Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [9]
Tak disappeared within the hovering cloud, and Ellie hurried to keep up. At the next hillock, she realized the shining object would be directly in their path if Tak didn’t veer off to one side or the other. The goat trotted on with determination, and she had no objection to letting him be her guide, as long as he headed for the glint on the hillside.
Her only complaint bumped against her legs as she walked. She pictured the goat cart in the corner of the barn and wished Tak pulled her carpetbag. The abundance of new clothes didn’t seem quite such a boon, the valise seeming heavier as they crossed the foothills.
A little breeze kicked up, and the mist swirled and eddied, clearing in some patches and stretching thin through others. Across the distance, the object that had attracted her attention took on a shape. Wide at the base with straight up-and-down sides, and narrowing to form a neck, the gleaming object looked like a large bottle. It would have to be an impossibly large bottle to be seen from such a distance.
Tak jogged through the hollows now that the breeze had cleared the way. At the top of each knoll, Ellie spotted the glint she was using as a landmark. The large object grew larger. Ellie squinted. Of course, things appeared bigger as one drew nearer, but this bottle, in comparison to the boulders next to it, actually expanded in height and width.
Tak barreled down another slope into one of the remaining pockets of mist. Ellie lost her footing and slid on wet grass. She held tight to the handle of her carpetbag with one hand while she hugged it to her chest with the other arm. Nothing hindered her slow roll down the hill, but the thought of grass stain smudges on her new dress made her moan. Tumbling to a stop against a rock, she took a minute to determine whether the fall had physically hurt her, checking the places that felt battered. Finding nothing serious amiss, she sat up and felt her carpetbag, making sure the latch had held.
Tak came to her side and butted her arm.
“Okay, I’m coming.” She set the valise aside and got to her feet, vexed at the clinging leaves and long pieces of brown grass on her skirt. The wet debris stuck, and she impatiently tried to brush it off. Tak head-butted her on the backside as she leaned over.
“Stop it! You nearly knocked me off my feet, and then I’d have to start cleaning up again.” She lifted her arms and let them drop. “What’s the point? There’s no one out here to see what a mess I am.”
“Maa,” said Tak.
“You don’t count.” She grabbed her carpetbag, skimming her shoulder along the tall rock that had stopped her tumble.
A current in the mist cleared the air around her head. The sharp features of a dragon appeared at her side—shiny, pointed teeth, blazing eyes, hot breath, and scaly skin.
Ellie jumped back and looked again. Stone. The frightening visage was not real, but a lifeless statue. A standing stone. She’d heard of them but thought these ancient relics existed in faraway places, not in the hills near her home.
Breathing deeply, she tried to steady her heart and force the lump of fear in her throat to dissolve. The dragon teeth were gray like the rest of the head perched at the top of the rock. Not sharp, but somewhat rounded, as if over hundreds of years the weather had filed away some of their fierceness. On second examination, the blazing eyes appeared glazed over, cold and unfeeling. And the hot breath turned chill as the mist swished past her face.
Imagination. She had a wonderful gift of imagination, fed by the books Gramps had given her to read. Ellie turned away from the object that had scared her witless and resolutely marched after Tak.
She found a second standing stone as she came out of a hollow. What had appeared from the last rise to be a tree and two tall stumps turned out to be a tree, a tall stump, and another vertical rock,