Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [11]
“Maa.”
Tak shoved her from behind, and she fell. She fell through the glass wall, feeling its cold hardness touch her arms and legs just as she had felt it on her nose, forehead, and cheeks. It didn’t break, but it didn’t stop her fall. She sprawled on the lush, cushy grass and gasped for air.
“Maa.” Tak folded his legs and settled beside her.
She rolled over, sat up, and stared at where she had just stood. She saw no glass wall. The pleasant countryside stretched on to a band of trees, and the road passed through the woods and went on to the horizon. Not a prickly bush or a scrawny shrub of her world. Only the lovely, serene landscape that had appeared on the other side of the wall—the glass wall that was no longer there. Ellie felt her nose tingle, her eyes water, and a horrid sob waiting to escape her chest.
Now she really did not know where they were.
Ellie fought rising panic as she examined the unfamiliar terrain. Rocks from tiny pebbles to huge boulders spotted the fields around her home. But grass covered this place. Trees with full heads of soft green leaves lined one horizon. Even the shrubs dotting the landscape appeared to be less rugged than the rough and thorny bushes of home.
Tak jumped to his feet and trotted off, following the impressive road going toward a line of trees.
“Wait!” Ellie scrambled to gather her carpetbag and stood. “Tak!”
She hoped they would pass through the glass wall, even if she couldn’t see it, and be back at the end of the ridge. Within a few steps, she knew that crossing over to the other side was not going to happen.
She ran to catch up. Tak jogged along at a brisk pace. Ellie, huffing and puffing, finally got close enough to grab his collar.
“Stop!” She jerked on the goat and fell to her knees beside him. Tak looked at her, the pupils of his yellow eyes mere slits. He thumped his hindquarters down. His disgusted look lingered on Ellie for a long moment before he turned to stare toward the trees.
The wide road could accommodate three wagons side by side. Ellie had never seen anything but dirt tracks, or paths covered in shale. Compared to those country lanes, this highway represented something she might see in the grandest of cities. She sighed, thinking she should be on an old dirt road headed to Ragar, probably the grandest city in Chiril.
She brushed her fingertips across the pavement. The satiny smooth surface surprised her. The odd creamy yellow looked like butter. She and her goat were the only dirty spots on the road.
Still holding on to Tak’s collar, Ellie put her arm around his neck and leaned heavily against his side. “I’m so hungry.”
Tak tilted his head back and rubbed his chin against her arm. Absent-mindedly, she scratched the spots around his head that gave him pleasure, behind his ears, around his ruff, and under his chin. The mist from the other side of the wall still clung to his coat. The odor wrinkled her nose, but she cuddled him anyway.
Her clothes were damp, flecked with mud, and smeared with grass stains. Cold, wet shoes trapped her feet and made her feel like she’d crammed them into a laundry bucket. She used one foot to push a shoe off her heel, then wiggled that foot out and used it to remove the other shoe. Blue dye from the leather stained her socks. She stretched her legs out in the sun, hoping to dry a little.
So much for elegant clothing.
Her stomach grumbled.
So much for eating fancy meals with her aunt and uncle in roadside taverns.
She could have gone to sleep in the warm sun, leaning against the goat. His coat was drier than her skirt. After a time, she forced herself to straighten.
“Well, collapsed in the road is not going to get us any closer to food.” She tied the laces of her shoes through the handle of the carpetbag and walked in the ruined socks on the smoothly paved yellow road.
With a firm grip on Tak,