The First Dragoneer

by M. R. Mathias

  “I’m Zahrellion, but you can call me Zah.” The white-haired, tattoo-faced druida said to the two young uniformed Foresters. When they didn’t respond, she continued. “This is Linux.” She indicated her fellow druid. “What are your names?”

  Linux was tall and thin, with a cleanly shaven head and a dark, well-trimmed beard that came to a sharp point a few finger-widths below his chin. The tattoos that marked his pale face were very nearly the same as Zah’s, save the triangle on his forehead wasn’t silvery. It was a darker color, like deep stained mahogany.

  “Mortin Wheatly from Copperton, ma’am,” the bigger of the two Foresters eventually replied. He had short-cropped, carrot-red hair and looked like he had never missed a meal in his life. He was thick necked, thick armed, and looked as if he might be a little thick headed too.

  “They call me Stick,” the other Forester said quickly, then heeled his horse away from the two druids. He was dark skinned and had short, straight hair as black as pitch that looked like a helmet on his head.

  “They call him Stick because he’s thin like a stick,” Mortin explained for those who didn’t get it.

  Jenka, Solman and Rikky all introduced themselves, and soon a light conversation about the qualities of different types of field rations ensued. Mortin and Rikky both swore that dried venison was the best because you could boil it into a pot of greens and water to make a warm stew, as well as munch it dry when you were on the move. Zah agreed that dried meat was a good choice, but claimed that sea biscuits were better because they would keep for months and could be made with special herbs that revitalized a person’s body faster. Her argument made even more sense when she threw in the fact that ship captains had been using sea biscuits, not jerked venison, as the crew’s main staple for as long as anyone could remember.

  “We en't eatin’ neither of ‘em tonight,” Herald, the King’s Ranger, chimed in robustly. “Tonight we’ll be pullin’ pork till the stars come out. That’s the only reason I like making this fargin trek.” He was a big, gruff, unkempt man of a sizable girth. He didn’t look like much, but there was no mistaking the ease at which he sat the saddle. And if you happened to make out the embroidered emblem on the breast of his filthy tunic, you’d know to beware, because the star of the King’s Rangers was the unquestioned law of the frontier.

  The hills smoothed out a bit as the day wore on, and the slow, rolling plains spread away ahead of them like plush, green waves frozen in time. Behind them, the mountains rose up, sharp and intimidating, but ahead of them the world was alive and full of the promise of spring. Multi-colored clusters of shrubbery and wildflowers sustained a plethora of busy insect life. This kept the scenery along the way from becoming mundane. As the sun sank low in the sky, they saw a thin trail of chimney smoke in the near distance. Herald repeated several times, for the sake of those who didn’t know yet, that the smoke was from a lodging house and pig farm owned by a barrel keg of a bastard named Swinerd.

  Jenka recognized the name and quickly put the big, scruffy man’s face to it. Swinerd and his three sons often sold pigs in Crag, and sometimes stopped to purchase a liniment or a salve from Jenka’s mother. Once, Swinerd had gotten into an argument with one of the King’s Rangers and a brawl had ensued. Jenka remembered how excited the entire village had gotten over the conflict. Wagers had been made, and old Pete had opened a keg of stout for those who had the coin to buy a drink. Swinerd had pounded the poor ranger half to death, and Jenka didn’t remember seeing either man back in Crag since.

  As they neared the formidable and well-constructed looking log building, the smell of swine refuse, pungent and ripe, filled their nostrils to the point of gagging. The lodge was off the main road a short way, and beyond it was an even bigger, open-sided building. Under that gray tiled roof were rows of pens, each full of squealing piglets and loud, grunting sows. A young man, probably one of Swinerd’s sons, looked up from his labors and saw the group approaching. He immediately took off running. A moment later, big old Swinerd was stalking across the turf from the lodge, trying to hold his big splitting axe high with one hand while fastening his cloak around his neck with the other. He couldn’t quite manage it, and that only seemed to further agitate the intimidating-looking man.

  The cloak was discarded after about ten paces. Swinerd’s fierce scowl showed that he was no longer concerned with the garment. One of the sons was coming out behind his father and scooped it up as he came.

