Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

The branches wrapped around the arm holding the girl first and squeezed so hard he could hear his bones grinding together. His hand sprang open involuntarily and she quickly snatched her arm back. Then they wrapped around the wrist holding the knife until he was forced to drop that too. It burst apart into nanos that were sucked back into his mechpak. The other tendrils whipped around his chest, his other arm, and his remaining leg. He ground his teeth, fighting the pain, but there was too much. The damned plants were constricting him, making it hard to breathe. Spots exploded in front of his eyes.

“S-stop,” he gasped.

“I will,” the old crone replied. He could hear the laugh in her voice. “But first, you will listen young Rook. Can you do that?”

The tendrils squeezed, causing Rone to yelp. He nodded his head yes. Emphatically. The plants constricting power eased somewhat and he felt he could breathe again.

“Are we listening now?”

Rone nodded again. He turned to look at the Terra girl. Her eyes were frightened and she was pushed as far away from him as she could get. He felt a brief pang of guilt over what he did to her, but it was washed away by the fact that they had cut his leg off. He looked again at the crone, whose eyes were sparkling with amusement.

“Keiara, being the dear girl she is, rescued you from the desert. You had been injured in some kind of fall I believe is what she said.” She looked at Keiara for confirmation.

“That’s right,” she whispered back, unsteadily.

“Despite the fact that everyone was set against her, Keiara brought you here. She defied everyone else, including her father, to make sure you would live.”

“W-what about my leg?” he asked. “Did you cut it off so you could e-eat it?”

Keiara stared at him blankly for a second and then laughed out loud. She couldn’t help it. The idea was ridiculous.

“You have been told one too many lies, boy,” the crone answered, chuckling herself.

“What do you mean?” He looked from one to the other, clearly confused.

“We do not eat flesh from living creatures,” Keiara responded. The crone nodded, laughing hoarsely. “We only eat vegetation that we grow ourselves, milk that we harvest, and cheese that we make from the milk. Things of that nature. We do not eat…,” she paused here, her face a little green, “meat.”

He looked at her, trying to see how truthful she was being or if she was lying to him. Judging by the severe disgust on her face, however, he could tell she was being serious.

Now he was the one that laughed out loud and for so long Keiara grew a little worried.

“Vege-,” he tried to say, but he was laughing too much. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried again. “Vegetarians? You are all vegetarians?”

She wasn’t familiar with the word, but she got the idea of it. She nodded her head.

“All of you?”

She nodded again.

“Even you, witch?” he asked, turning to look at the crone.

She smiled, shook a hand, and the plants constricted again.

“I am no witch,” she responded. There was a note of anger in her voice. “I am a healer. Call me that again and I will feed you to my babies.” She looked meaningfully at the plants.

“Sorry. Sorry. I meant no offense,” Rone replied quickly.

The crone looked at him, cocking her head to one side. She seemed to realize he really didn’t mean to offend her so she snapped her fingers. The plants unwound themselves from his body. He took several deep breaths, flexed his arms, and stretched.

“Better?” the crone asked.

“Much,” he replied.

Keiara inched a little closer to him.

“Your leg was-” She looked at the crone.

“Electrocuted,” Heari supplied.

“Yes, electrocuted. It was very serious. The muscle, tissue, and nerves had been severely burned. If we didn’t cut it off then infection would’ve set in and you could’ve died. Even if that didn’t happen, you never would’ve been able to walk on it again. It was the only choice,” she said, sincerely.

He remembered the fall. He remembered the device that had smacked into his leg, electrocuting it brutally. He remembered smelling burning flesh right before the EMP pulse went off and he dropped. He hadn’t seen how badly burned he’d been from the electrocution and maybe that had been a good thing. He probably would’ve gone half-insane if he’d seen how bad it really was. He looked at it now. His leg ended about four inches below his knee. The bandages on the stump were red with blood, but it wasn’t soaked. The bleeding from where he hit it seemed to have stopped for now.

He looked to Keiara.

“I am sorry.” He bowed to her. “I am sorry about everything.”

He looked at them both. He felt like a colossal fool. He’d let every preconceived notion about them rule his actions and his mouth. She, however, hadn’t. She must’ve known what he was and yet still she fought to protect him. He couldn’t help but feel something for her. She had to have been so brave to go against her own people, even her own father.

And she was really, really beautiful.

“I have to go. You should try to get some rest,” she told him.

She got up to leave.

“Wait,” Rone said. He was actually sad to see her go. “Will I see you again?”

Keiara paused. She turned her head and smiled at him. Then she continued to the door, opened it and went outside.

“Was that a yes?” he asked himself.

“It wasn’t a no,” the old crone replied.

She got up and came over to him. She put a hand to his chest and gently pushed him back down. She flipped the blanket over him in one expert motion. Then she grabbed his cup and went to refill it. He watched her take a glass jar off a shelf, open it, and then tip it over his cup. Yellowish-brown powder spilled into it. She snatched a wooden spoon and started swirling it in the cup. When she was done, she put the spoon back and walked over to him.

“What did you put in that?”

