Song of the Ice Lord

by J.A. Clement

  ~~~

  “In the long ago and far away there was a Dragon called Jorr. He was not a very nice Dragon, nor a particularly intelligent one, but he was very big and powerful. Even freshly hatched, he was much bigger than all the other little wyverns his age, and he quickly learnt to bully them until he got what he wanted.

  At first the older Dragons thought that he would grow out of it but though he certainly did grow, his behaviour did not get any better, and his name became a byword throughout the Colony for bad behaviour. Eventually the Dragons called a Council, and all the Dragons in the colony gathered together in the great meeting place on top of the mountains to decide what should be done about this troublesome beast. It must have been a most tremendous sight. Every Dragon had his or her own favourite perch, and they basked in the thin sun on the top of the mountain. They flew in singly or in families; enormous old Dragons, shimmering younger Dragons in the prime of their youth, clumsy wyverns, growing faster than they realised – even the little darting hatchlings were invited, for they suffered from Jorr’s bullying as much as anyone.

  Eventually everyone was there, and the meeting was called to order. Jorr’s mother paced into the clearing in the middle of the great rocky bowl where the Council was held.

  “The Council recognises Marr, mother of Jorr,” one of the grayscales intoned.

  Marr nodded respectfully at him. “Thank you. My friends, I have called Council today because of my son Jorr. When he was a hatchling, he was disobedient. Many hatchlings are, so I did not think much of it. When he was a wyvern, he was unruly, but when I remonstrated with him, he paid no heed. Now he is the size of an adult dragon and his behaviour makes trouble for the colony. I come to you today to ask the Council’s advice. What should I do with this son of mine?”

  The Dragons hummed and swayed their heads from side to side as Dragons do when thinking deeply, but against all courtesy and tradition, Jorr barged forward, muscling his mother out of the way. “Ha! What makes you think you can tell me what to do?” He did not even wait to be acknowledged before speaking, and the Dragons’ humming took on a slightly offended tone. “You can sit in your Council till the mountain crumbles beneath you! I do what I want to do.”

  “And what it is that you want to do, Jorr?” The oldest Dragon, Ghed, heaved himself to his feet. He rarely spoke to anyone, so Jorr was taken aback. “What is it that you hope to achieve by all this bullying and rudeness?”

  “I want...” Jorr had not really thought about this before, but he was not going to give the old beast the satisfaction of knowing it. “I want everyone to stop telling me what to do, or not to do. People are always saying ‘Stop this, do that, it is not good for the Colony.’ I don’t care about the Colony! I do what pleases me, not anyone else!”

  “And what makes you think you can do as you like?”

  “I am bigger than them. They can’t make me do anything.”

  “Perhaps not, but the fact that they cannot compel you to do a thing does not relieve you of the responsibility of doing it.” Ghed leaned against a rocky outcropping. “You were asked to be moderate in your hunting. There are only a certain number of deer on the mountain and the herd stays at a sustainable size if we are judicious in our hunting. We take the old and infirm and leave the young to mate and keep the herd going – and yet you consistently hunt the fawns. For three years now there have been no youngsters left at the end of the season, but the old still die and the herd is getting too small. It cannot go on.”

  “The fawns are young and tender.” Jorr snorted his defiance. “They are small, and so I eat more. How are you going to make me eat only the older deer?”

  “The Colony all drink from the streams that fall from the heights to the pools around the base of the Mountain,” Ghed went on. “There are any number of pools that you could bathe in but always you go to the source of the spring, and foul it so that all the water that flows downstream is dirty.”

  “The water is colder in the pool by the spring, and the bubbles tickle my scales. It is by far the best place to bathe.” Jorr was unrepentant.

  “Why do you bully the wyverns?”

  “They have things that I want, or they are in my way, or simply they annoy me!”

  “Why are you discourteous to the other adult dragons?”

  “They try to tell me what to do. They are weak and puny – most of them are smaller than I am already, and I have scarcely started to grow.” Jorr’s dismissive snort turned into a yawn. “They will not be able to tell me what to do when I am the largest Dragon in the world, and I am nearly there already!” Jorr yawned again. For some reason he was feeling sleepy, and the flames that flickered in Ghed’s eyes were almost hypnotic in their dance.

