Dragon Fire - Book 2 [discontinued due to rewrite]

Chapter 14

With her clothes dry and no longer shivering. Marcie cooked some of the beets she had found over the remnants of the fire and spent some time examining the foliage until darkness truly fell. 

She found that there did not appear to be much edible vegetation here, the surrounding bush being merely colourful and fragrant.

As it became dark and there was but a trace of blue in the sky, small dark shapes flitted over her head. Too big to be insects and too silent and swift to be night birds.

Dara raised his weary head to see what had grabbed her attention, he inspected the flitting shapes for a while then, with a movement too swift to be seen and which made Marcie jump, he snapped at one of the shapes and munched for a moment before swallowing.

Individually the creatures were too small to satisfy him much but after a several more he felt fuller. Marcie reached out to Dara to see what the creatures tasted like and shuddered when he shared it with her. She would stick with beets.

Come the morning, Marcie took her pack and bow out of Dara's saddle bags and enjoyed strolling through the colourful bush. She kept a look out for animals to hunt and managed to bring down a few small birds with little but enough meat on them. Dara walked with her before getting bored and starting to bound across the earth, flattening the bush as he went and startling tiny butterflies of the most remarkable green colour that fed on the nectar.

Marcie began running with him, clouds of butterlies rising around her, the wind had died down a little so she let down her hair and enjoyed the feel of it flowing free, it would require much brushing but she found herself unable to care.

Had she really ever thought of staying in the village and missing this?

Dara grew bored of jumping around and took to the sky, sending the butterflies tumbling away from the draught created by his wings, Marcie whooped and laughed as he swept low over the ground, beating his wings and causing more of the pale green insects to erupt into the sky in a panic.

Dara soon had enough of traumatising the wildlife so he climbed higher and observed their surroundings.

Marcie sat down to get her breath back and felt something tickle her hand, looking down she was startled to see a tiny butterfly had landed on it. Pale green, changing slightly to pale blue near its furry body and edged with white with white spots. It was the plainest and yet most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Sitting still so as not to disturb the creature she was surprised when another one joined the first and another. She felt movement in her hair and had to stop herself from reaching to remove it.

Dara demanded her attention so she closed her eyes and saw through him. She could not quite see what it was that had grabbed him so, all she saw was a large rocky outcrop, a flat area surrounded by a low cliff face, but there was something... she urged Dara to get as close as he could without being spotted and the picture defined itself.

The buildings were the same colour as the rock and the only reason Dara had spotted them was the smoke drifting from the chimneys and the strange coloured creatures that wandered in and out of them. There were twenty buildings in total and a few smaller shacks and fenced off enclosures.

Marcie returned to her own body and rose from her position, some of the butterflies flitted away, others stayed and she enjoyed their silent company enough to walk slowly and steadily so they would not fly away.

She walked towards the settlement, unsure as to her plan.

She was surprised that people could live out here. The ground was course and only the hardy bushes could survive on it. There was little in the way of animals, except insects, snakes and some birds and not a single tree for as far as the eye could see.

Even if she did meet the people, what would she say to them? What kind of work was one expected to do out here to earn ones keep? Or did they not accept strangers.

Using Dara to help her she scouted the outskirts of the settlement and found a high place on top of the cliff where she could see the buildings and the people who dwelt within them.

It was no wonder Dara had trouble seeing the buildings from the sky. They were made from the same gray slate as the outcrop, layers of the stone mortared together to form the walls then laid across the roofs as tiles. Hardy little buildings, everything was made from it, every shack, wood store, even the animal pens were made using walls made from the slate.

The animals appeared to be a breed of large goat and as she watched, a short sturdy woman in a simple grey dress cut to the knees and sporting knee high leather boots bustled out and opened one of the pens, the goats obediently followed her to a nearby gate on the other side of the settlement which led off the outcrop and onto the bush where the goats immediately started to graze on the foliage.

A few children ran about, mostly girls, hitting a ball with a stick and a lone man at a large work table, carved something in his hand with a tiny tool.

There did not seem to be any more people about, and Marcie thought this strange with all the buildings she thought there to be at least twenty families here.

She skulked around the edge of the cliff until she found a new vantage point, where she could see that in the cliff side there were holes, large enough for a person to crawl through. A cave system perhaps? Was that where all the people were?

More butterflies landed on her as she crouched watching the cave entrance, she was not sure how long she was there but eventually she saw movement and a bucket was pushed out of the hole, then a pickaxe, followed by a man, crawling on his belly. He was covered in dust and mud and stood with a visible wince, stretching and flexing his shoulders before he heaved the bucket, which appeared very heavy, onto his shoulder and stomped towards one of the outhouses, where he disappeared from sight. More strangely than the man having crawled out of a hole in the cliff as though it were his daily routine was the act that he'd had a rounded helmet upon his head... with a candle stuck on top.

Several men and boys of various ages, some not very old, followed the man out, all with a bucket, a pickaxe and a candle on their helmets. All dusty and tired looking, the men talked and acted very amicably and they all dispersed amongst the buildings where women greeted them and welcomed them inside where they (based on the position of the sun) stopped for lunch.

Marcie's stomach rumbled so she stood and stretched to ease stiffness and rummaged around in her pack. The ground shifted a little beneath her feet. She frowned and looked down where she was standing.

The mossy, stony ground had sunk a little where she was standing, she raised her foot and placed in somewhere else, after a moment it to sank.

It had rained quite a lot, possibly the ground was sodden and unstable, reasoned Marcie but thought little of it.

She crouched and continued rummaging around in her pack, sure she had a some dried roots to stave off hunger within its depths.

"Who the hell are you!"

The voice startled her and she spun round tripping on the straps of her pack and falling on her rear before standing quickly and looking towards the voice,

A very tall man and a very small boy were striding towards her across the bush. Both stopped and started at her with something close to fear in their eyes. She became aware that she still had (despite the fall) butterflies in her hair, she could feel them flapping angrily at the disturbance.

"I-" she started to say, taking a hasty step back, raising her hands innocently.

When the ground opened up beneath her feet and she fell through it and into darkness.