Dragon's Treasure - 1. Runaway

Ulee crouched in a ditch. The water that filled the ditch reached his chin. Mud squished between his bare toes. More mud plastered his lank hair to his face. The thud of leather-shod feet on the stone road and an occasional clatter of weapons heralded the approach of soldiers. Dense fog and a constant drizzle of rain dampened their voices except for the curses.

I hope they don’t have a Finder, Ulee thought. He closed his eyes and imagined. I’m a hedgehog, a small, prickly hedgehog. I’m just a hedgehog. His body quivered with the strain of squatting while keeping his head high enough above the water to breathe. Don’t think about that! I’m a hedgehog.

Perhaps there was no Finder. Perhaps there was a Finder who wasn’t looking for Ulee. Perhaps there was a Finder who was looking for Ulee, but who saw only a hedgehog. Ulee did not know. The troops passed the sodden boy, and the sounds of their march faded. The rain fell harder as Ulee clambered from the ditch. His legs shook from fatigue. And hunger, he thought. I’ve got to find food.

The last thin, gray of daylight was fading when Ulee saw the farmstead. He lay behind some bushes, shivering from cold and aching with hunger. It was a big farm: two huge stone houses and many large and small outbuildings. Ulee watched a horseman, swathed against the rain in a hooded cloak, ride into one building. Several minutes later, a figure on foot emerged, closed the door, and dashed to one of the houses. A barn, Ulee thought. Perhaps it will be warm, and perhaps there will be apples or carrots for the horses. I’ll only eat a few… He marked the barn and the path he would take to reach it.

…if I do not die before dark, the boy thought.

*****

Ulee stumbled through the farmyard until he bumped into the stone wall of the barn. He groped his way along the wall. The stone became wood when he encountered a door. Feeling for a latch, he realized he’d found the large double doors. The small door was to the right, he remembered. From the house came the bark of a dog. Ulee froze. I’m a hedgehog, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. I’m a hedgehog. The dog’s barking became more frenzied, then stilled.

Inside the house, a boy spoke to the dog. “It’s only a hedgehog,” he said. “You don’t want to poke your nose into a hedgehog again, do you?” The dog, responding to the boy’s gentle thoughts, stopped barking. A moment later, the dog curled at the boy’s feet.

Once in the barn, Ulee closed the door, and then reached for the ring he wore on a cord around his neck. He had taken it when he had run away from his master’s shop. It’s not like stealing, he thought. It was mine until he took it. And who says an apprentice can’t own anything? He concentrated on the ring, willing it to glow. His exhausted body was barely able to muster the energy to illuminate the ring. He was near collapse when the ring began to emit a pale blue light.

Before the glow of the ring faded, the boy had pulled two horse blankets from a rack and taken them into the corner of an empty stall. He took a double handful of apples and carrots from the bin nearby. The apples were small and tart and the carrots were dry and bitter, but Ulee ate them. Methodically, carefully chewing, he eased his hunger. Knotting the remaining apples and carrots in the hem of his tunic, the boy pulled the blankets about himself. I’ll just warm up a bit. Perhaps it will stop raining, soon. I’ll leave before daylight, in any case, he thought.

*****

“Who are you?” The whispered question and a gentle prod on Ulee’s shoulder woke the boy. “Who are you and what are you doing here? You’re not a hedgehog!”

Through the fog of his fatigue, Ulee saw a boy, perhaps a tween, bending over him. The light from the boy’s lantern limned his head and glowed through honey-colored hair, but shadow hid his features. “Who are you? Are you a runaway? They mustn’t find you here. We would get in trouble. Have you been eating the horses’ food? Those are our blankets!”

The boy hung the lantern on a wooden dowel driven into the wall apparently for that purpose. He propped against the wall the pitchfork he’d been carrying in the other hand. Ulee now could see his features. He was indeed a tween, three heads taller than Ulee, and stockier. He probably hasn’t been hungry for the past ten years, Ulee thought.

“I’m sorry. I only ate a little. I’ll work to repay you. I only borrowed the blankets. It was so cold, and I was wet.” He paused. “What do you mean, I’m not a hedgehog?”

“Last night, one of the dogs barked at a hedgehog. Just now, when I came to the barn to tend the horses, I know there was a hedgehog. But only you were here, not a hedgehog.” the boy said, obviously puzzled by what he had found…and not found.

“How did you know it was a hedgehog?” Ulee asked.

“I just knew it,” the boy began. “It was the way the dog barked…that’s it.” The boy hesitated, and then added, “I’m not a mage, if that’s what you’re thinking!” He retreated a step and looked nervously at Ulee. “But you…you are, aren’t you? You made the dog think you were a hedgehog, didn’t you?”

Ulee replied softly, reluctantly, “I heard the dog and pretended I was a hedgehog. It keeps the Finders…Oh!” Ulee realized that by trying to avert one danger, he’d created another.

“You are a runaway, and a mage!” the boy said. He reached for the pitchfork and held it as one would hold a quarterstaff. “Don’t attack me. I’m very good with this.”

Ulee, who was still sitting on the floor of the stall, crumpled. He put his hands over his head in submission, hoping to protect his face and head from the beating he was sure would follow. “Please don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. “Please let me go. I’ll run very fast and never tell anyone I was here. Please…”

The pitchfork clattered softly on the straw-covered floor as the boy dropped to his knees beside Ulee. He reached out, and touched the trembling boy’s hand. “I’m sorry, boy. I will not hurt you…I thought you would hurt me,” the boy said. “Please, look at me. What is your name?”

Ulee cautiously uncurled and looked from between his hands, poised like a turtle to retreat into its shell should this boy prove a threat. “My name is Ulee. I used to be Ulee of Suhl, apprenticed to a tanner. Until I ran away. I won’t put you in danger. Let me leave, please!”

“You would die,” the boy said. “There’s a storm in the mountains, and it’s going to get colder. There is no place where you could find refuge before you would die. You must hide here,” the boy continued, pointing to a dark stall at the rear of the barn. “No one will go there, I don’t think. I must tend the horses. Only then can I go back to the house. I’ll bring you food…but you must hide!”

The tween left the barn, promising once again to return with food. Ulee slept. He had tried to eat a few more of the sour apples, but his stomach rebelled. Fatigue had dulled the pangs of hunger. The older boy had pulled two different blankets from the bottom of the stack, saying that they would not be missed. Ulee had crawled into the darkest corner of the farthest stall from the doors and pulled the blankets around himself.

*****

“Ulee? Are you here?” the boy’s soft call was accompanied by an odd rustle. Ulee heard the sound of two pair of feet crossing the barn. He has betrayed me! Ulee thought. I’m not here, he thought. You won’t find me. You won’t find anyone. He had never before tried to make himself disappear.

The blankets in which Ulee had wrapped himself were pulled away. “We’ll not harm you, boy,” a new voice whispered, soft and sibilant. “Where…? Ah, there you are. I see you, now. You’re right Ian, he is a mage.”

Ulee opened his eyes and stopped trying to be invisible. He was betrayed and discovered. If he could run…if he could get past them and out of the barn, he could hide in the woods until the storm came. Then he could die. Dying would be better than being sent back to Suhl. Dying would be better than being a mage, he thought, gathering what little strength remained in his limbs.

Ulee stood bolt upright and darted around the figures that stood before him. He’d not taken a third step, however, before his legs gave out and he collapsed. Trapped, discovered, betrayed, he began to cry. Darkness swirled through his mind. I’m dying. Ulee stretched out his arms to welcome death.