Dragon eggs took months to mature and hatch, and since these eggs were only three weeks old, the life inside was still developing. Nogdo rubbed his hands together, slid his arms around one of the toasty eggs, and lifted with a strain. It weighed as much as a boulder. He tried again, lifting from his legs and straining his back, but the egg shifted only slightly. The exertion of the effort made him collapse to the ground, panting. He leaned back against the nest to rest.
After catching his breath, he turned around in determination and clawed at the nest, throwing handfuls of twigs, feather, skin, and bone over his shoulder. Halfway through, a foul, yellow paste coated his hands, and he gagged.
The beating of wings echoed down the tunnel, making Nogdo’s heart leap with alarm. His mind froze. His bones turned to mush. Unable to stand on his wobbling legs, he crawled around the nest to cower.
Thump! A cloud of dust settled on Nogdo and the eggs. When the dragon went quiet, the butcher was even more terrified. After a while, he couldn’t stand the silence and he carefully peered over the nest. The sudden thump of a foot made him drop back down into a shaking mess.
A long, scaly snout with two large nostrils appeared above him. Nogdo slammed a silencing hand over his mouth as the nostrils rippled and snorted. The dragon lurched forward and curled its long neck so it could fix its black, menacing eyes on poor, defenceless Nogdo.
Urine soaked the butcher’s pants, and he hoped the bitter smell didn’t upset the beast. He scooted across the floor, keeping one eye on the dragon as he put distance between himself and the eggs. The dragon perched itself protectively over the nest and snarled at him, exposing a mouth full of piercing teeth. Nogdo crossed his arms over his face, bracing himself for the blistering heat. Instead, the beast shut its mouth.
‘Please! Please! Don't kill me!’ Nogdo cried. Tears stung his eyes as he huddled against the cavern wall.
The dragon stepped forward until its sulphurous breath warmed his face. ‘I might say the same to you.’
Her gentle voice surprised Nogdo. For some reason, he’d always seen dragons as male, though he remembered the magician telling him different. For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming, or if he had gone mad. He allowed one hand to drop from his face, and the mother dragon raised her head, allowing him a fresh breath.
‘H-how are you—?’ he stammered foolishly.
‘You’ve eaten dragon meat, haven’t you?’ Those bleak, death-filled eyes changed to a leafy green.
‘Yes,’ he replied, realising a little too late that he'd just admitted to eating one of her kind. ‘How do you know?’
She narrowed her eyes, and he couldn’t help marvel at how the scales moved and stretched to express her feelings. ‘Because you understand me. Only those who’ve eaten the flesh of dragons may hear our growls as words. You reek of deception,' she hissed. 'You want one of my eggs.'
Nogdo bit the inside of his cheek. ‘My son—’
The dragon interrupted him with an evil, throaty laugh. ‘He sprouts a tail and wings.’ The dragon nuzzled her eggs, checking them for damage.
‘Yes,’ Nogdo said helplessly.
‘They're mine!' she snarled. ‘I should teach you a lesson. Thirty days and my babies will be hatched and hungry. What a pleasing first meal you would make for them.’
‘I-I’ll leave. Now. I won’t come back. Please, just let me go.’ Nogdo knew he had no tricks up his sleeve.
‘Can you fight?’ asked the dragon.
Nogdo widened his eyes. ‘I can't fight you!’
‘Can you fight?’ she boomed.
‘I can use a carvin' knife.’ With a shaky hand, the butcher drew a slender blade and showed it to the dragon. ‘See?’
She snorted. ‘Dragon hunters captured my mate, the father of my beloved brood.’ Her scaly eyes closed mournfully. When they opened again, they blistered with hate. ‘Their mobile contraptions fire spears into the sky.’ She lifted her wing, exposing a red scar. ‘I can’t get close!’
The tales of hunters battling dragons kept bards fed and old women gossiping. Though they were handsomely paid for their work, hunters were savages that despised normal folk. And normal folk, although accepting of their necessity, despised them just as equally.
‘Let me help,’ Nogdo offered in vain. He could think of no other way to escape with his life.
The dragon shook its long, scaly neck, the red of it gleaming under firelight. ‘If you rescue my beloved, you may have one of my eggs. A life for a life.’ Sharp teeth peeked between thin lips as the dragon attempted to smile or sneer; Nogdo couldn’t tell the difference.