  “You fat dirty bastard,” Swinerd snarled and started charging. Herald cursed and then spurred his horse ahead while drawing his sleek long sword. He raised the blade up high and heeled his steed into a full charge at the other man. The two Foresters looked at Master Kember for instruction, but the old hunter was intently watching the two men and ignored them.

  It was odd to look upon; two grizzled men charging at each other, one in drab gray and green ranger’s garb, riding a well-trained horse. The other clad in rough spun and animal hides, running on his booted feet.

  “Why in the world are they … ” Rikky started to ask, but his voice stopped flat when the two men simultaneously let out very similar, primal roars.

  Jenka could do little else but watch, slack-jawed and confused, as the scene unfolded before his eyes. He wondered why Linux or Master Kember wasn’t doing anything other than watching, and decided that if they weren’t worried, then he shouldn’t be either.

  Swinerd swung his axe and sent Herald’s sword flying away in a twirling glimmer of polished steel. But big old Herald leapt from his horse like some obese tree-cat and tackled Swinerd by the collar. They went tumbling into a tangle of arms and legs that looked like it would have been fatal for a lesser man. The two men ended up lying in a cloud of dust, side by side, head to foot. After a short, but tense silence they began laughing hysterically like two rambunctious young boys. Realization hit Jenka then: Herald and Swinerd were brothers.

  The old King’s Ranger hadn’t been exaggerating. They were fed enough roasted pork to fill a small battalion and they were welcomed as if they were the king's own retinue. The lodge’s common room was clean and empty, save for one of the hands that labored for Swinerd. He was at a plank-wood table near the ale keg, hovering over a plate of food. The log walled, plank-floored space boasted a large, stone fireplace at one end and three shuttered windows on the wall facing away from the pig barn. Swinerd’s wife was an excellent cook, and she was as nice as she was round. She hummed and sometimes sang the words to a trio of old folk songs as she floated about the table, keeping the tankards full of dark stout that had been brought there all the way from King’s Island.

  The younger men and boys listened closely, as Swinerd recounted the tale of how he and his sons had very recently saved a group of herbalists from a pair of roaming trolls. The herbalists came this way from Port and Three Forks every spring to gather their wild growing wares. They had chanced upon the wrong berry patch this year, though. Swinerd and his sons had been letting the sows fatten in a thayzle-nut patch down by Demon's Lake a few weeks back and had been able to frighten the gangly beasts away before they killed anybody.

  Zah suggested that those trolls could be scouts gathering tactical information for their coming attack. Three of the four men at the table, Master Kember, Herald, and Swinerd, shook their heads and agreed that was foolishness. They didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of trolls they had fought over the years. They spoke from experience, which had come at a grim price for a lot of men.

  “Trolls don’t reason,” Herald insisted. “They can’t think or plan beyond their instinct to hunt and eat. It’s that simple. Wolves are ten times cleverer than trolls.”

  Linux never entered the conversation, but Jenka saw a look pass between him and Zah. After that, she held her tongue when she didn’t agree with the men. Her face showed her displeasure, though. A light tension hummed through the air, save for when Swinerd’s plump wife was there to smother it with her lovely musical voice.

  It turned o
ut that Swinerd was just a nickname, which seemed obvious to Jenka now. Their mother had named them Herald and Gerald, and Gerald had been selling pigs to the rangers up at Kingsmen’s Keep just as long as Herald had been a ranger. Kaljatig was the name their father gave them both, and his long years of working the Great Wall gave it some weight. The Yule pig at the king's own table had come from Swinerd’s farm the last seven years running, and he was proud of it. Swinerd also sold his hogs to the good folk up in the other foothill villages, and two or three times a year he sent a herd down to Three Forks. The anger he had displayed at his older brother earlier was over just such a journey that had ended four days ago near Demon's Lake when road bandits got away with a score of his pigs. Herald had promised to come down with a few of the rangers and escort the herd safely to Three Forks, but the king’s business had kept him from keeping his word. Swinerd’s oldest son had gotten knifed trying to defend the herd. The boy had survived the chest wound and was out in the bunk house healing. Swinerd had just been venting his anger over the situation, and the animosity was almost already forgotten.