  Ghed turned to Jorr’s mother Marr, touching the end of his muzzle to hers in a gesture of affection and sadness rarely seen. “I am sorry, my child.”

  “Do what you must,” she whispered.

  The humming of the Colony became louder, and slowly every Dragon but two faded from Jorr’s sight, but he was in too dreamlike a state to wonder at it.

  Marr looked at her son sadly. “Time and time again you have shamed me, and time and time again I have hoped that you would learn better. Now you endanger the Colony and I cannot help you. Go, and make a better Dragon of yourself than you have done so far.” And she turned her back on him and walked away, fading into nothing as the others had. Jorr, wrapped in the humming of the Colony, was left alone with Ghed.

  The humming suddenly stopped, jolting Jorr into full wakefulness.

  “You have stated your intentions. Now hear mine.” Ghed’s tone was mild, but he was one of the few that were bigger than Jorr. The old Dragon was dappled grey as granite, nearly all his colour gone, but he seemed large as a mountain and his teeth were sharp. For the first time since he was very small, Jorr was gripped by concern. “The Colony cannot support you any longer. You are too dangerous to the young ones, to the food supplies and to the water. We cannot let you stay to destroy what we have built. You must leave this place and never come back.” As he spoke, Ghed also began to fade, until his last words hung in the empty air. “If you do return you will find neither food, nor water, nor the Colony.”

  Jorr blinked and looked around. Where was he? He had thought he was in the Colony’s Gathering place, but now, looking around, he did not recognise any of it. He took to his wings and flew high into the sky, trying to get his bearings. But the further he flew, the more unfamiliar it looked. Finally he realised that what Ghed had told him was true, and that as he would not leave the Colony, it had left him, somehow.

  “I don’t care!” Jorr roared to the empty mountainside. “I don’t need you anyway!” He flew around the mountains and down into the valleys. He still didn’t recognise where he was – it must be some glamour they had cast upon him – but beasts lived in the valleys and he would find food and water there.

  But the more he searched, the hungrier he became, and still he could find no sign of the herd animals. There were no springs or rivers that he could see – there must be some because all the vegetation was lush and green, but the glamour prevented him from finding food or water in this vicinity.

  After some hours, Jorr found himself a shady ledge on the mountainside, overlooking the whole valley. The adults might have foxed him, but the wyverns and hatchlings were not so clever and sooner or later he would see one passing. He would pounce upon it and make it lead him to the water, and to the game herds. But the night passed and the day came and no dragons were anywhere to be seen.

  “I cannot stay here or I will starve.” Jorr began to wonder if he would be able to find food or water anywhere, or if they had condemned him to starve to death slowly. The idea made him shiver. In the early morning sunshine, he swooped off his ledge, and gliding round, tried to work out where he should go.

  In the far distance he saw the sparkling of water. It made him thirsty to see it. It seemed more precious than all the treasures in the Cave of the Past,
and all the stories that they represented. Without another thought he winged his way in that direction.

  The journey to the water took a long time, and Jorr was thirsty and tired. At one point he flew through a rainstorm and spent a few minutes swooping and diving through it, revelling in the feel of water on his scales. The little he caught in his mouth just made him feel even more thirsty, though, and so he flew on.

  Eventually he got close to the water, and dived down to land in it. It was only a shallow river – he would have turned his nose up at it not long ago, but now he was so thirsty that it tasted wonderful. Rolling over, he wallowed in the water. He had coated his beautiful scales with wet mud and weed, but it did feel so good!

  Finally he climbed out of the water and took a good look round. Lo and behold, there was a nice fat sheep, which he gobbled down immediately. Behind it there were many more, and he ate another and another. Each tasty little morsel only whetted his appetite more, so he trotted into the field to find the others which he could smell.

  What a noise, then, a baaing of sheep and a roaring of dragon! Soon Jorr had eaten enough to satisfy his hunger, but there were still a few sheep left and it was such fun to chase and pounce on them that he couldn’t resist gobbling the lot, though it left him fuller than was really comfortable.

  “Ah...” Jorr sighed contentedly. “That was a good meal! Now for a comfortable sleep in the sun.” He should probably find a safe ledge to sleep on, but he was so full and the grassy field was so comfortable that he could not bring himself to move. Besides, who should he fear? He was so big and powerful that even his own Colony were afraid of him! He curled up on the grass, and was asleep in moments.

