by Deck Davis
Benjen didn’t seem so impressed with the bustle of the square, and instead couldn’t take his gaze off the statue that dominated the square.
Joshua could see why.
It was a dragon. A giant stone carving of a dragon. It wasn’t in an attacking pose but instead was lying down, with its tail curled up toward its face like a puppy. One of its gigantic eyes was open and seemed to stare at the scene around it, and its scales were carved in such detail that Joshua could see the nicks and ridges on each one.
Now, he wasn’t a dragon expert. That much was clear already. But he’d seen this dragon before. This stone dragon, which had a wooden sign in front of it declaring its name as Orogoth, was currently sleeping in front of their guild house. The real Orogoth, that was, not just the stone representation.
“Do they worship it, or something?” said Benjen.
“Surely not. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“I don’t know, people all the way out east, they’ve got some funny customs…”
“You sound like your racist grandpa.”
“I’m just saying, perhaps the townsfolk aren’t as worried about this Orogoth as we are. After all, you don’t worship something that scares you.”
“Benny, half of the religions in Fortuna are built on fear. Think of old Tusker back at the village, and how he takes that little carving of a gem-shark with him every time he goes fishing. He says prayers to it before he goes out. You know why? That’s how he lost his arm. A gem-shark bit it off. Now, he thinks that if he treats them like gods, they’ll leave him alone.”
“Maybe that’s what these folks are doing.”
“They worship it, that’s for sure. You don’t say ‘praise Orogoth’ and build a statue for it otherwise. I’m thinking they might not take kindly to us planning on moving it along.”
“Maybe this particular dragon isn’t Orogoth. I mean, it looks like an old statue. How long do dragons live? Thirty years? Forty?” said Benjen.
“Eh, I don’t know, a couple of hundred at least.”
“Wow,” said Benjen. “Orogoth, you old bugger, I wish I could say that it’s nice to meet you, but you’re actually a massive pain in the arse.”
A child ran up to them. At first, Joshua was taken aback. This was a little harpy boy; he had a long face that although predominantly human, had some imp blended into it. He wore dungarees that covered most of his chest and his legs but nothing underneath, so Joshua could see his wiry arms and the wings sticking out from his back, these ones dark like ash and much bigger than a crowsie’s wings.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get a seeker boost on seeing the harpy; he’d already met one in the village when he was working in the tavern and a travelling harpy had stopped in for a drink. Joshua wished he’d been given the binding from birth – imagine what level it would be at now! Then again, he knew that you could only wear one when you reached adulthood. Damn it.
He started to get a little uncomfortable. Seeing harpies in a settlement like this was rare. Although not usually hostile unless provoked, harpies didn’t like crowds, and they were immensely territorial to the point that years ago, back before the three kings signed the universal treaty that stopped a lot of the pointless race skirmishes, travelers wandering within a mile of a harpy camp site would get attacked, with the winged imp-men and women screaming down from the sky and baring their claws.
“Can I pet your horse?” said the harpy boy.
“Go ahead,” said Benjen.
“I meant this one,” said the boy, leaning toward Roebuck, who suffered the boy’s scratches with a wheeze.
“Do they not have horses around here, or something?” said Benjen.
“Some. Better than these ones. This one is older than my grandpa. I’m Pelo,” said the boy.
“This is Joshua, and I’m Benjen.”
“You two stink, you know,” said Pelo.
Joshua grinned. Benjen raised his armpit and smelled it. “It’s been a long journey, kid.”
“Your voice sounds stupid. Dumb, like a farmer.”
“That’s the west of Fortuna for you,” said Benjen, who had the most patience of anybody Joshua had ever known, and so far, hadn’t shown a single flicker of annoyance at Pelo the harpy boy’s jibes.
“I’m going to steal from you when I get chance,” said Pelo. He then jumped a foot into the air. He beat his ash-colored wings, making Roebuck flinch at the unexpected movement, and then rose higher. He flew above Roebuck and then lowered himself down until he was atop the horse.
