Stephen King - The Eyes of the Dragon

The farmer’s eldest daughter, Naomi, drove Peyna and Arlen north on a sled pulled by twelve of the dogger’s strongest huskies. By Wednesday night, they reached the edge of the Far Forests.

“How long to the camp of the exiles?” Peyna asked Naomi that night.

Naomi cast the thin, evil-smelling cigar she had been smoking into the fire. “Two more day if the skies keep fair. Four more days if it snows. Maybe never, if it blizzards.”

Peyna turned in. He drifted off to sleep almost at once. Logic or illogic, he was sleeping better than he had in years.

The weather kept clear the next day, and on Friday as well. At dusk of that day-the fourth since Peyna and Arlen had parted from Dennis-they reached the small huddle of tents and makeshift wooden huts for which Flagg had searched in vain.

“Ho! Who comes, and can you say the password?” a voice called. It was strong, sturdy, cheerful, and unafraid. Peyna recognized it.

“It’s Naomi Reechul,” the girl called, “and the password two weeks ago was ‘tripos.’ If it’s not that now, Ben Staad, then put an arrow through me and I’ll come back and haunt you!”

Ben appeared from behind a rock, laughing. “I’d not dare meet you as a ghost, Naomi-you’re fearsome enough “live!”

Ignoring this, she turned to Peyna. “We’ve come,” she said.

“Yes,” Peyna said. “So I see.”

And I believe it’s well that we have… because something tells me that time has grown short… very short indeed.

Peter had the same feeling.

By Sunday, two days after Peyna and Arlen reached the camp of the exiles, his rope would still, by his calculations, finish up thirty feet short of the ground. This meant that when he dangled from the end of it with his arms fully extended, he would face a drop of at least twenty-one feet. He knew that he would be wiser by far to go on with his rope for another four month seven another two. If he dropped from the rope, fell badly, and broke both of his legs so that the Plaza guards found him groaning on the cobbles when they made their round-o'-the-clock, he would have wasted more than four years, simply because he did not have the patience to pursue his labor another four months.

This was logic Peyna could have appreciated, but Peter’s feel-ing that he must now hurry was much stronger. Once Peyna would have snorted at the idea that feelings could be more trust-worthy than logic… but now he might have been less sure.

Peter had been having a dream-for almost a week running now it had played over and over, gradually becoming more distinct. In it, he saw Flagg, bent over some bright and glowing object-it lit the magician’s face a sickly greenish-yellow. In this dream, there always came a point when Flagg’s eyes first wid-ened, as if in surprise, and then narrowed to cruel slits. His brows pulled down; his forehead darkened; a grimace as bitter as a crescent moon twisted his mouth. In this expression, the dream-ing Peter read one thing and one thing only: death. Flagg said only one word as he leaned forward and blew upon the brightly glowing object, which whiffed out like a candle when the ma-gician’s breath touched it. Only one word, but one was enough. The word from Flagg’s mouth was Peter’s own name, uttered in tones of angry discovery.

The night before, Saturday night, there had been a fairy-ring around the moon. The Lesser Warders thought it would soon snow. Examining the sky this afternoon, Peter knew they were right. It was his father who had taught Peter to read the weather, and standing at the window, Peter felt a pang of sadness… and a renewed spark of cold, quiet anger… the need to make things right again.

I’ll make my try under cover of darkness and under cover of storm, he thought. There’ll even be a bit of snow to cushion my fall. He had to grin at that idea-three inches of light, powdery snow between him and the cobbles would do precious little one way or the other. Either his perilously thin rope would hold… or it would break. Assuming it held, he would take the drop. And his legs would either take the impact… or they wouldn’t.

And if they do take it, where will you go on them? a little voice whispered. Any who might have shielded you or helped you… Ben Staad, for instance-have long since been driven from the castle keep… from the very Kingdom itself; for all you know.

He would trust to luck, then. King’s luck. It was a thing his father had often talked about. There are lucky Kings and unlucky. But you’ll be your own King and you’ll have your own luck. M’self, I think you’ll be very lucky.

He had been King of Delain-at least in his own heart-for five years now, and he thought his luck had been the kind which the Staad family, with its famous bad luck, would have understood. But perhaps tonight would make up for all.

His rope, his legs, his luck. Either all would hold or all would break, quite possibly at the same time. No matter. Poor as it had been, he would trust to his luck.

“Tonight,” he murmured, turning from the window… but something happened at supper which changed his mind.

It took Peyna and Arlen all day Tuesday to make the ten miles to the Reechul farm, and they were nearly done in when they arrived. Castle Delain was twice as far, but Dennis probably could have been knocking at the West Gate-if he had actually been mad enough to do such a thing-by two that afternoon, in spite of his long walk the day before. Such is the difference, of course, between young men and old men. But what he could have done really didn’t matter, because Peyna had been very clear in his instructions (especially for a man who claimed not to have the slightest idea of what he was doing), and Dennis meant to follow them to the letter. As a result, it would be some time yet before he entered the castle.

After covering not quite half the distance, he began to look for a place where he could hole up for the next few days. So far he had met no one on the road, but noon had passed and soon there would be people returning from the castle market. Dennis wanted no one to see him and mark him. He was, after all, supposed to be home, sick in bed. He did not have to look long before he found a place that suited him well enough. It was a deserted farmstead, once well kept but now beginning to fall into ruin. Thanks to Thomas the Tax-Bringer, there were many such places on the roads leading to the castle keep.

Dennis remained there until late Saturday afternoon-four days in all. Ben Staad and Naomi were already on their way back from the Far Forests to Peyna’s farm by then, Naomi pushing her team of huskies for all they were worth. The knowledge would have eased Dennis a bit if he had known-but of course he did not, and he was lonely.

There was no food at all upstairs, but in the cellar he found a few potatoes and a handful of turnips. He ate the potatoes (Dennis hated turnips, always had, and always would), using his knife to cut out the rotten places-which meant he cut away three -fourths of every potato. He was left with a handful of white globes the size of pigeons’ eggs. He ate a few, looked toward the turnips in the vegetable bin, and sighed. Like them (he didn’t) or hate them (he did), he supposed he would be reduced to eating them by Friday or so.

If I’m hungry enough, Dennis thought hopefully, maybe they’ll taste good. Maybe I’ll just gobble those old turnips up and beg for more!

He finally did have to eat a number of them, although he managed to hold out until Saturday noon. By then, they actually had begun to look good, but as hungry as he was, they still tasted terrible.

Dennis, who suspected the days ahead might be very hard, ate them anyway.

Dennis also found an old pair of snowshoes in the basement. The straps were far too large, but he had plenty of time to shorten them. The facings had begun to rot, and there was nothing Dennis could do about that, but he thought they would serve the purpose. He wouldn’t need them for long.