No Such Thing as Dragons

by Philip Reeve

  “He’s mad!” Else shouted. “Your master’s mad! The mountains work that way on some men. The mountain and the dragon between them have driven him stark mad. He’s worse than that lot at Knochen.”

  A little later she yelled, “Do you think he’ll find us?”

  Eventually the storm began to falter. The wind lost interest in them and went roaring off to trouble some other mountain. A few last snowflakes dithered down like exhausted moths. A cold light filled the valley. The sun showed briefly, like a white coin, heatless and colorless behind the speeding clouds. Little by little, Ansel and Else began to see their surroundings.

  They were not where Ansel had thought. In the blizzard, he had imagined that they were running straight down the scree slope, and that they had come to rest among the band of giant boulders at its foot. But it was not so. They had blundered diagonally across the slope instead, and had found their way out onto one of those narrow, rocky promontories that overlooked the glacier. At its end, thirty feet from Ansel and Else, four weathered pine trees stood. The fresh snow slid in heavy packets from their branches and dropped on the ground with weary hushing sounds. Just below them a tall, upright slab of rock sheltered a small ledge that had stayed almost free of snow. Something on that ledge caught the light.

  “Is that Brock?” asked Else, flinching back as if she’d glimpsed the dragon itself.

  Ansel shook his head. It was not a man, laid there on that lonely rock. Was it only ice, or some shining stone? But there seemed to be more than one. Yes…. As the storm swept away toward the lowlands and the sky above him lightened, he could see dozens of gleaming things there.

  His curiosity made him forget for a moment his cold-seared hands and toes and the ankle he had twisted coming down the screes. He set off along the promontory, limping a little, squinting against the dazzle as the sun peeked through the thinning clouds and rebounded blindingly from the snow-covered glacier below.

  “Ansel! Be careful!” shouted Else.

  Echoes boomed along the mountainsides. Half a mile away, a dollop of snow as big as a tithe-barn detached itself from a cliff and went rumbling and smoldering down into the valley. Else looked back, a hand to her mouth. Ansel scurried on. He pushed between the pines, over a brown lawn of fallen needles and down a mossy cleft between two rocks. It let him out onto the shelf he had seen from higher up. As he stepped out of the cleft he dislodged something, which fell with a clang. It was the breastplate from a soldier’s armor, rusted to the same color as the pine needles, its straps rotted away. He stared down at it, and then around at the other objects that lay all about him, scattered there in the thin snow.

  A lady’s mirror.

  The blade of a halberd.

  A string of jewels.

  The fittings from a bridle.

  A scrap of sodden yellow fabric.

  More bits of armor, some rustier than others, some still shining dully.

  Bright stones, small heaps of quartz, like dirty snow, with veins of glinting gold.

  One of Father Flegel’s raspberry leather boots.

  Ansel stared at that boot. It seemed to have fallen out of another world. He did not understand, for a moment, how the boot had come here.

  And then he did.

  I am in the dragon’s lair, he thought. Brock had been wrong. The creature did not live on the heights of the mountain. They were too cold and high and spiny for even a dragon to make its home on. It nested here.

  He started walking carefully backward toward the crack that he had emerged from. All around him now, among the litter of bright, shining things, he saw bones. He’d not noticed them at first, for most were as greeny-gray and lichenous as the rocks they lay among. Bones of cattle, bones of sheep, bones of human beings, the bones of Else’s father, maybe. A man’s finger bone with a scuffed iron ring still in place. A small skull, which rolled a little way with a hollow trundling sound when Ansel caught it with his heel.

  And among the bones, more bright things. Round and yellow like October birch leaves. Coins. Gold coins.

  Ansel stopped moving. He stood frozen, terrified that the dragon might return at any moment, but snared by the glint of the coins. The dragon must have been drawn by them too. Magpie-like, it had gathered all these shining things and brought them to this high ledge. The coins lay in a heap, mixed with rusty iron bands and hinges and a lock, the remains of a strongbox that had long since rotted away. Perhaps those fittings had been polished to a high sheen when the box was new. Perhaps that was what had made the dragon take it, not knowing or caring how much money was inside.

