The Traitor's Heir

Chapter Twenty

The smell of dragon roasted venison, which was mostly eaten by the dragon, and two small dragon roasted hares, wasn't enough to wake Quara from the deep sleep that she had fallen into shortly after laying back in her bed of pine needles.  Lina had managed to skin the meat that she and Quara would be eating before the dragon began cooking it and after eating her fill, and setting aside an extra portion for her sister who she knew would be starving in the morning, she wrapped the meat in the wrappings that had held the previous day's lunch.  She had begun to think of how to hang it from a tree on the other side of the stream to keep it from attracting wildlife, when Ausfela assured her that any wildlife that had been in the area would be giving their little corner of the forest a wide berth until the dragon that was staying there moved on.

With a full stomach she had laid down in the little bed and watched with heavy eyes as the dragon curled up at the edge of the space, wrapping her body around the pine needle covered spot, so that her head rested on her tail, and the girls' sleeping area was entirely encircled by her great length, which would make anyone who happened upon them think twice about disturbing the group.

Not that Ausfela expected that to happen.  She knew that she would hear anyone who was headed in their direction long before they actually arrived.  Besides, she wouldn't be sleeping that night.  She had slept for years, on and off, and until this trip was over she wasn't going to allow her eyes to close or her dreams to overtake her.  For Ausfela knew that both she, and the world that she was trying to save, wouldn't be able to afford the cost if she let her guard down for even a moment and something were to actually happen.

The moment that the dragon smelled the smoke, she knew what was happening.  Straining her senses she had made sure that the forest around the girls was completely empty, before launching herself upward, into the still, dark sky.  The moons had long since set, but the dawn was just barely beginning to dye the edge of the horizon a pale blue as the sun neared rising up over that edge of the world.  She didn't have to fly very high to confirm her suspicions.  In the distance she could see the glow coming from the west.  The forest was ablaze.

It wasn't the first time that the Emperor's army had used this tactic, and so there was no doubt in the dragon's mind that this was intentional, a decision made to isolate the Caverns and make escape into the forest, where a person might easily vanish amid the thick trees, virtually impossible.

Sinking down slowly towards the ground, Ausfela pondered what this fire could mean.  Did the Emperor know for certain that the city still existed, albeit in a different part of the Caverns than it had when he was still a young man?  Was there a spy within the little world that Quara and Lina had known all their lives?  Had someone up above ground been careless and left something out that enemy scouts had found that left no doubt that there was something beyond a few mountain men hiding in caves living in these hills?  Or worse still, had someone been captured, either someone on an errand or a scout retreating to tell of the army's advancement, and had that person been convinced to tell of the little city's existence?

The dragon shuddered when she thought of that last possibility.  She didn't believe that there was a human alive who wouldn't break under the forms of persuasion the Emperor's guards would use to gather the information that they had been seeking for generations.  She had once heard someone say that if you were captured to begin lying from the start, offering as much untrue information as you could come up with, in hopes that later, when the truth began to come out, no one would realize that it was the truth.

Ausfela didn't think that this was particularly good advice when facing an enemy with the sort of resources that the Emperor had, however.  After all he could easily have someone investigate every claim until they discovered exactly what the truth was.