Joshua knew about patience around children, too. After all, his older sister Tessa had three young ones – his nephews and nieces, Kurt, Vinar, and Kiela. As their uncle, babysitting duty had been a significant part of his life, and he’d spent more hours than he liked to think about chasing them around the village and stopping them getting into trouble. He knew how to keep his cool.
But wow, this harpy kid. Insulting their smell and their accents? Declaring he was going to steal from them? Climbing on top of Roebuck? This boy had no inhibitions whatsoever.
The problem was, Joshua had to watch himself. If the boy’s parents were around, he didn’t want to offend them. A harpy with a grudge would follow you to the ends of the world to make it right.
Looking around, and not seeing any other harpies milling around, Joshua gently slapped Roebuck’s rump.
The horse reared, and Pelo fell to the ground with a ‘humph.’
Class: Horserider
Animal Bond skill [Specialty: Horse] increased from Novice 3 to 4/10
Joshua offered his hand and pulled him to his feet.
“Grouchy horse,” said the boy. “Won’t be long until it’s dead, no?”
“Do you just say whatever goes through your mind?” said Benjen.
“Dad says it’ll get me into trouble. But then, he’s losing his hair, so nobody is perfect.”
“I don’t know how he got that idea.”
“Where is your dad?” asked Joshua.
“At work.”
“And your mum?”
“Dead. Rotting in the ground, probably.”
“Sorry. Isn’t there a school you should be at, or something?”
Pelo boy shrugged. “They won’t let me in.”
“Why not?”
“They just won’t.”
Joshua felt bad for him. True, the kid was annoying, and he didn’t seem capable of thinking before he spoke. But, then, a lot of children were annoying. As long as they didn’t stay that way when they grew up, that was all that mattered.
He couldn’t think why a school wouldn’t take him for lessons, though. It just meant that the boy would have to buzz around the market, saying whatever popped into his head and eventually, angering the wrong people.
He looked around eleven or twelve years old to Joshua. That was the age a lot of kids got apprenticeships, if they weren’t taking a more academic route. Maybe there was a plan for the boy; he could learn a trade. Until then, he needed something to do if he wasn’t in school.
“You got any hobbies?” said Joshua.
Benjen caught his stare. “We better get a move on. See what we can do about our scaly problem.”
Pelo shrugged. “I like to base jump.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s a mountain range ten miles that way,” said the boy, pointing south west. “I climb one of the peaks and jump off, and make sure not to use my wings until the last moment.”
“Ah, so you have a death wish?” said Benjen.
“No…I just like being scared. I would never get hurt.”
A look took hold of Benjen’s face. Joshua had known his best friend long enough to recognize that look. It was a worrying one; Benjen had an idea.
“How fast can those things flap?” he said, nodding at Pelo’s wings.
It took only a second for Joshua to catch on. In his mind, he saw a harpy boy flying over the guildhouse. Then he saw a dragon chasing him. He saw fire, he saw
a charred body, and he saw him and Benjen being chased away from Ardglass by a clan of enraged harpies vowing eternal revenge.
“No, Benny,” he said. “Not a good idea at all.”
“It was just a thought. Listen, kid. Orogoth is the dragon who sleeps outside the guild, right?”
“The guild?”
“The old abandoned building a mile or two along the road.”
“Oh. Yes, Orogoth has lived there a while now.”
“Don’t the townsfolk mind?”
Pelo shrugged. “Orogoth is the Heart. She can go where she wants.”
“They never try and move her?”
“Oh, no. That’s forbidden.”
Benjen ran his hands through his beard, something he did when he was agitated. “And what happens when people try?”
“They get burned alive, usually!”
“Okay,” said Joshua. “Thanks, kid. Stay out of trouble, okay?”
“Will do, mister. Praise be to Orogoth!”
