Dragon Tamer - Book 1

Chapter 61

It took them four more days to find the traders.

The group was quiet and the tension that existed between them was so palpable Marcie wanted to scream sometimes, simply to relieve it.

She travelled with Breen at the fore of the group. And felt the eyes of all the men on her back every step of the way.

Even Breen was quiet and rarely spoke to her, although he remained as protective of her, she slept next to him at night and once woke to find he staring at her form, his expression unreadable.

Her side hurt too much to draw her bow, but she held her knife in her good hand at all times, and kept her senses trained at all times.

The forest became denser and denser as they waded deeper into its depths. The air became drier and warmer and every tree dripped in vines and other creepers. Small lizards scuttled over the leaves and the air became thick with tiny Humming Flies.

Marcie wiped sweat off her brow and itched to take off her boots and massage her feet.

She was still tired from the burning. It took a lot out of her, leaving her drained. She longed for Dara in a way she had never before. She could feel him faintly. Enough to know he was in the cave, and she saw faint images when she slept of some small rodents that served as his food source. She could not feel his pain any more, but that might have been because of the distance. She hunched her shoulders and marched on.

A flash of white startled her.

She glanced up into the trees and saw a pure white, snowy owl glide silently past, landing on a high branch with nary a sound. It sat perfectly still upon its branch, then bent its head to nibble under its wing feathers. After a moment when it had eased whatever itch plagued it, it spread its wings and swept silently deeper into the forest, landing on another branch further in.

Owls in daytime?

Marcie glanced around. None of the others showed any reaction to the owl. They kept to their formation, scanning the trees around them.

Marcie glanced at Breen, she had fallen a little behind, he was intent on the forest before him, the lines of worry that creased his brow, deepening as there everyday there continued to be no sign of the traders, stood out against his perfect face.

She looked back at the owl, it was staring in her direction, then it shuffled round on its branch and gave her its back.

Without quite knowing why, Marcie slipped away from the group, padding quickly in the direction the owl had flown.

It took off again, and she resisted calling after it. It flew further ahead, quiet as wind, ghostly and ethereal.

She followed it for quite some way, at one point she heard Breen call her name, faintly through the trees, she carried on, keeping the owl within her sights. She knew it to be important somehow.

The owl slipped further and further ahead and she found herself running, leaping over roots and dodging round trees. Lizards and large crawlers hurried out of the way of her boots, the pain in her side forgotten, Breen's cries became closer and more frantic.

She rounded a tree and the owl was gone. Before she could despair she crashed through some low hanging vines and fell, tangled in the leaves into a small clearing.

She ripped the vines off and leap to her feet.

And met the eyes of a terrified looking woman, her arms elbow deep in a wooden basin of water filled with bright, soapy rags.

Marcie stared at her and became aware of more and more people and a few animals, milling around brightly coloured tents of patches of every kind of material. Some were staked to the ground and others suspended between the branches of trees with thick heavy cords, accessible by rope ladders.