Dragon's Keep

  The cold gusts pushed me now backward, now forward, but I didn’t care a bit, for there was the sea! And if the rain kept up, and if I made it to the shore, I might be rescued!

  Handy with my crutch, I scurried down the steep trail, my heart clattering in my chest like Cook’s spoon in a kettle. Then making a sharp turn, I tripped on a root, lost my footing, and plunged headlong down the ravine. I shut my mouth against my screams as I slid and grabbed for roots to stop my fall. I had nearly plunged into the river when I came to a sudden stop between two jutting rocks. Scratched and torn, ankle throbbing, crutch gone, I wept.

  Wedged between two stones, I lay filthy and crumpled. I cursed the dragon, cursed my broken self, and curled up there a long while weeping.

  With great care, so as not to tumble in the river, I pulled myself free from the stones. Little by little, I dragged myself up the incline, crying out each time I slid back in the frothy mud. I was stranded as a flea in a beer mug, and could not get out on my own. After an hour or more, struggling against the spilling mud, I felt the sun come out above. Droplets on the leaves and ferns sparkled all round me like a fairy’s tears, and my spirits rose. I crept upward, thinking I might still escape.

  But as soon as the sun was master again, I heard the pounding of great wings and felt his shadow come. The creature flared out fire, and circled overhead as a hawk above its kill. Swooping down, he caught me in his claws and darted skyward.

  Across the isle he flew and did not bring me to the cave but landed on a high hill, which was dressed in purple and yellow from milkweed, thistle, and wild mustard. The smell of the day’s rain was still tender in the grass.

  “Pluck the milkweed and the thistle,” said Faul, tossing me my crutch.

  I stood shaking in the damp grass. Milkweed was harmless enough, but thistles? I gazed at their purple flowers, spiny leaves, and stems. “Ah,” Marn used to say. “Pluck thistles if you be of a mind to enrage a dragon, for they go mad around them. There’s nothing like a dragon’s rage once around a thistle.”

  “Thistles, too?” I whispered.

  “Uproot them now, Briar!” he ordered. “And lay them at my feet!”

  I hobbled on the hill and did as he commanded, first pulling up the milkweed by the roots and laying them nearby, then kneeling near the thistles.

  Lord Faul growled as I dug around the thistle stems. The noise, coming from deep within his throat, shot shivers through my bones. I felt Faul’s anger, like a thing upon my back, so I turned my head a bit and kept the corner of my eye on him. The spiny stems and leaves cut into my hands even through my golden gloves, and I saw a spot of blood between the weave. Still I labored hour on hour in the dragon’s glare, sure the work was some strange punishment for trying to escape.

  Just as the sun sank behind the hills I laid another load of four and twenty thistles at the dragon’s feet. The day’s hunger, and the hours of gathering, hollowed me. I leaned on my crutch and wiped the sweat from my forehead. The milkweed and thistle pile was by now waist high. If this was my punishment, I’d had my fill of it.

  “Is it enough?” I asked.

  Faul gave a rumble like the lowering of a drawbridge and pointed to the thistles with his tail. Back I went.

  The purpose of the task struck me then, and I reeled with the knowledge of it. How many times had I watched Cook chopping onions, parsnips, and mustard greens whilst a fat pig roasted over the flames? I was to be the center of the dragon’s feast, and with my own hands he had me plucking the garnish! God’s bones! I faced Lord Faul and threw my last handful to the ground.

  “I’ll pluck no more!”

  He laughed and gripped me in one claw, took up the milkweed and thistles in the other, and flew above the trees.

  Wheeling over the tumbling falls, Faul swooped, landed on the shore, and plunged my head into the water. The coldness of it and the shock set me to thrashing. I held my breath and kicked and kicked until he pulled me up.

  “Drown me?” I choked. “Is this the way you prepare your meal?

  “Drink!” ordered Faul, and he lowered me down again. This time my cheeks touched against the water, and I sucked.

  In the dragon’s den Lord Faul left me by the fire and returned dragging a black cauldron of water behind him. He set the cauldron on the burning logs and said, “Toss in the milkweed, Briar.”

  When the water came to a boil Lord Faul pulled out some stems and dropped them on a flat stone. “Sup on these,” he said roughly.

