After only a dozen feet, the crevasse widened slightly. “There’s a ladder,” Denna said. “I’m going up. If that thing breathes fire at us it will be like rain-water down a gully.”
She climbed and I followed her. The ladder was crude but sturdy, and after twenty feet it opened out onto a piece of level ground. Dark stone surrounded us on three sides, but there was a clear view of the ruined cabin and the destroyed trees below. A wooden box was set against the cliff wall.
“Can you see it?” Denna asked, peering down. “Tell me I didn’t just skin my knees running from nothing.”
I heard a dull whump and I felt a wave of hot air rise up against my back. The draccus grunted again, and another wash of fire ran through the narrow gap below. Then there came a sudden, furious sound like nails on a slate as the draccus clawed madly against the base of the cliff.
Denna gave me a frank look. “Harmless.”
“It’s not after us,” I said. “You saw. It was digging at that wall long before we ever got here.”
Denna sat down. “What is this place?”
“Some sort of lookout,” I said. “You can see the whole valley from here.”
“Obviously it’s a lookout,” she sighed. “I’m talking about the whole place.”
I opened the wooden box that was up against the cliff wall. Inside was a rough wool blanket, a full waterskin, some dried meat, and a dozen wickedly sharp crossbow bolts.
“I don’t know either,” I admitted. “Maybe the fellow was a fugitive.”
The noise stopped below. Denna and I peered out over the ruined valley. Eventually the draccus moved away from the cliff. It walked slowly, its huge body digging an irregular rut into the ground.
“It’s not moving as quickly as it did last night,” I said. “Maybe it is sick.”
“Maybe it’s tired from a hard day’s trying to track us down and kill us.” She looked up at me. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
I sat down and we watched the draccus make its plodding way to the middle of the valley. It went up to a tree about thirty feet tall and pushed it over without any noticeable effort.
Then it began to eat it, leaves first. Next it crunched up branches thick as my wrist as easily as a sheep would tear up a mouthful of grass. When the trunk was finally stripped bare, I assumed it would have to stop. But it simply clamped its huge, flat mouth down on one end of the trunk and twisted its massive neck. The trunk splintered and broke, leaving the draccus with a large but manageable mouthful that it bolted down more or less whole.
Denna and I took the opportunity to eat some lunch of our own. Just some flatbread, sausage, and the rest of my carrots. I was hesitant to trust the food in the box, as there was the distinct possibility that the fellow living here had been some manner of crazy.
“It still amazes me that no one around here has ever seen it,” Denna said.
“People have probably caught glimpses,” I said. “The swineherd said everyone knows there’s something dangerous in these woods. They probably just assumed it was a demon or some nonsense like that.”
Denna glanced back at me, an amused curl to her mouth. “Says the fellow who came to town looking for the Chandrian.”
“That’s different,” I protested hotly. “I don’t go around spouting faerie stories and touching iron. I’m here so I can learn the truth. So I can have information that comes from somewhere more reliable than thirdhand stories.”
“I didn’t mean to touch a nerve,” Denna said, taken aback. She looked back down below. “It really is an incredible animal.”
“When I read about it I didn’t really believe about the fire,” I admitted. “It seemed a little far-fetched to me.”
“More far-fetched than a lizard big as a horse cart?”
“That’s just a matter of size. But fire isn’t a natural thing. If nothing else, where does it keep the fire? It’s obviously not burning inside.”
“Didn’t they explain it in that book you read?” Denna asked
“The author had some guesses, but that’s all. He couldn’t catch one to dissect it.”
“Understandable,” Denna said as she watched the draccus casually nudge over another tree and begin eating that one as well. “What sort of a net or a cage would hold it?”
“He had some interesting theories though,” I said. “You know how cow manure gives off a gas that burns?”
Denna turned to look at me and laughed. “No. Really?”
I nodded, grinning. “Farm kids will strike sparks onto a fresh cow pat and watch it burn. That’s why farmers have to be careful about storing manure. The gas can build up and explode.”
“I’m a city girl,” she said chuckling. “We didn’t play those sorts of games.”
“You missed some big fun,” I said. “The author suggested that the draccus just stores that gas in a bladder of some kind. The real question is how it lights the gas. The author has a clever idea about arsenic. Which makes sense, chemically. Arsenic and coal gas will explode if you put them together. That’s how you get marsh lights in swamps. But I think that’s a little unreasonable. If it had that much arsenic in its body, it would poison itself.”
“Mmmm-hmm,” Denna said, still watching the draccus below.
“But if you think about it, all it needs is a tiny spark to ignite the gas,” I said. “And there are plenty of animals that can create enough galvanic force for a spark. Clip eels, for example, can generate enough to kill a man, and they’re only a couple of feet long.” I gestured toward the draccus. “Something that big could certainly generate enough for a spark.”
I was hoping that Denna would be impressed by my ingenuity, but she seemed distracted by the scene below.
“You’re not really listening to me, are you?”
“Not so much,” she said, turning to me and giving a smile. “I mean, it makes perfect sense to me. It eats wood. Wood burns. Why wouldn’t it breathe fire?”
While I tried to think of a response to that, she pointed down into the valley. “Look at the trees down there. Do they look odd to you?”
“Aside from being destroyed and mostly eaten?” I asked. “Not particularly.”
“Look how they’re arranged. It’s hard to see because the place is a shambles, but it looks like they were growing in rows. Like someone planted them.”
Now that she pointed it out, it did look like a large section of the trees had been in rows before the draccus came. A dozen rows with a score of trees each. Most of them were now only stumps or empty holes.
“Why would someone plant trees in the middle of a forest?” She mused. “It’s not an orchard…. Did you see any fruit?”
I shook my head.
“And those trees are the only ones the draccus has been eating,” she said. “There’s the big clear spot in the middle. The others he knocks down, but those he knocks down and eats.” She squinted. “What kind of tree is it eating right now?”
“I can’t tell from here,” I said. “Maple? Does it have a sweet tooth?”