Night of the Chalk (Spies of Dragon and Chalk Book 1) Read online

  Aaron removed his shirt and showed the shoulder tattoo of the S’Rghat Prison to the table, then the crowd. Miriam, and the rest of the crowd, marveled at the sheer number of marks on his body. Though some did not participate in marking, she would wager that the many who did could add up every mark in the room and still fall short of Aaron’s by half.

  Miriam wondered how Conners would handle this. It was unquestionably deserving of a promotion. But Conners may not want to give so much away in this first tentative encounter. They had yet to hear of Aaron’s plans for the dragons.

  Following protocol, Derrick asked, “Are there any witnesses who wish to speak?” This question often prompted endorsement, and gave an opportunity to hear another’s perspective of the deed. Witnesses were not required but they helped one make his case. No one expected a witness for this. Yet a woman in the middle of the crowd rose.

  She was in her thirties and wore an old housedress. She had a strong, slightly severe face with reddish hair pulled tightly into a bun. Miriam recognized her from prior meetings but didn’t know her name. She guessed the woman was a maid or house servant of some kind. She had a subservient manner and was flushed by the attention she had drawn to herself by rising.

  “My name is Sara. I was there. I was one of the prisoners he rescued,” she said to Conners.

  Aaron looked searchingly at her, then slowly nodded and turned to face Conners. Conners, reading assent on Aaron’s face, gestured to the woman to approach.

  When she arrived at the front of the room, she spoke in a quiet voice that picked up strength as she went. “When I think back to S’Rghat, and I try not to, I mostly remember the screaming of the camels. They were so loud. We were all so scared. I had been there for two nights, but it seemed like forever. I was living at a small farm with a Vylass man, a good man. The Chalk killed him and took as many prisoners as they could. They marched us for three days to the prison. There were fifteen of us at the start. Only twelve made it.

  “They led us into that horrible hive and put us into cells. There were already some prisoners there. The Chalk would take people out and rub that powder on their faces. The prisoners would cry and scream. The Chalk would just stare, like it was some experiment. But the same thing happened every time. The prisoners would cry and scream and then eventually fall quiet. And when they put them back into the cells, we’d try to talk with them but they would just rub the powder off their faces with the dirt from the floor and then lay still. The prisoners who had it happen many times would eventually ‘go dark’ and never be the same.

  “The Chalk did this all day and night, and then as they’ve got one prisoner on the ground between four of them, that man Cal comes in, all quiet, and kills all four Chalk guards. He just kills the guards like one-two-three-four, and some of the prisoners are calling out to him and others are crying, but he’s not saying anything. Just walking around looking in all the cells at the prisoners, at us. He looked in every single cell, made us show him the faces of everyone, even the dead. We didn’t know what he was looking for. We were so frightened. But finally he let us out using the guards’ keys, and he gave some of the men weapons, and led us through the narrow halls.

  “The halls were filling with black smoke. We walked for ages. We started seeing bodies stuffed in the corners. They were Chalk. Cal started moving faster, but the halls were getting smokier and everyone was struggling to breathe. I tried to stay as close to Cal as possible. There were so many of us I worried we’d get lost. Then suddenly he appeared,” she gestured at Aaron without looking at him, “and whispers in Cal’s ear, and Cal turns to talk to us, and he says ‘We’re going outside.’ While Cal is talking, three Chalk come around the corner and Aaron Lorne kills all three before you could blink. And I started to think for the first time maybe we won’t die here today. We were surrounded by the creatures that killed our families and friends in this unholy smoke-filled place, but I think maybe we won’t die here today, maybe we’ll see the sun again.

  “Aaron ducks outside, letting in a bit of light but it was too dark outside for the daytime. And a minute later Cal hands us a rope and tells us to hang on to the rope or if we don’t have the rope then hang on to the person in front of us. He leads us outside through a rip in the tent and there’s no sun. There’s a sandstorm wailing like it’s going to swallow us whole and dust flying everywhere.

