The Dragon Queen

by Alice Borchardt

  A minute later I saw movement in the heather and brush on the hillside. “Someone is here, besides us, I mean,” I whispered softly.

  Black Leg immediately crouched down. I remained where I was, knowing I must have been seen. At heart Black Leg was a wolf, and wolves need no lessons in furtiveness. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps and Gray came into view on the path.

  “What are you doing here, Guynifar?” he asked. “And alone?”

  “She is not alone,” Black Leg said as he rose to stand beside the boulder. Gray jumped. “So I see.”

  “Yes, and if you meant her any ill will, you would not have seen me till my knife was in you.”

  “Terribly suspicious people you are—Dugald’s family,” Gray said.

  “Yes,” I answered. “And you have reason to be glad.”

  “True,” he said. “But what are you doing?”

  “When the sun is closer to the horizon, we will hunt,” I said. “The chief is giving a feast tonight for the families of the men who man the boat. We hope to get a deer, maybe two.”

  Gray nodded. “I have rabbit snares here.”

  “We were passing the time until twilight talking,” Black Leg said. “Talking of marriage.”

  Gray chuckled. “I had thought you both too young to worry over that.”

  “No,” I said. “Though we cannot understand what all the wiggling and squirming is about.”

  Gray did laugh at that. Laughed till he had to sit down and wipe his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know. Being a friend of your family, I have heard the angry complaints of some of the couples you managed to surprise last year.”

  “What did they want?”

  “They felt you both needed a good spanking.”

  Both Black Leg and I were indignant about that and expressed it. Gray shook his head.

  “No, I fear all your guardians, Dugald and the Gray Watcher, are downright dangerous, and I can’t say I would court Kyra’s enmity either. No, I told them they brought it on themselves. Either behave better or hide better, I said to them, but I promised to speak to the Gray Watcher if your mischief continued. But then the weather turned nasty and—”

  “Why do they do that?” I asked. “And why do they hide when they do it? Are they ashamed? And if so, what have they to be ashamed of and—”

  “Stop—stop—stop!” Gray cried. He was laughing so hard he had to lean against the boulder I was sitting on.

  Black Leg looked disgusted at the foolishness of both adults and humans.

  “Oh, God, you are children,” Gray said. “And the only proper answer is that in the fullness of time, you will learn all the answers to your questions and many more you haven’t even thought of. But for right now, be content to wait. Wishing never made the tide rise or a pot boil. Only time can bring certain things about, and, lucky for the two of you, time is something you both have.”

  Black Leg and I looked at each other.

  “Well,” he said, “we weren’t talking about that anyway. She wants to go sell herself at the Beltane fair. I think she should stay home and marry me. We are not blood relatives, but she has been fostered among us. I am almost as good a hunter as the Gray Watcher. I can provide for her.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Gray said. “No, I don’t doubt that at all. No other family could send out two children and even hope to have them bring home a deer by nightfall. All of your people are a skilled lot, but strange, very strange,” he said.

  Again, we were both indignant. “Strange?” I asked. “How strange?”

  Gray met my eyes for a second, then looked away at the lake in the bottom of the valley. “No, don’t go to the Beltane fair. Not this year or even the next or the one after that. Many men would look upon you with desire not caused by your skills. Many would offer for you, but you are best bestowed with your family. And if you must marry, take Black Leg. He best understands you.”

  “It’s getting late,” Black Leg said.

  “And I,” Gray said, “must check my snares while there is still light.”

  Black Leg vanished into the brush. I went and collected his clothes and folded them behind the rock, then picked up the bow.

  “He will check for you,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “Yes, I know. Is he hungry?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, but if he were, he wouldn’t eat what belonged to you.”

  Gray folded his arms and looked out over the forested margins of the little lake.

  “In a minute or two,” I explained, “he will be back behind the rock.”

  Gray waited patiently. In a few minutes four hares and Black Leg appeared behind the rock. Gray went down on one knee and began to clean, skin, and gut the hares. I sat quiet, completely still. The sun was just touching the horizon when I could tell from small movements that Black Leg was positioning himself in the low brush at the lakeshore.

