Douglas Niles - Fistanadantilus Reborn

Slowly Dan stood up. The fires had settled somewhat, though his face still burned from the surrounding heat. He edged around a nearby building, skirting the destruction as he stayed beneath the shelter of the trees alongside the riverbank.

Something moved and the lad lunged backward, tumbling into the underbrush as a great, black shape emerged from the burning wreckage of the blacksmith's shop. He saw the shining pelt, the wild eyes, and then noticed the cruel gouge of a fresh, bleeding wound on the panicked animal's shoulder.

"Nightmare!" he shouted as the horse plunged past him, skidding around the first bend of the stream trail at a full gallop. The lad was not surprised when the frightened creature ignored his cry.

And then he was possessed by a panic as deep as the fear that had driven the horse. Danyal, too, turned his back on the village. Without conscious thought, he felt his feet carry him onto the streamside trail, away from the ruin, away from everything he had known in his life.

374 AC

Fourth Misham, Palesivelt

Danyal's feet pounded the smooth dirt of the trail as he relied on subconscious memory to avoid the rocks and roots that jutted forth from so many places. Certainly he did not see these obstacles; his eyes were blinded by tears, and his mind refused to let go of a specific picture: the remembered shape of a child's body, someone his own age charred black and stretched on the ground, reaching with outstretched arms toward the edge of the village, the stream, toward Danyal himself.

It was that last recollection that all but shouted aloud, dominating his awareness. Somebody had been reaching out for him, had desperately needed his help, and he had not been there.

He had identified none of the bodies in that first horrified glimpse, but a new wave of tears spilled freely as he thought that any one of them could have been his father or his mother, or Wain. And if they hadn't been there, in the small commons square, then they had certainly been killed in the crushed barns or the incinerated char of the torched outbuildings.

In truth, Danyal didn't want to know any more. His only comfort was running in this mindless dash through the streamside woods.

Eventually, however, the straining rawness of his lungs, the stinging ache in his side, slowed the pace of his flight. Shambling with fatigue, he stumbled over a thick willow root, staggering a step farther before he collapsed. On the ground, he sobbed until he had no tears left, until his panting breath faded to raw, painful gasps. His eyes, clear once more, stared at the twisted trunk of the aged willow tree, saw sunlight flicker from the rills of the stream.

Numbly he tried to absorb the fact that this was the same stream he had seen that morning, but it didn't seem possible. His grief had gone, a fact that he thought very strange. Trying to think about that, he realized that he had no feelings of any kind. He lay there for what seemed like a very long time, considering the reality of this, amazed that he wasn't crying or frightened.

Or angry.

When he was able to summon the strength, he rose to his hands and knees and pushed himself around to sit with his back to the smooth bark of the huge-boled tree, watching the water. He recognized this place, and it amazed him to see that he had run so far upstream. In fact, he had already passed the last of the trout pools that had seemed so remote that morning.

A fish jumped, a beautiful flash of silver scales in the sunlight, spattering a rainbow cascade of shimmering drops before splashing back to the rippling water.

Strangely, Danyal wasn't hungry. Only then did he notice that his throat was quite dry. He rose, stumbling awkwardly to the bank, and when he knelt on the bank, he had to catch himself as he almost pitched forward. The surface of the stream danced and dipped in ways he had never noticed. It was as if he had never seen flowing water before. Lowering his cupped hands carefully, he lifted the clear liquid to his lips and slurped draft after draft of the drink.

Thirst quenched, Danyal blew his nose, then looked around the sun-speckled valley. It occurred to him that he would have to decide what to do. He thought of the village again, and his next breath was ragged, but when he shook his head sternly, the numbness returned. The secret, he saw, was not to let himself feel anything.

Again he faced a decision. He knew he couldn't stay here, though a small part of him quibbled with the notion, suggesting that he might as well flop down right here and sleep till he died.

But where was he to go, then? And what to eat, how to live?

With a flash of hope, he thought of his fishing pole, knowing he must have dropped it around the time he first saw the dragon. His feet took to the trail and he backtracked, again amazed that he had run so far.

It took a long time to reach the pole, and by then he could smell the acrid stink of the burned village. Crows jeered each other from the trees overhead, and he saw buzzards wheeling high in the sky.

He picked up the supple shaft of willow. Again he thought of the village as he had last seen it, and he told himself that he could go no farther. His eyes filled with tears and he shook his head in frustration as a nagging, unwelcome question intruded into his thoughts.

What if somebody had lived, had miraculously survived the onslaught of fire and destruction-a person who was injured, maybe badly, someone who needed help?

Uttering a sharp, bitter laugh, he knew the notion was ridiculous. The devastation was too complete. Still, he also realized he couldn't leave, couldn't go away from this place, until he knew for sure.

Slowly, hesitantly, he stepped along the trail, following the bend away from the stream, stopping for a moment, taking the time to carefully lean the pole against a gnarled willow, then climbing the low bank that marked the end of the trees. He was grateful now for the smoke that seeped through the air, trailing upward from countless burned beams and charred foundations. At least he could only see a small portion of the place at once.

He went first to his own house, the largest building in the village. It was hard to recognize the building he remembered amid the twisted wreckage of broken stone and charred, splintered timbers. He saw the paving stones of the front walk and a pit full of black timbers that he tried to tell himself was the cellar.

But it wasn't, couldn't be. Surely this was some strange location, a spot in some infernal realm that bore only a surface resemblance to the place where Danyal had spent the first fourteen years of his life.

The blacksmith's shop was recognizable by the anvil and forge that still stood in the midst of charred wood and the splintered stone of the building's back wall. Danyal staggered away, gagging reflexively at the sight of a brawny hand, burned fingers stiff around the hilt of a heavy hammer, the limb and tool extending out from the base of the rubble.

And everywhere else it was the same. He stepped around the pool of wine and the blackened bodies that had been gathered around the wine tuns in the commons, vaguely deducing that most of the villagers had died here-probably in the first lethal blast of the dragon's attack. Many of the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable, and he kept telling himself that these were just carvings of wood or charcoal, inanimate things that had been formed into grotesque caricatures of actual people.

In the small pasture on the far side of the village, he turned away from the sight of the shepherd boys- including Wain, he knew-who had met death from the dragon's rending claws. These bodies were even more horrifying because the former humanity was apparent, undeniable, in the small, cruelly torn shapes.