  The bitter milkweed curled my tongue and my teeth went to powder over it. Still, I ate another stem, and another, weeping with hunger as I chewed.

  Lord Faul took the cauldron off the fire and set it on the sand, roaring, “The time has come!”

  I jumped up on one foot, grabbed my crutch, and started for the entrance. Lord Faul whacked me flat with his tail and wrapped it around me.

  Swathed tight in scaly flesh, I could not press my palms in prayer, nor could I kneel. “God, you formed me in my mother’s womb; you know each hair upon my head. Surely I’m more to you than the sparrows?”

  As I prayed, Lord Faul dug in the sand mound, his tail wrapped about me as roots around a stone. I readied myself. I knew I must leap down his throat and be swallowed whole. If he cooked me in his fire or tore me open with his teeth, I could not live to cut myself out of his belly.

  The dragon lowered his great head and, with a soft breath, blew the sand away. Four dragon’s eggs appeared. All were robin’s-egg blue and gray flecked, like the shell I’d seen in Demetra’s cave. I ceased my petitions and took in the sight.

  The eggs jostled in the sand, showing some life beneath. I felt such sudden joy at seeing them, understanding for the first time the purpose of the mound. Lord Faul hovered over them, anxious, his future there before him.

  An egg cracked. The dragon growled, not in anger as before, but like the purring of a cat. The first egg broke. After some jostling, a snout poked through the crack, sniffing and snorting.

  “Make ready,” ordered Lord Faul, and quick he placed me by the cauldron. “Be sure this brew is cooled,” he said to me as if I could do a thing to cool the water.

  Another crack and the first pip was out. It crept onto the sand and flicked its red tongue at its father. I laughed, though Faul shot me an angered look. The dragon was nose to tail the length of me. The scales, all shining wet, were more blue than green and near translucent. The wings mashed to its side were small. There would be no flight for a long while.

  The pip scratched the sand with its claws and cried, “Wah, wah,” with a voice like a newborn lamb.

  “He will be Chawl!” said Lord Faul. “Mighty claw.” And so the first of the four pips was named. After the first, the hatchlings came on quicker, two, three, four. With the eggs all broken, the pips tripped about inside the pit.

  Faul named each as they broke into the world, and with the naming said its meaning. Second hatched was a female, Eetha—ruler of the air. Then came a male, Kadmi—great fire. Last hatched was a female, Ore—precious one.

  The males could be distinguished by their colors: a darker green at the edges of the blue scales. The females were a paler hue. All were golden-eyed excepting Ore, who was smaller than the rest and blue-eyed.

  “Is the water cool?” asked Faul.

  “Still hot.”

  “Add five thistles to it.”

  I did so then hobbled closer to the pit to watch the brood. Chawl, first broken to the world, was frolicsome. Tumbling across the pit, he crashed into Kadmi. Kadmi answered this with fire that flared from his jaws like the spilling of a lantern. Just a bit of flame, but from the snout of one so young, it was enough to warn me of his future ways. Chawl, thus scorched, left his angry brother and began to bat his tail.

  Eetha, ruler of the air, sought solitude. When she found a private place in the far end of the pit, her sister, Ore, stumbled on behind. Eetha moved. Ore followed. She moved again. Ore came, nuzzling her and giving her a lick. At last Eetha gave up
and let her blue-eyed sister nestle with her.

  All this I watched as Lord Faul hovered beside me. Then the dragon tapped my crutch and bid me test the water.

  “Tepid,” I called back.

  “Scoop the broth into a broken shell,” he ordered. “Then let the pips have drink.” Faul passed me a bit of shell, which was the rough shape of a great feast bowl.

  I tipped the shell to dump the drink, but Faul shoved me to the ground hard and dragged the shell to his pips.

  “It’s bitter,” I warned. But the pips dipped their snouts in the brew and drank. In years gone I’d seen young calves suckle their mother’s milk and watched Bram’s wiggling piglets. All were anxious before the feed and calmed when at the teats. But it was topsy-turvy with the pips. They’d seemed innocent as lambkins before the feed, but the brew enraged them. Soon they were growling and biting and clawing one another. Chawl bit Kadmi. Kadmi spewed fire. Ore scratched Kadmi’s belly, opening a raw wound. Eetha bit Chawl’s tail. Sand flew. Pips hissed and snarled. I put my hand in to stop them and Chawl bit my wrist.