  “Be still now,” I told Gray. “He’s in position.”

  Gray finished with the hares. He stood. “Where is he?”

  “In that little patch of willows that runs right down into the water,” I whispered.

  “How can you tell?”

  “I don’t know how I tell. I just know,” I whispered back. “Now, be quiet. Maeniel gets angry if I lose arrows.”

  Half the sun went behind the small crag on the other side of the lake. The valley and the lake margins lay now in deep shadow. The air was cool, and it was very quiet here. No bird or animal made any sound. I saw shadows move on the margin of the lake on the other side. They were here. I found myself kneeling, bow in hand, watching.

  The sun sank lower. As it did, it moved from behind the crag and lighted the narrow end of the valley where the lake turned into a falls that rushed through a rocky bed down to the sea. The dying sun passed out from behind the crag on its journey toward the horizon and illuminated that end of the valley with a shaft of brilliant orange light. I was conscious the bow was in my hand, the arrow nocked.

  Black Leg made his rush. The deer fled along the lake margin in the shallows, splashing through the water and into the light. The first was a pregnant doe. She is sacred and may not be brought down. The second, a young stag with a fair rack. Tough! Cook him for two days and he would not be done. The third, another doe with a fawn, but the fourth, a yearling spike buck, good eating. The arrow was gone before I had time to will it.

  The yearling made one more leap. For a second I thought I’d missed. Then he died, going down into the water and sending a fan of spray with his sliding body.

  “Looks as though it will be only one,” I said when I jumped down from the rock. “Black Leg should have waited until there were more to choose from. A few minutes and we might have had two,” I grouched.

  “Be content,” Gray said. “I don’t know of a half dozen who could do so well and none are eleven- or thirteen-year-olds.”

  “Help us get the carcass to the chief’s hall and we will give you the heart, brain, and liver,” I said.

  Gray answered, “Done,” and we started walking to the other side of the lake. I carried Black Leg’s clothes. Gray slung the hares in a tree. I carried my bow on my back. Black Leg was sitting on shore when we reached the other side.

  Gray waded in and pulled the dead deer out of the water. The boar almost got him. It was as if the beast had been waiting. Black Leg, still a wolf, went for him, and the boar turned as though sensing that Gray, in up to his hips, was too far away, and with one vicious slash of his tusks, tried to disembowel him. The beast failed but he opened a ragged wound on Black Leg’s side.

  God, I remember thinking. God in Heaven, we’d come out without spears. I had to protect Black Leg. I snatched up a stone, and a second later it smacked into the boar’s snout. I had never seen a boar before. That’s a strange thing to say, since the boar hunt is the sacred testing ground of the young men in the war band, but for this reason they are scarce and not often seen. But all those I had ever seen were dead and strapped to poles, ready for the initiation
feast of some young warrior. Even dead they were frightening. The open mouth with its long, yellow fangs that can tear even a strong man’s arm or leg off; the tusks at either side of the leathery snout built to disembowel the boar’s opponent should he question his right to the sow’s favors. Disembowel, that is, as in rip out your guts. Disembowel. And they can do it in a half second to a dog, man, woman, wolf, or even a tame pig.

  We were all moving fast now and hoping the pig wasn’t faster. A spear is the only way to deal with the boar’s madness. A long, strong spear, with a crosspiece to keep the boar from walking right up to kill you, even when you have the spade-shaped blade in his body at the heart.

  I held a bow and brought only four arrows.

  “The sea!” Gray shouted. “The sea. He won’t follow us into the surf.”

  We all jumped into the lake. The water was not deep, but not shallow enough for the pig to get at us. In less than a minute, we were at the falls and that was dangerous, not that they were high, but because the footing was slippery.