  How long would it take a thick oak box to rot away to nothing? Ansel wondered. How long had the dragon haunted this place, heaping up its treasures? And why?

  He stooped, and was about to start scooping the coins into his pockets, when he heard the flap of its big wings directly overhead.

  He crushed himself back into the cleft between the rocks as it came down, landing not ten feet away. It perched at the edge of the ledge, its back toward Ansel, looking out over the glacier. Too scared to move or breathe, Ansel huddled in his hiding place and watched it, mesmerized by the catlike to-and-fro twitching of the tip of its striped tail.

  It folded its wings like two awnings. It turned toward him, and he thought his heart would stop, sure that it had sensed or scented him. But it was intent on its collection. It had a shiny new find to add to it. It put the thing down and hopped fussily around, nudging its treasures carefully into new positions with delicate touches of its snout. This latest prize was shinier than all its other trinkets, and had to be put in pride of place, where the sun could glint on it to best advantage.

  The dragon was so busy that it was a while before Ansel was able to see what its new trophy was. Then, finally satisfied, it moved away toward the edge of the ledge again, and he could see what it had been doing.

  On top of a scraped-together heap of quartz and metal lay Brock’s sword.

  ELSE WAS STARTING TO FOLLOW ANSEL TOWARD THE PINES when the dragon came. She caught the flash of its wings out of the corner of her eye, bright as a carnival flag against the hanging fields of snow. She was down in the snow in a heartbeat, tugging the dirty fleece over herself as best she could, trying to hide her tattered finery.

  It didn’t see her. Maybe it wasn’t looking for prey. It carried something in its jaws which shone, flicking a bright spark of light into Else’s eyes as it dropped out of sight behind the pines. She knew it had gone down onto the ledge. Had Ansel seen it coming? Had he escaped in time? She hadn’t any way of knowing.

  If he had been anyone else, and the dragon had caught him, she would have heard him scream, but she didn’t think that Ansel would break his eerie silence even for the dragon. She envisioned him being gobbled up, soundless and uncomplaining. It brought tears into her eyes. She blinked them away.

  “There is nothing I can do, is there?” she said aloud, but very, very quietly. “It’s got him or it hasn’t. Poor little scrap. There’s nothing I can do.”

  She waited, watching, hoping to see Ansel come haring back between the pines. “What did he have to go down there for? Stupid! Stupid!” She wanted to save him. She wanted to scramble down onto the ledge and save him if the dragon had him. But she was a sensible girl. She knew the difference between real life and stories, and she knew that bravery like that would only end up with both of them in the dragon’s belly. And even more than she wanted to help Ansel, she wanted to live. She edged away backward over the snow, thinking, Poor little scrap.

  The dragon lifted up its head and sang to the brightening sky. Deep rumbling notes like a bass viol, rising to a shrill screech. It spread out its wings. It lashed its tail. It loosed a series of short, piercing notes like crossbow bolts, and the sound of its song rebounded from the mountains, and set off rumbling falls of snow on the steeps above the glacier.

  Ansel covered his ears and watched. The hilt of Brock’s sword shone among the dragon’s tarnished treasures like a cross of gold.<
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  So was Brock dead? Had it found him and eaten him? Ansel could not think how else it would have come by his sword. He thought, If it killed Brock, it will kill me and Else; there will be no one to stop it. And he thought, If I had not cut her free, Brock might have slain it. His plan might have worked. Now he’s dead, and I’m stuck in this crack, and the dragon will eat me….

  The dragon kept singing. It made strange little hopping movements with its wings stretched wide. It was like a dance, thought Ansel. He remembered watching birds dance like that, out in the water meads with his mother when he was little. How they’d laughed together at the silly waterfowl, in springtime. The he-birds had bobbed their heads about and minced around each other on their spindly legs. They’d fanned out their tail feathers like hands of cards, and aimed their beaks at the sky. “They are showing off to the hen-birds,” Ansel’s mother had told him. “That’s their way of saying, ‘Look at me! So proud! So handsome! I’ll make you a good husband, little hen!’”

