The Dragon, the Witch, and the Railroad

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  Dragon Train Westbound

  The engine dragons, Wol and Gem, knew very well when the men dragged the Dragon Vitia down the meadow and through the village on a make-shift sledge. They heard her ferocious roars, dampened by chains binding her muzzle to an impotent whimper, for miles before the men lowered her onto three adjoining flat cars, ordered especially from the Drague station and added to the train en route to Velasco, Argonia, and Queenston. There they reinforced the chains already imprisoning her mighty body with still heavier ones to strap her to the cars.

  “Help me!” she implored them in the Silent Tongue of dragons. They understood it poorly, since its use had largely died away once their kind entered into service.

  “Just you lie there quietly, my girl,” Gem told her, “and don’t thrash about so that you move your cars from the tracks and wreck our train. Be a good beast and we’ll be in the city in a few days.”

  “Yes, if you didn’t want to go into service, you ought not to have bothered the men. You had your freedom and you’ve squandered it,” Wol added.

  “You might say you’ve made your flatbed and now must lie on it,” Gem concluded.

  Still, they did not like having her aboard. Not one bit. Wild dragons were dangerous and unpredictable. Furthermore, Wol and Gem quickly sensed the presence of three other dragons nearby. A half-grown one and two hatchlings. Really, there was simply no more room for more such livestock on this run so they hoped the lazy beasts stayed out of sight of the men.

  There was no sign of them, however, when the train pulled into the next fueling station and Wol and Gem were released long enough to revive themselves with bushels of kibble and gallons of water.

  “Should we feed the wild one as well? It might calm her,” their wrangler suggested to the leader of the hunting party.

  “No, let her go hungry for now. She’s probably still full of young girls, the old monster.”

  “Monster? Who are they calling a monster?” Wol and Gem asked each other. They were highly responsible professionals and resented the pejorative term.

  At least they did until they had their fill of kibble, water, and a bit of exercise. Three passengers came aboard then. Soon after, the engine beasts felt the three young dragons they’d sensed before flying near the flat cars.

  However, by that time they were full of kibble and couldn’t be bothered to care. They hadn’t had the use of their wings in years. Let the men protect their own airspace.

  Chapter 29

  The Value of Vitia’s Trinkets

  Verity, Toby, and Ephemera reached the station well ahead of the train carrying the captured dragon Vitia. Time was therefore no problem, but coming up with the fare was. “Too bad your ancient mages didn’t leave behind a few baubles instead of a marsh full of cats and some spooky shadows,” Toby told the older woman.

  “I have some baubles they might take,” Verity said, and pulled a handful of beads from her pocket. “I took these from Vitia’s hoard. They’re like the ones her hatchlings helped me make, so they may be valuable.”

  Toby looked around nervously. “I haven’t seen the cats since we first left the marsh and they were streaming through the meadow.”

  “I’m not entirely sure they’re corporeal cats,” Ephemera said, yawning.

  Verity approached the ticket window and held up a bead to the station master. “I’m told these are considered quite valuable here,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t be required to explain at any length, in which case she’d have to tell how she got them, which she suspected would turn out to be illegal and at any rate would take quite a long time to relate.

  The stationmaster took the bead and held it to the window, turning it this way and that. “How many are travelling?” he asked.

  She started to dig for more beads. “Three of us,” she said.

  He grinned, smiling smugly at the bead, admiring it from all sides. One bead was probably too much. Then he handed her three tickets. “Sure you wouldn’t like to pay for a few more?”

  “We’re the only ones in the station,” she pointed out.

  “Oh well!” he said cheerfully. “All aboard.”

  Ephemera cast a backward glance at the stationmaster, who was polishing the bead on his pants.

  Verity followed her gaze. “Looks like these beads must be good for something besides indicating which girl gets to be carried off by dragons.” she said. She didn’t mention the ability the beads conferred to engage in discourse with dragons, but surely that wasn’t common knowledge so people could hardly value the trinkets for that reason.

  Her aunt nodded thoughtfully. “There’s some sort of reference to that in an old Glassovian folk song but I’ll have to look it up after we return to Wormroost. Or perhaps Herself the Dragon Vitia can explain it to you, Verity, once we release her.”

  “We’re going to release her?” Toby asked.

  “I rather thought we would,” she said. “Verity’s young friends will be much calmer with their mother close.”

  “Yes, but that means we have to help her escape,” Toby said.

  “Naturally,” Ephemera said. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

  They were helped into a car full of jubilant rescuers, and Verity turned back to the conductor and said, “This car seems crowded. Is there room in any of the others?”

  “Ain’t no others, Miss,” the conductor said. “Not many passengers on this run till we reach Velasco Station so normally there’s only this one. Sorry.”

  “Going to be a bit hard to conspire when those we’re conspiring against are sharing a bench for hours on end,” Toby pointed out. “But I checked and there are no box cars on this leg of the journey.”

  “I can probably do most of our conspiring with our companions who are not actually aboard the train,” Verity whispered. She had to tell the truth, but there was no reason she had to do so loudly.