  He woke up with a start, to a great uproar. There were men all around him! Little as they were, they did not frighten him exactly, only there were a lot of them and they were very irritating. Idly he raised his head to flame them all, but to his horror, nothing came out of his muzzle but a solitary “phut” of smoke. Again he tried and again, but no flames would come, and now the little creeping men had ropes and were trying to pin him to the ground.

  Jorr reared up in sudden fright, and leapt into the air. He left them behind quickly, and circled until he found a clear stretch of land to land on. Once down, he tried to breathe flames again and again until he was dizzy, but still nothing came of it.

  He had lost his beautiful flames! “I still have claws, though, and I am armoured in gleaming scales...”

  It did not make him feel better. If a dragon came to fight him, they could flame him from afar and he could only defend himself if they came near enough. Still, he was a very large dragon, so perhaps the problem would not arise.

  All this flying had made him feel awfully sleepy again. He clambered up onto a high rocky outcropping, and lay watching as the sun flew down low into the West. What a flame it had, what beautiful colours! Just like his own lost fire. He hoped his flames would come back. Perhaps tomorrow....

  In the night he was awoken by the neighing of a horse. Slitting his eyes open, he became aware that the field was crawling. The men were back! They must have followed him from the river. At first he was not inclined to pay them any attention, but when he felt them climbing over him, he was indignant at their lack of respect. He tried to sit up – but while he was asleep they had bound him with a great net, and he could not. He writhed and struggled, and could not think what to do.

  The men were lighting their way with burning branches. Perhaps if he ate one it might relight his flame? He lunged at the nearest, snapping at it like a bird after gnats. The men scattered, all apart from one, a man who was larger than the rest. His armour glimmered under the torches, and he held a mighty axe. It was very large, and very sharp and very shiny. He swung the axe, which bit deep into Jorr’s neck. Blood splashed red in the flickering firelight as the man raised the axe again. Jorr panicked – they meant to chop his head off! He thrashed and tore at the net that held him. It hurt his wings and strained his legs, but he was strong. Ropes snapped, and then more. The axe-man was swinging wildly now, trying to hit any part of Jorr within his reach. He chopped at his tail, smashing the tender scales at the end. In pain and outrage Jorr leapt into the air, and flew blind in the night, just anywhere away from the axe.

  After the panic of the first few wingbeats, Jorr was assailed by a howling pain from his shoulder. He had strained his wing, trying to beast his way free from the net. He kept flying until his shoulder hurt so much that he had to find a place to land. Even then he did not want to stop, and spent the remainder of the night trotting through the wood, trying to get as far away from the axe-men as he could. In the end he dropped, exhausted, and slept uneasily through the night.

  The next few days were difficult for Jorr. His wing would not heal because he was too impatient to rest it, and every time he tried to fly, it wrenched it a little more. Besides, he was still mortally afraid of the axe-man. For the first time in his life he was vulnerable and there was someone who could harm him. His neck still hurt where the axe had bitten through the scales, and Jorr realised that all his strength would not help him if he was pinned down again.

  He wandered restlessly through the forest day after day, searching for enough food to satisfy his hunger. Bitterly he regretted his greed in the Colony. He had been so sure that he was the best, the strongest, the most worthy that he had persuaded himself that he deserved to have everything he wanted.

  “If I was in the Colony now, I should not be afraid of a human,” he snorted sadly. “My mother and my friends would defend me against the axe, and help me until my shoulder became well.” And he realised that the Colony was not just a place where the dragons lived, but a collective that all helped each other. It made his idea of being the most powerful dragon look a bit pointless, really.

  “I was such a fool!” Jorr laid down, dejected.

  To his surprise a human leapt out from behind the rock on which he laid his head. Jorr shied back, but as the human ran away, he realised it was a youngling, not fully grown, and his stomach grumbled. He pounced upon the little beast, but to his shock, just as he was about to eat it, it shouted “Stop! Wait! Please!”

  It sounded so much like the hatchlings when he used to bully them that he dropped it and stared. It tried to run away, so he pinned it down again, but much more gently this time.

  “Please don’t eat me!”

  Jorr sighed. “That’s all I need. The first food I’ve had in days, and it talks to me. You are a human, are you not?”

