Handbook for Dragon Slayers

by Merrie Haskell

  We stole deeper into the forest. A quiet hoofstep tipped me off, and when we came around the corner to find Joyeuse and Durendal, Judith and I both heaved a sigh of relief.

  But our sighs came too soon. The silent night was split by a thunderclap and a light as bright as two suns. Judith and I both shouted and clutched our ears, clenching our eyes shut, until the thunder died away and witch light overtook the world.

  The baying of the hounds and the call of the horn followed quickly after.

  Judith and I stood silent beside the horses, blades ready, waiting. I wished I had grabbed the silver sword and not the dagger. I wished that, like Judith, I had thought to sleep with a sword.

  The Wild Hunt arrived.

  The great bright-dark stallion and his helmeted, red-mawed rider led the way. I was not by any means relieved by the familiarity of this moment that I recognized from my nightmares.

  I craned my head, looking for the golden horse with the iron bridle. The one I had failed to free.

  The golden stallion had a rider. In golden armor identical to my silver armor.

  Egin.

  “Tilda,” he said with a smile. “I appreciate you answering my summons.”

  “Please tell me you have some reason for this summons other than petty revenge,” Judith said.

  “Hardly petty,” Egin said, drawing the golden dagger at his waist.

  I couldn’t even figure out what my emotions were well enough to mask them. I asked the first question that dashed into my head. “Did you get it?” I asked. “Did you get immortality?”

  The red-mawed rider drew closer and answered for him. “Yes. This one has been granted immortality.”

  Egin’s grin was triumphant and ugly as he swung one leg over the golden stallion’s back.

  “For as long as he rides,” the red-mawed rider said in her rough, whispering voice.

  Egin’s grin faded, even as his feet headed for the ground. It seemed he had one second of perfect realization of the terms of his immortality before his body fell into dust.

  Judith screamed.

  “Why?” I asked the Hunter.

  “No gift which is forced to be given ever truly belongs to the receiver,” the Hunter said. Her great horse snorted and stomped. “I know you have read the same sworn book as Egin, Mathilda of Alder Brook. Do not try to summon the Hunt, or you will receive a similar gift.”

  “Do not worry about that,” I said.

  She turned her burning face to our horses. “Cuprum and Argentum,” she said. “They stayed with you.”

  I bit my lip, waiting for my judgment. Or punishment. Or whatever was coming.

  “Finish it, mortal child. Free all three, and the debt between us will be repaid.”

  “It will? I thought the debt was owed for freeing Joyeuse and Durendal—I mean, Argentum and Cuprum.”

  “I speak now of the debt I owe to you. Egin would not have climbed down from Aurum for anything less than your murder. I am pleased he is gone. The debt I owe you now is as great as the loss of the Elysian horses.”

  I stared at her blankly, frozen, trying to understand her words. Judith understood more quickly than I, I confess; she walked over to the golden stallion, reached up, and pulled off the iron bridle.

  “Yes,” the Hunter said. “Judith, daughter of Aleidis, is your servant. That will discharge the debt just as well.”

  She gestured, and her huntsman sounded his bone-chilling horn. The Hunt departed, leaving the golden stallion behind.

  In the sudden silence that fell, Judith whispered, “Did she call them Elysian horses? What’s that mean?”

  “The place in the Underworld where the heroes go to live—the Elysian Fields. I’m not surprised to find they have such wonderful horses there.” I stared at them.

  The golden stallion lowered his nose to Judith’s hair and whuffled. I couldn’t help but grin, albeit sadly.

  “Now that they’re all free, maybe they’ll go back to the Underworld,” I said wistfully.

  “Ugh,” said Judith. “Stop being so depressing. Look, these horses are immortal, probably. What’s a few years spent with some human beings before they go back to wherever they’re from? I don’t think they’re going to leave us.”

  As if to agree with her, Joyeuse whickered. The other horses followed suit.

  “Will you stay?” I whispered to Joyeuse. She poked her head over my shoulder and chewed thoughtfully on the edge of my chemise.