  Ephemera no sooner sat down than she fell asleep, her head lolling against the back of the bench, her mouth open, snoring softly. Verity was exhausted herself, and quite hungry enough to eat one of Screech and Skronk’s on-the-hoof meals. Her most pressing concern, actually, with miles ahead of them and nothing they could do about anything else at the moment, was whether or not there would be a tea trolley and if so would they too accept a bead in payment?

  Toby had a different problem. “There you are, boy,” said Sir Archibald, his former boss. “I saw the ruins of that expensive balloon you built me. Figured you were a goner, too.”

  “No, sir, not quite,” he said. “Knocked out and half-drowned and by the time I came to, you gentlemen had come and gone after the dragon. I see you got her. Were you able to save the girl?”

  “Alas, no,” the boss said. “Nor did we find a decent hoard—we had the bad luck to find the only dragon in the known world who collects beads! We had to dig through them to get to the real gold and gems. Couldn’t believe our luck that she was gone when we arrived and fell into the forest after the first volley, just waiting for us to capture her.”

  “Oh, indeed, sir. Very lucky, that,” Toby said.

  Verity hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. She fingered the beads of her necklace while her young pupils called to her. “Beadspinner?”

  “Here, girls,” she said.

  “Where? We can’t see you.”

  “That’s because I’m inside the train.”

  “What’s a train?”

  “It’s the thing carrying your mother on top of those flat cars.”

  “The segmented Wyrm with the noisy feet and enormous roar?”

  “Yes, I suppose it does seem like that, but it’s mechanical, except for the dragons providing the fire for the steam.”

  “More dragons?”

  At this point an indignant presence asserted itself. “What do you mean more, whoever you are? This is our train. We are responsible and we are in charge. Don’t even think of trying to take it over.”

  In her mind, the dragon Vitia said, very groggily, “W
ater.”

  Her muzzle was chained shut and for the sunny part of the day she, who was used to sleeping in a dark cave, was chained to the train after being wounded in several places and dragged in chains from the woods and overland to the train, exposed to the sunlight and the steam and rocking motion of the train, All of this Verity felt coming from the great dragon.

  The train dragons changed their tone.

  “Of course you need water, poor beast,” said Gem. “We get water and food at Border Station again. Maybe they will give you some, too. No dragon left behind is our motto, right, Wol?”

  “You said it, Gem.”

  “I’ll speak to the conductor,” Verity promised.

  “What about?” a human voice said close to her ear. One of the men from the rescue party was bending over her, staring pointedly at her chest. “What you playing with there, Missy?”

  “Just my beads,” she said.

  “Pretty. Where’d you get them?”

  “My mother gave me one and then I made some to match it,” she said. She had to tell the truth, but it need not always be the whole truth.

  “They look a lot like what we saw in the dragon’s cavern. Stupid beast had nothing but piles of beads like that. No jewels or gold or anything I’d bother to hoard.”

  “Mmm,” she said. The best she could do under such circumstances was to be noncommittal.

  It didn’t help. “Say, you’re a strange lookin’ lassie. Light hair, dark skin, where have I seen that description before?”

  She shrugged and stood up. “Excuse me, I have to see a man about a dragon. I must find the conductor.” This was not difficult since there was really only one place for him to conduct in a train with but a single passenger car. He was in a sort of alcove secluded off from the rest of the car by a panel extending from one side to the aisle. He wore a flowery apron over his uniform and was busy cutting the crusts off little sandwiches for the tea trolley.

  She had been thinking hard about what she could say that was not only truthful but also would serve to convince the railway crew to care for Vitia as she asked.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the conductor. “It has come to my attention that that beast you’re hauling is wounded. I happen to be from a family whose business is dragons and I was brought up around them. If she doesn’t receive water, and soon, and also food, she will perish and you will be carrying a dead dragon to Queenston. I hardly think that would benefit anyone.”

  “You’re her!” the conductor said, standing erect and waving the silver sugar tongs at her. “You’re that lass those men rescued!”

  “They didn’t, actually,” she said. “I rescued myself. It was no problem. The dragon flew away and I popped out while she was gone. But the thing is, she was quite decent to me, as wild dragons go, from what I’ve heard. And killing her by neglect is bad business.”

  Stockyard Syndrome

  “Aye, I know what’s happened to you!” he declared. “You’ve got that Stockyard Syndrome.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s not uncommon. ’Tis said many of the lassies taken from the village of Stockyard over the years have had it. So it’s found when someone encounters one of them unexpected-like, in a distant village. The local philosopher, him as runs the pub, says that it makes sense because the lassies want the dragon to like them—alive, not for lunch—and to make it so they end up knowing all about dragon and actually kind of like her. That’s why they go other places, they say. Of course, nobody alive has met a survivor in recent years, but them as were met had Stockyard Syndrome sure enough, as do you.”

