Fledgling (The Dragonrider Chronicles) (15 page)

           
I
staggered to my feet. “Try to find a weapon,” I yelled at Felix over the chaos.
“I’m going after Beckah!”

           
Immediately,
I started to search the chaos for the other wagon. My heart hit the back of my
throat hard when I finally saw it. The horses pulling it had spooked and
charged right off the levy into the swamp. They were panicking in the deep mud,
and the wagon was turned over on its side. I could see hands sticking out of
the barred rear window, and hear the women inside crying for help.

           
I
ran like mad straight for the toppled wagon, skidded down the steep side of the
levy, and splashed into the waist-deep muck. By the time I got to the back door
of the wagon, adrenaline was pumping through my veins like fire.

           
“Beckah!”
I screamed her name at the top of my lungs.

           
From
inside the wagon, I heard her answer. “Jaevid!”

She was alive, and for a moment I saw
her face through the narrow window. She stuck a hand out through the bars, and
I grabbed it. “I’ll get you out!”

I had no idea how I was going to keep
that promise. The door was still locked with a big iron padlock, and about the
time I thought to look back for
Grothar
and his ring
of keys . . . I saw his legs disappear down the
paludix
turtle’s throat.

I pulled at the lock, yanking at it
futilely and trying to think of some other way to get the door open. I needed
something to pry the lock off, something strong and narrow enough to fit
through the loop in the padlock. I waded through the mud as fast as I could,
and climbed up into the driver’s seat of the wagon that was tilted on its side.
I had hitched up
Ulric’s
horse and wagon plenty of
times. I knew where all the parts and pieces should be, so as soon as my hand
hit the big iron pin that connected the horse harnesses to the wagon, I yanked
it out. The horses whinnied in triumph, and began to gallop away through the
swamp.

The pin was perfect. It was made of
iron, long and narrow just like a big stake, and I carried it back to start
trying to pry the lock off. It probably would have worked for anyone else right
away. But I wasn’t big enough. I couldn’t get enough strength against it to
crack the lock. I fought and struggled, slipping in the mud and cursing out
loud.

I was about to give up and try
something else, when two sets of bigger hands grabbed the iron pin right next
to mine. I was surprised to see Felix and the younger gray elf boy standing
beside me. They pushed with me, putting all our strength against the lock. With
a sudden lurch and a loud crack, the lock popped off, and Felix pulled the door
open.

Four gray elf women came rushing out,
tripping over their skirts in the deep mud. I searched for Beckah in the crowd,
and finally found her still crouched in the back of the wagon. She had a little
girl in her arms, a gray elf toddler who was crying and clinging to her
desperately.

“Come on!” Felix shouted at her.

Beckah looked at him with fury in her
eyes. “I won’t leave her!” She was not very big herself, and she could barely
carry the toddler much less run with her.

Before anyone else could speak, the
gray elf boy that had been helping us with the door rushed in and took the child
from Beckah. I heard him muttering under his breath, trying to comfort the
frightened little girl. I couldn’t understand much of what he said, but I did
recognize a few words: my sister.

Beckah came out willingly then. She
threw her arms around my waist and squeezed me so hard I couldn’t breathe. I
was so relieved to see her, to have her back in one piece, that I hugged her
back as hard as I could.

“What are you waiting for
?!
” Lyon shouted down at us from the top of the levy. “We
have to get out of here!”

The slavers were so caught up in their
battle with the massive swamp turtle that they didn’t even notice all their
prisoners running free. We ran through the marsh, and the gray elves ran with
us, trying to get as far away from the slavers and the giant turtle as we
could. The sounds of the battle started to fade into the background until all I
could hear was our footsteps sloshing in the mud, the sound of the frogs, and
my own panting.

We didn’t stop or slow down until it
was dark. When we finally came to a patch of dry ground, one by one we all
collapsed to sit down and catch our breath. We were a muddy, soggy, exhausted
mess. But we were alive, and right then, that’s all I cared about.

