by K J Taylor
Satisfied, Nils put the spear down and lay beside it to rest.
While he rested, he thought. So little of this made sense. How could he be a dragon when he had grown up as a human? And why had no one ever told him? Surely his mother must have known. And if he was a dragon, was she even his mother? Maybe she had never been his mother, but his summoner. Maybe she had summoned him and used some magic he had never heard of to change him into a boy. But why would she do that? Why keep it all a secret from him? Theobald must have known as well, at least — that must be why he had been so guarded about Nils’s ability to breathe fire.
Nils wondered, too, if he could change back to human form. He would need to be that shape to kill the Dragonsbane, at least if he wanted to do it with the spear. And, too, he didn’t know whether he could use his magic in dragon form. Dragons weren’t supposed to have any magic other than their ability to breathe fire, which came directly from the Drachengott. So many unanswered questions, and Nils had no one to ask them of.
Tired anger throbbed behind his eyes. It doesn’t matter, he snarled. None of it matters. She was still my mother and the Dragonsbane still killed her, and I’ll find a way to kill him no matter what it takes.
If he could change back, he would find that out for himself. And once he took his enemy’s head to the Drachengott, maybe the Drachengott would tell him the truth about himself.
With that determination, he slept. In the morning he would begin.
***
The morning sun on Nils’s face woke him up, and as soon as he rose his anger returned. He even welcomed it, slipping into it as if into a set of clothes. Anger had shown him his true self, and it would teach him other things as well; he was certain of it.
He stood up, and walked outside to see the view. The ferns were in his way, so he breathed fire on them. They burned down to ashes, and he walked over them without waiting for them to cool.
Below, he could see the rest of the mountains, all dark with forest, and the sky dotted with the odd bird or dragon. Beyond them, to the west, he saw Drucht Valley. From here it was a great wide stretch of pale green, with silvery rivers flowing through it. Villages, towns and cities looked like dark blobs. He wondered which one was Zauberwald, which one was Drachenburg, and which was Eidelstadt, the Dragonsbane’s stronghold. Maybe that was where Nils would fight him.
Invigorated by that thought and by the cool morning air, Nils decided to try changing his shape again. He concentrated, feeling for the strange ‘muscle’ that had flexed. To his amazement he found it, and as soon as he focused on it, it flexed.
He felt his body melt and shift, and in an instant he was human again, squatting on all fours. He got up and quickly checked himself. Everything was there, back to its old self — but with one difference. Now there was a faint stubble on his chin and cheeks which hadn’t been there before. He frowned and rubbed it, feeling the scratchiness. He’d never grown facial hair before.
‘Maybe changing my shape ages me,’ he said to himself. He smiled grimly. ‘Good.’
He flexed the power inside him again, and flipped straight into dragon shape without effort. He had never expected it to be so easy, but it was. Maybe the rest of his learning would be easy as well.
Making himself human again, he went inside to get the spear. The weapon felt good in his hands, and he began to practise with it, thrusting it at the walls as if they were his enemy. He practised with his magic as well, summoning wind and water, and then tried manipulating the walls of the cave. It didn’t work as well as he had hoped; the stone was brittle, and when he pulled or pushed at it, it only cracked or crumbled. Metal was easier. He gave up on that and summoned a fire instead, lighting it in a hollow close to the pool.
He hesitated, then thrust his arm into the flames. While he could feel the heat, nothing else happened. Even the small hairs on his skin refused to burn. He really was fireproof.
Nils grinned to himself. ‘I’ll burn you, Rutger,’ he said aloud. ‘Once I have your head I’ll burn the rest of you to ashes. And I’ll burn anyone else who tries to stop me.’
