Next morning, after an exhausted but troubled sleep, Salinda was once again working on the vines. Turning the leaves over, she examined them closely as she worked her way through her allotment. The spray had been successful: the disease had been arrested.
Other prisoners passed by on their way to the cistern or to gather manure. None of them took particular interest in her, although one or two noted the quality of her grapes. Salinda chewed on some vine shoots, sucking down the fresh sap. The other prisoners shunned her for eating the vine leaves. They saw it as evidence that she was as dust mad as Mez had been. They could think what they liked. She smiled to herself as a spurt of strength from the sap energized her.
The air was heavy and hot all day. Picking up a fallen bunch of leaves to fan herself, she tried to estimate when Plu would return. The sun was sinking fast, turning the sky and ribbon clouds bright purple and red. Although she was still uneasy about the possibility of being seen the night before, she began to relax on the way back to her camp. Surely, if a guard had seen her, one of them would have come to question her. If it had been another prisoner, he or she would have turned her in for extra privileges by now. If they hadn’t informed on her yet, she had a chance to get away.
A step behind her alerted her to a presence too sharp and deliberate to be a prisoner, too brisk and light to be a guard. Calling upon all the lessons Mez had taught her, Salinda tried to act calmly and not as if she had been caught red-handed doing something she ought not to have been doing. Turning around, she bowed.
“Inspector.” Salinda thought hard. “I was returning from my allotment.”
He stepped close to her. “Where is your helpmate, Salinda?”
Salinda cast her gaze down to the ground and licked her now dry lips. Resisting the urge to back away, she said, “I … I … left him with the remainder of his task, Inspector. He should meet me at my home site when he is done. He is new and unaccustomed to work. That makes him slow … troublesome creature that he is.”
“Interesting. You trust him then to tend the vines without your supervision?” the Inspector said, bringing himself closer so that his lips nearly touched her neck. Instinctively, she took one step back, but he matched her, stepping forward and placing his face closer to hers, almost nose to nose.
Reluctantly, she lifted her eyes to his, then quickly cast them down again. “The vines are hardy … he could not damage them. Best he learn that I can’t do all the work—he must do his share.”
Having him this close to her was wholly unnerving. It took all of her willpower not to tremble. The Inspector slapped his crop against his high boot with a thwack! Salinda flinched. He smiled again, straining his thin lips against his teeth. “You accept responsibility for his actions, then?”
That question made Salinda perspire. Instinct warned her that he knew about Brill’s escape. Her palms were slippery with sweat, and she rubbed them against her dress. All of a sudden the air seemed too close, too hard to breathe.
“Well, Salinda?”
“Not all his actions … but … but with regards to the vines I do.” Again she lifted her gaze, meeting his steadily.
This close she could smell his clean clothes, his light scent. Salinda stood still, resisting the urge to run away as he closed in to whisper in her ear. “Bring Brill to me in the morning. I have … questions …”
Before she could answer he was striding away. Hurrying back to her camp, she gathered up a few items to take with her. She had to leave. Danger. The word tolled like a bell in her mind. When it was dark enough, she crept out into the vines and skirted the rim of the vineyard. She called Plu, three times, and he did not respond. Her heart lurched. There would be no escape tonight. Perhaps her young dragon had not made his way back from Danton’s camp. In any case, something prevented him from answering her summons. She would have to try again the next evening.
Carefully, she picked her way across the rocks and the edge of the plain on her way back to her hut. Before she went to sleep, a wave of self-pity washed over her. Mez wouldn’t have approved of such blatant abandonment to her emotions, but he wasn’t there to chide her. Even the cadre he’d given her failed to comfort her as if it too shunned her loss of control. She knew it was important to maintain her composure for the cadre to mesh further with her mind. Instead, she feared it shrank from her emotional upheaval. Try as she might to keep her fear in check, she couldn’t shake it off. Oh, Mez, I wish you were still here. But Mez didn’t see what she saw, didn’t feel what she felt and, more importantly, he didn’t have to face the Inspector in the morning and answer for Brill.
*
The echo of screams startled Salinda from a deep sleep. She smelled smoke and then the deafening screech of a dragon’s cry sent her staggering out of her blankets. With her hands over her ears, she stared in disbelief at the surrounding vineyard, which was alive with marching orange tongues of flame. She stood there as wave upon wave of heat rolled into her. Over the roar of the fire, chilling human shrieks pierced the night. Salinda stood stock still, caught between fear and disbelief, uncertain what to do. A thick cloud of smoke enveloped her, driven by the fire front, and she doubled up, overcome with a fit of coughing.
Through the stinging tears in her eyes, she could see at least ten adult dragons firing the perimeter of the vineyard. Various blazes lined the outer rim, growing and merging as they pushed inward. She ran toward the central spoke in order to obtain a better view. Turning full circle, she looked toward the staging area and the winery. In the distance, flames licked over the roofs of the village buildings and the winery and she could even make out a spear of reddish haze thrusting high where the Inspector’s house should be.