The gray elves all grouped together,
leaving Felix, Beckah, Lyon and I to sit off to
ourselves
.
They hugged one another and spoke in hushed voices. I didn’t try to eavesdrop
on them; I could see the relief and happiness on their faces. They were free,
for now.

“I can’t believe it,” Lyon panted. He
was lying on his back with his arms and legs sprawled out. “First I get sold to
slavers by the Lord General, then nearly devoured by an extinct species.”

I glanced at Felix, and the look on my
friend’s face was enough to give me cold chills. His eyes were focused on me,
but they were haunted. There was something about his expression that made me
feel like he really was afraid of me now. “The great
paludix
turtle has been extinct for hundreds of years.” He muttered in a hushed voice.
“Or at least, we thought it was.”

Lyon raised his head up to shoot me an
accusing glare. “What exactly did you do, halfbreed?”

“It must have been in hiding for
decades.” Felix spoke up in my defense. Or at least, that’s what I thought
until he added, “Until you called it out.”

Now I felt cornered. Everyone except
Beckah was looking at me like I was some kind of monster—like I had done
something terrible. I knew why, of course. Humans had always suspected gray
elves of using wicked magic and mischievous spells to manipulate people. They’d
even called my mother a witch because of the way she could make the plants grow
when she was alive. I didn’t know if what I could do—calling out to
animals with my thoughts—even qualified as something magical at all. But
it was enough to get some accusing, disgusted looks from my so-called friends.

 
“I only did what you told me to,” I reminded Felix angrily. I
couldn’t help it. It felt like he was turning on me, which was the last thing I
expected. “How was I supposed to know that thing would hear me?”

I got up and stormed away from them,
going to sit on the edge of our dry little patch of land by myself. I just
couldn’t stand to be around him when he was looking at me that way. It was one
thing for Lyon to treat me like a traitor, but Felix was supposed to be my friend.

For a long time, I just sat there and
watched the sun set over the marsh. The crickets and frogs sang in the tall
reeds. Fireflies started blinking in the dark like warm orange spots of light.
I took the necklace my mother had given me out from under my shirt, feeling the
smooth polished bone while I thought about her. It had been a long time since
I’d seen other gray elves, and now it was starting to catch up to me. It made
me miss my mother. She was the one person in the world who had loved me unconditionally.

I didn’t say anything when Beckah
suddenly came over. She sat down beside me with her legs crossed under her
stained blue dress. For a few minutes we just sat there and didn’t say
anything, even though I could tell there was something she wanted to say.

“What’s that?” She pointed to my
necklace.

I glanced down at it, running my thumb
over the smooth white pendant. “My mother gave it to me before she died.” I
grumbled. I didn’t feel like talking at all, much less about my mother. It just
made me miss her more.

“It’s beautiful,” she said in a quiet
voice.

I started to feel bad. I was being
cold to her, and none of this was her fault. She didn’t deserve to be treated
like that. I let out a heavy sigh, and gave up being mad at Felix. “She said it
would protect me.” I glanced over at Beckah, and tried to give her a convincing
smile. “I guess it doesn’t work very well.”

Beckah smiled back at me. She had mud
in her hair, all over her dress, and even smeared on her face. But her green
eyes still shone brightly. “You made it into the academy to be a dragonrider.
You jumped off the top of a tower at the duke’s estate and lived. And now you
saved us all from slavers, and a giant man-eating turtle. I think it works
pretty well.” She laughed a little.

I couldn’t help but laugh, too. Maybe
it did work, after all. “So, how did everyone in your wagon get out of the
ropes?”

She smiled proudly. “My daddy does
teach me a few things when he comes home. He didn’t give me a magical necklace,
but he taught me how to escape ropes and shackles when I was little. He made it
like a game, you know? It was really fun. And it made my momma furious. He
started teaching me how to shoot a bow, but momma put a stop to that. She said
girls don’t shoot bows.”

I had underestimated her. She was a
kid, sort of, but she was brave, and she was definitely a lot smarter than I
was. “Your dad is a good man, Beckah,” I told her. “No matter what else
happens, you should know that.”

