The Runaway Dragon (8 page)

“It’s just the boys, isn’t it?” Dilly whispered loudly to Meg. Meg nodded.

Behind her a voice said, “We really should be moving along.” Meg looked over her shoulder. Quorlock stood there watching them, his expression more than a little smug.

“Did you do this?” Meg asked. He was the only one of the men who seemed to have been unaffected. Maybe he wasn’t a man at all.

Quorlock laughed. “Now, how could I do such a thing?”

“Yes, how
could
you, exactly?” Dilly inquired.

Meg pursed her lips. “I’m guessing he didn’t do it, but he knew it would happen.”

“Or something like it,” Quorlock said. “A quester’s life isn’t supposed to be easy, you know.” He patted the nearest tree affectionately. “Dear old enchanted forest.”

“Not so dear,” Cam said glumly, staring in the direction the guardsmen had gone, chasing pell-mell after the magic stag.

“They’ll be fine.”

Meg wondered if Quorlock said that because he knew they would be, or because he didn’t particularly care. “We should go search for them,” she said.

“And abandon your quest?” Quorlock was outraged.

“Laddy can wait,” Dilly remarked, frowning at the old man.

Quorlock shook his head, causing his long beard to swing from side to side. “They won’t be easy to find, and they’ll be harder still to stop. Let them finish the hunt, and they’ll come back looking for you.”

It sort of made sense. Meg hesitated only because she had just decided that Quorlock wasn’t as trustworthy as she’d thought he was.

But then Lex seemed to come out of his daze. “Let’s go find Laddy,” the young wizard mumbled. It was the first thing he’d said in half an hour that
wasn’t
about the stag.

Meg turned to Cam. He shrugged. “Why not?”

“All right,” she said with a secret inner shiver of happiness. Lieutenant Staunton was gone, and she couldn’t help feeling glad. What harm would it do the guardsmen to chase a stag for an hour or two? Meanwhile, Meg might just manage to have an adventure, uninterrupted by Staunton’s supervision.

Dilly was still worried, though. “They’ll be back soon, won’t they?” she asked as the remaining travelers filled some shoulder packs Cam had found with food and blankets and water bags.

Meg remembered what Dilly had told her about Nort. “Are you worried about Nort?”

“Nort, Staunton, Frist, all of them,” Dilly said
quickly. “That stag could have led them into a demon pit or something.”

“This doesn’t seem like a demon-pit kind of place to me,” Meg said.

“Or something, then,” Dilly said.

“Or something,” Cam agreed.

Meg couldn’t very well argue with that.

To the east, far across the forest, ten guardsmen and a breathless cook rode on and on through the enchanted forest, smashing through brambles and hurtling between trees, followed by four riderless horses, one of them a frenzied black stallion. Nort acquired a crown of leaves, nearly losing his entire head to a tree branch. Everything had happened so suddenly that he didn’t have time to think. Then the stag filled his mind until nothing was left, not even his name. He wasn’t aware of the other guardsmen riding beside him in the same mad haste to catch up with their quarry. Not that Nort knew what he would do if he caught the stag. He just knew he had to chase it—and then chase it some more.

There were five of them left, but Meg soon found herself wishing devoutly there were only four. Quorlock, now that he was walking along with her, took his duties as an enchanted forest guide far too seriously. The first sign of it came when he cried for them to stop.

“What? What is it?” Meg said so loudly that she
scared her scarf again. Truth be told, they were all a little nervous after the disappearance of the guardsmen, wondering what the forest might do next.

“An anthill!” Quorlock pointed down the path dramatically.

Sure enough, a large anthill teemed in the middle of the path. Meg and her friends exchanged mystified looks. “So?” Lex said.

“Maybe it’s a nature lesson,” Dilly whispered.

“Nature lesson?” Quorlock repeated, aghast.

“What about the anthill?” Meg asked.

“Princess, you must not step on the anthill.”

“Bad luck, is it?” Cam ventured.

“If you are kind to the ants, they may be kind to you later,” Quorlock said significantly.

“Huh.” Meg came closer to the anthill and crouched to peer down at them. “These ants? Because we’re probably never going to see these particular ants again.”

“Perhaps not
these
ants so much as their relatives,” the old man said, sounding a little confused himself.

Dilly must have guessed Lex was opening his mouth to make a joke about ants, uncles, and cousins because she said swiftly, “What good are ants, anyway?”

“Don’t young people know
anything
these days?” Quorlock said, exasperated. “Ants can sort two kinds of grain out, for one thing.”

“That sounds useful,” Lex said in a placating voice.

Everyone murmured their agreement, though they
had no idea why. They walked around the anthill as carefully as they could, though Lex’s carpet seemed inclined to take a closer look, and he had to convince it to leave the ants alone.

Quorlock made another note in his little notebook. Then he started talking again. The old man tended to ramble on. Sometimes the stories he told were intriguing, and the nature lessons—because there
did
end up being nature lessons—weren’t too bad, either. Not at first.

Quorlock told them how garter snakes talked to each other with their scented tails. He warned them never to break a sapling for fear of offending the moss folk. He explained the difference between the samaras of the maple and the ash. He showed them the place where the red foxes danced by moonlight. He told them why the best spears were made of ash wood, but the most magical spears were made of the wood of the tree that grew in the very center of the enchanted forest. He also told them two stories about elves and one about chipmunks. It didn’t take long for the rest of them to get tired of the sound of his rusty voice going on and on, and on and on still more.

HAT AFTERNOON MEG AND HER COMPANIONS
came across a clearing with a few logs and rocks lying around and took advantage of the ready-made seating to eat their lunch of bread, dried meat, and cheese. While they ate, Cam and Lex began arguing about whether they should leave the path. Laddy was off to the southwest, but up until now the little company had kept to the path to make it easier for the missing guardsmen to find them when they came back.
If
they came back.

