by JA Andrews
His eyes, caught by the waterfall, followed a patch of the water as it fell, smooth and inevitable, until it crashed onto a jumble of boulders next to the river, shooting spray out in a fine mist.
Past it, the rickety remains of a dock poked out into the river. A handful of weathered posts, fighting to stay upright in the current, showed it had originally reached farther out. But the stub of dock still standing was just large enough to fit Tomkin’s little rowboat. He tied his boat as close to the shore as he could, hoping the wood wouldn’t rot away before he came back.
He stood and looked at the ruins again. He hadn’t planned on taking Scalebreaker to explore with him, but this was starting to feel a bit more like an adventure. And things never went well for adventurers who didn’t have their swords. He buckled the scabbard back around his waist and stepped onto the ancient dock. In front of him a jagged, broken line of steps clung to the cliff, zigging and zagging, and occasionally disappearing altogether, up to the castle.
With another tug at the awkward sword, Tomkin began to climb. The first step shifted under his foot, but held. The third tilted under his weight. The twelfth split in half and Tomkin’s foot slid off the side. He crashed to his knee and his scabbard whacked him on the back of his leg. His hands scrambled for purchase as the broken piece of step tumbled into the river.
Never mind, he wasn’t going to be eaten by a dragon. He was going to die falling down stairs. Typical. His father or brother would at least have made it to the castle to investigate. He took a deep, bracing breath and scrambled higher.
It took ages to reach the top. Tomkin sank to his bruised knees, exhausted, on a small landing facing the main gate of the castle. The view was enough to steal away the little breath he had left. To his right, far below him, was the river. Past it, hills and shaded valleys mingled with each other to the eastern horizon.
To his left, he could see a small lake between the castle and the cliff that continued to rise above it. The waterfall crashed down into it, raising a small cloud of mist.
The thick, wooden castle gate sat before him. Tomkin rose and shoved against it as hard as he could. It didn’t move. He yanked and pushed and shook it, but the gate ignored him. He stepped back to consider his options.
The wall of the castle was too smooth to scale. The lake to his left came right up to the castle wall, and he didn’t feel like getting wet, so he turned to his right. The ground next to the gate fell away, down at least one story, to the little outcropping of rock the castle wall was built on. It would have been too far down for Tomkin to reach, but a watchtower had crumbled at the corner of the castle, piling enough stones against the wall that it was just a quick scramble for Tomkin to climb down to them. He worked his way along the stones until he reached the front corner of the castle wall.
The rubble from the watchtower continued along the front of the castle, all the way to the first large window looking out over the river. The castle wall sat close to the edge of the cliff along this side, and Tomkin pressed his back to the wall, shuffling along the top of the rubble, refusing to look down. A gust of wind nudged him and he squeezed his eyes shut.
Tomkin’s father wouldn’t be here, clinging to the wall, creeping along with shaking hands. He would have mounted a full frontal attack on the castle door, breaking it open. Probably with just his fist.
A rock under Tomkin’s foot shifted. His eyes flew open and he drew back. The rock rolled down the pile of rubble, bounced into the air, and sailed down, down, down until it was lost in the river. Tomkin’s heart felt like it was trying to jump out of his chest and do the same.
He glanced back the way he had come. Maybe he could just turn around and go home.
No.
He wasn’t going to leave before he even got inside. Tomkin gritted his teeth and scooted closer, until the base of the first window came within reach. He grabbed the edge and pulled himself onto his stomach on the windowsill. The sill was wide enough to stand on and he climbed to his feet, scooting toward the interior side and away from the sheer drop off behind him.
The room ahead of him was dark compared to the bright sunlight outside, but he could see that the sill he stood on continued along the wall in both directions as a ledge, just wide enough to fit him. The dim impression of the floor was far enough below him that he wasn’t interested in jumping. He shuffled along the ledge to his left, away from the window, and waited for his eyes to adjust.