“You are too, you know.” She gave me a
meaningful look. I could see on her face that this is what she’d really come
over to talk to me about. “Whatever you did back there, I know you just wanted
to help us. You’re a good person. And if Felix and that other guy can’t see
that, well, then they’re too dumb to be dragonriders anyway.”

I blushed. “It’s not because they’re
dumb, Beckah. It’s because I’m a—”

“No, she’s right.” Felix butted in
suddenly. It startled me, and I turned around to see him standing behind us
with his arms crossed. He didn’t look angry, or even wary of me anymore. In
fact, he looked frustrated and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jae.”

I was so surprised I couldn’t even say
anything back at first. All I could do was just nod at him a little and smile
awkwardly. How could I not forgive him? Felix was my friend, and one of the
best ones I’d ever had. If I lost him, I probably wouldn’t last very long in
the academy. The other fledglings would eat me alive and toss whatever was left
to their dragons.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “This whole
calling to animals thing is weird for me, too.”

“Did your momma ever tell you anything
about it?” Beckah looked worried. “Is it something all gray elves can do?”

I shook my head. “No, she never
mentioned this. I’ve never even heard of it before.”
 

“Well, whatever it is, we should
probably keep it between us,” Felix suggested. “It’d freak the instructors
out.”

I couldn’t argue with that. He was
definitely right. The last thing I needed was to give the instructors at
Blybrig one more reason not to trust me. Until I figured this out, we had to
keep it a secret. I couldn’t use it unless it was absolutely necessary. If
anyone else found out, at the very least it could get me kicked out of the
academy.

“But what about that other guy?”
Beckah cut a suspicious glance over to Lyon, who was still sprawled out on the
ground.

Felix smirked, and started cracking
his knuckles. “Leave Lyon to me.”

eighteen

The
gray elves were doing a lot better surviving in the marsh than we were. They
built a small fire, and were sitting around it together roasting something that
smelled amazing. I was already starving, and the smell of whatever they were
cooking made my mouth water. It must have had the same effect on Felix because
he was just sitting there, staring at them, with a miserable expression on his
face.

           
“We
should just demand that they give us a share,” Lyon growled. “After all, we
were the ones who did all the work.”

           
“Yeah,
sure.” Felix rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you go over there and tell them that
yourself? Let us know how that goes.”

           
“Send
the halfbreed, then.” Lyon bargained. He seemed determined not to use my name.

           
I
shot him a glare. “They hate me just as much as you do, you know.”

           
That
seemed to surprise Lyon. “What? But you’re—”

           
I
cut him off before he could finish. “—half human. They don’t like me for
the same reasons you don’t.”

           
“I’ll
go,” Beckah offered. She was licking her lips hungrily. It might have actually
worked to send the most innocent and vulnerable of our group to beg for scraps,
but I wasn’t about to let Beckah risk herself on that chance. I didn’t know the
gray elves might do.

           
About
the time Felix and Lyon started arguing over who should go, I noticed that the
younger gray elf man from before was walking our way. He didn’t look much older
than Felix, but his hair was already that shining silver color. The gray elves
were all born with black hair that turned silver once they finally hit puberty,
so he had to be at least eighteen for his hair to already look like that.

           
He
stood awkwardly on the edge of our pitiful excuse for a camp, which was
basically just the four of us sitting in a circle, holding something that was
wrapped up in charred leaves. His diamond-colored eyes flicked from one of us
to the other, and he finally started to speak. Of course, he didn’t speak the
human language, and when he talked he looked right at me like he expected me to
understand him.

           
 
I did understand some of what he said.
He told us his name was
Kiran
, and then he offered
what he had in his hands. It was roasted roots that they had dug up out of the
earth, wrapped in damp leaves, and baked in their fire. The smell was
fantastic, even for something that came out of this smelly marsh.

           
“These
are gifts for us,” I translated, giving Felix a hesitant look. “For helping
them, I guess.” The gray elf language was very complex and I hadn’t heard it,
much less spoken it in years.