  “Yes...” the youngling said cautiously.

  “But you talk?”

  “Of course I talk. I’m not a baby, you know – I’m nearly eleven years old!” The youngling cringed as the dragon began to shake and rumble, but Jorr was laughing.

  “Eleven years old? You are barely out of an egg!”

  “Am not! How old are you, anyway?”

  Jorr regarded it gravely. “I am three hundred and seventy years of age, and even I am barely an adult.”

  “Three hundred and seventy? That seems pretty old to me.” The youngling wriggled. “Can I get up, please? You’re pressing a pointy stone right into my back.”

  “Are you going to run away again?”

  “Are you going to eat me?”

  Jorr considered this. “I suppose not. I am very hungry, but talking food – well, it puts me right off, if you must know. How long have humans been talking, anyway?” He lifted a claw, and the youngling climbed to its feet, dusting itself off.

  “What do you mean, how long have humans been talking? Always, I think. Or at least, babies don’t talk much and little children aren’t that good at it, but I’ve been talking for years and years and years.” The youngling regarded him with interest. “So how long have dragons been talking?”

  The question took Jorr by surprise, and he thought about it. “Always, I think. On the first day of the world, Dragons awoke from the stone, and they sang the rest of creation into being.”

  “D
id it work?”

  Jorr laughed again. “We are here, are we not?”

  “I suppose. Anyhow, thanks for not eating me. Probably just as well though – my mother would have been really cross, and you don’t want to be there when she’s really cross.”

  “Does she have an axe?” Jorr shifted his feet nervously.

  “No. But she can give you a proper telling off.”

  “Oh! Does she speak too, then?”

  “Of course she does! We all do, silly!” The youngling giggled.

  Jorr was about to be offended by this when he realised that he was enjoying this conversation. “Do you have to go? I am quite lonely here. Can you stay a little while?”

  “No, I’ll be late for dinner. But I will ask my mother if I can come out and play again if you will promise not to eat me.” The youngling cocked its head.

  “I promise. You have my word as a Dragon.” It was a bit like swearing an oath to a sheep, but he was very lonely and he did want the human to come back. “You’re sure your mother doesn’t have an axe, though?”

  “Of course she doesn’t!” And waving back at him, the youngling skipped away.

  Jorr did not wander far from the forest that afternoon, but his little friend did not come back. The day stretched on and on and it was only as evening fell that Jorr heard a shout. He trotted back to the edge of the forest and sat patiently until the youngling burst out of the forest, followed by an adult human who stopped in her tracks.

  “Hey Dragon.” The youngling ran up to Jorr. “My mother didn’t believe I was talking to a real live dragon so I brought her to see you.”

  “Madam.” Jorr bowed his head courteously to her. “I am honoured to make your acquaintance.”

  The woman’s knees gave out beneath her, and she sat suddenly. Shifting himself back a bit so as not to get too close, Jorr laid down so that his head was more on her level, but she did not reply and just stared at him. Jorr glanced at the youngling. “Are you sure she speaks?”

  “Mother!” The youngling elbowed her in the ribs.

  “Certainly I speak,” the woman quavered. “I am just not used to speaking to dragons. What are you doing here?”

  Jorr looked away, a little ashamed of himself. “Well... I am running away, if the truth be told. Not very impressive, is it?”

  “Running away? You expect me to believe that, a great armoured beast like you? What would you have to run away from?” Her voice squeaked with fear.

  “Well, humans, actually.” Jorr turned his head so she could see the smashed scales and the dried blood on his neck. “Humans with ropes and axes.”

  “What did you do? Flamed them to a cinder I suppose.”

  “Something is wrong with me. I think my Elders put a spell on me so that I can’t flame any more. Look.” He turned his head away politely, and phutted smoke into the forest. “No flames. I was really good at them too. I hate having no flames. The humans tied me into a net and tried to chop my head off, and all I could do was to wriggle free and fly away, and I hurt my wing so I can’t even do that now.” He turned his head away to hide the big steaming tear which rolled down his face. “My Mother was right. The first thing I did was to get into trouble, and now I can’t hunt or defend myself and the man with the axe might come after me again.”

  The woman looked at him narrowly. “How old are you, Dragon?”