  Black Leg’s paws scrabbled on the wet, mossy rocks, and he went over, dragged down among the rapids by the current. Gray abandoned himself and dove, letting the current take him. I tried to keep my footing and paid the price. I slipped and fell hard. Then I was pulled down in the narrows, where the stream ran between big rocks. My body crashed against one of them, and it drove the air out of my lungs. I breathed water and came up retching. The only thing that saved us was that after only a very short distance, the stream reached the sea, and we found ourselves wading in surf.

  The boar, racing along the stream bank, was right behind us, those sharp, cloven hooves of his throwing sand as he charged along. It was brighter here, because the sun wasn’t behind the rocky hills. We fled along the margin of the ocean, running in the sand at the foot of high cliffs.

  I could see that, not more than a mile away, ahead of us, the beach ran out. A spill of rock from the frowning cliff above sloped down, black and ominous into the water. Black Leg, on four legs and faster than Gray and I, ran ahead, but I could see blood streaming from his flank into the water. I don’t remember screaming, but I must have, because Gray snatched me up and plunged into the sea. When we turned, the boar stood in the shallows watching us, eyes glowing in the sunset light streaming from behind us. Gray had me by the scruff of the neck. I understood why when a wave broke over my head, and he lifted me out of the water.

  He was only in up to his waist, but I was in up to my neck.

  “The bow!” he shouted.

  I was still holding the bow in my right hand. “No use,” I answered. That’s why I tried to walk down the falls. The bowstring is braided sinew. Once it’s been in the water, it won’t work till it dries.

  He nodded. “Can you ride the waves?” he asked, and gave my body a light shake.

  “Yes,” I told him.

  He let go of me and struggled off to his left. Another wave hit, and it didn’t break but lifted me slightly. I went up with it and came down a little closer to the beach.

  The boar locked eyes with me. Death. I heard the word as if it had been spoken. Death. Pig, your death, you mean, I thought back at it.

  Another wave. It moved me both closer and to my right, away from Gray. The sun was at the edge of the water by now, a dazzle I could feel as well as see from the corner of my eye. The heat burned at my back. The water was cold. It would suck the warmth out of my body soon, leave me limp and not even able to think clearly. In no little time the sun would be gone. Death! The pig held my eyes. I wondered what Gray was doing, but didn’t dare look. Somehow, I was holding the pig’s attention.

  Another wave, this time higher, a massive swell. When I came down, I was in only up to my waist. I was face-to-face with the pig. I could see the blood on his tusk where he’d slashed Black Leg. He was waiting. One more wave and he’d have me. Where was Gray?

  I pushed hard with my feet, jumping back into the waves. Gray brought the club he’d improvised from a big piece of driftwood down hard on the pig’s head.

  It went right through.

  Gray screamed, and, throwing aside the club, turned once more toward the water. But a second later, he was down, the pig’s tusk in his ankle. He screamed again. I ran toward him. This was no natural beast, and I did have fire in my right hand.

  Black Leg came out of nowhere and lunged at the pig’s haunch. His teeth went in; my hand was on its shoulder. There was a terrible stench in the air, and I knew it felt my touch.

  Gray picked himself up. Black Leg let go, and the three of us bolted toward the rocks ahead. We reached them just as the sun’s last rays painted a mirrored road over the water. We climbed frantically. It was getting dark.

  “What is that thing?” Gray cried.

  I was shivering violently. “I don’t know, but we have to build a fire, and do it right now before it gets dark! It may take another shape at night.”

  Black Leg could climb better as a human. I could hear his teeth chattering. Gray pulled off his shirt and threw it over Black Leg’s head. I looked down and nearly fell from fright. We were high, high above the beach. I looked up and saw we could get no higher. The cliff towered over our heads, stretching out over the water. We had reached a place hollowed out by wind and rain beneath the top, a shallow grotto. We were trapped.

  Fire, I thought. “Fire.” I found I was speaking aloud.

  “Fire.”

  The rockfall was laced with driftwood, blown up by the waves driven by wild storms during the spring and summer.

  “Fire!” I screamed.

  “Fire, well and good,” Gray shouted. “How will we light it?”