  I took that to be a yes.

  IN THE MORNING, WE pretended we did not know where the third metal horse had come from, to avoid lectures about maybe not running off in the middle of the night to confront ancient and mystical forces.

  Instead, we just expressed astonishment along with everyone else.

  “What’s his name going to be?” Parz asked me and Judith.

  I glanced at Judith, and she nodded.

  “We think you should choose,” I said.

  Parz’s eyes lit as bright as the moonstones that dotted the golden saddle. “I have the perfect name,” he said. “You’re going to love it. Curtana.”

  We must have looked puzzled, because Parz repeated himself. “Curtana,” he said significantly. “You know how Joyeuse and Durendal were forged from the same steel—well there was a third companion sword, Curtana, which belonged to Ogier the Dane—” He stopped when he realized we were staring at him blankly.

  “What?” I said politely.

  “Ogier fought Charlemagne for seven years, until the Saracens came, and then he fought by Charlemagne’s side.” When this failed to excite us or jog our memories, he added, “Ogier killed a giant with Curtana.”

  “All right then,” I said, and patted the golden horse’s neck. “How do you feel about the name Curtana, my dear?”

  The horse did not seem to object.

  chapter 33

  WHEN WE FINALLY RODE INTO ALDER BROOK ON Christmas Day, it seemed both smaller and grander than I remembered. When people cheered our arrival, I felt both smaller and grander than I remembered, too.

  Parz rode Curtana closer to Joyeuse during our arrival. “Look happy,” he said in a low voice.

  “What?”

  “You’re doing that thing you do, when you feel too much and your face just freezes into place. We who know you well enough understand that, but it’s hard for people who don’t.”

  “I don’t know how to look happy,” I said, frustrated. “They’ll see through it if I force myself to smile. I’m so ashamed, Parz, that they cheer me for returning after I tried to run away.”

  Judith was giving us a concerned look, but Parz waved her off. “Tilda, I understand that you have not always felt as welcome and loved here as you would want, but I wonder if you have ignored some of the love that is truly here. It would be easier for people to love you if they could see that you loved them, too.”

  I looked at him with surprise.

  He blushed, ducking his head and fingering his old scar. “What? I may not be a prince, but my family has ruled Hare Hedge since Charlemagne. I understand some things.”

  Ivo had disappeared by the time we returned; he’d seen the handwriting on the wall. But Sir Hermannus sent the marshal after him and had him dragged back for justice.

  It was hard for me to agree to punish Ivo; I was too aware of my own guilt for such punishment to sit well. Plus, compared to Sir Egin, Ivo was just a usurper with no sense, not an evil murderer. Really, Ivo seemed fairly benign. But Horrible was being Horrible again, and insisted that sitting judgment on Ivo was a task for my mother, not me.

  “Who is the ruler here?” I asked.

  He blinked at me blandly. “Until you come of age, it’s your mother, but—Princess. I understand your feelings. But learn from this. Egin’s crimes are like the sun, and Ivo’s are the moon. Do not think, because the sun is so bright, that the moon does not also cast light enough to make shadows.”

  I sighed. It was hard to hate Horrible when he wasn’t wrong.

  JUDITH AND
I WERE preparing for bed when I burst out, “How can you stand it?”

  Judith froze in the midst of rubbing oil into her hands and looked around. “Stand what?”

  “Being here, with me, now, knowing what you know about me, when they’re all cheering my return. . . .”

  Judith went back to rubbing her hands. “Oh, Tilda,” she said, as though tired of the whole conversation.

  “Fine, fine; you want to keep the secret that I ran away? I can’t deny that it’s easier for me.”

  “Easier for all of us,” Judith said.

  “In the short run or the long run, though?”

  She took a deep breath, throwing back the covers to our bed. “It’s like the story of the prodigal son from the Gospels.”

  I flinched, stung that Judith would compare me to the younger son of the story, who wastes his inheritance on wild living.

  “You’re saying I don’t deserve this forgiveness—this mercy?”