  Zah offered to look at the boy’s wounds, but Swinerd refused her as politely as his rough manner would allow. Herald tried to explain that it would be good for the boy, but there didn’t seem to be any sway in his brother’s superstitious stubbornness.

  Solman, Rikky, Mort, and Stick were put up in the bunk house. Since Jenka had been assigned the position of personal attendant to the druids, he was assigned a room in the main house with Linux. Linux had already politely requested that a hot bath be filled for him, and as soon as Jenka finished his meal, he went about getting the water heated and hauled.

  Zah, being a young lady, was given her own quarters. Jenka had to haul a bath for her too, but that chore he did happily. When the work was done, he was too tired to haul a bath for himself. Master Kember and Herald each got a private room, and though they were all the way at the other end of the hall, their thunderous snoring kept Jenka awake most of the night. It was during a lull in this nocturnal nasal symphony that Linux spoke to Jenka for the first time.

  “You have a destiny, Jenka De Swasso,” his voice was eerily deep and his tone somewhat grave. “Zahrellion does too. What that destiny is, I am not certain, but the dragons seem to sense it. That’s why they have approached you two. I think that your path leads somewhere other than to the King’s Rangers. I believe that there are more of you, and I believe that your destiny is far greater than that. I also believe that the trolls are far more powerful than the King’s Rangers believe, and this is troubling.”

  “Are you and Zah human?” Jenka asked the first question that came to mind. “Or are you elvish, like the village folk say?”

  Linux chuckled. “That is not the correct question to ask, Jenka, but it’s a good one.” There was a flash as a small flare of sapphire druid’s fire burst forth on the wick of the candle sitting on the table between the two beds. After a beat, the blue color burned from the flame, leaving a typical yellow glow. Linux grinned at Jenka’s unease. “You should ask me if I have descendants that washed up on Gull's Reach after the Dogma was swallowed by the sea. Now that is the proper question.”

  Jenka looked at the strange man for a moment. The pointed beard made Linux' head look unnaturally long, and his eyes were a clear liquid blue that rivaled the depths of Zahrellion’s lavender orbs. But other than that, and the tattoos, he looked perfectly human to Jenka. Jenka shrugged. “Well?”

  “Yes, my ancestors were on the Dogma, and so were Zahrellion’s, but neither of us are completely human. Nor are you. There were a handful of the elvish on the Dogma, and a few of the little folk, if it is to be believed. It’s true that some of the members of our sect have a touch of high elvish in their blood, but it is thin in most of us. A few, though, are still more elvish than human. There are smatterings of high blood in a good portion of the kingdom’s people, but if you tell anyone about it, I’ll be forced to spell you into a tree-sloth or a mud busker.”

  Jenka met the strange druid’s gaze and was relieved to see a wide, toothy grin spread across Linux' eerie, tattooed face. Jenka wasn’t sure about how much of what he had just been told was true, but he didn’t doubt any of it. He was quickly finding out that the foothills and forests around Crag and Kingsmen’s Keep were only a tiny little piece of a gigantic world, full of far greater concerns than his meager hopes and desires.

  “What are we supposed to do to convince King Blanchard that the dragons don’t need to be killed? Ridding the Islands of the deadly wyrms had to be a long and bloody business. Master Kember says that it’s a grim sort of work, but it has to be done. He says that killing dragons is part of our heritage, that by conquering the dragons and trolls we are displaying our dominance over the frontier, like the leader of a pack of wolves does over the others.”

  “Ah, eliminate the competing predator before it can eliminate you,” Linux shrugged helplessly at the foolishness of it. “Men are not as primal as most species, but they are animals, Jenka. I’ll not get into that argument with you, though. Zah seems to think that she has a plan. She hasn’t told me what it is yet, but she is a clever, clever girl. She said that you were a dimwit,” the suddenly juvenile-seeming druid chuckled. “I’ll save you some trouble, Jenka: That means that she likes you.”

  *** * ***

  Morning came far too swiftly for Jenka. Linux felt sorry for him, and saddled his and Zah’s horses while Jenka and the other boys went through their morning exercise drills with the two Foresters.