  “Perhaps,” she admitted, although she doubted it. It could be true because probably she wouldn’t realize it if she did, would she? “But she is also very valuable and my family business will no doubt end up owning her, if she survives the journey, so I hope I may trust you to see that she does so?”

  “Yes, Madame—I mean, Mistress. I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you. There will be a tip for you in it when we reach somewhere I can lay hands on money. Meanwhile, you have my sincere gratitude, and quite possibly, hers as well.”

  “I live to serve, Madame—Mistress,” he said, proving, in case there was any doubt, that he did not have a curse similar to her own.

  Returning to her bench, she felt the pressure of seven pairs of eyes upon her. She met them collectively with a glare. “Yes, I am Verity Brown, who was taken by force and given to the dragon Vitia. Kind of you to rescue me all these months later, when by now, were she that sort of dragon, I would have been her meat for a day or two soon after she carried me to her lair. Thanks ever so.” Since she was not truly thankful to them, she added from between gritted teeth, “Not.”

  “Verity, it’s me, Briciu. I can see how you’d feel that way, sweetheart,” said Briciu with a smile that said he knew and understood everything. Which he did not. “But I came as soon as I could and we did the best we could considering the weather on the mountain. Inside the cave, you may not have been aware of the storms. But even your auntie did not brave the peak on your behalf until we came for you.”

  “She’s an old lady,” Verity pointed out.

  Ephemera’s left eyebrow arched in protest, but she didn’t open her eyes.

  “She remained in the vicinity when she might have just gone about her business in Drague, like everybody else.”

  “True, and you survived and we captured the beast so ’tis a happy ending for everyone,” added the most rustic of the rescuers.

  “Except the Dragon Vitia,” Verity said, biting her tongue to refrain from adding too much more truth—that Loveday and Copperwise, who were at large, weren’t exactly overjoyed at what was happening to their mother either.

  “Of course not,” he said, as if the idea were preposterous.

  “How would you like to be wounded and cruelly chained to a moving train?” she asked indignantly.

  “But, Verity, dearest, you of all people should know we were only disabling her in order to capture her and carry her to the city for rehabilitation.”

  “You mean to exploit her for breeding or industrial use,” she said, as unable to stop as if she were a runaway train.

  Sir Archibald’s bushy eyebrows shot up and he glanced from Briciu to Verity, looking genuinely puzzled, “Dear girl, as I understand it, your family fortune is based on, to use your words, the exploitation of such creatures.”

  “Ungrateful brat,” another among her heroes said.

  Ephemera sat up, as startling to the others as if she were a rock come to life. “It’s ready! I shall perform it now!” she announced.

  Before anyone else could ask what, she continued, “The Ballad of Verity’s Rescue.”

  “If you want to free the beast, make me an offer,” Sir Archibald continued as if Ephemera hadn’t spoken.

  “I left my purse in the cavern,” she said. “But as soon as we’re back to Queenston, I will do just that.”

  “Excellent,” he said, and pulled out a flask. This was a signal for all of the others to pull out their flasks, just as the conductor wheeled the tea trolley down the aisle.

  “Oh good, we can dilute the spirits with tea and make them last a wee bit longer.”

  Ephemera’s voice rose commandingly above the voices of the others. “As I was saying, I have composed a ballad of our recent adventures. Perhaps you all might assist me by filling in the gaps in the story with your own experiences.”

  The men, fueled by the doctored tea, were only too willing to brag of their exploits and it saved Verity from having to talk, giving her more time to commune with the dragons.

  Nobody’s in the Cavern of the Dragon

  (to the tune of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad)

  Ephemera began, to the tune of a song made popular by the men who built the railway:

  Six strong men against a dragon

  Climbed a mountain high

  For to rescue a young maiden

  Or at least to try.

 
; They thought that she was a goner

  Was already toast

  Still they sallied forth for honor

  And the right to boast.

  With their weapons of destruction

  Uphill they did troop,

  But the dragon heard their ruction

  And she flew the coop.

  Then there was the chorus:

  Nobody is inside the dragon’s cavern

  Nobody is there I know-o-o-o

  Nobody is inside the dragon’s cavern

  It’s a waste of time to go.

  another verse:

  There was no maiden in the cavern

  Nor the dragon’s hoard

  So they headed for the tavern

  But just then the dragon roared.

  “But it was far more glorious and perilous than that,” Sir Archibald complained.

  Chapter 30

  Toby and Taz help Vitia

  For the first leg of the trip, Toby sat with his back to Verity, as if he were traveling alone.

  For many hours, he didn’t have to worry about so much as even being included in the conversation because the men who were awake were busy bragging to each other or congratulating themselves on Vitia’s capture, which Toby was pretty sure had partly been Vitia’s own idea—not to get captured but to seem capture-able to draw the men off. Other winged mothers were known to do that, too.

  Then Verity introduced herself—or admitted to being who she was, since she couldn’t help it. Toby had never had much problem with her over-sharing honesty, but she had a certain reputation and this was not a situation where these people needed to know any truth they hadn’t already figured out.