Dragon Fire - Book 2 [discontinued due to rewrite]

Chapter 1

For a woman cast out of the only home she had ever known Marcie was doing quite well.

This she thought, while wiping sweat from her brow with shaking fingers as the sickness that had ahold of her, wracked her body with uncontrollable seizures.

Each fit sapped her strength a little more until just lifting her head required more effort than she could possibly muster.

Dara, the enormous black plated dragon, her companion and mind friend was curled protectively around her.

The heat he radiated was both welcome and unbearable as her body flushed first hot then cold and back again. He made unhappy rumbling sounds in his throat and nudged her with his snout. As the slightest pressure against her skin felt like a knife, she moaned pitifully and his scales quivered in pain himself as he felt the mental block she had placed between their thoughts waver in the face of her discomfort.

His restlessness only made Marcie feel worse, she struggled to keep the worst of the pain from him but was loosing the ability to do so. Consciousness came and went and with it, more and more of her will power.

The first days of their journey had started quite uneventfully. If you did not count huddling in the cave together while the storm raged and watching the smoke from the village turn into a colossal funnel visible by them in their far off cliff, that only died down when the clouds loosed buckets and buckets of rain over the forest before it eased and innocent sunlight once again crisped the damp leaves. By morning only the barest amount of smoke was visible.

Marcie hoped Breen, his family and Miss Maiden had made it to safety. And Dafne. Although there was little doubt in Marcie's mind that Dafne would be safe.

Once the storm had settled, Marcie made her plans, which amounted to little except 'leave forest'. And then arranged provisions. 

She had no idea how far away the rest of the world was. She knew it took the Traders weeks to get here, but when did they start? How fast did they travel? They certainly did not have a Dragon's speed.

Speaking of which. She was not keen on flying again.

Dara clearly enjoyed it, but he was born to fly. She was not.

She could see, however, the benefit of riding him, he could cover a distance in hours what would take her days on foot.

She spent many days thinking about it. She had all the provisions she could ever need here in her cave, thankfully. She praised the Goddess that she'd had the foresight to all her belongings here before she was cast out.

She started by attempting to fashion saddle bags for Dara to help him carry all the supplies. He turned his nose up at the idea but she asked if he would rather she walked and he acquiesced.

The only saddle bags she had seen were those used by Aldren and his companions on their horses backs.

She used what she remembered to fashion some leather into the straps and fixed them around Dara's back, and under his belly. He was much larger than a horse and still growing so she had to allow for lots of slack. She also decided to allow the straps to go around his front legs to anchor the bags in place. Then she set about fixing her belonging to them and double checked their secureness.

She had Dara fly around with the load on to see if anything fell off or was uncomfortable for him. He grumbled and complained but soon fell silent and she realized that he disliked the idea of it more than the actual weight or fit. When she was certain it would work she tidied away the cave and had one last look around. With all hope she would not be gone for long. She could always come back. So she told herself.

She used the spikes up Dara's front legs to climb up into the junction between his shoulders and held on tightly as he walked to the entrance of the cave.

The forest baked under the sun.

Marcie looked towards where she knew The Forgotten Village to lie, smoke no longer visible over the trees. Then she looked away to where she assumed the edge of the forest awaited.

She bowed her head and just breathed for a time.

Then she said, quietly and under her breath,

"Now or never Dara"

With a roar he leapt of the edge of the cliff, unfurling his wings as he did so, catching the air with ease, Marcie clinging white faced to his neck.