  “We couldn’t see anything but we’re clinging to the rope and to each other. I was only a few people behind Cal and it was terrifying, but we reached the camels. And they got them moving. But the prisoners were faltering. Cal and Aaron would pass by us and help where they could, but many fell and were almost immediately trampled by the chain of camels and us, and others just vanished. You would see a shape pass under the heavy blankets that were over our heads and then it was gone, another one lost.”

  She turned to Aaron. “You know your story wasn’t entirely true? You left part out.”

  Aaron said nothing.

  She continued, “He wasn’t the one to find the cave. He was closer to the back. I know because he walked the last few miles with my friend Leslie. With her and her nine-year old daughter Camile. And when her daughter fell, he carried her. For miles.

  “Why didn’t you tell that part?” she asked Aaron.

  He slowly shrugged, looking young and vulnerable, the way he’d seemed to Miriam when he took his shepra out. This was an intriguing side of him, she thought. For all his certainty, all his marks, he carries doubts. “She died,” Aaron said simply.

  “That’s not important,” Sara said. “She didn’t die because of you. She died because of those monsters. What was important was that you carried her. We didn’t know you. We were only slightly less afraid of you than we were of the Chalk. But you carried her, and she died in her mother’s arms in that cave, instead of in a prison cell surrounded by demons or being buried and trampled in the dust.

  “We never forgot that. Her mother and I spoke of it often. And we never forgot you. And when we heard rumors of your death we cried together. Leslie died last year of the Porcenne Fever. But when I heard last night that you had returned, I knew it was my duty to come down here and tell you for her, and for me, that we didn’t forget, and we never will.

  “I stand for Aaron Lorne,” she said loudly, turning to Conners, all traces of timidity gone.

  “Who else stands for this man?” Conners asked the assembled men and women of the Corvale.

  The entire crowd rose to their feet.

  Conners smiled. “Welcome home, my son.”

  Chapter 16. Cries on the Wind

  After three hours in the air, night fallen around him, Cal found the terrain he was looking for. There were patches of forest to the west, plains to the east, rolling hills covering all. Two lakes were visible, one to the north, one to the south, matching the shapes Aaron had drawn in the dirt in the stables courtyard before sending Cal off. Cal scanned the dark ground between the lakes, looking for the arrangement of campfires which would tell him if the Dura Mati had arrived ahead of him.

  Cal’s body was worn from the flight, legs aching. He could only imagine how the dragons felt. As Aaron had said, the beasts were easy to understand and instruct, though Cal had not made any sort of deeper connection, like the naming thing Aaron had mentioned. It was like riding a well-trained and responsive horse. Only these horses opened up amazing new horizons in the bitter cold sky.

  The flight had given Cal a lifetime of vistas, so much so that he had fought for breath much of the first hour. As the lights of Delhonne retreated behind him, he’d traced the roads leading east and south, outlined in the campfires of the many travelers headed to the city for the Festival of Clouds. He understood for the first time the way the countryside had shaped the roads and the roads had shaped the countryside. He saw the dark pockets of moonlit beauty, of lakes and isolated farms, spanning out below him, untapped and unseen in all of his prior travels. He saw the outposts of Tannes’ eastern guard, unlit and untended. They
must have shifted their usual deployment. On horseback, it would have taken Cal days to verify such a dramatic tactical shift. On the back of a dragon, minutes. And without them knowing that he knew. The military advantage of flight was tremendous. It might change the world. The things he could do in Castalan with just a few of these.

  As he flew, Cal let his long dormant sense of pride awaken. It still stung to think on how Aaron had abandoned him, but Cal had been too long in Delhonne, too long alone. There were too many nights where the only threat he faced was losing his shirt at the card table. Aaron’s return had given Cal a renewed purpose, even if it hadn’t yet come with a real apology. And Cal sat atop a dragon, his dragon. He was quickly moving past experiencing a rush of terror every time the cold wind pulled at him. He was flying. Aaron had told him there were many more dragons up north in the Frome Mountains. Aaron had brought his small flight south to scout the east, better understand how and where the Chalk were deployed. Aaron had never believed them confined to the Ashlands as so many others did. With the Corvale Slaughter they had declared war on humankind. Any peace was false, temporary.

