Dragonkeeper 2: Garden of the Purple Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

bleats. She thought about the conversations she’d had with Liu Che—about dragons and flowers and the colour of robes. She longed to hear a human voice other than her own. Even memories of happy times with a family would have eased her loneliness, but she had none. When she was a slave at Huangling Palace, she had always been too busy or too tired to think about her family. But on Tai Shan thenights were long and the faceless shapes of her father and mother often found their way into her thoughts.

• chapter five •
A T RICKLE OF B LOOD
    She was sure she wasn
’
t alone. She crept forward
.
Then she heard a faint scraping sound
.
    A week after the unexpected arrival of Hua, Ping woke to find a cooking pot sitting next to her ear, whining plaintively. It changed into a bucket and then a rock, whimpering all the time. She turned over. A small fire was glowing in the fireplace. Next to it was a pile of mushrooms for her breakfast. Every morning Hua lit the fire and went out foraging, not only for himself, but also for her and Kai. He would be off collecting insects for Kai now. Ping stretched, enjoying the luxury of not having to do everything herself.
    She put on her gown, socks and shoes and went out to milk the goat. Kai sat at the mouth of the cave, his scales drooping. A freezing fog had settled over the mountain. Ping looked around for the goat. She should have been tethered to the nearest tree. Ping’s mind was still fuzzy with sleep. Perhaps Hua had moved the goat to a spot with more grass. She searched around but the mist made it difficult. Ping shivered but not from the cold. She had a feeling inside that something was wrong. She walked to the edge of the plateau. The goat was nowhere to be found. Ping couldn’t even call her, because she’d never bothered to give her a name. The back of her neck prickled. She turned quickly but even if someone was there, she wouldn’t have been able to see them through the fog.
    Ping walked towards the grove of pine trees. The feeling inside her formed into a hard mass, like a stone inside her stomach. There was someone hiding in the pine trees, she was sure of it.
    The boughs interlaced above her shut out the light. Her feet moved soundlessly on the thick carpet of pine needles. There was no birdsong, no whirr of insects, no rustle of grass. It was as if she were walking in a room hung with thick wall hangings that blocked out all sound. She was sure she wasn’t alone. She crept forward. Then she heard a faint scraping sound. A snake slithered through the pine needles just in front of her. It was a big one, with bands of black and orange. It liftedits head and looked towards her. It was long past the season for snakes. She wished she’d brought her knife, so that she could kill it. Ping wanted to go back to the safety of the cave, but her feet wouldn’t move. The snake slithered off into the fog. Ping kept walking. The trees began to thin. The ground became rocky and started to slope away steeply. It wasn’t safe to walk any further. The feeling that she was being watched increased. Her foot stumbled against something. Not a rock, something heavy but soft. She had found the goat. It was lying at her feet. A trickle of blood ran from its lifeless body.
    An animal must have attacked the goat. A wild cat perhaps? Had she startled it, just as it was about to eat its victim? Ping bent down to examine the goat’s body. Ping was struggling to understand what had happened. Its head was thrust back and there was a red gaping wound across its throat. But it wasn’t the ragged wound of an animal attack. Its throat had been neatly cut with a sharp blade. The goat was still warm. It couldn’t have been dead for more than a few minutes.

• chapter six •
B LINDFOLD
    When she came to a rocky outcrop
,
she crouched behind a boulder
,
holding Kai
’
s jaws shut
.
    Ping ran back through the pine trees, her heart pounding. Kai wasn’t sitting at the mouth of the cave where she’d