  The dragon filled its lungs and shrilled its song again. It turned right around, holding out its wings, lifting its feather-fringed tail like a flag. It cocked its head toward the mountains, watching the sky.

  It is waiting for a mate, Ansel realized. It is waiting for another dragon to come. It wants to build a nest, and raise a brood of little dragonlets.

  And for a moment, just for a moment, he was not scared of the creature anymore. He felt sorry for it. He understood something of its dreadful loneliness. For how many springtimes had it been carrying shiny things up here to decorate its lair, and bellowing its mating cry into the empty sky? How far had it flown, and over how many mountains, searching for another of its kind? And not finding one. Not ever hearing an answer to its calls, except for echoes bounding back off rock faces and the grumble of avalanches. And years had gone by, and now it was old, and all it wanted was the companionship of another dragon. But maybe there were no others. Maybe the others were all dead.

  Suddenly, in the middle of its dance, it stopped, and stiffened. Its head went down, and its posture changed. It had caught a scent. Another dragon? thought Ansel, almost hopefully.

  But no.

  The dragon had scented him.

  It turned its head and its yellow eye glared at him. It curled its scaly lip and snarled.

  Ansel scrambled deeper into the cleft. He shoved himself into a space so tight that he had to twist his shoulders sideways and the two walls of rock clamped his head between them, keeping his face turned toward the dragon.

  A rack of ribs crunched under its claws like dry wicker as it prowled across the ledge and stuck its head into the cleft. Its claws scraped on the rocks, trying to prize them apart, as if Ansel were an oyster and the rocks his shell. The cleft filled with its stinking breath. Ansel started to tell himself a prayer, but the dragon roared, putting him off. He wondered if he was in his own tomb. Behind him the cleft widened again, leading up toward the pines, the way he had come. But he wouldn’t dare leave by that route. The dragon could flap its wings and be up there in an instant, waiting for him. Even if it grew bored and left him alone, he wouldn’t know if it had really gone away; it might be lurking out there, watching for him, like a cat on guard outside a mouse hole.

  But it must grow hungry, he promised himself. Maybe it will fly away, fly right away to find some easier meal. When I hear its wings flapping, then I’ll sneak out.

  But how long might that take? It was cold between those rocks. He hadn’t realized it when he first pushed his way through the cleft, but the sun never reached there. The rock faces were slick with ice and frozen moss, and Ansel’s breath came out as steam. The beast’s breath steamed too. It snorted twin plumes of vapor from its nostrils like a fiery dragon in a story. Ansel crammed himself deeper into the cold crevice.

  Suddenly something clonged like a cowbell out on the ledge. The dragon snorted again and straightened, tugging its head free of the cleft to look behind it. A stone fell somewhere, clattering. Then another, clanking this time against a rusted shield. The dragon turned itself around and went prowling out across the ledge.

  “Ansel!”

  Ansel looked behind him, then up. Else’s bundled head stared down at him from the crack of sky at the cleft’s top. He thought of her at the landslide, pelting the beast with stones.

  The dragon roared.

  “Ansel, run!” hissed Else, and the dragon heard her. Ansel saw it spring into the sky, spreading its wings as it went. He heard Else’s shriek as it soared over her, and he was running, without meaning to, or knowing that he had even started to move. It was as if his fear was a big hand that was shoving him out of the cleft and across the ledge. Some dead man’s ribs got caught around his ankle, making him stumble. He snatched Brock’s sword and lugged it after him. Under the sword was an old shield. Flakes of bright paint fell from it when Ansel snatched it up. They swirled around him like a many-colored blizzard while he shoved his arm through its two leather straps. One of the straps snapped soggily, rotted through by years of damp, but the other held. Thus armed, he went scrambling back into the cleft and up it toward the pines. Else was wailing somewhere above him. The shadows of the dragon’s vast wings flapped across the slice of sky above him. The shield banged heavily against his knees and the sword he dragged behind him scraped and sparked along the rocks.

