Prince Danny's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

The dragon climbed above the smoke, wings beating slow. Danny scanned the ground below. The castle yard was empty. The west gate hung open. Allee and the children were gone, and he had no idea which way they had run. He circled once over a tall wooden watchtower with iron rails, its pointed roof bright in the sun. From up here he could see every road, but every road was empty too. Time was bleeding away. Down on the outer walls, archers were already moving toward their stone-and-timber posts, nocking arrows along the crenellations. "Lower," Danny said. The dragon dipped. An arrow hissed past his shoulder and stuck in a scale. Then he saw it — a small weathered cluster on the dirt path near the gate. A discarded pack, cigarettes spilled out like a tossed handful. Allee never smoked. She had left it on purpose. The dragon banked hard. Past the pack, golden-brown crumbs glittered in the grass, a thin broken line heading east into the trees. Cookie crumbs. Her old trick. Danny's chest tightened. "Follow the crumbs," he said. "Stay low." Arrows chased them as the dragon dropped below the wall line and skimmed the field. The trail bent through a hedge and vanished under the forest canopy. Danny marked the spot — a split oak, a bend in the stream — and held it hard in his mind. The dragon landed in the trees. Danny slid off, boots in soft moss, crumbs gleaming at his feet. He was out of the open. He had her path. Now he only had to walk it before the archers reached the wood.