  Aaron had sent the Dura Mati south to visit the minotaur, the Dura Mati’s people. To see if they had moved from the southern borders of the Ashlands, see if they still held their own lands or if the Chalk had swallowed them. To see if the minotaur had awoken from their self-absorbed ways. Cal’s first priority tonight was getting the Dura Mati back to Delhonne safely. With the attack on Aaron only one night old, they had to assume the skies around Delhonne were being watched, patrolled. Cal had escaped the city with no sign of pursuit. He hoped to return with the Dura Mati and the two dragons who would accompany the minotaur.

  After finding nothing during a broad sweep of the place Aaron had described, Cal began looking for his own campsite. He found a suitable spot on a hill at the edge of a large forest. He settled the three dragons down, coaxing them to sleep. He started his own signal fires. They were placed in a triangle. Cal shored up the sides so they were not visible from the ground but could be seen from above. If the Dura Mati managed to survive his visit to his minotaur homeland in violation of his exile, he would be looking for the fires. Then Cal lay down to sleep, trusting the dragons to keep the campground safe.

  …

  Cal’s eyes snapped open. The fires burned low. The dragons slept, but there was a sense of uneasiness over the camp. It could only have been a couple hours since he’d first lain down. The wind had risen and now ceaselessly rustled the trees of the forest at the foot of the hill. Cal’s soldier instincts were up. Something had awakened him. Something wasn’t right.

  From the forest, the sound of a baby crying rose over the wind. It chilled his bones. Cal gave in for a moment to the kind of desperate fear that finds men when they are alone and cold, far from their usual beds, unsure which way to go or what to do. Then he steeled himself. He kicked off his blanket and stood. The cold wind cut into him, carrying the sound away. It came back a moment later. It was the panicked cry of a baby, somewhere inside the nearby forest.

  Cal pondered his options. He could ignore it, though there would be no more sleep for him tonight. If he went into the forest, he would have to leave the dragons behind. He’d examined the edge of the forest earlier and the trees were dense. Who would have a baby in the forest? Was he even sure it was a baby? What if it was a trap, meant to lure him away from the dragons? He’d need a light to traverse the trees, though that would give away his presence to whatever was out there. Cal realized he was already preparing to go and forced himself to slow down. The cries continued. Fuck. He couldn’t ignore them. It could be hurt, alone, maybe abandoned. If it was with someone, maybe some desperate couple traveling and praying that the baby’s cries wouldn’t draw danger, well, then he’d just leave, whether they saw him or not. And if some thieves had baited a trap with a baby, Cal wouldn’t have a moment of pity when he killed them.

  He quickly fashioned a torch from one of the logs in the fires. With the butt end of it, he drew a broad arrow in the dirt in the direction he was headed. He walked to the edge of the camp, near one of the dragons, who lazily raised its head and looked at him. Cal drew his sword and walked towards the woods. The dragon put its head back on the ground.

  There was nothing visible from the edge of the trees. The torch threw firelight on the first tall trunks, but beyond them there was nothing but black shadow. He turned back to the camp to take his bearing, noting the slight lightness where the illumination of the dim fires crept past the bulk of the dragons. The baby cried out again. Cal turned towards it and entered the trees.

  The wind died down so quickly the flame of the torch swung back close to Cal’s head. He silently cursed and held it away from his body, trying to reduce how effectively it made him a target. He moved through the trees. The undergrowth was dry and crackly, making it difficult to move quietly. Despite his careful steps, the unsettling noises of crushed leaves and branches carried. If it was an ambush, they would position themselves between Cal’s camp and wherever they had left the baby. Then they would wait in the darkness, counting on him to make the noise. He would only have a moment to react when they sprung the trap. On the other hand, if it was just travelers, he would expect a fire. They would depend on the trees to hide the light. He didn’t see any evidence of a fire and hadn’t heard the baby again for a minute or so.

