Page 52 of Dragon Valley
“Please,” she begged, her voice still soft and raspy. “They’re going to kill me anyway for giving him up to you. I just wanted to provide for my son.”
I paused despite my roiling anger. Despite what she did, a small amount of sympathy for her cracked through. After all, she did this for the same reason I nearly killed her— to save someone she loved.
“Just tell me where the cellar is then,” I snapped. “Quickly now.”
She hesitated. “They’ll kill you on sight.”
“And if Caden dies, I’m coming back to kill you.”
With a shaky finger, she pointed past me. “That stone house. There’s a door on the floor leading down with stairs. They’re holding him in there.”
I lifted my boot off her skirt and turned in the direction she pointed. “Get out of here. Go back to your son.” As I ran to the low, single story building she pointed out, I didn’t look back. Somehow I knew she’d do what I said.
My brain reeled for a plan to get me and Caden out of there alive. “Dus, come here!”
She landed heavily in the square, now safe with nothing shooting at her, running alongside me. I reached the heavy wooden door of the building and turned to her.
“Give me a singe, girl.” I gripped the edge of my tunic and held it out taut. She opened her mouth to let a few tiny sparks catch the fabric so I could rip it. I tore a long strip off and wrapped it around the lower half of my face, then stuffed another torn-off strip into the waistband of my trousers.
“Alright, girl.” I rubbed her snout, my voice muffled from the cloth over my nose and mouth. “I’m gonna need a lot of smoke, got it? Let’s choke these bastards who hurt Caden.”
Her roar made the walls of the house vibrate. If the chaos from the burning towers didn’t give it away, they knew we were here now.
I threw open the door of the house and ran inside. Dusa stuck her head in after me and had already begun filling the house with dense, acrid smoke by the time I found the cellar door. My eyes already stinging, I jumped aside so she could funnel the thick smoke down the stairs. When the panicked cries and coughs began floating up from below, I held my breath and jumped down the dark stairwell.
The air was already so stale and musty, no one could catch a breath. No one seemed to notice me as I jumped through the smoke-filled corridor and quickly flattened my body along the wall, trying to hide in the darkness.
In a mad, stumbling dash, five men began clamoring up the stairs for relief. They fought and pushed each other out of the way as they hacked up lungs, desperate to breathe but only inhaling more dragon smoke as they struggled for air. Within moments, screams and the sounds of jaws snapping told me Dusa made quick work of them.
I scanned the small room as they struggled up the stairs to their deaths. The sight of the slumped over figure on the ground drove a spear through my heart.
“Caden!” I rushed over to him, yanking my extra cloth out and slapping it over his mouth.
He groaned something unintelligible and leaned against me heavily. I touched two fingers to his neck and felt an incredibly weak pulse.
“Don’t leave me, Caden, I’m here,” I pleaded, struggling to pull him to his feet. “Can you stand? Come on love, please. Dus and I are here. We’re getting you out.”
“…Nadi…”
“Yes, it’s me!” I kissed all over his face, barely recognizable through the dried blood and his swollen, bruised eyes and mouth.
“Please stand for me, love. We’ve got to get you out, then we’ll get you all fixed up.”
I let him lean on me, terrified that pulling on his arm or shoulder would cause him even more pain. He draped one arm over me, cradling the other to his chest as he slowly got his feet under him. My legs buckled under the weight of him but I held strong. I would not let him go.
“…Smoke…” He sucked in a rattling breath and began coughing.
“I know, it’s just Dusa. She flushed those bastards out. I need you to hold your breath as we go up the stairs, okay? We need to go fast.”
“…Tired…”
“I know you’re tired but you need to stay with me. We just need to get up the stairs.”
With his weight heavy on my shoulder, I half dragged, half walked across the small room to the base of the stairwell. No more smoke funneled down but what Dusa already breathed was filling every corner of the small room. Just a few steps up and we’d have fresh air.
I pressed Caden against the wall to give my shoulder a break, turning his head toward the small pockets of fresh air before the smoke filled the space. Even my high tolerance of dragon smoke was reaching its limit. My lungs burned and my eyes watered and stung like wasps attacked them. My tears only seemed to make it worse.
“This is it. Let’s go, Caden.”