‘How do I cure my son with the egg?’ the butcher asked, knowing the magician wouldn’t help him if he only had one egg.
She spread her bat-like wings. ‘The antidote requires magic and fire. Only a magician can conjure the spell.’
Darn it! The butcher pondered his options. At Fort Greystone, magicians were already trying to cure the scaling children. Why didn’t they know about the dragon egg remedy? Maybe they did—or maybe they didn’t realise that Blackscale was caused by eating dragon flesh. Would one egg heal Kibsigy, as well as the rest?
‘So be it,’ Nogdo said despondently. ‘I’ll find your mate.’
‘Tolcan is his name.’
‘And ‘cause I’ve eaten dragon meat, I’ll be able to understand him as well.’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I can take you now. Your horse is too tired anyway.’
How did she know about Fleabag?
The dragon hunched down and flattened her neck against the ground. ‘Climb on, butcher.’
Nogdo's mouth fell open. He knew of no accounts of a dragon ever being ridden by a man. Would he be the first? Eyeing the sharp spines on her back, he hesitated.
‘At the base of my neck,’ she said. ‘You’re not afraid of heights, are you?’
Nogdo didn't know, but climbing the mountain hadn't bothered him. He stepped forward and swung his leg over the scaly muscles of her neck.
Slowly, she raised her head, and Nogdo slid down into the groove above her shoulders. As she rose further, he hugged her neck.
‘Not so tight,’ she complained, and then strode purposefully to the cavern opening. She perched on the cliff’s edge, and Nogdo stared past his boot to the tiny features of the landscape below. His moist hands slipped on her oily scales, so he gripped harder with his knees.
‘Prepare yourself,’ she said as she spread her wings, extended her neck like a swan, and leaped from the ledge. Nogdo’s stomach rose into his chest and stayed there until, with two jolting beats of the dragon’s wings, they soared evenly across the sky.
Nogdo’s exhilaration made him cry out. He laughed and glanced back over his shoulder to view the Dragon Cliffs. Below, a herd of wildebeest crossed a river, and to his right, a flock of migrating ducks formed a V in the distance.
The butcher considered that Kibsigy, if the disease claimed him completely, might fly through the skies. He could ride on his son’s back—no, that would be cruel. Kibsigy deserved to be a normal boy.
‘We’re nearly there,’ the mother dragon said.
Nogdo was amazed at the speed with which they'd crossed the lands. The sun moved down the sky, giving the mountains a golden halo that produced long, sweeping shadows. As they began their descent, Nogdo spotted smoke rising from a ravine. The hunters must be there, he thought.
‘Why didn’t they just kill Tolcan?’ Nogdo asked.
‘They are using him. They want my eggs as well.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
Upon landing, his joints jolted painfully. Nogdo turned his head and massaged the base of his skull.
‘Tell him Venussa sent you,’ she said. ‘Tell him to return you to me once you have freed him.’ Her voice cracked with sadness. ‘I cannot stay here.’ She spread her wings and turned abruptly, her tail sweeping above him.
Nogdo ducked and stretched a hand. ‘Wait!’ But she was already rising into the air. As she flew back to her nest,
her crimson scales blended with the fiery sunset.
The butcher lost count of the different tendrils of smoke rising in the distance. How many hunters live here? The dragon hunters were rumoured to enjoy the taste of man flesh. Nogdo didn’t particularly want to become someone’s evening meal, and so, with a heavy heart, he began his journey home.
As he trudged, he could only think of Kibsigy in pain and crying out as the dragon scales enveloped his body. Nogdo wasn’t a religious man, but he felt as if the universe had aligned to punish him for some misdeed. He angled his face upwards and cried, ‘Why me?’
When no one replied, he felt more alone than ever and angrily kicked a stump. Would Marella still love him if he returned home empty-handed? Would the lord of Bolopsy have Kibsigy killed upon his complete transformation into a dragon? If he didn’t do the right thing, then he and his family would experience great suffering, and it would be his fault.
Again, Nogdo arrived at the conclusion that his life didn’t matter. And so after having walked for an hour in the opposite direction, he turned around and ran back to the valley which housed the dragon hunters’ camp.
