After the Storm (The Orphans Revolt 3)
By Paul Smith.
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After the Storm (The Orphans Revolt 3)
Paul Smith
Copyright 2014 Paul Smith
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to people, places or events is purely coincidental, and bears no malicious intent.
ISBN: 9781311008237
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'For the dragons.'
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Author's note:
gladefaun.deviantart.com
Thank you.
3.
The wind was a physical presence on the hilltop, something you never appreciated down on the valley floor. It whipped up the gently rolling slope from the tree line in a continuous gust that pulled at his scarf and jacket, tugging at the stray hairs that had escaped from his braided ponytail, where he’d tied it back this morning on his way out of the house.
The grass was like a writhing ocean. Or at least, so he’d been told, the way it undulated on days like today reminiscent of the rolling waves off the coast. The largest body of water he’d ever seen personally was the lake, which to the young boy Timo had seemed vast in its expanse, stretching away towards the far horizon. His parents, and indeed his sister, had been to the far side when he was very young, for a wedding, but he’d been too little to travel at the time, and they’d left him with his grandmother.
A flicker of movement brought his focus back to the now. Raising his head cautiously over the log they was hidden behind, he peered down the slope at the white head that had suddenly appeared in the long grass, peeking above the tops of the stalks.
“Do you think it’s seen us?”
Would you like to rephrase that?
Studiously ignoring the slightly ticklish sensation that always accompanied having the words dropped straight in his head, he glanced at his companion’s bulk, rolled his eyes.
“I suppose you have a point.”
Yes.
“Do you think its spooked, then?”
The wind is in our favour, came the thoughtful reply, and I haven’t moved since it walked out of the trees half an hour ago. I believe we have the advantage.
Timo nodded, grin splitting his girlish, heart shaped face.
Just out of curiosity…
He groaned. Here we go. “What?”
Does this not strike you as a little… excessive?
Timo turned to favour the Drake with a raised eyebrow. Kirigama was of the summer generation, meaning he was slighter of proportion and more elegant of form than his older, more muscular counterparts, most of whom now resided in the north. That was not, however, to say he was small. If you could persuade a horse, or one of the farms llamas, to come close enough for a comparison, their body would probably be about the length of his head.
Perhaps even slightly shorter, he mused, tracing the line of the jaw in his mind’s eye. Four powerful limbs plus a set of wings you could shelter the population of a small village under, and a tail strong enough to fell trees. All sheathed in a coat of scales that seemed to occupy that stylistic space somewhere between a birds plumage and the hackles of an angry cat, though at present they lay flush against Kir’s flanks, their fiery hues dulled slightly to facilitate the current need for stealth.
Timo?
“What? Oh, sorry Kir.” He shrugged his bow a little higher on his left shoulder, glancing down the hill to mask the fact he’d been starring. “What do you mean, excessive?”
The Drake managed to convey the impression of choosing its words carefully, without any apparent movement. Some might posit the use of a dragon to retrieve a lost sheep as overkill…there was a short pause, whilst further argument was presumably considered. He waited patiently, knowing he wouldn’t be disappointed… akin, perhaps, to using an entire battalion to subjugate a small farmstead.
They’d been discussing military tactics for most of the afternoon, whilst Timo made the long slog out from their rendezvous at the standing stones above the village, to the chain of interlinked meadows where the sheep had been pastured. They’d lost a score in the storm at the start of the week, and he’d been charged with finding them. This was the last, an elderly ewe his mother was convinced would’ve found somewhere to see out the rains that’d come lashing down from the mountains to the south.
“You could look at it that way…” he allowed, trying to keep his tone even. “But weren’t we just discussing the advantages of shock and awe?”
The Drake grunted, a sound that he felt rather than heard at this close proximity, a waft of noxious smoke escaping from between gator-like lips. True.
“You’ll get her then?”
A sigh gusted through his mind, the collective that formed the Drake’s utterances almost distinguishable for a moment in their constituent parts, drowning out the sound of the wind about him. Very well, but if she has a heart attack you’re explaining it to your mother.
