Dragonfire Read Online Free Page B

confidently, as if it were a path he had trodden many times before. Dahl and Catryn pushed their way through behind him. It was not cold; neither was it warm. Instead, there was a heavy oppressiveness around them that made Dahl fight for every breath he took. It was still cloudy, and they were beginning to climb into the cooler, misty layers. Not a whisper of wind. No birds sang; no noises or rustles betrayed the presence of any animals. Talking was impossible; it took all their concentration to keep up to the dimly seen figure of the Protector ahead of them.
    Dahl turned back to hold aside a thorn-laden branch for Catryn. When he turned again, theProtector had vanished, then his voice boomed out invisibly from somewhere ahead.
    “Just a few steps more, Dahl.”
    Dahl caught his breath. He knew what the Protector was about to show him. He scrambled past the remaining bushes, heedless of the thorns. He broke through the cloud into clear, strong sunlight at the very peak of the mountain they had been climbing. Behind him was the lowering gloom through which they had fought their way, but in front of him…His heart seemed to stop with a jolting thump. Behind him, Catryn gasped.
    Gently rolling hills, intersected by a valley with a river and several smaller watercourses cutting through it, all bathed in the light of an almost impossibly brilliant sun high in the deep blue vault of the sky. Nestled at the foot of the hills and spilling over into the valley, a city drowsed in the sunlight. Houses painted in many colors kept one another company up and down winding, tree-lined streets. Streams burbled down out of the hills and ran through it, spanned by arched stone bridges wherever they crossed a road.
    There was a market square, bordered with taller, red-roofed buildings. The roads seemed to wander without plan, but all of them eventually converged into one wide avenue that led from the marketplace back up to the hills. There, overlooking the city as if to protect it, sat a castle, many-spired and imposing.
    At first the scene seemed idyllic, but, when Dahl looked closer, the truth appeared. The many-colored houses were dull and in need of paint. Doors were broken, windows boarded up. Gardens that should have been filled with flowers overflowed with weeds.
    It was silent, almost lifeless. There should have been people, filling the streets, bustling into shops, hurrying to the marketplace. The parks should have been loud with children playing. Instead, there was scarcely a person to be seen, and those he could see scurried from place to place with a hurried, furtive air. No dogs barked. No cats slunk from roof to roof. Cows there were, in a meadow on this side of the city, and sheep in a pasture nearby, but, if there were shepherds, they were not lolling in the sun, enjoying the fine warm day as their charges grazed. A pall seemed to hang over the city. Even the windows of the houses seemed blank and secretive.
    Suddenly, a drum rolled and a raucous, clanging noise split the air. The gates of the castle opened. A line of men, chained together, marched out through them. An overseer snapped a whip at their heels with a crack that could be heard even at this distance. The men shuffled out onto the road and then into the woods nearby.
    Dahl watched without a word. He had no need to ask the Protector what this meant. The Protector had told him. In the dark nights of Dahl’s youth,huddled in the straw of the inn’s stable, the Protector had related how the citizens of Daunus were allowed no freedom. Children played or sat indoors, forbidden to make any noise. Any dog or cat that was found on the street by the Usurper’s guard was immediately killed. Men could leave their dwellings only to tend to their work or their fields. Women had permission to venture out to scurry to the shops to replenish their meager supplies, no more. All families had to pay tithes to the Usurper whether their crops flourished or not, whether there was any