  “Very old!” the youngling announced. “He’s three hundred and seventy years old!”

  “And how old is that for a Dragon?”

  Jorr considered how to explain this to a creature that did not have eggs or hatchlings. “Not an adult, but not fresh out of the egg. Wyverns like myself are about two thirds of the way towards adulthood, maybe a bit more.”

  “Quite young, then?”

  “I suppose...” Jorr was a bit prickly about this. “But nearly an adult.”

  “And you are hurt?”

  Jorr suddenly saw where this was going. “Madam, I have given your youngling my word as a Dragon that I will not eat it. I’ve never eaten human and now I know they speak, I really don’t think I’ll ever want to. You and your family are safe from me.” His tummy rumbled at this inopportune moment.

  “What is the word of a Dragon worth?” she asked softly.

  “The word of a Dragon is magical, Madam. We sang the words that made the world. The word of a Dragon is as binding as rock.” How odd it was to have to explain all this.

  “I will trust you. But you must also promise not to eat our animals,” she continued. “We are poor and we barely scrape a living. If you eat our cow and our goat, we will starve.”

  Jorr was at first downcast, and then a thought struck him. “Do you think that that is why all those other people attacked me? Because I ate the sheep by the river?”

  “That’s very probable.”

  Jorr was very hungry, but he was also very lonely, and it seemed to him that he should be able to find some food elsewhere. Besides, it was nice to be talking to someone who didn’t dislike him.

  “I promise.” He sighed, and all the dust rose up in a great huff.

  “Thank you. My name is Rosalia.”

  Jorr leapt to his feet and bowed deeply. “I am honoured by your trust, Rosalia. My name is Jorr.”

  “By my trust?”

  “To give me your name is a deep magic indeed, especially when you thought I was going to eat you. I am honoured that you have decided to trust me.”

  Rosalia looked astonished, but the youngling bounced up again. “Jorr, my name is Edred. I’m eleven, you know. If I was a dragon, would I be one of those wiv- why – those things that you said you were?”

  Jorr considered this. “Hmmm... How old do humans live to?”

  “Sixty or so.”

  “Sixty! How quickly you learn. At sixty I could barely walk in a straight line without tripping over my tail! Let’s see now... Yes. I think you’d be a bit old for a hatchling. You would be a young wyvern, but a wyvern nonetheless.”

  “Hurrah! But I don’t know how to be a wyvern. What do wyverns do?”

  Rosalia sat on a nearby rock, and watched as Jorr told her son great tales of the tricks and naughtinesses that the others had got up to. At first she watched very closely, but soon she was laughing along with them. At the end of the day she agreed that they would come and talk to him again tomorrow.

  The next day and the next, Jorr talked to Edred. For a youngling the boy was fearless, with an insatiable curiosity that Jorr really enjoyed. Edred had such different ways of thinking to the ones Jorr was used to, and the dragon marvelled that for a puny little creature with no flames, no wings, no scales and no teeth or talons worth speaking of, humans spent very little of their time hiding or afraid. As he learned, they were more hunters than prey. The days and months went much faster now that he had friends to talk to and he told them all about the places he had flown over, the plants and animals that he had seen (and in some cases, eaten) and the cities and countries of which the other dragons had talked when he was little enough to still be interested.

  In return they told him about themselves. Rosalia’s husband had died of a fever, and now there was just the two of them trying to scratch a living. Jorr felt sorry for them, and set himself to think of a way to help, but nothing really occurred to him.

  “You must be hungry, Jorr. What are you eating?”

  Jorr tried not to salivate. “I haven’t really caught much of late.”

  “There is a farmer at the next town whose apple trees are being stripped of their bark by a herd of deer. If you promise not to eat his cattle, he will show you where the deer live.”

  Jorr’s stomach rumbled. “Does he have an axe?”

  “He does not. Shall I bring him here to talk to you?”

  “If you think that is wise.” Jorr was dubious.

  “You need to eat, Jorr. I worry about you, you know.”

  Jorr stared as Rosalia walked back to the house where her friend was waiting. He was touched that
this human should care about him. He felt ashamed about his ignorance, having thought that humans were basically upright sheep. There was much more to this world than he had thought. Jorr decided that if he could, he would try to earn Rosalia’s respect and that of her family.