  The day was pleasant, and the first half of it went by fairly swiftly for Jenka. He spent most of his time turning over stones of thought deep within his skull, while enjoying the wide open carillon sky and the vigorous life that flourished in the world. Zahrellion’s beauty, and the idea that she liked him, kept him wondering. The complexity of what she wanted him to believe, and how it affected his future, kept a brooding look on his face. But every now and then he would catch Zah giving him a curious look. After that, he would beam for a little while. Once he caught her staring at him from behind a fist-sized gourd nut she was sipping. She held his gaze when he caught her.

  A little after midday, the road eased up next to the Strom River. The Strom came out of the Orich Mountains up near Crag, but it wound away to the west before turning its flow southward toward the sea again. A man with a strong arm could probably throw a stone all the way across it, but it ran swiftly and looked fairly deep. The rutted road would follow the river’s general course the rest of the way to Port.

  “We won’t get to cross the Strom until we get almost to Three Forks,” Mortin, the carrot-haired Forester, said to the other boys. “Tomorrow we’ll pass by Demon's Lake. That’s where Crix Crux used to hole up before the pilgrims and the Kingsmen ran him up into the hills.”

  “How do you know?” Rikky asked in disbelief. “If that’s true, then Crix Crux has to be older than water.”

  Jenka and Stick both chuckled at the young hunter’s sound reasoning.

  “It’s called Demon's Lake because the wind makes a deep groaning sound where it passes over the grottos, not because of the Crix Crux fable,” Zah informed them. “When our ancestors first left the Islands and started settling here on the mainland they feared the place because of the sound and called it Demon's Lake.”

  “That’s true, lass, about them howlin’ caverns, but that en’t why it’s called Demon's Lake,” Herald heeled his horse over and added to the history. “Way back when they was building the Great Wall, a 'fore any pilgrims ever dared to venture farther inland than the coastal strongholds, they came a 'hollering that a lake monster had slunked up out of the caves during the night and snatched a man and the cattle he was watering. After that, it went and killed and ate a dozen caravan men who had just filled the king’s water wagons at the lake.” He paused and spit a wad of phlegm off to the side. “A group of Kingsmen went down into them grottoes and found some cattle carcasses, and half a man’s body too. Then, after about half of t
hem got roasted to ash they realized that they had holed in on an old fire wyrm. They went back to the construction settlements, where the wall was going up, and got reinforcements with lances and crossbows. They came back to kill the savage red bastard, but by the time they returned it had killed most of the troop and fled for the peaks.”

  “If that tale is true, then those men got what they deserved,” Zah said with a touch of defiant anger in her voice. “How would you feel if some strange creatures came and violated your home and tried to kill you?”

  “How would you feel if you was one of them innocent farm folks that fire breathin’ bastard was a' eatin’, miss?” Herald’s expression was a study in indignant righteousness. He spat another wad of dark phlegm. Then he spat his words. “I lost a fist full of friends and a few kin to them scaly fargin wyrms over the years. If you ever knew the truth of things, about how them dragons nearly killed off our first ancestors and ended us, then you’d have a different bit of reasonin’ in your pretty skull.” He huffed away some of his ire and glanced around at the group. “When the survivors of the Dogma first washed up on Gull's Reach, they had to fight the dragons just to get from the sea shore into the thickets. Learned druid or not, you haven’t read all the books there is, miss. There’s a bundle of journals wrote by them survivors. I read some of them back when I was stationed on King’s Island.” Herald’s grizzly expression softened a bit as a fond memory intruded on his anger. “My betrothed was a scribe there. She’d been markin’ copies of old manuscrifts to preserve them.”

  “They are called manuscripts,” Zah snorted. “And I am sure it was hard those first years out on Gull's Reach, but we washed up in their land. We are the ones who … who … um … ” She faltered and mumbled something else but no one heard what it was.

  Everyone was suddenly sitting still in the saddle and holding their breath. Even the horses had seemingly frozen in place. All eyes, including Zahrellion’s, were now staring at the dark, sinuous thing in the sky that had just completely eclipsed the sun as it passed over them.