  A branch cracked sharply just to his left. Cal threw the torch in his left hand over his head to his right and twisted to drive his blade to the left. It did not strike home. He followed the thrust with a blind backwards stroke. It hit something though it lacked any real power. Cal saw a flash of black eyes in the torchlight and, to his horror, watched the falling light play off the ghoulish white features of a Chalk. The Chalk grabbed at his left arm. Cal drew back his sword for a proper thrust when something fell on him from behind. His arm was pushed beneath him as he crashed into the undergrowth and then two Chalk were on him. The dry undergrowth rubbed painfully across his face. With his arms held, he pushed his head down hard, hoping to gain some leverage that way, but the undergrowth merely twisted with him. He swung his arms wildly to free them from the Chalk. The bruising fingers of one Chalk slipped off his left arm but his right was held tightly. He tried to twist again. Something slammed into the side of his head, momentarily blinding him with pain. A buzzing filled his ears. Before he could return to himself, his arms were both captured, this time with unyielding grips, and he was forced onto his stomach.

  Cal felt ropes thrown around his hands and frantically fought them. The ropes were pulled painfully tight. He took another fierce hit to his head. They tied his hands as his struggling slowed.

  The Chalk pulled him to his knees, then his feet. As his wits returned to him, Cal saw there were not two but three. The third had come from directly in front of him, the direction of the baby. That one had delivered the blow that had effectively ended the brief fight. The others had been waiting on either side. A neat trap, sprung. Now all Cal had left to do was die.

  Cal opened his mouth to speak but the Chalk facing him shoved his fingers in Cal’s face. Then he grabbed him behind the head and, with the help of the other two, began dragging Cal through the woods. They only went about twenty feet to a small clearing, and the lead Chalk gestured to one side. The two others dragged Cal over there, spun him to face the leader, and forced him to his knees. There was gravel scattered along the ground of the campsite which bit into Cal’s knees. The lead Chalk kicked a small dirt embankment which had been structured to hide the campfire from Cal’s direction, collapsing it so the fire lit the campsite.

  “You are not the one we seek,” the Chalk said, turning to face him. “But you will die even so.”

  Cal knew that some of the Chalk could speak, but he had never heard it himself. It was a raspy sound, like the tearing of old cloth. He spoke with a strange accent, like the words slightly twisted and slurred in odd places.

  As the firelight danced over the Chalk’s pale face,
Cal noticed this one was different from any others he had seen. Chalk were covered head to toe in the thick white powder that gave them their name. This one had swirling designs on his cheeks, forehead, and down his neck. Within these patterns there was no chalk, only clean skin, pink like a human’s. Aaron had told him of the strange clean Chalk he had seen at Wyelin many years ago. There was something similar going on, though Aaron had described a creature with no chalk at all. This was something else. The patterns were intricate but alien and difficult to decipher in the poor light. They made Cal think of the marks covering his body. He wondered if they were a sign of status or a trophy of kills.

  “You are the other one. You are nothing yesterday. Today you ride three dragons. Today I kill you. Tomorrow you are nothing again.” The Chalk looked expectantly, as if a response was required.

  Cal remained quiet.

  The Chalk stared at him for a moment. “I am Zarus Coff. I am the one who kills you. You must know this.”

  “Yeah?” Cal asked. “So who are these guys?” He looked to his left and right.

  “They do not have names. I am Zarus Coff. Do you have marks?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Zarus took two quick steps towards Cal and seized his shirt in his left hand. He drew a long knife from his belt with his right and hacked brutally at the shirt with it. The threads parted reluctantly and the knife cut Cal down his chest and then again across the left side of his collarbone. The Chalk on either side helped Zarus pull the shirt off Cal’s torso to fall over his bound hands behind his back. Blood poured down his chest. The pain washed over him like a bitter frost.

  The Chalk now seized his bare upper arms. It had been years since Cal had felt the touch of a Chalk on his bare skin. The dust that covered the Chalk was almost a part of them, seemed to come from within them. But when it touched the skin of ordinary men, it had extremely noxious effects. It brought a combination of stinging and numbness, both physical and emotional. At the touch, despair washed over Cal. He had only just regained his feet, rediscovered some semblance of purpose, and now he would die on his knees in some anonymous clearing. His body would never be found by anyone who knew who he was.