more like “ood orning”.

With those two words, the veil of sadness surrounding Shell lifted as if it had never been. The wolf sent him an image of it prancing in a meadow, chasing a butterfly. At least one of the three travelers was happy. Shell said, “Why don’t we walk a while and then eat?”

Henry nodded, winced at the pain the action brought, and tried to get a knee steady on the ground to lever himself to his feet. Shell leaped to his assistance.

Shell gathered their things and stuffed his backpack. When it was full, he used leather strips to tie the rolled blankets to the outside. The sun peeked above the hills, and just the touch of sunlight made the world feel warmer. He pointed west.

Henry went first and set the pace along a muddy path. Fleming lay that way. Shell didn’t know exactly where or how far, but that was okay. When they got closer, they would begin asking about Henry’s relatives. His hand touched his purse and felt the coins inside. Henry didn’t know about them yet, or the future money he would receive from the crops each year.

Shell considered telling him, but the boy could barely walk, let alone comprehend a business deal. They paused at a stream to drink and eat.

Henry said, “Are they chasing us?”

Shell realized Henry didn’t know anything of the dragon or burning farm. But the boy was obviously scared the Smithson family was chasing them. “I think they have other problems right now. I sold your farm to a nice family across the road and down a way. We can talk about it later, but the price was more than fair.”

“They paid money?”

“Some silver and a portion of the crops for five years,” he said lightly to prevent detailed questions until later. “You’ll be able to buy a place of your own near Fleming, I think, not a whole farm but maybe a house.”

Henry walked silently for a while, then observed, “I see why the Smithsons beat me. They always expected to take our place because they have so many boys and need the land. Now I don’t know what they’ll do.”

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Shell said, surprised the boy had the compassion to think of the problems the people who beat him were facing. It told him of character. “They might build a new house big enough for all of them. They might even live in their barn until the new house is finished.”

“I never liked them from the beginning. They were mean to Ma and Pa, always threatening and even stealing our cattle. I guess someone will pay them back for all that one day.”

Shell refused to smile, although he felt like it, but the events of the previous day were too traumatic, and he vowed to keep the story from Henry unless he was forced to share it. At the most, the boy couldn’t be older than fourteen. He was not old enough to take on the responsibilities for what had happened, even though none of which was his fault.

Still, Shell felt like he managed to draw misfits and outcasts to him like a herder who gathered the weakest and most helpless sheep to his flock. He got swept up in their problems like trees and branches getting swept along in a river current until they jammed up at a bend. He felt his life a log jam. He had become more involved in the problems of others than his own.

Not that he blamed any person or animal, but when he thought of himself as the only person without major problems in his life, he realized that somehow he managed to make the problems of others his. While they walked, his mind wandered and sorted out the issues. He concluded, helping others was not so bad. Their problems made his seem petty.

He reached out with his mind to the wolf as if it were normal, and he’d done it his whole life. The wolf sent back the impression it was happy and enjoyed the mountains and ample food more than the grasslands. It seemed to enjoy exploring the thick forests as it trotted up one hill and down another, never tiring, always interested in what it saw next.

They descended deeper into the canyon to follow the lay of the hills. The walls of the hills on both sides of the valley sloped down to a small, fast-moving river. There was no valley floor as on the other side, no flat areas, no farms, and little evidence that anyone had ever traveled that way before.

A disconcerting thought leaped into his mind that contradicted him, and at the same time told him the wolf was listening to him. Both thoughts jarred him, and he didn’t know which was worse. He questioned the wolf for more information.

Images and impressions formed until they formed a single word in his mind. Camilla.