Chronicles of Carnezia (Book 2): Wilderness

Chapter 2: Yok Hills

Chapter 2: Yok Hills

            It was about a whole week later when I really made my mind up. I was lounging on my bed briefly reading through my large book on dragons when I realised that if I didn’t get moving eventually then I would probably be stuck here until I was around Doran’s age. Although he had always been a roamer since about my age (a wild guess), and I was just here meandering around the streets of the city and barely going outside the walls.

            Packing some clothes into my trusty rucksack, I wondered exactly where I should go. Riding on horseback however did bring in some distance problems; I could travel rather far but that would result in a really sore butt or I could just roam about the wild a bit and see where I ended up.

            Trundling down the stairs, I heard Doran talking to someone in the front room. Not curious enough to wonder who it was, I put my bag down by the end of the stairs and slipped into the kitchen. I grabbed a loaf of bread and cut off some slices and wrapped them in some cloth (there was no foil or cling-film here), then I went back to my bag and packed that too. I was just about to go out of the front door when Doran appeared from the lounge.

            ‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ he asked, sounding all concerned but I did giggle inside my head.

            ‘I’m heading off, I did tell you yesterday,’ I reminded him. ‘I have no idea how long I’ll be gone though.’

            At that point, his friend appeared too. There was a spark of recognition in my head at seeing his face but no recollection as to where I had met him before. ‘Hello,’ he said and I nodded back.

            ‘Oh, er. Carly, this is Greg. Greg, this is my daughter Carly,’ Doran introduced us and Greg’s eyes popped wide open when he heard Doran call me that. Similarly, I looked slightly awkward (and felt it) as he had never really said that word out loud.

            ‘Wha...at?’ Greg asked, chuckling to himself. ‘I think you owe me a lot of explaining,’ he continued, turning to Doran.

            Seeing as this, more or less, a cue for me to leave, I bade them farewell. ‘I think I should get going then or I’ll never leave.’ Doran didn’t say goodbye, he just simply waved me off as I left through the door and he locked it behind me.

            As I stepped into the street, I saw Frain waiting impatiently on the cobbled pavement. ‘How long does a human take to get ready?’ he asked; there was a glazed-over look in his eye that I took as sign of him talking to himself.

            ‘Unlike you dragons,’ I began retaliating as we walked down the road. ‘We humans need clothes to keep us warm and food to eat. You can easily catch whatever you like when you are hungry; it is not so easy for us.’ It wasn’t all that true, what I said, but it was when comparing a human to a dragon rather than just speaking of a human’s capabilities.

            It was while I was fetching a tacked Aspen from the horse field that I noticed we were being followed. There was a circling shadow above us and it didn’t take long for it to descend far enough that I realised who it was.

            Hydra landed gracefully on the grass, which caused a bit of fuss among some of the horses, and she stepped over to Frain. Hauling myself up into Aspen’s saddle, they spoke in their secret language before Hydra turned to me. ‘I see you are ready to go,’ she commented with a small hiss.