The rolling mountains and sparsely decorated countryside were easily navigated, unlike his growing fear. Using the love for his son, he managed to drown out his cowardly impulses by remembering memories of precious times. Nogdo especially adored the memory of when he’d taken Kibsigy fishing for the first time.
‘I want to be a fishmonger!’ his very proud five-year-old son had declared after reeling in his first fish: a flapping gobbler.
‘Fisherman,’ Nogdo had corrected him. “A fishmonger sells fish at markets.’
‘Ewl, I don’t want to do that, Papa,’ Kibsigy had said.
Nogdo chuckled at the memory.
Boisterous voices from the valley below interrupted his reminiscing. Following the barbaric shouts were the roars of a distraught dragon. The sound echoed across the valley and bounced off the mountains. The sadness of it plucked Nogdo’s heartstrings.
The butcher peered down at the hundreds of tents erected across the sprawling gorge, the whole encampment surrounded by segments of shoddy stockades. Fifteen or so campfires and a lot more torches provided light against the looming darkness. When Tolcan roared again, Nogdo spotted the dragon’s tail poking out from behind a tent.
Nogdo took a deep breath and then started down the hillside.
* * *
The illumination caused by the fiery sunlight had long since become a grey twilight as Nogdo waited patiently.
The butcher—hiding at the southern end of the camp—crawled from behind a bush to the nearest tent. The rattling of chains and heavy panting of the captured dragon grew louder as the world quietened. Nogdo reached the tent unseen, and he braved a peek around the side to see the blue-scaled dragon—easily twice the size of Venussa—restrained by eight steel chains, each as thick as Nogdo’s thighs.
To the butcher’s dismay, the hairy, burly hunters sat at ring of campfires spaced evenly around the dragon. They tended to rotating spits of rabbit, goat, and boar. The smells and sounds of sizzling meat made Nogdo’s stomach rumble, and he wondered if Tolcan had been fed or watered.
Nogdo had no choice but to wait while the men sung scores of off-pitch ballads that began and ended with the loud clunks of their ale flagons slamming together.
The painful hours of inane ruffian chatter made Nogdo grow restless, so he lifted the back flap of the tent and carefully peeled back the lining. Between the gaps of fabric, he saw the empty space and stepped inside. Dragon teeth and horns sat between rows of cowhide-covered cots. Solid wooden chests spewed gems, trinkets, and coins onto the ground. Archaic lamps painted the leather walls with patterned light.
The butcher paused, listening for crunching boots or approaching voices from outside. As his bravery grew, a scroll of fine vellum wrapped in glimmering gold thread drew his attention (dragon hunters weren’t known for being literate). After a cautious glance at the tent entrance, he crept to the scroll. He slipped off the scroll’s thread and unrolled the crinkled parchment pages. Nogdo expected to find script; instead, there were dimly lit charcoal strokes. Bringing an oil lamp closer, he gasped as the lines resolved into a clear image: A soldier clutching a crossbow, riding a dragon.
He quickly folded the parchment and shoved it in his pocket. To talk well of dragons—to mention peace between beast and men—was punishable by beheading under the laws of the land. He might use it against them later.
A sudden noise startled Nogdo. He darted to the back of the tent and slipped into the night. Crouching outside, he snatched a carving knife from his butcher’s belt, held it with trembling hands, and braced himself for attack.
An hour later, his presence remained unnoticed. His eyelids drooped, but the chilled air stung his nostrils and made his teeth ache. This kept him awake. The last of the revellers had finally succumbed to their inebriation, their snores drowning out his thoughts. As he stepped out into the open, he remembered a traumatic memory of a bully yanking down his pants in the fountain square on Ashos’ market day. That same terrifying feeling of exposure haunted him now.
His boot hit something soft and sloshy: a bloated water skin. He unplugged the cork and sniffed the stale contents, expecting his nose to tingle with bitterness, but it never came. Just water. He doused the nearest fire, the coals hissing loudly. Nogdo cursed his stupidity and winced; fortunately, the nasally chorus of snores continued. The butcher had been so preoccupied with not getting caught that he’d forgotten the dragon. As he met Tolcan’s eyes, he sensed the dragon’s astuteness. The beast knows what I’m up to. The fine hairs on Nogdo’s arms stood on end as he doused the five other fires.
