Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [45]
“Concentrate on the bisonbecks, Kale,” Dar ordered. “Do you know where they are standing guard?”
Kale nodded, her eyes still closed. “One in front, one in back. The other two are sitting by a burned building, a house.”
She opened her eyes to watch Dar as he thought. His serious expression told her he was plotting out what they would do. His mustache twitched. His ears lay back flat against the top of his head, almost disappearing in his mane of hair. She waited patiently.
After a while he nodded, rubbed his hands together, and then turned to look into her face.
“You will sneak into the barn.”
Kale felt her eyebrows rise. A lump formed in her throat.
Dar patted her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Whenever you get scared just stop and be still. The cape will hide you.”
She allowed her head to bob up and down slowly in agreement, but she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for his plan.
Dar continued. “Once you’re inside the barn, you and Gymn will heal her.”
“You mean Gymn will heal her.”
“No, I mean you and Gymn.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Gymn is small and young. Celisse is big and wounded…and poisoned. With your talent, you will magnify Gymn’s gift and be a part of the circle that heals Celisse.”
“Oh.” Kale wanted to ask a dozen questions, but she feared she wouldn’t understand the answers. Maybe she would understand better after she’d been in the barn, been part of the healing, and escaped with Celisse and Gymn.
At the beginning of their journey into Bedderman’s Bog, while she had listened to Leetu explain a hundred different things, she had found all of it together boggled her mind. But at the same time, her simple o’rant mind accepted small things easily if she ignored the overwhelming bulk of ideas. Then as she understood the small things, the larger things began to make sense. As an o’rant slave in a marione village, she had never felt her mind was very useful. Now she began to wonder if her mind was just different, not inferior.
Dar continued explaining his plan. “After you have told Celisse what we’re going to do, mindspeak to me that you’re ready. I’ll create a distraction, you open the barn door, and you and the dragons fly out. Simple.”
“Simple,” Kale repeated, a squeak breaking the word in two.
Dar clapped her on the shoulder like he would a comrade-in-arms.
“Nothing to it.”
“Nothing to it,” repeated Kale, and this time the words barely rasped out of her throat.
“Fine, then. Let’s go,” said Dar. “We want to do this before the sun burns off the mist.”
Kale looked at him with wide eyes. She didn’t want to do this before or after the sun burned off the mist.
18
THE DRAGON’S LAIR
They may not see me in this cape, but they for sure will hear my heart thumping.
Fog obscured everything beyond two feet in front of Kale’s nose. She didn’t feel invisible and therefore safe. She felt as if someone could sneak up on her out of the hazy surroundings.
Tall, sun-bleached stalks clustered behind her in a field where the corn had been stripped from the plants and the poles left to wither and die. Her head jerked every time she heard a faint rustling in the dried leaves. In the eerie half-light, Kale could not see how far the old cornfield stretched out behind her in acres and acres of cold soil. She knew the dead corn went on for miles. She’d walked around this field, petrified ever since she left Dar’s side. There might not be one living creature hidden among the dry stalks, or there could be thousands. Kale shivered.
Dar had not let her come through the field. He said the noise she’d make as her footsteps crackled on the old foliage would give her away. That started her thinking about who, or what, was out there to hear. While she circled the farmer’s harvested land, she took care every step of the way to make no noise. She’d listened for evil beings prowling around the countryside, looking for easy prey.
Looking