The smell of sulphur grew stronger as it mixed with thick, white smoke. The beat of wings sounded overhead, wafting the stinging, choking smoke and ash in her direction. Gagging, she crouched down, then bolted into a section of untouched vine rows and flattened herself against the dirt. Turning her face to the sky, she saw in the reflected firelight a half-eaten prisoner in the mouth of a near full-grown male dragon. With a cry of dismay, she spurred herself into action once more. Reversing her path, she ran south, in the direction of the rocks, hoping to find shelter or Plu.
More screams echoed around her. The vines she ran through now were alight, yet she had no alternative but to traverse them to make her way to the ridge. Again dragon call screeched overhead, making her shiver despite the fierce heat. Surrounding her were the sounds of other dragons feeding and blowing fire. Dragon wings scythed through the thick air above her head, slowing and circling. She dived under the vines again and crawled across the damp soil.
In the chaos, she tried to keep her fear under control. Staying alive was her overwhelming priority and having that focus helped. It was not her own life she feared for, not really; it was the cadre she carried. It was at risk. If she died before she could pass it on to another, all the knowledge and power it comprised would be lost forever. The cadre would die with her, and that couldn’t happen. The time would come when the world would need it. She didn’t know when—only that it would.
Reflected heat began to increase, making her skin smart. The fire was raging closer. Realizing that she was cut off, she felt panic bloom in her mind, and she began covering herself in the humus beneath the vines. Mez’s gift seemed to shrink the more her fear grew, but she knew she needed it. She had to calm herself. With her face in the cool earth, she deliberately slowed her breathing and tried to tap into the cadre. She pictured the familiar tracks and supply points of the vineyard in a desperate search for an escape route. The scene unfolding in her mind was a memory, not the current scene of havoc. There was the Inspector, striding away through the staging area, with half-laden carts surrounding him. Yes, she thought to herself, follow him … remember.
Then, suddenly, the cadre was pulsing pinkly in her mind, once again available and ready to be of service. Mez’s memories were there, too. They flowed over her; the impression of him filled her senses. How sweet the memory of Mez was. Slowly the images unfurled, and she was able to follow the Inspector, further than her own memory allowed. A hint of what lay hidden blossomed like a flower. She saw the Inspector bend down, scrape the dirt with his boot and lift a trapdoor. So that was where he went, into the old vegetable storage hole, but would that serve as a hiding place?
The thrill of discovery, of understanding, made her breath quicken. That place could give her a chance to survive, would at least protect her from the flames. She let the vision drop away and put her mind to work. Low on the ground the air was still breathable. The cries of the prisoners were fewer now, as were the dragon calls. The beasts were likely sated on the dead and the dying. On all fours, keeping low to the ground, Salinda began crawling toward the disused area behind the winery buildings. That’s where the Inspector’s hideout was.
After an hour or so, when the sun dawned almost red on the horizon, Salinda thought she might survive. Remaining in the dirt at the base of the vines had saved her. A rain shower now battered the remaining flames and allowed her to quench her thirst and clear the soot from her mouth. She had made it to the winery itself, but feared to go out into the open while the dragons still hunted. The trapdoor was in an open area, a vulnerable place while there were dragons around.
All was quiet now. Gazing out on the black, skeletal remains of the buildings, she climbed gingerly to her feet. A quick assessment revealed that her skin was singed in places but there were no serious burns. The smoke, thankfully lessening now, had grazed her throat and left her with a cough. In the red-tinged light she saw isolated fires still burning, black and crumbling sticks that had once been vines and the occasional burned remains of prisoners. The dragons had fed well; there were fewer bodies remaining than she expected.
Another cloud of smoke enveloped her. She tried to hold her breath and wave it away, yet the further she trod the thicker it became. Just then a gust of wind dissipated the cloud, and she recoiled as she came face to face with a smoke-tinged Inspector.
“Well met, Salinda …” he said, then leveled an evil-looking smile at her, his white teeth flashing in his ash-stained face.
Salinda saw the gleam in his eye and the satisfaction brimming in his expression. She turned to run, but she was too late. The Inspector grabbed her arm. “Not so hasty.”
Throwing her body left and right, she searched for a path, any path that would allow her to flee. Ange’s figure loomed out of the white-gray haze, a kerchief wrapped around his face.
“Where…? How did you …?” she whispered harshly, and was then overcome with a fit of coughing.
The Inspector’s grip tightened while she struggled. Full-blown panic took hold.
His face loomed over her. “If anyone could survive this inferno I knew it would be you,” he said in her ear. “How lucky for me.”
Ange strode forward, his eyes puffy and red. Salinda edged away from him, ceasing her struggle against the Inspector and unwittingly choosing what she saw as the lesser of two evils. The Inspector’s grip slackened and he let her go. Warily she turned to face him. That smile, thin and knowing, widened right before he decked her with a backhand blow. Darkness filled with shooting yellow stars wiped out her perception.