  “Ow! Evil creatures!” I screamed, cradling my wound. “Why give them a bitter drink when there’s sweet water just outside?”

  “Bitterness is dragon’s milk,” growled Faul. “And it’s your race that made it so.” He flicked his tail and snapped his jaws as if eating the very shadows that twitched along the walls.

  In the pit the pips settled down at last to lick their wounds, and curled up to sleep. Pips a-slumber, I wrapped my wound with the edge of Marn’s cloak, crawled to a warm place near the fire, and gave myself to rest.

  I thought how the pips had been born on the feast day of Saint Florian, who for his faith was set on fire and cast into the River Enns with a rock tied to him. And I fell asleep weighted with the strangeness of the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Knight’s Folly

  THE NEXT NIGHT I dreamed Kye rode his dark horse to the isle. Lifting me to his saddle, he rode across the sea on a bridge of bones and feathers. On Wilde Island he sparked a flame and burned the bridge. Heat rose over the sea and my hand grew hot. I awoke, found a burningstone glowing near my fingertips, and flicked it back toward the fire with my talon.

  It was my fifth morn on Dragon’s Keep and Lord Faul’s purpose was clear now with the hatching of his brood. Mother dead, I was to be their nursemaid. The task already had my arms and back aching. I’d spent all of my fourth day here cleaning piss and scat from the dragon’s cave, plucking wild milkweed and thistle, and boiling bitter milk. And what was my reward for this? A trout flung to me at dawn, another at eventide, and all the boiled milkweed I could bear to stomach.

  My hair was tangled, my clothing torn and filthy. And worst, I reeked of dragon stink. I longed for rescue, for knights brave enough to come ashore and take me home. How I wanted to stand at Dentsmore harbor when Father returned victorious from war with news of his heroic deeds and Kye’s mastery in battle.

  I arose and brushed clumps of moss from my person. I slept as a mockingbird in a nest of stolen forestry. Moss, rushes, and leaves were my bower. Lord Faul flicked his tail and left the cave. I knew my task. Searching in the half-light, I scooped up pips’ scat with a bit of broken shell. Three of the pips were good about their leavings, burying them in the sand as cats will do, but Chawl went wherever he had a mind to squat and never buried his, so the piss and scat were everywhere.

  The pips slept on as I cleaned. The piss was bright orange and easy to see on the sand even in the morning’s dark. I cleaned the cave with care but I still spilled orange sand on my flesh and on my May Day gown. The stain rose up the skirt like a stinking sun in a tattered sky.

  Chore done, I hobbled to the mouth of the cave, took my sorry gift outside, and dumped it in the woods. I was crutch-free now, a bit of dragon skin sloughed from Lord Faul’s tail wrapped around my ankle. It was sound and strong as thick leather, and he had given it to me so I could toss my crutch and work all the harder. My gait was graceful as a rooster’s as I made my way to the river.

  The falls sang nearby as I drank and ate the trout left for me on the river stones. Lord Faul came up from behind. “Come, Briar,” he said. “It’s time to harvest.”

  “What is this river called?” I asked, coming to a stand.

  “The trees call it Ashath,” said Faul.

  “The trees?” I said with a laugh. “Am I to believe the trees can speak?”

  “Believe what you like. Your race has been deaf ever since it learned to speak.” He gripped me round the middle, though not harshly, and lifted me into the air. I knew dragons spoke many languages, those of men and even those of beasts, but I’d never heard trees speak. Wind rushed through the boughs below. Was this a kind of speech? I wanted to ask Lord Faul, but he set me by the milkweed patch and flew skyward.

  I slipped on my gloves to protect against the thistles. The hills and the sloping valley were much the same as those on Wilde Island yet no people had come here to cut trees, plow fields, and build their townships. Near the thistle patch wild mustard swayed, and closer to the greenwood in the damper soil cornflowers, wild iris, and angelica grew. I gave a crooked smile at that. How many times I’d seen Sir Magnus sprinkle angelica in the doorways whispering, “Step not across, thou evil beast,” to ward off the dragon. What a lackwit Magnus was.