“Yep, praise be to Orogoth,” said Benjen. “See you later.”
Pelo fluttered up a couple of feet and then drifted over the market square, and then darted toward a kitten who was peeking out from the side of the armory shop, presumably looking for a new playmate. When the boy was out of earshot, Joshua turned to Benjen.
“Phew. Lovely place we’ve stumbled into.”
“Forget this. I’m not giving everything up so we don’t break some forbidden rules. Whoever heard about worshipping a dragon?”
“I hadn’t, until now. We need to think about this. Let’s take Roebuck and Fireman to the stables and get them something good to eat, and in the meantime, we’ll go to the inn and get a beer and talk it through.”
“That’s the best plan I’ve heard in a while.”
~
The caravan was pulled along by a half-dozen stallions on a non-stop express route to the east. The caravan driver was over-eager with his whip, and each time it lashed on the horses’ skin, Kordrude winced.
His dwarf friend Janda had warned him not to interfere with the caravan; that his passage was free but only on the condition that he be as compliant and silent as the cargo the caravan was shipping up to Peaklight, stopping at Ardglass on the way.
After a while though, Kordrude heard one whip lashing too many and he couldn’t stop himself. He stood up and poked his head out of the caravan. The driver was ahead of him, hunched on a cramped seat, the reins in one hand and the whip in the other.
The driver was a kamolg, a race of people who walked on two legs like humans but resembled a more exotic desert-horse in appearance. They often made for perfect caravan drivers; they had bladders of steel – not literally – and could hold water inside them for a week at a time without needing to drink more. Not only that, but a lot of them were solitary by nature, and didn’t mind at all having to spend long nights alone on the road.
The strange thing, to Kordrude anyway, was the distain that lots of kamolgs, and this one in particular, had for horses. Kamolgs weren’t so far removed from horses themselves, even if they were a lot cleverer and had greater hand dexterity. Still, he guessed that a kamolg would get offended if he said that to them. After all, if someone compared Kordrude to a crow, he wouldn’t be inviting them to his next birthday party.
Whatever the reason for it, it made him sad to see the driver whip the animals. One of the horses, a beautiful chestnut creature at the back of the left row of 3, snorted. The driver raised his whip again.
Before he could use the whip, Kordrude grabbed it. The driver turned his head around to face him, and Kordrude almost lost his balance, he was so surprised at the anger on the driver’s face.
The driver was snorting louder than his horses, and there was spit around his mouth. “Janda said you wouldn’t bother me,” he said.
“Do you think you could hold back on using the whip a little?”
“I’ve got a deadline to hit.”
“But surely you don’t need to lash the poor beasts within an inch of their lives.”
“Think you can do better, crowsie? Them’s short wings you’ve got; done much flying lately?”
An ignorant jibe from an ignorant man. Kordrude chose to ignore it. He chose to do what he did whenever someone was rude to him in his office; he looked passed the rudeness itself and tried to picture the real person facing him. In almost anyone, if you dug deep enough, you could find some good in them, even if it was only a trace.
“Well?” said the driver. “Since you aren’t answering, I’m guessing maybe you can’t do better, so maybe you should let me do my job.”
“Fine,” said Kordrude.
Kordrude stepped into the driver’s seat compartment and he sat down. It was an incredibly tight squeeze for his gangly legs, but he tried not to show discomfort. He held his right hand out, and the driver, astonished, passed him the reins.
He held the reins lightly. He leaned forward, and he whispered. He used his language skill, and with that he spoke gently to the horses, urging them on and pressing them forward. He knew that to the caravan driver, unpracticed in advanced language, it would have sounded ridiculous - a series of snorts and ‘neighs.’
But between Kordrude and the animals it sounded different; it wasn’t like they spoke words to him. His linguist class didn’t translate their noises into comprehensible speech. It was more that they became like music and pictures in his head, and through these sounds and images he could understand the horses, and they could understand him when he made their sounds.
