Dragon Tamer - Book 1

Chapter 63

After many weeks of travel, the trees gradually begin to look familiar to Marcie and Far Sighted Damnion ran back to the party to proclaim that the village was close enough to touch.

The Traders cheered and their men put their hands to their lips to whistle sharply in celebration. The travel weary companions find new strength and were spurred on as the end of their journey beckoned.

Marcie hung back as the hunters lengthened their strides to keep up with the traders, she allowed Breen to pass her until she was at the back of the party.

Without knowing why she felt short of breath and her heart pounded. She walked slowly to see if she was overexerting herself but the feeling merely strengthened as she walked closer and closer to the village.

She changed direction and skirted around the party so that when they finally emerged into the welcoming embrace of the anxiously waiting villagers, who's voiced rose in relief and triumph, she quietly slipped into the rapidly emptying streets and padded inconspicuously past the same old sagging buildings and muddy highways until she left the village behind and made her way through the trees to her home. Her anxiety lessened as she proceeded unmolested to her home, but heightened when she saw it.

It was in a sorry state, her vegetable garden was now a weed garden, the slates on the rood were rotted and it had the air of a neglected grandparent, unwilling to accommodate its long absent grandchild. Marcie lifted the latch then yanked the stiff, winter warped wood open on its rusted hinges and pulled it shut behind her.

The houses two windows were covered in a thin layer of slime and so she deposited her pack, bow and quiver on the rusted nails by the door in muted light barely enough by which to see the damp herbs hanging from the roof, the mouldy blankets on her bed and the ash filled stove.

She resolved to see Miss Maiden about the new blankets but found she held no cause within her to replace the herbs, clean the stove, wash the windows, fix the door or replant her garden. The last time she had done all the jobs one associated with owning property her father had helped her. Without him, well, she spent most of her time in the forest with Dara, at Dafne's house or with the outsiders in the Tavern or Breen's house. She tried to picture them ever sharing a domestic moment again and struggled so she put the thought from her mind.

She shrugged out of her hunting leathers and pulled some water from the well, warming it on the stove with the last of the firewood from the winter stores, she used a ripped piece of one of the least mouldy blankets to wash away the filth of weeks of travel, and felt that she was washing away, at least some part, of what had happened. The bruises on her wrists, ankles, neck and face had faded. Her side did not pain her (she stretched experimentally and felt nothing) and yet she felt as thought the experience had marked her. She scrubbed at her hands and felt Freddie's windpipe crumple beneath them, in the half light she imagined the dirt under her nails was blood and remembered the feeling of Noal's cheek giving way under her arrowhead.

She scrubbed her eyes and the water fell like the tears she could no longer shed. She lifted the basin of water and poured it over her head, rubbing it into her hair until it no longer felt as though she had a scalp full of sand. When she felt as clean and she was ever going to get now that she was a murderer, she pulled on a clean shirt and trousers, mercifully spared from the damp at the bottom of a trunk under her bed alongside her fire dress, and belted her knife at her waist, then she looked straight ahead, pulled back her shoulders and strode from the house, pausing only to wrestle the door open and closed.

Once again she skirted the main square where the villagers and traders had congregated and were commencing the celebrations.