Unquiet Slumber (16 page)

Tianna looked over at the now laughing Draak and explained. “I started journaling once I moved into Zarin’s home. Although I was thrilled to be Zarin’s apprentice, I had a difficult time adjusting to my new role and surroundings. It was also hard to deal with the villager’s unkind words about my new arrangements. Since I couldn’t express my feelings out loud, my mother suggested that I try writing my feelings down. She gave me a journal as a gift. When I started to write, I found that it helped. One night I caught Zarin trying to read my journal. I scolded him and placed a spell on my book. It was one of my first home-made spells. After Zarin felt the sting of a bite, he apologized for trying to read my private thoughts, although he was quite impressed by my natural spell abilities.”

Marcus chuckled and said, “Very inventive.”

Tianna pointed to Nathaniel’s newest mark. “Zarin carried the ‘X’ for a very long time. If I look at his hand now really hard, you can still see a faint outline of it.”

Nathaniel continued to rub his hand and muttered, “Great.”

Tianna was about to call her healing fire to heal his ache, when blue fire suddenly flared in Nathaniel’s left hand. He sighed in relief as he pressed the flames on his latest body art.

Tianna was shocked, and she stared at Nathaniel’s fire in amazement. She had never seen anyone else able to wield this power. She now understood the fire in his dragon mark. For a brief moment, she thought about willing her fire forward and showing him that she had the same skill. She decided against it. Nathaniel was a Draak. The thought that she shared a common power with a Draak scared her. She knew they already thought of her as an oddity, and she didn’t want to give them any more proof, so she remained silent about her hidden talent. Maybe on another day she would privately share her secret with Nathaniel.

A daily routine gradually emerged as the days passed. They took turns performing all of the day to day chores. They rode hard throughout the day on a path that Seth laid out. Marcus typically picked out the place that they would stay for the night. Tianna continued to sleep in trees. The Draak were amazed how she never slipped or fell off of a branch. It was as if the trees protected her as she climbed or slept.

In the evenings before bed, Marcus gave Tianna Draak history lessons and Gabriel gave fighting lessons to Seth. Gabriel encouraged Tianna to join them. She was exceptional with her bow, but that wouldn’t help much at close distances. Although he knew she was strong, he didn’t know if she had any experience in self-defense. Given the dangers they faced on their travels, he wanted her to be able to defend herself.

As they trained, he was pleasantly surprised by her natural warrior abilities. Her archery and knife skills were excellent. However, techniques that utilized her body’s small size to her advantage were unknown to her. Everyone took turns trying to attack her until Gabriel was satisfied that she could handle the most common attack scenarios. Most nights, Tianna was exhausted and fell asleep early.

After a week’s travel, they were setting up camp for the night and Tianna ventured off to collect firewood. She promised to stay within sight of the camp, so Marcus agreed to let her go by herself. After she had traveled a short distance, she heard something rustling in the brush in the opposite direction from the camp. She turned to look, not seeing anything. She assumed it was just an animal. This pleased her because she knew the men were hungry for meat and now she had the opportunity to surprise them by bringing back their meal. She didn’t have her bow with her, so she drew her long knife in one hand and a dagger in the other. She stalked her prey silently, moving temporarily out of sight of the camp toward the noise.

When she approached a cluster of thick brush, a dark, unfamiliar voice spoke quietly from close behind her. “Hello sweet thing.”

Tianna froze. As she stood there, two other men walked out of the dark in front of her with their swords at the ready.

She was surrounded.

The men in front of her gawked at her body and gave her leering smiles. The larger of the two spoke, “You’re a pretty little one. Now put down those pointy sticks of yours before you hurt yourself.” He kissed at her, twirling his huge broadsword as he spoke.

Tianna held tight to her weapons and tried to remember Gabriel’s lessons, willing her body to remain calm. She smelled a man who desperately needed a bath directly behind her and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him raise his arms slowly like he was about to try to grab her. She surprised him by shoving back into him, causing him to stagger with her weight. She took advantage of his unsteady position and kicked back up between his legs as hard as she could. She knew she had hit her target when she heard him gasp in pain. She quickly dropped into a squatting position as his arms tried to grab her on his way to the ground. He caught nothing but air and fell to the ground in obvious agony.

One of the other men snarled, “That wasn’t very nice.”

She scurried back up onto her feet and screamed for her protectors just as the man came after her. There was no way to run, so she needed to defend herself until help arrived. When he sliced his sword down at her, she swung her long knife and deflected his strike. The power in his strike was so hard that it almost knocked her off her feet.

She knew she couldn’t withstand his strength and decided to listen to an inner voice telling her what to do. She readied herself. When she blocked his next strike, she slid down under him and stabbed her dagger up through his stomach into his chest as hard and deep as she could.

She screamed again as his body went limp and fell on top of her.

With a flash, the man was lifted off of her and thrown into the trunk of a tree. She watched as he dropped to the ground, lifeless. When she stared up, she saw a partially shifted Gabriel staring back down at her with a sword in his hand. Nathaniel was at his side.

Gabriel commanded to Nathaniel, “Take her to safety. Make sure she isn’t injured.”

Nathaniel scooped up Tianna like she weighed nothing and within seconds had her away from the fighting. As Nathaniel checked Tianna’s body, she watched as Gabriel and Marcus fought and killed the other two men. Seth was nowhere in sight.

Nathaniel grabbed her face so she would look at him. Obviously he had been talking to her and she hadn’t heard him. “Are you injured?” he asked in a panic.