After a brief conversation, the horses ran faster than they had before. The driver shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it, and he put his whip down on the seat.
“Sorry if I behaved like an arse,” the driver said. “I only got into Dyrewood a couple of nights ago, and I’ve been non-stop on the road before that.”
“It’s a tough job,” said Kordrude. “I’d be the same.”
“I don’t mean to whip ‘em as much, you know. I just…until now, I never saw another way.”
“I’ll write down the name of a few books, if you’re interested,” said Kordrude.
“I can learn to talk to ‘em?”
“Probably not, because earning linguist level 4 takes years.”
“Level 4? Blimey! That’s expert level.”
“Like I said, you won’t learn that overnight. But, there are studies on animal behavior that you might find interesting. Now, you look shattered. Why don’t you go in the back and have a nap? I’ll wake you when we get to Ardglass.”
“Janda wouldn’t be too happy…”
“As long as the cargo gets their safely, Janda won’t care. Go on; get yourself down for a while.”
“Thanks, crowsie,” said the driver.
“One last thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Saying to me ‘thanks, crowsie,’ is kind of like me saying to you ‘thanks, kamolg.’ My name’s Kordrude.”
“Well met, Kordrude.”
And so, the caravan driver went into the wagon to sleep, and Kordrude sat on the front of the caravan and whispered to the horses as they ran, breaking only from a startling conversation of sounds and words to stare at the scenery around him. He was a middle-aged crowsie but he saw it all with fresh eyes as if he was just a hatchling again. The wind had changed a little, and it was a change brought about by two idealistic young lads from a village in the west, and Kordrude couldn’t help but feel like this was the beginning of something.
Soon, a town appeared in the distance. The guildhouse was nearby, he supposed, but he had approached from the south east, following the old trade routes as per Jando’s orders to his driver. He supposed the boys would there now, in their guild, maybe hammering away at nails or sawing wood, or perhaps enjoying a beer or two in the sun. Kordrude would pay them a visit.
He parked the caravan in a designated caravan section by the town gates. The driver stepped out from the back, and he stretched his arms and he yawned.
Kordrude felt tired himself. He hopped off the caravan and he looked around. As he did, a harpy boy flapped toward him, his feet three feet off the ground, his wings beating a hundred times a minute.
“Wow,” said the boy, as he approached. “Your wings are tiny! Mine are loads bigger!”
“Are you local to this town?” asked Kordrude.
“I live here.”
“Good. I wanted to ask you about a dragon…”
~
In the boot-shaped tavern, Joshua had found a table in the snug, while Benjen had gone to order them a beer and a snack each. With a fire burning in the hearth and Gobber dozing in his basket on the seat next to him, Joshua let himself feel tired for the first time in days. He’d held it in until now, but he had to admit that he was exhausted.
Joshua watched as Benjen, ever the penny-pincher, took a dozen empty beer bottles from his bag and traded them in toward the cost of their food and drink. He came back with two frothy ales and a pie each. Joshua eyed the deep yellow color of the pie and the hissing fat on top - a sign they were fresh from the oven - and he felt his stomach do cartwheels in gratitude.
“Get a load of the innkeeper,” said Benjen.
Joshua glanced over and saw that the innkeeper had his back to them while he wiped a mirror behind the bar.
“Why?”
“Wait until you get the next round of drinks, and you’ll see.”
“Next round? Planning a long session, are we?”
“Well, we need to come up with a way to get rid of a dragon. And not just any old dragon – a god, by the signs of it.”
“Did you believe Pelo?” asked Joshua.
Benjen gulped a quarter of his flagon of ale, and with barely a pause to swallow, tore off a chunk of pie. Unlike Joshua’s, there were just carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes covered in vegetable gravy in Benjen’s pie. He’d stopped eating meat when he was sixteen, after accompanying Throndike, the blacksmith he was apprenticed to, to a chicken farm.