In the middle of the discussion, Meg heard a peeping noise in the grass. She got up from the log she’d been sitting on and searched until she discovered the source of the sound: a gawky bit of fluff and beak and clawed feet. “Poor thing,” she said, picking up the baby bird gently. She looked straight overhead to see if she could spot the nest. Meg was pretty sure she could make out
some sticks and clutter in the fork of two branches high above her.

“What is it?” Dilly asked.

“I found a baby bird.”

Quorlock hurried over, beaming with pride.
“Very good
, Your Highness! Now you’ll put it back in its nest, and when the time comes—well, we shall see.”

“What will we see?” Cam asked.

Meg could feel the bird trembling in her cupped hands. It spoiled things to have Quorlock meddle, as if he’d invented her. She tried not to think about it, examining the tree trunk to figure out how hard it would be to climb. She envied her scarf, which floated lazily upward to see what Meg was looking at.

“I can do it,” said Cam.

Lex wiped the crumbs from his mouth. “I could probably use a spell. Or my carpet.”

Dilly, who was afraid of heights, crossed her arms. “Go right ahead.”

When Quorlock was worried, the number of wrinkles on his face increased impossibly. “The princess has to do it with her own hands,” he said with all the conviction of the very old and unpleasantly wise.

Well, she
had
found the bird. Meg didn’t answer the old man, but she tucked the creature into her loosest pocket and said, “Cam, give me a boost, will you?” He obligingly helped her reach the first branch. Then she scrambled higher until she could shinny out onto a thick
limb to the fork she’d targeted. The fork did cradle a nest. Inside of it, two more baby birds stretched their little necks, gaping greedily in hopes that Meg would ply them with worms. Instead she deposited their missing sibling into the nest and began her return journey.

When she got back down, Quorlock was still grinning and chuckling as if he had planned the whole thing.

“What? What are you so pleased about?” Meg demanded.

Quorlock raised his brows. “It’s best if I don’t say too much.” This from a person who’d been talking nonstop for hours, Meg thought sourly.

“Are you going to tell us birds can be helpful, just like ants?” Cam said.

Quorlock turned a sharp eye on him. “No need to mock, young sir. Birds can also sort grain. They can act as messengers, they can bring things back from the sky—lots of handy things a bird can do. Assuming she owes you a favor.”

The old man could tell they didn’t believe him, so he got into a real snit, shutting his mouth for a good while as they continued on their way.

This was a relief to the other four travelers, who had taken to talking about WOM (Wise Old Man, pronounced in ironic tones) behind his back.

Nevertheless, Meg managed to rescue a fox with its leg in a trap, flip a gasping fish back into a forest pool, and save a mouse from a hawk before the day was over.

“How come I never get to rescue any animals?” Dilly asked plaintively.

“We could take turns,” Cam said. Meg was pretty sure he was joking.

On hearing this, however, Quorlock was distressed enough to express his opinion again. “The princess is the quester, and she must accomplish a quester’s tasks,” he proclaimed.

Meg had to protest. “We’re all questers,” she said.

“Your dragon, your quest,” Lex told her.

Of course, there were other things to distract Meg from Quorlock’s strange remarks about her responsibilities. The fact was, the forest was acting more enchanted by the minute. On top of the highly coincidental series of animal rescues, there were little green eyes watching them from beneath various bushes.

“What
are
those?” Dilly asked.

“Pixies?” Meg said.

“Goblins,” Lex suggested.

“I don’t want to know,” said Cam.

Meg’s scarf wanted to know, though. It kept dashing under the bushes and then dragging itself back, looking annoyed. Apparently whatever was watching them was too fast for the scarf to catch.

Next an eerie song began riding the already eerie wind. The notes wrapped around their heads, slid into their ears, and refused to leave. “Do you think Lieutenant
Staunton believes this is a magic forest yet?” Meg asked. Everybody laughed, even the old man.

Naturally, Quorlock cheered up just in time to talk their ears off when they stopped for the night. On the bright side, Meg finally got to help set up camp and build a fire. Quorlock kept a close eye on her the whole time, though, telling her what she was doing wrong, so it wasn’t nearly as much fun as it should have been.

The next morning, Lex checked his Laddy spell, only to learn that the dragon had last touched down west of them. Lost guardsmen or no, it was time to leave the path. Besides, Meg pointed out, Quorlock could help them find their way even without the path.

The others looked dubious, but Quorlock smiled his wrinkly bearded smile. “Yes, Princess, that I can.”

None of them was used to this much walking. Each of them had at least one blister, and Meg had three. “Don’t you know any blister spells?” she asked Lex.

“I know spells for
causing
blisters. I’m not a healer, Meg,” he said apologetically.

So they tromped onward, their feet hurting. After they’d traveled west for what seemed like forever, they sat down to rest by a small stream.

“We can refill our water bags here,” Cam said.

“No we can’t,” Lex told them.

“Why not?” Meg asked, surprised.

But Quorlock answered before Lex could. “In an
enchanted forest, drinking from a stream is a dangerous thing to do.”

“You might turn into an animal,” Lex explained. Meg decided he must have studied up on enchanted forests at some point in his magical training.

“But if we run out of water,” Cam said, “we’ll have to take a chance.”

Dilly turned to Quorlock and said accusingly, “If you’re such a good guide, why can’t you tell us if this stream is enchanted?”

“Sometimes the streams are safe, sometimes they’re not,” the old man said. “Keeps things lively around here.”

Dilly gave up. “I’m not that thirsty.”

“You can have some of my water,” Meg told her.

In the end, they crossed the stream without refilling their water bags. But their water would only last another day. Unless they left the forest, they were going to have to drink from a stream soon, Meg thought.