The Dragon Oracles. Part One: The Call of the Crown. (Sample)

CHAPTER 5 - New Friends

CHAPTER 6

New Friends

The road—if he could call it a road— to the footbridge was hard-baked by the seemingly ever-present sun, and the thick afternoon air lay still and heavy. Gialyn blinked away the dusty pollen as he eyed the early shoots of lemon grass that made a border around the adjacent fields. Their flowers stood tall in the roadside battle for the sun's light, in contrast to the short-cropped grass of the king's pastureland, which lay beyond the colourful boundary. Silky dogwood grew along the boundary, too. Their green-topped leaves with silver bellies flickered in the high sun. White blossoms hung in clusters, dancing at the faintest breeze as if poked by an invisible finger. Apart from the heat, it was a grand day for a walk... if a walk was all it was. But Gialyn knew he wouldn't be coming back this way. At least not while the spring flowers bloomed.

The path rose in a gentle incline as it turned slowly north towards the fork in the road—the place where Gialyn and his father had arranged to meet the Tanners. The track was never busy at this time of day. Indeed, it was not particularly busy at any time.

A horse and cart, now a hundred paces ahead, had thrown up a thin cloud of dust that still lingered where Gialyn and his father now walked. It was the one disturbance in an otherwise tranquil scene. And yet neither the noise of the horse's footfalls nor the clattering of cart wheels was heard above the Geddy River as it surged—still fat with the spring melt—down through the weirs of the Alber canal scarcely ten feet to their right.

A pale mist twisted airily above water. The indiscernible breeze caught the vapours, lightening the heavy air around it with a moist vapour. Gialyn was grateful for the cool spray—brief though it was.

Any other day, he would be happy to take in the view. Today, though, he was low, depressed, and too miserable to pay the Geddy its well-earned admiration. Today, the vale seemed to taunt him. As if to say, "Look what you will be missing, you fool!"

Gialyn turned away from view and fixed his eye on the distant horizon. The sight of it was nothing new or unusual. But somehow the sight of it left him feeling cold inside. The hills, valleys, and meadows—once a familiar backdrop—seemed strangely alien. Looking at them now made his palms sweat and his stomach churn, forcing him to catch a breath. Why should the view make him feel such dread? Was it a fear of the unknown?

Again, he turned away.

The state of Gialyn's backpack was doing nothing to ease his present mood, either. Do we really need all this? Twisting from side to side, he hitched it up, adjusted the straps, twisting his neck and shoulders to find comfort, but couldn't make it balance nicely on his back. Finally, he pushed his thumbs under the shoulder straps and let it be.

Daric eyed his struggle. "You should have tied the bedroll to the bottom, like I said."

Gods, that is all I need. Barely ten minutes in and he's already picking fault. He sighed under his breath, giving his pack another tug up his shoulder.

"Don't fuss with it now," Daric said. "You can fix it when we get to the footbridge. We should have some time. Likely as not, the girl will be late."

"I doubt it." Gialyn turned away from his father, mumbling a curse that Daric couldn't hear—he hoped.

"What makes you say that?"

"She is the only one who wants to come on this trip."

The pain in his shoulders must have distracted Gialyn as he had resolved to stay silent for a while after his father's jibe about the bedroll. He saw Daric raise his eyebrows and then sarcastically mimic him by shuffling his pack from left to right, smiling as he did so. Gods, this is just...