  I picked myself a posy, tucked the stems under Kit’s brooch, and went to work again. When Mother first saw the brooch she’d been troubled by it. “Where did you get that?” she’d asked, hurt and suspicious, as if the brooch were hers. Indeed, thinking more on it and knowing it came from Aliss, I wondered if it had been Mother’s once. Had she given it to Aliss long ago when they were school friends? Or had she slipped it to her before sending her away to Demetra? If not, how could one as poor as Alissandra come by such fine silver?

  I uprooted another thistle. The brooch was surely Mother’s. What message did Aliss send my mother by giving it to Kit? This I could not puzzle out.

  More hours passed. My back, legs, and arms ached, but I feared Faul’s anger if I didn’t pick a passel of the weeds.

  When the sun spread its noontide gold upon the grass, I stood to ease my shoulders and saw a glint of metal crest the hill. Next I spied a helmet, armor, and the full form of a knight.

  “You’ve come!” I cried, flinging down the thistles. Then another knight appeared behind the first, and behind him seven slayers. Knights and slayers to my rescue! I hobbled to the men. All knelt down on the grass.

  “God be praised!” said Niles Broderick.

  “We’ve come with news,” said Sir Kimball.

  “News later,” I said. “The dragon will return anon. He’s by the waterfall a mile from here. And sure we must away before he picks up your scent.”

  “Niles will take you to our skiff,” said Sir Kimball. “We’re armed against the dragon. We’ll go slay him and retrieve Evaine’s scepter.”

  “Don’t go. Swords and wolf’s bane are useless. The dragon will eat you all before you ever have a chance to fight. We have to leave at once!”

  “Our quest is set,” said Niles.

  “This was our oath,” said the other.

  I pleaded more but neither of them listened and Niles ushered me from the hill.

  “Do you know where the treasure’s hid?” called Sir Kimball from the forest edge.

  “I’ve not seen it. Come with us now!” But he went on with the slayers.

  Down the hill I hobbled. First Niles helped me with his arm, then seeing the pain in my face from my throbbing ankle, he carried me, his nose wrinkling as he smelled my dragon stench. My weight and his heavy armor made our progress slow. Here we were exposed as docile field mice in the grass.

  “Hurry on,” I urged, and later still, “I’ll walk.” But Niles did not put me down until we reached the rocks. He helped me navigate the slippery boulders, then carried me into a watery cave where the small sailing ship waited in the shallows.

  “It’s madnes
s to try and kill the dragon.”

  “It was our pledge.”

  I grabbed the boat. “Help me pull it outside. We have to get away!”

  “We stay and wait for the others.”

  “They’ll all die!” I tugged the ship harder. It moved but a few inches in the shallow water. “Help me, knave, if you want to live!”

  Niles seemed amused as I strained against the skiff. He crossed his arms and looked at the dragon skin wrapped about my foot. Lowering my gown in modesty, I stopped pulling and tried to reason with the man.

  “Niles. The dragon’s all power. Already Sir Kimball and his host of slayers are lost, I swear, and once Lord Faul has feasted on them—”

  “Lord who?”

  “The dragon will come after us. Will you not help me?”

  “We stay on.”

  I lunged for him. “God’s bones! I’m queen here, and I order you to help me shift this boat!”

  Niles gently pulled away and held out his palm. “Do you see this?” he asked, tracing a scar across his flesh. “I pledged blood upon this quest as did the good Sir Kimball. We swore before our sovereign queen that we would kill the dragon and bring you home along with Queen Evaine’s scepter.”

  “Mother and her wants,” I said. “Does she want me rescued or the scepter?”

  “Both.”

  “If she still thinks I’ll wave the magic scepter and restore Wilde Island to England’s bosom, she’s a knave!”

  “Don’t talk like that about the queen!”

  “I’ll say what I like. Ignore my mother’s greed for once and obey me! The queen is . . .” I searched for the right word here. “Unwell.”

  Niles frowned.

  “Think,” I urged. “The Pendragon scepter isn’t worth your life, is it? Think of all the dragonslayers we’ve lost, Niles.” I caught myself before saying his father’s name, but we both thought of him. A look of pain came to Niles’s eyes.

  “Your father was the best of our knights,” I said more gently now. “I don’t want Mother adding your name to the Dragon-stone.”