  “Oh, that’s not what I mean!” Judith said. “For one thing, mercy isn’t earned. Otherwise it wouldn’t be mercy. I don’t think you’re the prodigal son, Tilda. But—maybe Alder Brook is like the father in the story. It’s just . . . glad you’re back. There’s no need to make things harder for you.”

  I bit my lip, thinking how much I owed Judith.

  “Thank you,” I said, watching as she removed warming bricks from our bed with long-handled tongs.

  “For what?”

  “For rescuing me.”

  Her mouth quirked. She looked up, her blue-green eyes bright and laughing. “Which time?”

  WHEN MY MOTHER RETURNED home several days later, our reunion was tender at first. I was terribly relieved to have her back, healthy and whole.

  On her second day back, she brought Judith in to join my daily lessons on the fine points of running a castle. “That girl is going to marry a lord someday,” my mother told me. “Or run an abbey. Service is not for her, either way.”

  Judith hated it. “It’s boring, being a lady without a manor,” she said. “It makes me want to run off and become a dragon slayer again.” It made the skin over my spine itch, thinking about dragon slayers. My unease must have shown on my face, because Judith apologized. “Sorry. I mean, dragon protector, of course.”

  In the days since my return to Alder Brook but before my mother came back, I had fallen into the habit of getting up early and working on my book before appearing in the great hall. And I had instructed Sir Hermannus and Judith to allow no one to disturb me during that brief time.

  But my mother found this to be too high-handed of me, and reminded me that copying work was something that should not take any precedence over my other duties.

  I still felt too guilty about abandoning Alder Brook to speak up, to explain that it was no longer mere copying work that I was doing. As the days passed, I found myself using my mask of ice with my mother more and more.

  One morning about two weeks after my mother’s return, Sir Hermannus and Father Ripertus took me aside after breakfast.

  “Do you want us to come with you?” Father Ripertus asked kindly.

  “Come with me where?”

  “For when you explain to Princess Isobel about your dragon handbook,” Sir Hermannus said.

  “What’s to explain?” I asked. “I used to think if I escaped to a cloister, I’d have more time to spend on books, but that’s untrue. I used also to imagine I would like to be imprisoned, but . . .” My laugh was brittle. “Well, it’s actually no fun at all. But I accept this. I’m a princess. This is how it’s going to be.”

  “Your Boethius led a political life and still found the time to write his books,” Father Ripertus said. “He was a senator of Rome. I think that’s about as difficult as being the Princess of Alder Brook. Perhaps a little more so on some days—perhaps a little less on others. It is all about the balance.”

  “In no way were you shirking your duties before your mother’s return,” Sir Hermannus said. “I know you wrote in your history less than you wanted to, but it was still more than now. Father Ripertus is right: it’s about the balance. Let’s talk to Princess Isobel.”

  “She’ll say no.”

  Sir Hermannus raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t suggesting you ask her permission, Most Illustrious. I was suggesting you tell her what you need.”

  “Need, or want?” I asked.

  Father Ripertus smiled. “Need.”

  I hunched my shoulders, trying to imagine that conversation. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  I WAS RESTLESS THAT night, and rather than kick my bedmates awake with my thrashing, I wandered the castle. I wove haltingly among the sleeping figures in the great hall, taking care not to tread on an outstretched hand or an errant foot.

  It made me remember the night I had restlessly wandered Boar House, before Ivo kidnapped me. I had so envied all the people sleeping in the hall that night. I almost laughed, thinking of the younger self I’d been not so long ago, when I had thought freedom meant choosing where you slept.

  Of course, I hadn’t been wrong. Freedom was choosing where you slept. But it was also choosing who you dined with, who you called friend, and what you did with your day.

  It occurred to me that I was being cowardly. I was only thirteen, and had years yet before reaching my majority. I was reliant on my mother for her lessons and guidance in becoming the ruling Princess of Alder Brook. But Sir Hermannus and Father Ripertus were right. It was about the balance.