  Soon she returned with her farmer friend. Though initially everyone was a bit wary, eventually it was agreed that Jorr should hunt the deer, but that the farmer would allow them to stay on his land so that Jorr had a source of food.

  Jorr’s wing was still not right, but he could fly on it and soon found the herd. At first he ate deer after deer, revelling in the chase and glorying in the food, but there were not that many deer, and he stopped while there were still some left. He did not want to be hungry again though his hunger was barely sated. The farmer watched him closely as he flew back to the forest, but as Jorr made no attempt on any of his cattle, it all went well and everyone was pleased with the agreement.

  Jorr looked closely at the farmer’s land as he flew and saw how it was crisscrossed with little channels of water.

  “It is to water the trees that grow the apples,” Edred told him. “That is how they grow so big and sweet.”

  “But you don’t have them in your pasture.”

  “We bring buckets of water from the river for the animals. It’s quite hard work.”

  Jorr thought about this. “When is your mother next out at the market? I have an idea.”

  Rosalia came back from the market the following week to find the house in uproar. The goat and cow had been shut in the stable, and the pasture was full of a very muddy dragon, a channel leading to a deep muddy pool, and a muddy son dancing about shouting “Look what we made! Look what we made!”

  “What on earth...?” She dropped her basket of vegetables and went to look, laughing out loud to see the delight on the dragon’s face as well as Edred’s. “How wonderful! What is it Jorr?”

  The dragon had a mouthful of pebbles. He concentrated – there was a grinding sound as he chewed carefully – and then mumbling “’Scuse me,” he spat something out into the grass and stared at it.

  “Eugghhhh, that’s disgusting, spitting like that!” Edred shouted with glee.

  “Thought so. These any good to you?” Amongst the shards of stone were green crystals. “Once polished up it’ll be the sort of shiny trinket you humans are fond of, I think.”

  Rosalia thanked him politely and picked the crystals out of the gravelly mud. “What are they, Jorr? They’re a pretty colour – emerald-green, almost.”

  “Well, emeralds often are.”

  Rosalia froze. “Emeralds? Jorr, you’re not telling me that these are really...”

  “Oh yes. The taste is unmistakeable. There don’t seem to be many others, but I thought you might like them...”

  “Like them? If these are real I can buy a hundred new cows with them!” Rosalia threw her arms around his muzzle, muddy as it was. “Thank you! This will make things a lot easier for us!”

  “They’re useful then? Excellent. I’ll keep an eye out for any more.”

  Jorr became firm friends with Edred and Rosalia. The little herd of deer kept the edge off his hunger, but as the days and weeks went past he continued to grow and the larger he got, the less the deer satisfied him. He took to winging further afield in the search for wild beasts, though Rosalia warned him against taking anything that might be domesticated.

  In winter when it snowed and the wind howled, he curled himself around Rosalia’s house so that the fiery warmth of his body would keep out the chill of wind and snow. When wolves came down from the mountains in the long winter, he hunted them until the few that he did not catch fled from the area. The wolves did not taste very nice, but it was the only time he did not feel hungry in several years.

  It was amazing how fast the humans changed though. They built extra bits onto the house, and bought horses and cows, and sheep, and Jorr was happy to discover that his gift of emeralds had meant that they did not have to work so hard all the time. But they aged so fast, as well! The boy Edred shot up in height in only a few years. Jorr was a little bit sad when Edred found a mate and left to work in the town where she lived, but Rosalia explained that he was of an age to do so, by human standards.

  As for Rosalia, her hair suddenly bleached white, and she became much more stooped, all in only ten or twenty years. Edred and his mate came back to live with her, but the new woman did not want to talk to Jorr, saying she was afraid of him. Then there were more younglings, and to Jorr’s great shock and sorrow, Rosalia died. The younglings grew so fast it made Jorr dizzy, and Edred’s hair became white, just as his mother’s had. Then one day Edred came out to see Jorr, looking as frail as a wisp of cobweb and leaning on the arm of his granddaughter Rosa. Jorr stretched out his foot, just as he always did.