  “You’ll see. Get some wood.” The sun was only a red glow on the horizon, the clouds an iridescent purple and black. “Hurry,” I commanded.

  Something was climbing the rocks. I couldn’t see what it was and didn’t want to. I’m not ready yet, I thought. Not ready to die. Why was I so cold?

  Black Leg crawled toward the curved wall at the back of the grotto and huddled against it, shivering. Gray piled wood at my feet. He, too, saw something that was not a boar climbing toward us. Frantic with fear, he was snatching up every bit of fuel he could see.

  I thrust my whole arm into the pile. The answering curtain of flame singed my hair and burned off my eyelashes. I only got the lids closed just in time to keep the fire from searing my eyeballs.

  “God!” Gray shouted. It didn’t sound like a curse but a prayer.

  The rest of the driftwood went up with a rush, casting its light down the rockfall to the beach. Whatever had been climbing, fled, wailing.

  “How did you do that?” Gray asked.

  “I don’t know,” I moaned. “I’ve been able to do it since I was about nine. Please, please be quiet. Let me get warm.”

  I crawled up next to Black Leg and threw my arms around him. Gray crawled around, finding more wood and throwing it on the fire. At last he tried to rest, leaning back against the curved stone wall.

  At length I stopped shivering. Black Leg and I got warm. He had lost his clothes, but Gray’s shirt was long enough to cover him to his knees.

  “So, you want to marry her?” Gray said, and laughed. He looked at Black Leg. “You may be the only suitable candidate. I’m very glad you can do that, Guynifar, but I think most husbands might find it disconcerting if you snapped your fingers to light the fire when you cooked breakfast.”

  I studied Gray’s ankle in the firelight. It was badly mangled.

  “Not fair,” he gasped. “I couldn’t hurt it, but it could carve me like a chunk of soft wood.”

  Time stopped. That’s the only way I can describe it. Fire is in my right hand, I thought. What is in my left? It’s not long, I will be a woman, but as yet there is no blood.

  Then I remembered Mother drinking from the pool of stars at the foot of the falls. The dream place. When I told Maeniel about it, that’s what I called it, the dream place. He’d shaken his head and said, “No, it’s not a dream. I’v
e been there once—no, twice.”

  I asked him where it was and how would I get there and back, but he said he didn’t know. He’d never seen a map. Then he smiled strangely. “It has something to do with the boundary,” he said. Boundaries are always important—the sea and the shore, the river and its margins, day and night, life and death. “Yes,” he had repeated, “life and death.” He said he’d never been there, to that place, unless death had been involved, whether it was his own or someone else’s. I was there.

  The spray from the glowing waterfall was on my lips. It was day, but in the deep gloom of the summer forest the waterfall was like a column of light. Sun struck from within as though the light were not shining on the water but from it, not blue but a drench of sparkles and pale, pale gold. I was there; I could smell the air, clean, so clean it held only the scent of the trees and grass. Clear and pure as a draft of water from a well tapped for the first time. It is the sea, I thought. Spray from the sea pounding the rocks below.

  The world transformed itself again. I was in the clear sun-shot brilliance of the ocean, kissed by the sun. Rising. Rising, the water becoming more and more transparent as I rose from the depths. Up, up, up like a porpoise leaping. Oh, the joy of it. Up into the light.

  Then I was in the grotto with Black Leg and Gray. My hand was on Gray’s ankle, and it was whole once more. There was no sign the boar had ever touched it.

  Maeniel was standing on the shore with Kyra. They were cleaning ling. Or rather, he was cleaning the fish. Kyra was boning them, rubbing them with sea salt, and hanging them on a drying rack. The chief was present to be sure the count was fair and the salt cod would be distributed equitably. The men who took the boat out got half, their pick of the fish. The rest of the people took the other half.

  It was warm. The sun was shining and everyone hoped this would continue until the fish were dry. If it didn’t, they would need to smoke them. Smoked fish tasted better and were more tender, but smoking was more work and took a lot of fuel. The women who would collect the wood were already weary from having scrabbled among the rocks for the acorns and hazelnuts.