Having snuffed all fires on the western side, the dragon’s hefty figure cast an eastern shadow. Nogdo moved more confidently in the dim light, inspecting the dragon’s glossy form. But the hide of the beast did not glisten because of sleekness, or perspiration, but rather blood. It seeped between the scales pried up from the cutting chains.
‘Your female sent me,’ Nogdo whispered, and the dragon blinked once, his head raising slightly, softly rattling the manacles. ‘Venussa, she flew me here to save you,’ he added.
‘Lies, dragon eater!’ The dragon said with a crackling, throaty growl. ‘You are human. And humans always lie. Especially ones that eat dragon meat.’ He snarled, and the hunters’ snores grew erratic.
‘Hush, please,’ Nogdo pleaded. ‘I’m here to help you.’
‘Then remove my steel bonds, dragon eater.’
Nogdo was filled with fear when the dragon called him a dragon eater for the second time. And it made him second guess letting the dragon go free. He observed the beast’s bonds. Gigantic metal spikes secured the beast’s chains to rock, clay, and tree. Trying to pry them out would wake the hunters.
‘Well?’ Tolcan asked, his eyes becoming slits.
‘I’ll wake ‘em up. We’ll wait until they leave.’
‘That may never happen.’ The dragon revealed a single, long canine. ‘How do you know my mate’s name?’
‘I told you, she brought me here. You gotta trust me if you want help.’
The dragon gave a smoky snort. ‘There can be no trust between dragon and man.’
‘Your den is amongst the Dragon Cliffs, to the east,’ Nogdo said, folding his arms.
The dragon showed every single tooth now, and its eyes blazed. ‘I might live somewhere else.’
Nogdo took a step back, raising his hands. ‘Be that way, but I was there not half a day ago. I want a dragon egg and’—he remembered how angry Venussa had been when he’d told her about Kibsigy and decided to omit it—‘Venussa promised me one in exchange for saving you.’
The deadly gleam in Tolcan’s eyes dulled slightly. ‘Why did you not ask the dragon you killed?’
Nogdo stepped forward. ‘I swear I never killed one.’
‘Never?’ Tolcan said, his eyes gleaming with hostility. ‘Then how did you come to eat dragon
meat?’
‘It was hunters. Maybe even these ones.’ He nodded in the direction of the sleeping barbarians. The hunters might have had the king’s protection, but everyone knew them to be savages. ‘They shot down one of your kind while it was flyin’. It crushed my buggy. I was stranded with nothin’ to eat. Didn’t have no choice.’ Nogdo shrugged.
The dragon’s lips turned upwards. ‘We taste good.’
‘Too good,’ Nogdo added sadly, and the strong cravings returned with such force that he considered munching on the dragon’s thick, juicy tail.
A string of drool seeped from a crack of the dragon’s mouth. ‘But not good for children.’
Clever, Nogdo thought. ‘So you know…’
The dragon’s lip curled upwards. ‘There are only two reasons why you would want our eggs: To raise a dragon like a dog, or to stop a child from turning into one of us.’ Nogdo froze at the smell of sulphur on the dragon’s breath. ‘How did your child come to eat our meat?’ Tolcan asked. ‘Were you not travelling alone?’
‘I took some home with me.’
The dragon let out a surprisingly loud roar of laughter, and the butcher froze.
‘Shuddup!’ yelled one of the barbarians, who flung his shoe at Tolcan’s head and missed. The brute immediately went back to sleep.
‘Somehow,’ the dragon said, quieter this time, ‘these hunters found a scroll from your Dark Times, when men and dragons turned on each other. I cannot let these savages spread the secrets of our dragon meat.’
The Dark Times had passed five hundred years ago. No one knew why, but the history and knowledge of that era had never been recorded.
‘Dragons and men lived in peace?’ Nogdo asked.
‘For a time. The king who governed the lands, King Samire, favoured dragons, and did not fear us as had his forefathers. After uncovering the nearby lair of a ten thousand-year-old dragon named Ashella, King Samire sent a hundred cows to the base of her mountain, as an offering of affection. Over time, the king won Ashella’s trust, and their unity inspired other dragons to live closer to humans and help them tend to farms, build structures, and clear forests.’
The Dragon Chronicles Page 7