***
So Nils’s new life began, and before long he had lost track of time. He spent whole days and weeks in dragon form, liking it better than his human one, and went flying over the mountains at his leisure, hunting and exploring. He soon grew practised at hunting, and would carry back what he caught to the cave. To begin with he would become human and cook the meat over his fire, but before long he started to eat it raw, while still a dragon. He couldn’t help himself; the blood tasted so good on his tongue that before he knew what he was doing he would start to tear into the carcass with savage hunger. He tried to resist the urge at first, but not for very long. After all, his instincts had shown him he could breathe fire and then helped him learn how to change his shape. They hadn’t led him astray then, and they wouldn’t now.
While he was human he practised with his spear, setting up targets to throw it at. But he quickly realised that he didn’t have to throw it at all — at least not with his hands. He began using magic instead, lifting and thrusting the spear with the same force he used to manipulate metal. In time he learned to move the spear in any direction he wanted, and he kept practising until he could do it with blinding speed.
But that wasn’t enough. He practised his other magic as well, trying different kinds and methods. There were so many things which could be done with magic, and he hadn’t learned a fraction of them.
At night he dreamed of flying, and battle, and dragons, all of them watched over by the silent presence of the Drachengott. Sometimes he dreamed of his mother as well, watching him, her expression unreadable. And sometimes he saw the face of his enemy, Rutger Dragonsbane, silently taunting him.
Consumed by his obsession, Nils soon stopped counting the days, and then the weeks, and the months. He ate, slept, flew and trained, aware of nothing else. Certainly, he barely noticed the changes slowly coming over him — over his body, and over his mind. He had nobody to talk to but himself, nobody to tell him what was happening, and he didn’t care. Here, there were no more lies, no more secrets. Here, his decisions were his own.
But Nils was not left in peace forever.
One day, around noon, he flew off in dragon form to hunt as had become his custom. Having caught a wild mountain sheep, he carried the carcass back to his cave. As he landed he noticed a hawk perching just above the cave entrance, on the stump of a dead tree. Unusually, the bird did not fly off at the sight of him, but Nils ignored it. He dropped the sheep and changed back into human form; he’d decided to skin the animal before eating it, in the hopes of making a comfortable blanket to sleep on.
While he crouched by the sheep, considering how to begin, a voice suddenly came from above. ‘Who are you?’
Nils tensed and looked up, mouth opening to spit fire. There was a man sitting just above the cave entrance, looking down at him.
Nils stood up sharply. ‘Who are you?’ he echoed.
The man wore a rough outfit of brown leather, and he held up his hands in a friendly gesture. ‘I’m a friend,’ he said. ‘My name is Alberich. But who are you? I don’t recognise you, but you must be one of us.’
‘I’m not one of you,’ Nils growled back. ‘I don’t even know who you are.’
‘I’m like you,’ said Alberich. ‘A shapeshifter.’
That made Nils pause. ‘You were the hawk?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Alberich. ‘And you’re a dragon. What’s your name?’
‘Nils Schächer. Why are you here?’
‘Nils the Thief?’ said Alberich. He paused. ‘I was scouting out here. But who are you with? You can’t be a Jüngen dragon. Are you with the Ketzer?’
‘I’m with nobody,’ said Nils. ‘I belong to myself.’
‘But you’re wearing a Jüngen amulet,’ said Alberich. ‘Why? Where did you get it? Do you live here?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Nils. ‘This is my place. But how are you a shapeshifter?’
‘Nobody did,’ said Nils. ‘I’ve always been this way.’
Alberich’s strong face creased in puzzlement. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Obviously it is,’ said Nils. ‘Who’s your master, anyway?’
‘The Lady Elynor Überketzer,’ said Alberich.
Nils started to growl. ‘You’re a Ketzer?’
‘Yes,’ said Alberich. ‘Since you’re a shapeshifter I assumed you must be one of our dragons. But with that amulet—’
Nils spat a small flame. ‘Ketzer scum! Heretic! Get out of here or I’ll burn you alive!’
Alberich’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t make me fight you, young man — you might be a shapeshifter, but I doubt you have half the magical training I do. Will you at least tell me why you’re up here all by yourself? Where did you come from?’
