Dragon Fire - Book 2 [discontinued due to rewrite]

Chapter 19

White.

Everything was white as far as the eye could see.

Marcie sighed and shuffled deeper into the snow, feeling the coldness seep into her arms and legs.

A fat snow flake landed on her top lip, she let it melt then licked away the moisture.

Jeffs face appeared upside down above her, looking concerned, she sighed wearily and waved him away,

"Im up, im up"

She sat up, snow clinging to the thick fur coat she wore. Then she took a deep breath and bent her knees, pushing up with her feet until she was standing.

A twinge of pain shot up her leg from her knee to her hip and she took a moment to let it subside before taking her first step.

That twinge, that small paralyzing moment of fear, was all that was left to remind her that months ago she had been near crippled.

The charm had done its work and done it well. She had never known someone to heal from so serious a wound with so little to show of it. She would have to discover how the northerner's made their charms and if they could be replicated. Dafne would be beside herself if she knew.

They were deep into winter now. It had been wet for a while then it froze and the ground hardened enough for the miners to hurry about gathering Jet for a time, before the snow came. Wood for fires was rationed and meals consisted of wild berry preserves on dry and stale bread.

Mostly the villagers huddled around the fire in Black Pete's cottage (being the largest) and swapped stories. Marcie had told a few. Stories of the Daygon mostly and about the wolf attacks in the forest. However she soon grew bored with this day in day out, so she ventured outside, Jeff in toe, to exercise her leg and before she knew it she was walking out across the deadlands, getting stronger very day, able to go further every day.

And now the snow had come.

Marcie shuffled through the ankle deep stuff to the edge of a rocky outcrop and looked out over the deadlands, Jeff following her, making more noise than usual as he struggled through the powder.

Somewhere, way out in the distance, Dara glided lazily through the silent flakes, his inner eyelid closed to stop it getting in his eyes. He kept his mouth open and thought it highly amusing when the snow turned to steam when it met his breath.

Marcie grinned out at the landscape, so beautiful in its endless flowing white. So very different from the winters she had known in the forest.

Jeff caught up with her and they stood side by side. Not a sound could be heard for a long time until Marcie laughed just to be sure she had not gone deaf.

Only when her toes had gone numb could she bring herself to turn back towards Black Stone.

The sound of the hamlet soon began to trickle back into the silent world and Marcie saw smoke trailing weakly out of a snow-covered chimney.

Snow smacked into her face.

She gasped in surprise and bends double, wiping it out of her eyes, nose and mouth.

Someone laughed next to her and it took a moment for her to realise that it was Jeff, as it was the first sound she'd ever heard from him.

Childish giggles erupted from nearby and, when she could see again, she spied some of the children mounding the snow into balls near a low wall they'd made,

"Sammy don't you dare!" she yelled at one of the children then had to duck as another flew in her direction,

"Now you dunnit!" she yelled and scooped up handfuls of the stuff and hurled it at them,