She stared at him, confused, until she examined herself. She was covered in blood. She did a quick body check and said shakily, “Other than this cut on my arm, I think I’m fine. Most of this blood isn’t mine. It’s his.” She pointed to the body lying at the base of the tree with her dagger sticking out of his belly. Nathaniel sat her down carefully and started tearing her shirt away from the cut.

Tianna jumped when Seth burst from the trees. He announced while panting, “I searched the area and found no one else, but I did find their camp. Looks like these three are the only ones in their group.”

They all returned to Tianna’s side, remaining alert.

Seth asked, “How is she?”

Nathaniel sighed in relief. “She has a bad cut on her arm, but it appears she’ll be fine.”

Gabriel growled. “If she can be moved, let’s get her back to our camp.”

Tianna was about to stand when Nathaniel scooped her up. She protested but he refused to put her down. He needed her close. The fear of what could have happened to her overwhelmed him.

She asked, “Can I at least go get my dagger and knife?”

Before Nathaniel could respond, Gabriel walked over to the downed warrior and pulled her dagger out. On the way back he picked up her long knife.

Once they were back in camp, Nathaniel helped Tianna clean up as the other Draaks stood guard. Nathaniel willed his blue fire to heal her wound. She closed her eyes and sighed as the pain eased, realizing that this was the first time she had ever been the recipient of someone else’s blue fire. It truly was magical.

Once Nathaniel was done, she thanked him and proceeded to tell exactly what happened.

She stared at Gabriel and tried to smile. “I tried to do what you taught me, well, close to it. I had to improvise a little.” She then asked very apprehensively. “Did I kill him?” She wasn’t sure what she wanted as the answer.

Gabriel nodded. “Your dagger penetrated his heart. I think he was dead before he fell on you.” What he didn’t tell her was that her dagger had penetrated the enemy’s body in a perfect angle for killing. He had trouble teaching his young warriors in Haven to be able to achieve this strike during close combat. This small human was able to do it instinctively.

“
No, not human,
” he reminded himself silently.

Tianna hung her head. “I’ve killed animals before, but I’ve never killed a person.” Her body started to shake like she was just as cold on the outside as she felt on the inside.

Gabriel patted her on her shoulder. “You did what you needed to do. It’s never easy to take a life.” Sensing her distress, Nathaniel pressed his palm against her back and willed his blue fire to appear, causing her body to relax.

Once she calmed down, Tianna asked, “Who were those men?”

Marcus answered. “Those were warriors of the Drenn. They’re evil and ruthless. You’re very lucky to have walked away relatively unharmed.”

Before Marcus could reprimand her yet again, Tianna said, “I’m sorry I went too far away from the camp alone. It won’t happen again.” Marcus could hear the honesty in her voice and hoped this was the final lesson on the subject. She now understood the dangers waiting out there and was grateful the lesson ended as it did.

Tianna rubbed her arms as if she felt a chill. “Zarin has told me horrible stories about the Drenn. What are they doing out here? We’re way off the beaten path.”

Seth answered. “They’re most likely scouts checking out the lay of the land.”

Gabriel added, “Knowing that their forces are somewhere nearby, we’ll have to remain on high alert at all times.”

Marcus stood. “That’s enough talk for now. We’ve been through a rough evening and I suggest that we try to get some sleep. We’ll have another long day tomorrow.”

Although Tianna wanted to help guard their camp, she knew that her skills were not up to the challenge yet. She vowed to take Gabriel’s lessons more seriously from here out so that she could step in and help protect her fellow travelers if ever needed. She crawled up into her tree bed, while the Draaks took turns guarding the camp throughout the night.

Given the attack, Marcus realized the Draaks needed to stay battle ready. To help with this goal, Marcus declared that every couple of days they needed to stretch their wings.

Tianna learned that a Draak needed to shift completely on a regular basis to keep their body strong, both human and dragon. They described it to her as sitting too long in one position and the muscles getting stiff. She enjoyed watching them shift. She loved how they would soar up high into the air and then glide gracefully with their wings spread wide.

It didn’t take Tianna long to be able to recognize, even at a distance, which dragon was which. She discovered that she had been correct about the colored tracings in their wings. When seen from the ground, the sunlight caused the extended wings to appear to glow the primary color of their Sett. Even without the color, their personalities were obvious.

Nathaniel was constantly trying to keep everyone laughing and letting out their stress by shouting challenges. Each day brought a new challenge, such as who could fly the highest or the fastest, or who could dive closest to the ground before pulling up.

Gabriel was usually in teacher mode and was always offering advice to Seth and, sometimes, to Nathaniel.

Marcus just liked to glide through the air with his eyes closed, appearing to be deep in thought.

She asked them if they could hunt and eat in their dragon form. They could, and do at times, but they said they preferred to eat in their human form. They could also talk as full dragons, except their voices came out more like a growling sound. It took Tianna some time to be able to understand their words. When they were on the ground, she loved to lean against them to feel the heat off of their bodies. She even found where they each liked to be scratched and where they were ticklish.

She had seen both Nathaniel’s and Seth’s shifted dragon back in Trille. Now she was finally able to take a closer look at Marcus’ and Gabriel’s dragon forms.

Marcus’ dragon was large and his muscles more defined than both Seth’s and Nathaniel’s Dragons. In contrast, Gabriel’s dragon was by far the most striking and intimidating in appearance. His body was very muscular, covered in large, sharply spiked spines and knife-like talons. His scales were large and hard, resembling thick body armor. He also had small wing-like flaps on the sides of his head that he could fold back or expand out like a fan. When extended, he looked exceptionally threatening. All parts of his dragon were covered with various shades of red that glistened in the sun, making him to glow like he was on fire.