‘I don’t know where I came from,’ said Nils, surprising himself. ‘But I’m a loyal follower of the Drachengott.’
Alberich laughed a short, mocking laugh. ‘The same Drachengott who sends his followers into pointless battles to persecute the Gottlosen? The same Drachengott who has people’s hearts cut out for refusing to murder children? The Drachengott who uses dragons like you as his slaves? That Drachengott?’
‘“The way of faith is obedience and sacrifice”,’ Nils retorted.
‘Then faith can go and jump in the lake,’ said Alberich. ‘Anyway, if you belong to the Jüngen, why aren’t you down there serving them like a good little dragon? Whoever summoned you can’t be pleased that you decided to fly away by yourself like this.’
‘That’s none of your business.’ Nils blew a stream of flame at the man.
Alberich nimbly skipped back and pushed the fire straight back into Nils’s face with a blast of wind. Then, in the blink of an eye, he changed back into a hawk and flew away. Nils changed shape as well and flew after him, but he was too slow. The hawk easily evaded him and flew away back West into Drucht Valley. Nils spat a frustrated fireball after him and returned to his cave.
Once he was alone again, busy skinning the sheep with magic, he thought over what Alberich had said. So Nils wasn’t the only shapeshifter in the world — some of the Ketzer had the same power. For all he knew, any animal he encountered might secretly be one of them. Even the sheep he was skinning might have been human. Nils grimaced at the thought.
It was only later, when he was inside the cave busy cooking some of the meat over the fire, that something else Alberich had said came back to him.
Don’t make me fight you, young man.
‘Young man’, Alberich had called him. Was that really what he looked like now? How did he look? Nils hadn’t seen himself in such a long time that he really wasn’t sure.
He left the meat sizzling and went over to the pool. Its surface was perfectly still, and he looked down into it at his own faint reflection.
A stranger stared back.
Nils’s long jaw had widened and grown dark under a rough beard. His forehead had grown wider as well, his eyebrows thicker and lower over his eyes. The eyes themselves looked smaller and a little sunken, their expression dark and brooding. There was no trace of the boy left there now. He was looking at a man — a ragged-haired man with a hard, angry twist to his mouth. A man who, he thought, would have scared him if he had met him not so long ago.
Nils sat back and inspected his arms. They had thickened with muscle; his shoulders were heavy, his chest broader and deeper, and peppered with rough black hair, which completely hid the scar from his initiation.
Nils patted it, bewildered. How had this happened? Had he really grown up that quickly?
But of course he had. He looked at his man’s face in the pool again, and watched it distort as he snarled. So much more made sense now. That was why he had never been able to remember much of his childhood, why he had never had a birthday. He had never had a childhood, that was why. Or at least it had passed so quickly that it must have been over in a matter of months.
He thought it over now, while he went back to his cooking. How many summers did he remember from his whole life? Two? Three? Certainly not more than four.
‘Drachengott save me,’ he muttered, his voice deep and rough. ‘I’m only four years old.’
Four years old, but already a grown man. A man, and a dragon. And he had no memory to tell him which shape he had been born in, or who he had been born to. Or why.
Once again, his confusion spilled over into anger. He started to growl and hiss, and then, not satisfied with that, he unleashed a screeching dragon’s roar. Snatching up the spear, he hurled it straight through the cave’s entrance to the ashy ground beyond, where it stuck point-first in the soil and stayed there. Nils belched fire after it, then flipped over into dragon form. Hunched in the middle of the cave floor, he breached fire over the walls and ceiling, blackening everything. The few possessions he had gathered in his time there went up in flame, and the cooking mutton burned to a crisp.
Hardly capable of thought now, driven by fury and confusion, Nils stalked out of the cave. He snatched up the spear and flew away from the cave as fast as he could go, as if in the hope of fleeing from his own emptiness. But the void of his past and the hole in his heart would not stay behind in the cave. They went with him, as they always did, a constant torment.