  He came out into daylight. Else was among the pines, where the snow-heavy boughs hung down low to the ground. The dragon kept sticking its head in to get her and then pulling back, alarmed by the heaps of snow that were dropping from the higher branches to burst upon its back. Else scrambled about on all fours in the pine-needle shadows, trying to keep out of its way. She was trying not to make a sound, but screams and whimpers kept bursting out of her, and they made the dragon more eager than ever to reach her.

  Ansel scuffed through the snow toward the creature. It didn’t know he was there, or maybe didn’t care. Its tail snaked past him, feathers flapping, and he had to lean backward to save himself from being knocked flat. He lifted Brock’s too-heavy sword in both hands, letting the shield dangle. The dragon darted forward again, rummaging in the dark under the pines for Else. Its tail lay like a snake along a snowy rock. Almost without meaning to, Ansel brought the sword down. It was so heavy it just seemed to fall, taking his hands down with it. He watched it drop. It hit the dragon’s tail a few feet from its tip, and cut it almost through.

  Blood splashed and spouted, deep red against the whiteness of the snow. The dragon shrieked, and the sound was red too, somehow, a blazing explosion of red inside Ansel’s head. He dropped the sword and blundered sideways as the dragon whipped around, roaring in pain and rage. The mountains roared with it, echoes and avalanches booming among the watching crags. Snow crashed off the pines, knocking the dragon sideways, and almost knocking Ansel down too as he struggled away from it. The shield still hung from his arm by its one strap, encumbering him. He tried to shake it off, but the strap was snagged on his clothes, so he dragged it with him like a broken wing, plowing through deep snow toward the nearest rocks.

  Behind him the dragon snarled and whimpered. The snow around it was scuffed and pink with soaked-in blood. It lifted its tail, but the end hung broken, nearly severed. Spreading its wings, it heaved itself into the air, roaring again at Ansel, but the loss of its tail had lamed it somehow; it slewed sideways and crashed against a tree, dislodging another rush of snow and flushing Else out of the shadows beneath the bottom branches. She scrambled after Ansel to the rocks. Together they pushed through between them, looking for somewhere to hide: A cave, an overhang, even a crack like the one he had just been caught in would be welcome. But there was nothing. Just five boulders perched in a half-circle at the top of a steep slope of snow reaching down to the glacier.

  The dragon roared again, not far behind. They saw its lurching shadow on the snow beyond the rocks. Watching it, Else missed her footing and plunged down the slope, rolling downhill through the crumbly snow for twenty feet before s
he managed to stop herself. The dragon roared. The noise drove an idea into Ansel’s head. He held the shield over his head and waded downhill in the wake of scumbled snow that Else had made. He reached her as she stood up, dashing snow from her face. He wrenched the old shield off his arm, snapping the strap, and set it facedown on the snow.

  She stared at him, and understood. The dragon’s angry shadow spilled over them. It stood at the top of the ridge and roared, afraid to come down after them on foot in the deep snow, afraid to fly with its broken tail. It roared, and watched Else and Ansel as they clambered onto the shield. There wasn’t room for both of them, not really, but they crammed themselves on somehow, and as Ansel lifted his boots from the snow, the shield started to slide.

  The dragon saw them start to slither away from him, quickly gathering speed. It started after them, but the snow gave way beneath its weight and it almost fell, whipping its maimed tail up to balance itself and scattering specks of blood like bright red flowers across the slope. It roared again, but Else and Ansel barely heard it. Their ears were filled with the high hiss of the shield as it raced over the snow. It spun around and around as it swept downhill, and spilled them at last, gasping and giddy, into a drift on the surface of the glacier.

  The dragon was gone. There was nothing on the rocky promontory behind them but those four pines.

  “Where is it?” said Else, craning her neck, the crags swinging dizzily around her.

  Ansel looked too. No dragon.

  Else sat down, and laid her hand on the shield. “We used to slide down the fields on wooden sledges in Knochen in the wintertime, when I was small,” she said, with a sort of wondering sound in her voice, as if the memory was newfound and very strange. She looked up at Ansel, and said, “I thought the dragon had you when I saw it come down. I was going to creep away. I thought I was too frightened to try and fetch you out. I was halfway gone before I realized I wasn’t. This isn’t a mountain to be left alone on, is it?”