Free Strife In The Sky (Book 7) by Craig Halloran Page A

have changed into a soldier and blended in, but he didn’t have the strength. That would be the easy way, assuming a dragon didn’t snatch him, fly him up, and drop him for dead. I’ve flown with a dragon once, and that should last a lifetime for me.
    He sighed, shuffled along, and continued on his quest to find rest. Narnum the Free City was huge. Wide open. There must have been a thousand places to hide, but without any friends or allies, he couldn’t find one. He kept walking until he found himself face to face with the edge of the city. The countryside, its farms and green hills, looked like freedom, but it was anything but that. Towers, bulwarks, and great weapons of war surrounded it now. He could see dragons crawling through high grasses and soldiers marching through the fields. He shook his head.
    Is there anywhere peaceful left in this world? He leaned against a building. If I were a triant, where would I hide? That’s where they’ll be looking. Narnum had bridges, huge barns and storehouses. The rivers were said to be as deep as they were wide.
    While running through town with the crowd, he’d seen soldiers rowing up and down the rivers, poking sticks into the water, and a dragon slithering through the grass to slip into the river.
    He pulled the shawl tighter around his shoulders. If you can’t hide in the river, where can you hide?
    He scanned left and right. No one was about. It was just him leaning back against a building that overlooked the river. Maybe the best place to hide is right in front of their faces. He pulled his knees up to his chest and tucked his head between them. His belly growled. Just rest, Gorlee, rest. You can find something to eat later. A gentle breeze stirred, bending the reeds along the river. The sweet sound of the wind put him right to sleep.
    Gorlee hadn’t moved for hours when his head popped up and hit the building.
    “Ow,” he muttered. It was dark now. He could hear the voices of soldiers and see lanterns and torches in the fields, and others cast shadows in the streets. He was rubbing his eyes and yawning when he heard a rumble nearby. The blood in his veins turned to ice, and his heart pounded in his chest. A large black creature moved toward him. A lion-like face emerged from the shadows and came face to face with him.
    Gorlee swallowed hard.
    The feline fury touched him nose to nose. Its scaled paws pinned his toes to the ground, and smoke rolled from its nose. Hot saliva dripped from its mouth and sizzled on his leg.
    Gorlee screamed.

 
    CHAPTER 20
     
     
    “What is it, Brother?” Faylan said to Finlin.
    Finlin stood inside her tent just inside the flap, hands clasped and one thumb rolling over another. They’d been marching hard for days and were finding things difficult to navigate from time to time.
    He cleared his throat.
    “And don’t tell me more scouts have been lost.”
    He remained silent.
    She slung her plate of food into a tent wall.
    “What! How many this time?”
    “Two,” he mumbled with his head down.
    “That makes for seven of my soldiers in three days!” She grabbed a dagger out of her belt and jammed it in the table. “How did it happen this time?”
    “Logs.”
    “Logs!”
    “Rocks,” Finlin added.
    “Rocks! Logs and rocks!”
    He nodded.
    She made her way over to him and pinched his cheeks with her fingers.
    His eyes started to water.
    “Tell me about these logs and rocks,” she huffed. “What, no deep pits this time?”
    “Well,” Finlin said, “they fell in the pit first and then the rocks and logs came.”
    “And did you see where the logs and rocks came from?”
    “The trees,” he said.
    She clenched her teeth and pinched his cheeks harder.
    “You’re hurting me,” he said.
    “I don’t care!” she said with a curse. Then she released him.
    He backed away. I’m going to knock her out one day.
    “I told you to let me scout alone. You see that I am unscathed. Those soldiers you sent are as clumsy as they look.