“It’s crushed gavok root. It will help you sleep,” she replied. She urged the cup into his hands and then gestured for him to drink it. “Your body is still recovering and needs as much sleep as possible. Drink it.”

A lingering doubt nagged him.

“Boy, if I wanted you dead you never would’ve woken again,” she said, piqued. “It will help you.”

Still he hesitated but there was no denying the truth to her words. Keiara might’ve been the one to save him and the one to fight the rest of her people to see him nursed back to health, but he was willing to bet there were numerous things in this hut that would’ve ended him quietly and without mess. Probably without Keiara even knowing about it. And yet the crone had used none of them and here he was, still breathing.

He drank from the cup. Almost as soon as the mixture hit his stomach, the cup tumbled lightly from his fingers. His head dropped back and he started snoring loudly.

Heari smiled as she watched the Rook sleep.

****

Keiara climbed the long ladder up to her house. She opened the door and stepped inside. Her mom and dad were on the sofa, quietly talking. Asher was at the dining room table eating a light snack. All three of them turned to watch her as she came in. Her mom and dad stopped talking and her brother eyed her curiously.

“Mom, Dad,” she said, bypassing them in favor of the kitchen. She went through the cupboards and pulled out some bread and a plate. She grabbed a tomato from the small garden by the window, sliced it up, and spread some sugar over it. She picked up her plate with the tomatoes on it, the bread, and a fork and sat down by Asher.

She ate quietly and tried hard to ignore the awkward tension in the air.

Asher leaned in close to her.

“Did he die?” he whispered in her ear.

“No,” she responded. “Heari had to cut his damaged leg off.” She stifled giggles as she remembered the reason why he thought they had amputated it. “He thought we did it so we could eat it.”

“Eww…that’s gross,” Asher responded, causing Keiara to work harder to stifle her giggles.

“I know,” she whispered back.

“Don’t they know we don’t eat…,” he paused to gag at the thought of eating meat, “flesh?”

“Apparently not. They think we eat our enemies or something like that. Can you believe it? No wonder our peoples are constantly at war,” she said. She stabbed a couple of tomato slices and ate them. Then she grabbed her bread, ripped off a chunk, and stuffed that into her mouth as well.

“Don’t put too much food in your mouth, Keiara,” her mom said, reciting it as if she’d said it thousands of times before.

That was the most her parents talked to her. She could tell she had hurt them both, but she refused to apologize for not letting another living creature die.

“How mad are they?” she asked her brother.

“I think it’s safe to say that I can break everything in our house and they still would be angrier with you.” He smiled at her.

“That’s not helpful,” she hissed back.

“You asked.”

“Are you mad at me?” she asked him.

“No,” he replied. “You were right, Kei. We couldn’t have left him there to die. That would’ve made us just as bad as them.”

“They’re not so bad,” Keiara stated, staring at nothing. The Rook’s face floated to the surface of her mind. It had been so young and innocent. And handsome. She had looked into his eyes and could find nothing evil there. They had just been a beautiful shade of blue and nothing more.

“No. No. No,” Asher whispered harshly at her. “You like him don’t you?”

“What?” Keiara said. “No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. Just now, you were thinking about him, right?” he accused. “Don’t deny it either.”

“So what?” she responded, somewhat hotly. “I’ve never seen anyone like him before.”

“He’s a Rook, Kei,” Asher said, as if that explained everything.

“I don’t care. He’s a human being. It doesn’t matter to me which side of Purga he comes from. I can tell he’s a good person.”

“Don’t pursue this. It will only get you hurt,” Asher warned.

“They’re my parents, not you,” Keiara shot back, looking toward the living room where their mom and dad were still locked in quiet conversation.

Her dad’s face was contorted in anger while her mom’s was calmer, more serene.

Again, Keiara felt a pang of guilt over the words she’d told her the other morning. Her mother might have a life that Keiara found repressively dull and boring, but she was still a loving, caring mother and had never been anything else.

I’ll apologize the first chance I get, she told herself.

She finished up her food and went to the sink in the kitchen. She turned on the faucet. Running water was a hard thing to manage so far up the monoak trees, but her people were industrious. They had managed to invent a sophisticated plumbing system. The water came from the Ursa River through carefully sealed wooden pipes buried in the ground. They took sap from the monoak trees to create the sealant and after the pipes were coated, they were leak-proof and did not rot inside the earth. The water would travel to large underground tanks made from the same sealant-coated wood. More pipes would connect to the tanks, five to ten each, and then shoot up to the huts high above. The resulting capillary action (similar to what plants use) shoots the water through the pipes and up the trees to a tank underneath each house suspended in the branches. Other pipes took waste and used water back down. They traveled underground and below the river so that they could be deposited into the ground soil at the Herdlands. The nutrient rich wastes created a never-ending food supply to help the grass grow for their herds of cows, sheep, and goats to eat and stay healthy. The animals were then used for milk, cheese, and labor on the bigger plantations.

Keiara washed off her plate and fork and stuck them in the drying rack to the right of the sink.