Nils roared again as he flew, spear resting along his belly, and, without knowing what his true goal might be, he began his descent, flying down into the valley and whatever might be waiting for him there.
Chapter Seven
Flying helped to calm Nils down, and as he left the mountains behind he started to think about where he might go, at least in general terms. Finally, thirst made him head toward the river at the centre of the valley. Several hours passed, and he took in the landscape below. There were plenty of little villages down there, although whether they were Jüngen or Gottlosen he had no way of knowing.
There was a settlement by the river as well, large enough to be a city. Nils made for that, and when he was close enough he saw the other dragons flying above it, and knew he was in friendly Jüngen territory. Still he chose not to land at the city itself, and instead touched down at the river bank just outside its walls. There, he dipped his muzzle into the water and drank deeply. The cool water slid down into his stomach, soothing him. He kept hold of the spear, however, and began to walk along the riverbank toward the city walls, awkward on three legs.
As he approached the city, he realised that his first glimpse of it had been mistaken. There were dragons flying above its walls, but they were not peacefully circling. He saw them swooping downward and grappling with each other in the sky. Gouts of flame lit up wings and scales.
Nils hesitated, watching the battle. He could hear a vague mingling of human voices from inside the city itself, high and violent. He had arrived in time to witness an attack.
Common sense told him to keep away — after all, he had no idea who might be attacking who, and he had no experience of magical combat. But his anger lingered, and frustration as well. He had spent so much time teaching himself to fight, and there was so much rage in him — rage that screamed to be unleashed on someone.
Nils started to snarl. He took off with a hard blow of his wings, flying up to the city walls. Perched there, he looked down into the city itself, and quickly took in the situation.
At the far side of the city the gates were open, and a stream of people had come pouring in. They were still coming, although the occupants of the city were trying to hold them back. Magic flashed everywhere, but he could see the glitter of ordinary weapons as well, in the hands of the attackers.
Gottlosen!
Nils snarled again and leapt down off the wall, swooping onto the roof of the nearest building. From there he began to run, leaping from rooftop to rooftop toward the attackers. Attackers who had dragons with them. Traitor dragons, attacking the Jüngen while the faithful tried to push them
back.
Alberich thought I was one of them, Nils thought. A traitor dragon.
But he wasn’t a traitor, even if he was a thief. He ran on, tiles cracking under his talons, until he was directly above the battle. An enemy dragon lunged at him, but Nils dodged it and leapt off the roof, spear in his talons. In mid-air, he changed back into human form.
He landed spear-first on an enemy soldier, impaling him. Stunned by the fall, Nils wrenched his weapon free and began to thrust it at the Gottlosen around him, mouth open wide to breathe out a great sheet of flame. People fell away from him, screaming as their hair and clothes caught fire.
As Nils fought, he imagined that every one of them was Rutger Dragonsbane.
Confidence growing, feeling a savage glee that finally, finally, he was fighting back, he hurled himself at anyone who came near. The Gottlosen flowed around him, staying out of reach of his flames. Some threw spears of their own at him, but Nils threw them aside with bursts of magic. With a contemptuous bark of laughter, he fought on.
Something hit him hard in the back. Nils’s laugh broke into a shocked cry, and he fell forward. In an instant the Gottlosen were on him, swords raised to kill him. At the last moment Nils shifted into dragon shape. The weapons hit his scales, cutting through them, but his attackers backed off in surprise and Nils sent fire after them.
Curse you! he roared. Gottlosen filth! Pagans! The Drachengott sees you!
A spear hit him in the side of the neck, making his head jerk sideways. His flame stopped at once, and as he struggled to get up his enemies closed in, ready to finish him off. Nils roared at them again, completely unafraid. Better to die a martyr, the way his mother had, better to—
‘Stop!’
The Gottlosen looked up, and hastily lowered their weapons as a woman ran forward, putting herself between them and Nils. One man threw a knife, but the woman made a gesture which hurled it away. ‘I said stop! Leave him!’