His nose adjusted first. The room smelled dry and metallic—like the armory on a hot day. A moment later Tomkin could make out dark shapes on the walls that might be tattered tapestries. The floor of the room was dotted with lumps—broken furniture, perhaps.
Below him, mounded against the wall beneath the ledge, was an enormous pile of…something. Tomkin leaned forward and caught a glimpse of bright orange.
His first thought was a pile of garnets, like the one in his sword, and his breath caught at the thought of so much wealth.
But at that moment a cloud passed out from in front of the sun, the room brightened, and the entire mound turned into a pile of orange…
Scales.
Tomkin was perched on a ledge above a fire-orange dragon.
4
Tomkin drew in a sharp breath, then clamped his lips shut against the noise of it.
Slowly, he drew his sword.
He could make out the shape of the dragon now, its back curled along the wall, its head and tail wrapped in front of its enormous body.
Tomkin’s legs began to shake and he pressed back against the wall. He shifted his weight back toward the window, holding his breath until he could step back outside and flee.
No. He clamped down on his fear.
Elton wouldn’t run away. He’d stride in, blond hair flowing, charming smile flashing, and kill the beast in one, swift, muscly stroke.
There was no way Tomkin could do that. His hair never flowed that nicely, for one thing. But he was standing over a dragon—a real dragon—and he couldn’t be a coward now. He couldn’t fight it, but there must be something useful he could learn before he left. Some weakness he could find, a missing scale perhaps…
Placing each foot carefully, determined to ignore his shaking legs, he took several steps further along the wall. Below him, the rounded heap of blazing orange scales rose and fell.
Bright as death.
Tomkin clenched his jaw and shoved the phrase out of his mind.
He set the tip of the heavy sword on the ledge next to him. The orange garnet in the hilt glinted, an orange almost as bright as the dragon’s scales. Tomkin ran his gaze over the dragon’s side. The creature was covered with smooth scales except for a line of jagged spines along the ridge of its back, snaking down to the tip of its tail. Leathery orange wings were folded tight along the spines.
But there were no weaknesses. Nothing but an unbroken wall of scales. Tomkin searched again. There had to be a missing scale. There was always a chink in the armor. How else did anyone defeat dragons?
This one, however, appeared chinkless. Scale after perfect scale covered the creature. The color was mesmerizing…like the brightest orange part of a flame. Tomkin leaned forward to see further around the monster’s belly. As the dragon breathed, the light rippled across it in waves of burnished bronze and blinding yellow.
Maybe on the dragon’s neck he’d find a weakness? He crept forward. His hand felt slick on the hilt of the sword.
There, on its neck was…something. A dark spot? A missing scale? Tomkin peered down, trying to catch the light moving across the creature’s neck. There was something.
He grabbed a wooden beam running up the wall next to him and leaned out.
What was that smudge of darkness? He leaned out further.
It was…
…a leaf. Just a leaf.
With a loud crack the beam sagged forward. Tomkin clutched it, the splintery edge of the wood cutting into his hand.
Below him the dragon shifted and raised its head. Two folds
of scales parted, revealing a reptilian eye, yellow and savage.
Tomkin’s heart faltered. The eye stared straight at him. Straight through him.
His body felt…wrong. His skin too tingly, his heart too big and fast. His lungs wouldn’t breathe right.
The dragon’s head turned like a snake’s, pinning Tomkin with an unblinking stare.
The wood beam cracked again, and Tomkin grabbed at it with both hands—realizing too late that meant he’d let go of the sword. His heart stopped altogether, his eyes locked on the silver blade as it glinted and fell towards the dragon’s side, growing smaller and more insignificant.
The dragon’s eyes followed the blade as well. It didn’t shift or cringe. For the briefest moment Tomkin imagined the blade piercing the dragon’s scales, driving deep into its body, delivering a death blow. But the sword twisted, the heavy hilt tumbling below the blade. When it hit, it was the garnet at the end of the hilt that tinked harmlessly off the scales. The blade clattered down the dragon’s side and there was a flash of orange as the garnet broke out of the hilt and skittered away past the dragon’s tail. A low growl emanated from the its chest.
