Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

Sayre. By now, he seemed to be the only person unaware of the approaching army.
    That’s what Nick realized it was: a whole army of strange men dressed in brown, more than a hundred of them, he’d guess. He could see them now at the end of the street and in the yards between each of the houses, closing all the neighbors of Chestnut Circle inside their ranks.
    “Someone is going—” Old Man Sayre shut up at last. He, too, had seen the visitors.
    “If you would move forward?” a new voice spoke behind Nick and Mr. Mills. Nick started to turn his head. “Don’t turn around,” the voice continued. “Walk.”
    Nick walked. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mr. Mills walk as well. In front of him, he could see the other neighbors being herded toward the central asphalt circle.
    “My lawn!” Sayre called out. “Watch where you’re walking there!
    I’ve spent good money on this lawn!”
    Todd and his parents walked from their house toward the others. Nick saw Todd wave at the lawn man to keep quiet. About ten of the men in brown moved forward and surrounded Sayre.
    But the soldiers seemed to make him even more frantic. “You can’t keep me quiet. I’ll say my piece! This was a free country, last time I looked!”
    Todd took a step toward the street, as if he might physically restrain Sayre. His father stepped in his way. Todd and his father stared at each other for a minute, but neither one said a word. Todd’s hands tightened into fists, but he stayed on his own lawn.
    For once, Nick thought, Todd had had a good idea. Sayre was going to get himself into real trouble. The soldiers were tightening their net. Nick didn’t see any guns, but some of them had bows, with arrows notched and ready for flight. And all but a few of them had swords hanging at their sides, in elaborate scabbards of the same dark metal as the helmets.
    Sayre’s head began to twist from far left to far right and back again, as if he was trying to watch every soldier who approached him. “Who gave you permission? This is my house, and my yard. I warn you, I’ve got a gun. Another step, I’m going into my house, and when I come out—”
    The soldier behind Nick shouted something to the men around Sayre. Two of the men in brown stepped forward and grabbed the lawn man’s arms. A third pulled his sword. The handle was dark, but the blade shone bright silver in the strange sunlight.
    “What?” Sayre called in disbelief. “You can’t do this sort of thing on a man’s—”
    But the soldier in command had barked another order. The men to either side of Sayre pulled his arms away from his body so that he couldn’t move. And the man with the sword drove the blade deep into Sayre’s stomach, moving the double-edged weapon first right, then left, before pulling it free.
    The other two men let go of Sayre’s arms. Somehow Sayre was still standing. He moved his hands to his stomach, in a futile attempt to keep his insides from falling out onto the lawn.
    “Yard,” Sayre managed as blood bubbled between his lips. “Shouldn’t. Oh, my. Sorry.”
    He fell first to his knees, and then to his face. His body spasmed twice, and then he was still.
    Everyone in the neighborhood was quiet for a moment. It was the first time Nick had ever seen someone die.
    He turned around to look at the man who had given the order. The man was dressed in the same dark uniform as the others, but wore no helmet. His pale face bore an even paler scar on each cheek, positioned as if they had been put there on purpose. The scars turned upward as the man smiled.
    “We generally kill one,” the leader said. “It makes the others follow orders that much more quickly.” He shouted another guttural command to the swordsman, who leaned down and wiped the blood from his sword with Sayre’s tattered polo shirt. “If you would all gather together in the circle?”
    Nick turned back to see the neighbors moving toward the central asphalt. What else, he wondered,