Dragon Dodgers (Wounds in the Sky Prequels Book 1) by V. R. Cardoso Page A

leather clothes, scantily
covering their brown, tattoo covered skins.
    One of the men stepped up to
Targon.
    “ Captain.” He called. His name was Nasur, a towering man with shoulders wider
than most doors. His red plaited beard reached down to his massive
chest. “The men are
exhausted, we should rest.”
    “ Nonsense.” Targon replied as he took off his own cloak. “We should be on top of the
city within the hour. The men can run for a little
longer.”
    “ We’ve never been here,
how can you be so sure?”
    Targon pulled out a piece of painted
parchment.
    “ The map is accurate. It brought us this far without
mistake, why would it fail on the last couple of miles? Besides,
what idiot could misplace the largest city in the East?”
    “ If the city is that big, it certainly won’t go anywhere.
Let’s rest for a bit.”
    “ No way.” Targon put the map safely back in his pocket.
“We’re almost there, Nasur. We’re so close I can already see that
gold.”
    “ I’m glad you can, because
no one else in the company has seen a single coin in
weeks.”
    Targon knelt down and secured his neatly folded cloak on his backpack.
    “ Right!” He yelled standing back up. “Enough slacking
around. We’re almost there so let’s double time it.”
     
    * * *
     
    The Northwest Watch was nothing more than a brown hill
overlooking dark green rice fields. Enrig was sitting on a large
crevice where the edges of rock carved into his skin, but it
provided decent cover. Below, dozens of workers hunched down,
collecting rice in a frenzy. Even from that distance, Enrig could
see them constantly looking over their shoulders.
    So much sky makes them nervous. Enrig thought. He loved the outdoors, the surface. It
seemed so… infinite. Still, even Enrig had to admit it was
unsettling not to have a roof over his head. The way the landscape
just kept going on forever into nothingness seemed unnatural. As if
the goddess Fyr had made it on purpose, as a warning for humans -
you don’t belong here!
    “ You should be more careful, you
know?” Cavill
said.
    “ About what?”
    “ The way you talk. Some of the things you said back there… You’re
not gonna make any friends that way, that’s for sure.”
    Enrig shrugged.
    “ I don’t plan on being a Watcher forever.”
    “ You don’t?!” Cavill
asked. “Why are you always begging for a spot, then?”
    “ Because it’s good
practice for Surface Running.”
    “ What?!” Cavi ll was amused. “You wanna be a Runner?”
    “ Why ? You don’t think I can?”
    Cavill shrugged.
    “ It’s not as easy as
sitting on your ass looking up, you know?”
    Enrig looked into the
distance. It was a sunny day, but clouds blotched the sky like
smudges of sauce on an empty plate.
    “ See that dark mountain
on the horizon?” Enrig said.
    “ Prophet's Peak. What
about it?”
    “ I’ve been there. I
mean , I didn’t climb
it… I’ve been at the base.”
    “ No way…” Cavill got up
and studied the distance. “You would never get there and back in a
day.”
    “ That’s why I slept there. Found a nice little
cave.”
    “ You’re so full of it.”
Cavill shook his head. “You’re telling me you spent a night on the
surface?”
    “ And made a two day
Surface Run.”
    “ Well, if you’re not
lying, then you’re just plain crazy. I mean, why the surface would
you do that? Why would you even want to be a Runner?” Cavill looked
puzzled. “Why would you want a life like that? No home, no family,
having to sleep in the woods, eat shitty food, and being
chased by Dragons all the time…” He exhaled as if he was exhausted.
“Who in their right mind chooses that?” He paused suddenly, looking
really uncomfortable. “Huh, I’m sorry… I mean… Does it have to do
with your dad?”
    “ No!” Enrig spun to face Cavill. “It doesn’t have to do with him! Or my
mother. It has to do with me. I’m tired of living underground in
some smelly, wet hole. There is a huge world out