  Edred took a seat there rather more stiffly than he had used to do, and peered up at his friend. “Jorr, I am worried. I am too old to protect you anymore, and the people in the village are nervous. My son Edwin will take over the estate when I die, and he wants to keep all the deer for hunting. I am afraid that he will attempt to drive you away, and I want you to start looking for a new place before he can do that, so that I know that both of you will be safe. You have looked after my family for a long, long time now, and I value your friendship, but I am afraid that those who come after me will not do so. On the other hand, though my son is a fool, he is still my son and I cannot bear the idea that you or he would ever injure each other. I know you have already lost one home and it pains me to ask it, but please, Jorr, leave Edwin to his foolishness here and find a place where you will be safe, for my sake if not for your own.”

  Jorr was astounded and upset. Boiling tears rolled down his nose and frazzled the grass on the forest floor beneath. “Edred... Did I do something wrong?”

  Edred struggled up to throw his arms around the dragon’s muzzle, now far larger than he. “Please don’t think that this is your fault. There is nothing that you have done to deserve this, and nothing that my son has done to deserve your forbearance. I am an old man, and probably a silly one, and you are as much my family as he is. Edwin is headstrong and avaricious and if he incites all the villagers to fear and hate, I am afraid that you will be hurt. He will not pay me any heed, so my only hope is that you will find a place of safety for yourself. I am so sorry, Jorr, but I can’t see any other way for it to end without one or both of you getting hurt.”

  Rosa came forward timidly. “I’m sorry, Jorr. My father is not a very nice man. I don’t want to stay here either, when Grandfather is gone. Will you take me with you? Wherever we end up, it might be helpful if I go and talk to the people there and tell them that you are not going to eat them.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I will leave, as you ask, Edred. Edwin and his sons have never been friends to me, and when you are gone I think this will not feel like my home any more. And yes, Rosa. I will take you with me,” Jorr said gruffly.

  “Thank you.”

  Edred stood back from Jorr’s nose, and the dragon saw that the tears running down his friend’s face mirrored his own. “You are a better friend than I deserve. Thank you, Jorr, from the bottom of my heart. And please take care of yourself. I shall not come out here again, but I wanted to say goodbye in person. Perhaps we shall meet again on the other side. I certainly hope so.” He patted the enormous dragon on the nose, and limped away with Rosa’s help, looking a thousand years old. He did not return.

  A few days later, Rosa arrived with her belongings tied up in a sack. “It’s time.”

  “Edred?”

  “Grandfather died last night. My father is not even waiting for the funeral. He is rounding up men to chase you away. For what it’s worth, Jorr, most of the villagers don’t want you to go, but he is the Lord of the Manor now and they have to do what he says. We should leave.”

  Jorr sighed deeply. “I will miss this place, but not as much as I miss Edred and Rosalia. You are right though.
It is time.” Rosa clambered onto Jorr’s neck, and he leapt into the air. “Where shall we go?”

  “Anywhere,” Rosa answered. “Anywhere that isn’t here.”

  Jorr was seized by a sudden longing to see the mountains again. It seemed a long time since he had left them, and he hoped somehow to find the Colony and ask to be forgiven. He loved his humans, but their lives were so brief that it made him sad.

  He winged towards the distant hills, and the mountains behind them. Eventually he saw something that he recognised, a rock with claw marks on it. His heart leaped, and angling his flight he eventually came to the very bowl where the Colony gathered for council. He landed, and paced round, sniffing at the rocks. Rosa unfastened the rope and clambered to the ground.

  “This is my Colony,” he told her. “They said I would not be able to find it. Perhaps if I call, they will hear.”

  “But it’s so empty.” Rosa walked around the great bowl. “Is anyone here still?”

  “Let us go and look.”

  Rosa climbed back up to her seat, and Jorr flew her around the Mountains but to his dismay, all the eyries were deserted. Swooping low to the springs where the dragons had loved to play, he found that they had been all dammed up into a lake for the watermills and boats of a little town along the edge. The deer which had run freely on the mountainside were gone, and where the forest had stretched all across the foothills was now a patchwork of fields with stone walls, each holding sheep or cattle or horses.

  “There are no dragons here anymore,” Jorr murmured.

  Rosa patted his neck. “Perhaps we will find them tomorrow.”

  They flew back to what had once been Jorr’s mother’s eyrie, a cave on the sunny side of the mountain. It smelled so familiar that Jorr was suddenly lonelier than he had ever been. He curled up beneath the little ledge where he had once slept – how small he had been then! – and would not speak.