           
Felix
smiled tiredly at him, and got up to take the food from him. Beckah and Lyon
did the same, while
Kiran
kept eyeing them warily. It
was like he half-expected a sneak attack.

When I got up to take some of the food
from him,
Kiran’s
expression went from uncomfortable
to total disgust. He looked me over from head to toe, like everyone did, and I
saw his nose wrinkle. The gray elves didn’t want me anywhere near them, just
like the humans. I was both, and I was neither.

He didn’t say a word to me as I took
the food from his hands. I began to turn away, ready to go sit with my friends,
until I saw his eyes go straight to the necklace my mother had given me. I’d
forgotten to tuck it back under my shirt.

           
“Where
did you get that?” he snapped at me in the
elven
language. He was pointing at my necklace.

           
I
glanced down at it before tucking it back under my shirt collar. I didn’t want
him to get any ideas about taking it. “A gift.” I answered. I spoke to him in
English because I had a sneaking suspicion he could, too. He was young enough
that he’d probably been born in an
elven
ghetto, just
like me.

           
Kiran’s
lip twitched and his eyes narrowed. “Who gave it to
you?” he demanded—in English this time.

           
I
glared at him with as much courage as I could muster. “It’s none of your
business.”

           
He
got a mean smirk on his lips that made me nervous. Fortunately, Felix was
sitting not too far away, and I could see him watching us out of the corner of
my eye.

“I know that mark,”
Kiran
said as he pointed to the king’s eagle stitched onto
my tunic. “You wear the clothes of the human warriors, but you’re too young to
even remember who started this war.” The way he said it made it sound like an
insult.

           
As
much as I just wanted to turn my back to him and walk away, something about the
way he talked down to me really got on my nerves. I was used to being treated
that way by humans, but usually gray elves just ignored me like I didn’t exist.
Kiran
was the first one to go out of his way to pick
on me. If my mom had been alive, she would have smacked him across the face.
But me? Well, I had had enough of being pushed around for one day.

“I don’t care who started the war,” I
told him. “And I don’t care who wins it.”

           
Kiran
gave me a funny look, like that wasn’t the answer
he’d expected. “Why do you fight with them,
caenu
?”

           
I
didn’t have a good answer for that, so I just glared at him for a few seconds
and then looked away. It was a difficult question to even think about. I hadn’t
really considered the idea that eventually I would be on the battlefield with a
sword in my hand, trying to kill gray elves like
Kiran
.
And they would be trying to kill me, too.

           
When
I didn’t reply,
Kiran
went back to his own circle
around the campfire with the other gray elves. I looked at the food in my hand,
and felt uneasy. I knew the gray elves had a social custom that demanded all
debts be paid. So this must have been their way of repaying us for letting them
all free, even if that had only been a side effect of our own escape.

           
Lyon
was eyeing his roasted potato skeptically. “What if this is poisonous? How do
we know they aren’t trying to kill us?”

           
Beckah
glared at him. “Don’t be stupid. Of course it isn’t poisonous.”

           
He
glared back, though he seemed a little stunned that a kid was talking back to
him like that. “How do you know?” he challenged.

           
“Because
they’re eating it, too,” she replied with a mouthful of potato.

           
We
all looked over at the same time to stare at the gray elves. They were cozy,
sitting close to their fire while they shared their own roasted potatoes.
Beckah was right, and I was willing to chance it for the sake of my cramping
hunger pains.

           
“What
does
caenu
mean?” Felix asked as I sat down beside
him and started unwrapping my own ration. “That elf, I heard him call you that.
What does it mean?”

           
I
was really rusty when it came to speaking the gray elf language, but there were
a few words that stuck into my mind like thorns. Those were words I’d come to
hate; words I could never forget.
Caenu
was one of
them.

I just focused on eating my piping hot
potato while I answered because I didn’t want to see the look on his face.
“It’s what the gray elves call
halfbreeds
.” I tried
to sound as matter of fact about that as I could. I didn’t want him to know how
much it bothered me. “It means ‘filth’ in their language.”