“Deal.”
As one, they peered over the concealing log again. Or rather, Timo did, where as Kir simply raised his head slightly higher on his serpentine neck; a redundant gesture, given his head was already taller than the fallen bough, but Timo thought it best not to comment. The sheep was oblivious anyway, her head down as she chewed contentedly on the grass about her feet.
Amateurish, muttered the Drake, as he sprung into the air with a clap of wings that left Timo’s ears ringing.
As always, the sight of the great beast in flight pushed his heart into his throat, tears threatening at the corners of his eyes as he watched the dragon glide swiftly downhill on the wind.
It was over almost too soon. One moment, the Drake was an elegant silhouette sweeping down mere yards above the undulating field, the next he was dropping from the air with an impact that shifted the log Timo was leant against almost a furlong away.
Got her.
Emerging from his hiding place, he jogged down through the tickling stalks, coming to a stop before his comrade in arms, who was now crouched, wings slightly spread to ward off the worst of the wind, his head drawn back on a graceful curve of neck to watch Timo’s approach.
The ewe lay pinioned beneath one of his forepaws, looking decidedly pissed off.
“Excellent, good work,” Timo came up to slap him on one warm shoulder, before walking round to ruffle the sheep behind one tagged ear. She gave him a dirty sideways look before going back to cropping grass from one of the tufts not ruined in her captor’s landing. “You okay to carry her?”
Given the alternatives, yes.
Timo nodded. “Let’s get moving then.”
He set off at a trot, parallel to the tree line, smiling as he heard the telltale snap of take off behind him.
“Where was she?” asked his mother, a couple of hours later, as she met him halfway across one of the wheat fields they were preparing to bring in for harvest. The waving stalks about them were up to his chest, shifting gently in the wind coming down the valley.
“Out by the edge of the woods, two over. Near where that tree came down in the storm, summer before last.”
She nodded, eyeing him for a moment, hands on her hips. Nuala Coertez was a woman with exacting standards of presentation. Standards he suspected he did not, at this precise moment, meet. Witness her own carefully bound hair and tidy attire, despite the fact the most of the people she’d see today were either family, or help from one of th
e surrounding farms, brought in to assist with the harvest preparations.
The closest she was likely to get to a stranger was one of the hired hands from the coastal cities. It was an old tradition for young men and women from the Congregate’s ports seeking a bit of adventure to travel up for the autumn harvest, as the region rarely had enough pairs of hands to go round. Two of their current intake, most likely Dynn and Coren from the well-muscled nature of their arms, raised a hand in greeting as they crossed the far edge of the field. He and his mother returned the gesture, Timo shielding his eyes against the glare of the setting sun to watch their broad backs as they descended the road down towards the house.
He wrenched trailing thoughts back to the present as he realised his mother had asked him a question.
“Um…”
She shook her head, arms crossing beneath her extensive bosom. “I said, did you thank the Chi?”
“Yes…!” he sighed, unable to completely curtail the slight rise at the end of the word as he met her eye. His mother had very specific ideas on etiquette that he suspected would leave the great Drake slightly befuddled, but he felt honour bound to abide by her rules whilst he still resided under her roof; not for him the screeching matches he’d witnessed between his old school mate Cob and his parents.
His mother nodded, somewhat mollified. “Least you don’t look a complete state. Wind’s up on the ridge?”
“You could’ve launched the Imperial Fleet,” he agreed, taking her proffered arm as they turned back towards the house, his mother waving to the lads to signal the break for lunch, which was presumably why she was out here in the first place. “Kir only had to open his wings and he was airborne.”
She nodded, patting his hand as they passed through the gate in the wall surrounding the farmhouse proper, with its neat garden of herbs. “You’re wise to cultivate the association. The Wind Chasers are choosy who they call friend, and not shy about dropping you if you step on their morals.”
“I know Mum,” he replied dutifully, as they stepped into the tiny side hall of the Family farmstead.