  Rosa set up her bedroll and lit a fire, and with the warmth of the dragon keeping the chill off the cave long after the fire had gone out, she spent a comfortable night there. In the morning she ate a frugal breakfast, and then stood. “Come on. They must be somewhere.”

  The seasons passed and every day they looked for dragonsign, but there was none. Their flights over the town had not gone unnoticed, and a delegation of hunters went up to investigate, but Rosa explained things to them. One of them, Arin, remained when the rest returned. He spent long hours talking to Jorr about the history of the town. Some odd things had happened when the town was founded, according to his granddaddy, but no-one believed the old tales and nothing had been seen of the dragons in Arin’s lifetime.

  With characteristic human speed, Rosa and Arin became mates and had children. Jorr stopped looking for his Colony and became more and more taciturn. He was still growing, though not as fast as before. He could no longer fit in the cave and simply curled up in the Council chamber. Rosa came to see him when she could, but quickly as the lives of men flickered past, she became older. Soon she could not manage the strenuous climb up the mountainside anymore and, busy with their everyday lives down by the lakeside, Rosa and Arin’s children of forgot that the dragon was anything more than a tall tale.

  Forgotten, Jorr fell into a deep melancholy. Eventually in the dark night of his soul, he began to sing. He sang of his loneliness, and of how he missed the friends and dragons that were no longer with him. He sang of sorrow and foolishness, and how his youthful hubris seemed shameful to him now. He sang of his mother and the other dragons, and of his wish to be back in the heart of the Colony, one among equals, asking their forgiveness.

  Scattered across the hills, the humans came out of their houses to listen to the bronzed notes rolling across the mountains under the stars, and they wondered at the richness and the sorrow of it. At the first note Rosa, now old beyond belief, struggled to sit up in her bed. They tried to pacify her, but she insisted they carry her to the place of the Dragons.

  Jorr sang on until his tale was finished, then dropped his head, and lay hollow, but there was a glimmer around him, and his last note did not fall silent as had the rest. It swelled to a hum, a chorus, a great scintillation of sound, and the glimmering light became a brightness that hurt his eyes. Out of it, two sparks of fire coalesced into the eyes of Ghed, oldest of Dragons.

  “Jorr.” In that one word was all the love and acceptance that Jorr longed for.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Take me with you. I don’t deserve it, I know. I was bad and greedy and selfish, but I know better now, and I am sorry. I will do anything you ask. Please, take me with you.”

  Behind Ghed stood another dragon; Marr, Jorr’s mother. “Come,” she called, and with her the whole Colony hummed.

  “Jorr?” A voice echoed across the Council chamber. Rosa’s great-grand-daughter helped her down off the litter, and she struggled across to where the dragon lay. “I’m sorry it took me so long. My grandsons thought I had gone mad, and only my great-grand-daughter here would help me. You found them? Your Colony?”

  Jorr laughed, with such happiness as she had never heard before. “They found me.”

  “Then go.” There were tears in her voice, but she was smiling. “Go to them. You will not forget me?”

  “Never, my dear.” Jorr gave her the most delicate of dragon kisses, and the same to her great-grand-daughter. “Thank you for believing her. I would not have liked to go without saying goodbye to my friends.” Speechless, the girl curtsied to him, for he was now a very large dragon indeed.

  Jorr laid his head down and closed his eyes. The glimmering enclosed him, growing in brightness till Rosa had to shut her eyes. The humming grew intense, and then faded. The light was gone, and there was only a circle of standing stones where the dragon had lain.

  “Goodbye Jorr.” Rosa patted the stone sadly. “I will miss you, but not for long, I think.” They took her back to her own bed, where she fell easily and painlessly asleep for the last time.

  Rosa’s great-grand-daughter travelled widely, leading her people to a realm where they could live peacefully. Wise and blessed, she became the first Mother of the Shantar, and the virtues of dream-walking and wisdom bestowed upon her by the dragon’s kiss were given also to her daughter, and to the oldest daughter in the line thereafter. So it has continued down all the generations to the present. That is why the Shantar walk paths not known to other peoples. It is because the line of the Mother was chosen by the last Dragon in the world to guide her people in the Dragon’s absence.”