Dragon Exiles: Part Eight

Written by: Caesara

Note from Lillie: There are two things I need to explain. One is that Dragon Exiles is an old story by Caesara written a year ago that has been sitting on my hard drive for that equal length of time. Caesara has requested that the series end as soon as possible. It so happens (and this is the second thing) that I forgot to put in one part back in Issue 6. There are two parts this issue to bring things back on track and to a close. I hope you've enjoyed reading the series (now go compliment CaeCae, 'cause she insists it's terrible).

Finally, Tarnilith did drop off to sleep, after watching Karla and Shawnie do nothing for an hour and a half. Karla waited another ten minutes to be sure she really was asleep before poking Shawnie. He stirred and made a grumbling noise, but stopped when she put a hand over his mouth. Shawnie blinked at her, then watched her hand as it made motions that explained her plan. The boy nodded and, as quietly as he knew how, stood up and put his pack on his back. Karla crept over to Tarnilith, with Shawnie a few feet behind.

Karla was taking extreme measures not to make any noise as she found little ridges in the dragon's back to climb on. When she was at the top she paused and waved to Shawnie to start climbing. There was enough room between the ceiling and the ground that she could jump off, so she did, landing as quietly as possible.

Despite her efforts she made a little thump. Tarnilith stirred but didn't awaken. Shawnie was more careful and just climbed down.

Grinning to herself, Karla grabbed Shawnie's wrist and started running. Once they were safely away from the cave, she let go, still grinning.

"We made it. And we have proof that we've found dragons."

Shawnie looked up at her, rubbing at the mark her hand had left o his wrist. "Oh? We do?"

"Yes. I found an old scale on the floor of the cave and I have it in my pack." Karla dug through her bag for a moment, looking. She brought out a large, glistening scale, with many tones of green rainbowing off of it. She let Shawnie gawk for a few moments, then put it back into her pack.

"What do we do now?" Shawnie sat down under a tree. "I mean, we've found dragons and even have proof of it. But what can we do? We're exiles; we're not allowed to talk to anybody."

Karla pondered his question for a while and sat down under another tree. What were they going to do? They could look for gryphons or elves, but getting stuck in another cave for a few more days didn't seem very appealing to her.

"Maybe we should look for a village to join."

"We're exiled from all of them, remember?"

"There're exile villages, though. For exiles. You can't tell me you haven't heard of them."

"I've heard of them, sure, but I didn't think they existed." Shawnie's tone was doubtful.

Karla remembered something. "Supposedly there is one in the middle of this forest, about a mile away from Kegla. Let's try to find that one!" In a heartbeat, Karla was up and running towards Kegla. She didn't pause to see if Shawnie was following, but of course, he was.

They came to Kegla just after dusk. The steel-rimmed gates were bolted tightly and loomed over their heads. There was only the occasional fire-torch on the top of the walls and even that gave them very little light to see by. Karla and Shawnie found their way around Kegla by feeling along the walls. Shawnie tripped a few times but managed to keep up with Karla.

Finally, Karla stopped and whispered, "We're halfway around Kegla. It should be a mile or so east. Ready?"

Shawnie gulped, "Ready. I hope." They took off running again. Shawnie was frightened to a degree -- owls were hooting and trees were casting odd shadows in the moonlight. But Karla kept a steady pace, a reassuring figure in front of him. Around midnight they came upon another fortress of walls and Karla let out a little shout.

"This is it! We've found it!"

"How do we get in?"

Karla paused. "I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait until morning." They did so, falling asleep against the gates.

When the sun was rising just above the horizon line, they were awoken by a young man peering over them.

"Well hullo there." He turned his head up to face one of the guard towers, grinning. "We've got company, guys!"

Shawnie stared at him, nervous, but Karla grinned. They had found what they were looking for and were safe.

Just as the three of them were walking into the village, a dark shadow cast over them in the shape of two large dragons ...

Carmak looked up and grimaced. "Looks like dragons followed you two -- run!"