“Keiara,” her mom said. “Your dad and I would like to speak with you.”

She felt a moment of pure dread. She had never defied her parents as much as she had yesterday and the day before. She had disobeyed her mother and she had openly defied her father. That was something that was absolutely never done. Tarvo was the leader of not only Vitari, but all of the Terraquois. People looked to him for guidance and direction and she had metaphorically slapped him in the face. She had questioned his leadership in front of the whole city-tribe and she was his own daughter. Doing that could cause serious damage. It could undermine his role. It could cause dissent and unrest. Other warriors might find him weak and try to wrest control of their people from him. She knew it was wrong to do that so openly but he had left her little choice.

She took a deep breath.

“Coming,” she called.

She dried her hands off and walked calmly into the living room. Both parents watched her enter. Her mom was clearly not happy with her actions, but her dad looked like his head was about to explode.

“Asher,” he said.

Her little brother physically jumped.

“Yeah?”

“Go to your room. We need to speak to your sister,” he responded. “Privately.”

Asher went into the kitchen and hurriedly rinsed his own dishes. Then he was running past Keiara and taking the stairs to his room two at a time.

Keiara walked over to the couch and sat down in the chair next to it. She turned her gaze on her parents. She was nervous and wished she’d spent another night at Heari’s. She could’ve put the current conversation off for a little while longer if she had.

“Mom,” she started, looking at Aeole. “I wanted to say sorry for what I said to you the other day. That was unkind and unfair.”

“I appreciate that,” her mom responded.

Tarvo’s anger suddenly reached its boiling point.

“You would apologize to your mother and yet you act like you did nothing to me,” he said, his voice scorching with barely restrained rage. “What you have done could have disastrous consequences to our people. You openly defied me, Keiara. In front of everyone! Do you even realize how damaging that is? And all of it to save a blasted Rook!”

“I apologize for defying you in such a public setting but I will not apologize for what I did. It was the right thing,” Keiara stated. “I know you are a good man and a great leader, but your judgment is clouded when it comes to them. You were not being reasonable.”

“They are killers, Keiara. Every last one of them,” Tarvo responded, his voice growing more heated. His face turned a bright shade of red and Aeole looked at the both of them with a healthy dose of nervousness.

“Stop,” she tried to say, but she was ignored.

“You don’t know them all,” Keiara replied, just as hotly.

“And you do?” Tarvo laughed scornfully. “You have never seen one but for the boy you brought to us today. You haven’t had to watch warriors die next to you by their cruel hands. You haven’t watched your people be lined up and executed. You know nothing!”

“And how do you think they talk about us?” she replied. “Do you think they tell their children good stories about us? No. They think we eat human flesh! These lies and ignorance are the cause of all these wars and needless bloodshed. We have an opportunity to show one of their own who we truly are. We have an opportunity, for the first time in centuries, to bring about an era of peace between our races. Why wouldn’t you want to take that opportunity? Why would you want to squander that chance?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tarvo replied, but he didn’t hold the same amount of conviction that he once had. His eyes were even losing their sparks of anger. He cursed himself silently. It was always like this with Keiara. Somehow, she always made her insane logic seem irrefutable. That, in itself, irritated him but he couldn’t find any faults with it either.

“I talked to him,” she said, not caring how angry he was going to be with her. To her surprise, he said nothing about it. “That’s where I got this ridiculous story about us eating human flesh. If those are the kinds of things they are telling about us, it’s no wonder they keep trying to kill us.”

“So what do you propose?” he asked.

Keiara was ready with an answer. It went off in her head like an explosion. It was ingenious. Brilliant.

“We teach him about us,” she replied. “Our way of life. Our traditions and customs. We let him learn everything we have to offer so that he can take it back to his people and teach them the truth.”

Tarvo looked at her for a long time.

“And you think this will help bring peace between us?”

“I do,” she said, nodding her head. “Great things always start with a single step. You were the one that told me that. I believe it to be true. We can take a step right now.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Aeole spoke up.

“No. She’s right,” Tarvo said.

The look on Aeole’s face was almost comical. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped into a little “O” of surprise.

“Maybe this is our one chance to show them how wrong they are about us. And maybe it’s his one chance to show us how wrong we are about his people. This one step could bring peace.” He looked at his wife carefully.

“I don’t think it will be as simple as you think,” Aeole replied. She could still remember the fires that had nearly destroyed Ledun, her family’s home city-tribe and where she had grown up. The Rooks had somehow found it high up in the trees and had gone about the systematic destruction of everything and everyone there. If it hadn’t been for the band of warriors led by Arkin, the Terra leader before Tarvo, her family and friends would’ve perished. She shuddered as the memory raced through her mind. It had happened when she was nineteen, but it was scarred into her memory forever.

“It will not be easy at all, Mom. But it will be a start.” Keiara looked at her dad, capturing his eyes with hers. “It will be a step.”

Aeole stopped talking, knowing she was outvoted.

Tarvo looked back at his daughter, at the fires that burned in the depths of her eyes. He nodded slowly and felt good to see Keiara smile widely.

He only hoped that she was right.