  It was kind of them to offer to come with me.

  I went out into the courtyard and walked awhile in the bracing night air. A cloud dimmed the moon briefly, and I was struck by a thought.

  It wasn’t kind of them to offer to come with me. They were offering to come because they considered themselves my counselors. They were willing to stand against my mother with me.

  I paced the courtyard, considering this. My mind strayed to Judith, and her boredom with learning to be a lady with no manor. There was no reason she could not eventually take on a few of my duties; there was no reason that when I came of age, I could not carve out some small section of Alder Brook and give her a proper benefice to rule, plus a title to go with the duties and the land. Princes did this with knights all the time—turned them into counts and gave them jobs like organizing the household. Why couldn’t Judith be my steward as capably as Sir Hermannus, once he retired?

  The whir of enormous wings warned me, and I held very still against a wall while Curschin landed in the courtyard.

  “Greetings, small sister,” the dragon said. “I have come many nights, but this is the first I have seen you. I have come for my lesson.”

  “Greetings, Curschin.” She came! She’d been coming, and I’d been too distracted to go look for her. Ever since I’d given up writing the Handbook for Dragon Slayers and started over with the Historia Draconum, I’d kicked myself for all the questions I’d never asked her when I’d had the chance.

  And now she was here, and she wanted to learn from me. Almost as much as I wanted to learn from her.

  Questions crowded my mouth, but first things first. I had to honor my promise to her.

  “Let us begin our lessons right now. We’ll start with your name,” I said. “C for Curschin.”

  She bowed her head. “Very well, wyrmgloss.”

  Lit only by the moon and the stars, I drew a C in the dirt of the courtyard with my crutch.

  “C is for Curschin,” the dragon repeated, and traced a C with her claw.

  “Very good,” I said, and smiled, hugging myself a little.

  Tomorrow I would go to my mother with my retinue. With Sir Hermannus, Father Ripertus, and Judith at my side, I would lay out the future for her. I was going to be the Princess of Alder Brook, yes, but I was also going to write a great book.

  Epilogue

  The dragon is the biggest of all serpents, and of all living animals on Earth. The Greeks call it δρακον, the Latins draco, and in our local dialect, we call it Drache or Wurm.
/>   There are many stories about dragons that live in caves, where they guard vast treasuries from lost kingdoms with fire and poison. Perhaps it is because of its association with serpents, fire, and poison that a dragon is thought of as nothing but a devil, a servant of the king of all evil.

  But there is no instance I have seen when a dragon operates from pure evil; yet I have seen men and women who deceive with every breath, who use beauty to delude people into false hope and joy, and then rob them of that joy and hope before abandoning them to despair and death.

  The truth is that, mostly, dragons are animals—smart animals, capable of speech, with their own territories and desires. Like bears, they are protective of their young. They are predators to be respected; they are not horses nor cows, meant to bend to our service. Like humans, they can read and write and tell stories.

  Of course, sometimes dragons are not dragons at all—but human girls (or boys), trapped within scales and claws. If you can overcome your fear and show these trapped creatures kindness and love, you may just discover the truth inside them.

  —from Mathilda of Alder Brook’s

  Historia Draconum

  Acknowledgments

  I must thank my editor, Anne Hoppe, and my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, for their diligent eyes on this one, and for spurring me through a really bad case of second-book-itis. Thank you. I really needed you on this one.

  The HarperCollins Team of Awesome, in particular Joel Tippie for the great cover design, Laurel Symonds for kindness and efficiency and all the stuff I don’t even know she does, and Renée Cafiero for her eagle eye. You do amazing work, folks!

  Jason Chan, thanks for that last cover; Kevin Keele, thanks for the current cover; Kathryn Hinds, thanks for the constant bacon saving.

  Megan Eaton, thank you for being my official German consultant. Errors and bad choices in this arena are mine, never hers! Same errors disclaimer applies to the horse stuff, for which I must thank Lisa Cameron-Norfleet and Quincy, plus Kayla Fuller.