Tomkin stood rooted to the ledge, his eyes staring at the dark floor where the garnet had landed.
His father was going to kill him.
That thought was so stupid that a short huff of laughter burst out of him. It echoed off the walls, sounding unhinged. Tomkin felt the dragon’s gaze rise from the blade until it skewered him to the wall. The rest of its body lay relaxed.
It’s going to eat me. Tomkin imagined the mouth opening, the dragon’s head striking forward impossibly fast. The teeth sinking into his body.
But the dragon didn’t move. It didn’t even twitch the end of its tail. Didn’t dragons always twitch their tails? Maybe that was cats.
Tomkin’s mind felt frantic, jumping from one thought to the next.
He felt the pressure of the dragon’s gaze like a heat pressing against him. It was like standing close to the baker’s oven where the air pushed against his skin. The bread weathering that heat suddenly seemed brave.
That was the moment when Tomkin realized he was not brave. Others were made to be the bread, to survive the fire and not burn up. Tomkin was made to stay in the library reading and waiting for someone to fix him a sandwich.
No, that metaphor was just weird. It would leave Tomkin eating the hero.
Tomkin dragged his mind back to the moment and blinked. The dragon did not.
The silence and stillness stretched on, building its own sort of menace. Tomkin’s heart had swelled to fill his entire body. He could feel it pounding in his ears, in his fingers, his entire chest thrummed with it. His throat was so full of his heart it didn’t have room to take in any air.
The silence grew so terrible that it was worse than the scales, worse than the slitted, unmoving pupils. Everything inside of Tomkin changed from wanting to run to wanting to break the silence.
It rose like a wave inside him, an irrepressible urge. Tomkins pressed his lips together, but it was no good. He’d never been able to keep his mouth shut. The pressure built and built until it squeaked out of him. Like a mouse being strangled.
“Hellocchh.” Tomkin clamped his lips shut. That had not been a manly noise.
The dragon’s head cocked.
Tomkin cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello.”
The dragon did not move, but Tomkin couldn’t stay frozen any longer. The stillness was as bad as the silence. Tomkin pulled one hand off the wood and gave a little wave.
Under his other hand, the beam shifted, then tore off the wall. Tomkin scrambled, reaching for anything. His fingers scraped over the rocky wall, scattering dust and pebbles. There was nothing to grab.
Tomkin fell.
He plummeted toward the dragon and a scream ripped out of him. He imagined crashing into the dragon a hundred times before he finally slammed into it. He tumbled and rolled over the scales, just like his impotent sword, before crumpling onto the stone floor.
Pain shot through his shoulder and one of his knees throbbed. He clenched his mouth shut to keep from screaming again. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to do it squealing like a helpless victim. Even if that was precisely what he was.
He shoved himself over onto his back.
The dragon lifted one clawed hand high in the air above him. Tomkin’s mind shut out everything else. The palm was covered with small, perfect scales. Pale orange, like a faded flower. Four long claws, each longer than Tomkin’s forearm, narrowed into black spikes.
Smooth and silent, the dragon lowered it, stopping just above Tomkin. Two claws clicked on the stones to Tomkin’s left. One scraped along the floor to his right. The last claw pressed against his chest.
Tomkin could feel his heart pounding against the tip of it. The dragon brought its head close to him and drew in a deep breath. Light rippled across its scales. Tomkin’s gaze was drawn along with it. The creature was enormous. Tomkin’s entire body was smaller than the beast’s arm.
The dragon breathed out, and Tomkin shrank away, waiting for the flames. All that came was a wave of hot air, smelling like beloved things being burned to char.
You dare disturb me? The dragon’s voice reverberated inside Tomkin’s skull, deep and threatening, like a drum deep in the earth.
Tomkin flinched, horrified. The dragon was speaking directly into his mind. He tried to swallow, but there was something wrong with his throat.
The dragon’s eyes narrowed. Who are you?
“T-t-tomkin Th-th-thornhewn.”
