The sound of the rough voices broke the quiet rhythm of the rain once more, and Jahrra strained to listen.
“No, if we kill the animal, we won’t have bait for the girl. Just keep looking, someone go and stand guard over the creature to make sure she doesn’t crawl over there. I’m going to go get the hounds.”
Jahrra relaxed only a tiny bit when she heard the men walking away. At least Phrym would be safe for awhile, but she knew she couldn’t lay in the brush forever. These men hunting for her would find her eventually; they didn’t seem the type to give up easily. Besides, if they had hounds to search for her scent, it would only be a matter of time before . . . Jahrra sighed as quietly as she dared. For the first time in her life, she wished that Jaax would hurry up and find her.
A familiar, bone-wrenching howl suddenly reverberated through the night, jerking Jahrra from her moment of calm. A cold sweat broke out over her skin and her heart quickened its pace. She knew exactly what manner of unnatural beast emitted those baleful sounds: the demon wolves of the Cohn Forest. So these were the hounds her pursuers had gone for. How long have these people been in Oescienne, then? she thought with a horrified shiver.
Jahrra curled into a tighter ball and felt the bitter prick of tears at the corner of her eyes. If she had only been brave enough to tell Hroombra about her close calls, what horrors might have been prevented? But it was too late now; all Jahrra could do was reach for whatever last shred of comfort she had left. She thought of her bracelet, wrapped snuggly around her wrist, but she had no tree to aid her this time. All she had was a patch of thorny brambles.
The baying of the horrible hounds drew closer and Jahrra’s stomach churned like the sea before a storm. She gritted her teeth and tried to force her heart to silence its racket, sure that the awful monsters could hear it.
Just as she was sure she would be discovered, Jahrra heard a crashing and a growling in the distance, and the angry shouts and hungry yowls turned into terrified screams and pain-laced yelps. Through her clenched eyes she could see the orange glow of a light coming from somewhere in the near distance. A few times she heard feet falling just near her head, and more than once she felt the ground shaking from the roaring and the heavy footfalls of a dragon.
After several minutes, Jahrra found herself listening to the light rainfall once again. She was now very cold and her injuries had subsided to a dull throbbing; her head and body aching from her fear. Her knee was burning with the typical pain of a scrape, and she knew that it was probably badly bruised. Only after she was certain the hounds were gone did she dare to uncurl and let her body ease a little more. She slowly sat up and looked out into the field, but all she could see at the moment was the dark silhouette of the tall grass just in front of her. After a few minutes more, she cautiously tried to stand up.
A sharp acidic pain shot through her leg and she fell to the ground wincing. While she lay on the damp, matted grass clutching her ankle, Jahrra sensed the arrival of something large.
“There you are!” Jaax growled. “I feared they had captured you!” The dragon’s voice was raw with anger, but it was also fringed with fear.
“I didn’t detect the men right away, the rain hindered that, and the hounds . . .” He paused and drew a sharp breath before continuing harshly, “Are you alright? What happened?”
Jahrra told Jaax the story in small spurts of broken sentences. Talking seemed to elevate the pain in her leg so she must’ve sounded ridiculous.
Jaax sighed with irritation. “Well, at least they didn’t find you, but your injury will slow us down.”
Jahrra frowned. Before she could grumble, however, Jaax continued, “I was hoping the mercenaries wouldn’t return tonight. It appears I was wrong. You should have stayed in the Ruin, Jahrra. I was just in the other room, and Phrym would’ve been fine.”
Jahrra was irked at Jaax’s reaction. Her injury seemed an inconvenience, which she knew that it was, but the dragon made it sound like it had been her fault, like she had meant to be chased and tripped up by a gopher hole. Besides, she thought angrily, what good is a dragon if he can’t even keep a few thugs away from me?
“We won’t be able to assess the total damage you have done to yourself until the morning,” he continued. “You’ll just have to keep it elevated for the rest of the night. When we return to the Castle Guard Ruin, I’ll find some herbs that’ll help relieve the pain.”
Jahrra clenched her teeth and forced herself to stand. The pain returned, but this time she managed to stay up, putting all her weight on her good ankle. She didn’t want to have to ask Jaax for help, but she knew in the end she would need his assistance to get back to the Ruin.
With the use of Jaax’s foreleg as a crutch, Jahrra limped the entire distance back to the building she had called home for so many years. She tried as hard as she could to think of anything that would take her mind off her throbbing knee and ankle. The odor of charred flesh permeated through the cool scent of rain, and she found it hard to convince her stomach to stop its retaliation.
Jahrra blinked back the tears and swallowed the bile rising in her throat. In order to forget about the ugliness that surrounded her, she turned her thoughts over to the path her life would now take. She had decided to leave Oescienne with Jaax without a fight. It was no longer safe here and she couldn’t possibly battle what was coming. That is, she couldn’t battle it on her own.
Jahrra struggled as she walked, her sudden grief at knowing she would be leaving her home very soon making her ankle seem to ache all the more. It was bad enough losing Hroombra, but the realization of leaving her Castle Guard Ruin and her friends was too much to bear. She swallowed a sob, secretly knowing that she would give anything to be the poor orphaned Nesnan once again.
-Chapter Twenty-One-
Farewell
Jaax left Jahrra at the small entrance of the Ruin while he headed for the larger opening. She hopped through the door on her good leg and made her way to the main room. The fire had burned out, but after Jaax threw in some more logs and coaxed it back to life with one fiery breath, the room was bathed in warmth once more.
Jahrra plopped down in front of the hearth and pulled up her rain-soaked pants leg to glimpse the damage beneath. She whimpered when she saw her swollen ankle, already turning deep blue. Her knee looked worse than she’d thought; it had been severely scraped and it too was swollen and as dark as black squash.
“That will need tending to,” Jaax noted, eying the bloody gash across her knee. “We can’t risk infection.”
The Tanaan dragon pulled Jahrra’s old bedding into the room so that she could rest next to the giant fireplace. He then helped her lie down and found a cushion she could prop her foot on.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to fall back to sleep, but hopefully you can rest here.”
Jaax quickly added the remaining wood to the fire and then disappeared again to find some herbs to help with the ache and swelling.
Jahrra let out a long sigh and looked up at the carvings around the hearth of the fireplace through pain-drowsed eyes. She had always enjoyed these etchings, but she had never looked at them as closely and as intently as she did now. They depicted scenes of animals and beasts, the mythical creatures she imagined might live in an enchanted forest, creatures she had once pictured living in Oescienne hundreds of years ago: unicorns, winged horses, griffins, fauns and faun-like creatures, fairies and pixies. The group of animals and beings were dancing and making merry amidst a floral garland all along the arch of the stone, their movement becoming even more realistic in the flickering firelight.