           
I
could feel Felix’s eyes on me for a long time. Maybe it had never really
occurred to him that when I said the gray elves hated me as much as most humans
did . . . I really meant it. They didn’t want me around them, either. My mother
had been the exception. She had loved me. But I knew better than to hope I’d
get that kind of reception from the rest of her kin.

           
“He
was asking you about the war, wasn’t he?” Felix questioned me again. “He was
asking you why you want to fight with humans instead of elves?”

           
I
swallowed hard and finally dared to meet his eyes. “Yeah.”

           
His
eyes narrowed some, and I saw his jaw tense. “And you really don’t care who
wins this war?”

           
Again,
that question crept up on me and stunned me. I’d answered
Kiran
before without really thinking about it, and now that I had a chance to really
mull it over, I realized my answer wasn’t going to change. “No, I don’t.”

           
“How
can you say that?” Felix sounded worried, maybe even a little insulted.

           
I
shrugged and took another bite of potato. “Because it doesn’t matter to me.
Neither side wants me, and no matter who wins, that probably won’t ever change.
I’ll always be hated by both humans and elves because of what
I am
. So why would I want to fight for them?”

           
“So
you’re just fighting for the sake of having a job? Or so you won’t have to go
to a prison camp?” His brows were furrowed, and he was frowning at me hard.

           
“No
that’s not the reason,” I corrected. “Well, maybe it is
a
reason, but it’s not the
main
reason.”

           
“Then
what is?”

           
I
looked at Felix squarely in the eye. “I’m going to fight for you. You said it
yourself, that we’re in this together. We’re partners, right? So I’ll fight to
watch your back. It’s the same reason I’m out here trying to save
Sile
. There aren’t very many people in the world who care
what happens to me. You,
Sile
, Beckah,
Katty
, even Mavrik are pretty much the only ones. So I’ll
do what I can to protect you, even if that means fighting in a war that’ll end
up being a no-win situation for me either way. It’s worth it.”

           
Felix’s
expression wavered. I saw that he wanted to smile, but he didn’t. There was
sadness in his eyes, deep heavy sadness. He just nodded some before he went
back to eating.

           
Even
with warm food in my stomach and no strength in my body, it was hard to sleep.
I had nightmares about giant turtles and slavers. Early the next morning, I
woke up with my heart hammering because I thought I heard the sound of hoof
beats. But we were alone—completely alone.

           
The
gray elves were gone. All that was left of them were a few tracks in the mud,
leading away across the marsh. They’d left us there to fend for ourselves, not
that I was sad to see them go. Being around them was sometimes worse than being
around humans.

           
What
I’d mistaken for hoof beats started to get louder. When I realized what that
sound actually was, I started shaking Beckah awake and yelling for Felix to get
up. The sound got even louder and closer, and I heard the familiar bellow of
Mavrik’s
roar from above the trees.

           
Seeing
a flash of his blue scales and the sound of his roar made my heart soar. He’d
come back for me. I certainly wouldn’t have blamed him for just leaving me
there to fend for myself, after the way I’d dismissed him before.

           
He
and Nova were circling above us, looking for a good place to land. With so many
trees growing so close together, there wasn’t a place big enough for them.
Suddenly, I got another one of those radical ideas.

           
“Come
on, I’ll give you a boost.” I said as I pulled Beckah up to her feet. She was
still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, blinking up at the sky. I don’t think
she really understood what I was doing until I was pushing her up toward the lowest
hanging limb of a nearby tree.

           
“Are
you crazy?” Lyon was awake and already protesting.

           
Felix
just laughed, and started climbing up after me. “Better stay down here, Lyon.
We wouldn’t want you to risk hurting yourself just to follow us, would we?” The
sarcasm in his voice made me laugh, too.

           
“You’re
not leaving me behind!” Lyon declared as he started climbing up the tree after
us.

           
When
I got to the top, to the very skinniest of the limbs that would hold my weight,
I looked out across the marshland. I could see the tops of the trees for miles
and miles around us. Far in the distance, I could see the mountains like
ghostly blue shadows on the horizon.