The dragon looked at the sword, then back at Tomkin, his gaze inexorable and accusing.
“Sorry about the sword,” Tomkin said. “I didn’t mean to….” His voice trailed off. He had been poised over the dragon with a drawn sword. That was a difficult thing to explain away. “I thought you were an eagle,” he said in a small voice.
The dragon let out a low growl and its palm dropped a handbreadth, pressing Tomkin against the floor.
“I mean…I didn’t…I….” His heart was pounding against the pressure of the claw. “You had a leaf on your neck,” he finished lamely.
The dragon’s voice rolled into his mind again, quiet and lethal. I do not wish to be disturbed.
“That makes sense,” Tomkin said quickly, nodding. “You picked a remote location for your lair. I didn’t mean to bother you. I can just go….”
The dragon cocked its head. It looked at Tomkin for another eternity with that fathomless gaze. Then it drew back its claws and its open jaws darted forward.
Tomkin screamed again.
The dragon’s teeth snapped shut. Smooth, hard teeth scraped against Tomkin’s stomach and he was lifted off the floor by his shirt.
He grabbed for purchase and found himself clinging to a large, white fang. The teeth pulled his shirt tight around him and the point of one long fang pressed against Tomkin’s ribs. He shoved himself against the dragon’s teeth and lips, trying to rip his shirt free, but none of the fabric gave.
Tomkin’s breath rushed in and out, but he still wasn’t getting enough air. He pounded his fists against the dragon’s snout, but to no effect. The dragon moved deeper into the hall, its scales rasping along the stone floor. Tomkin kept expecting the jaws to open and snap shut around him, but the dragon just carried him. They climbed a wide stairway at the far end of the room, out into the sunlight. Tomkin blinked at the brightness and twisted around looking for help.
He was being carried through a courtyard between the castle’s two towers. Sunlight bounced off the white stones as though this were just a normal summer afternoon, not the last moments of Tomkin’s life.
The dragon carried him to the circular tower. Tomkin craned his neck to see a barred wooden door at its base. With one long, black claw, the dragon lifted the bar and pulled the door open. Then, with a toss of its head, it flung Tomkin in.
5
Tomkin crashed down onto something lumpy. There was
a splintering of wood and a cry of pain he was positive hadn’t come from himself.
The door slammed shut and the bar clunked into place, dropping the tower into a deep gloom. A wave of relief at being alive washed over Tomkin until a sharp jab dug into his back.
“Get off me!” The lumpy thing shoved at him.
Tomkin tried to sit up, but the person under him, a girl from the voice, kept shifting and kicking.
A girl! The dragon had captured a girl!
His scabbard caught on something and ripped off. A small foot pressed into his back and shoved, sending him tumbling forward to crash into a pile of rocks. Pain shot across his shoulder and he rolled over, groaning. Sitting among broken pieces of a chair in front of a sagging desk was a furious girl. She was tremendously dirty. Her hair, which might have been brown, was tangled and held small clods of dirt and her face was smudgy with mud. She was like some fantastical creature made of earth.
Tomkin scrambled to his feet and held a hand out to her. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, “it’ll be ok. I’ll get you out of here. Are there any other doors?” He peered through the dim light.
She scrambled up and crossed her arms, looking remarkably imperious for a girl dressed in dirt.
“Get out.” Her voice rang in the hollow tower.
Tomkin blinked. “Out?”
“Out.” She pointed at the door. “This is mine.”
Tomkin looked around, confusion putting a damper on his terror.
“What’s yours?” He was standing in the bottom of the round tower, which rose two or three stories. High above him, sunlight poured in through a ring of thin, arched windows, but only a dribble of it reached down to where they were. The skeleton of a staircase clung to the wall in bits and pieces. Thick, rotten beams stuck out overhead from what had been a second floor. The air smelled dusty and old, as though it had been held captive in these walls too. “This tower? I think the dragon’s using it as a prison.”
She raised her sharp little chin and looked down her sharp little nose at him. “It’s not a prison. It’s the keep.”
