by J.A. Clement
and to the game herds. But the night passed and the day came and no dragons were anywhere to be seen.
“I cannot stay here or I will starve.” Jorr began to wonder if he would be able to find food or water anywhere, or if they had condemned him to starve to death slowly. The idea made him shiver. In the early morning sunshine, he swooped off his ledge, and gliding round, tried to work out where he should go.
In the far distance he saw the sparkling of water. It made him thirsty to see it. It seemed more precious than all the treasures in the Cave of the Past, and all the stories that they represented. Without another thought he winged his way in that direction.
The journey to the water took a long time, and Jorr was thirsty and tired. At one point he flew through a rainstorm and spent a few minutes swooping and diving through it, revelling in the feel of water on his scales. The little he caught in his mouth just made him feel even more thirsty, though, and so he flew on.
Eventually he got close to the water, and dived down to land in it. It was only a shallow river – he would have turned his nose up at it not long ago, but now he was so thirsty that it tasted wonderful. Rolling over, he wallowed in the water. He had coated his beautiful scales with wet mud and weed, but it did feel so good!
Finally he climbed out of the water and took a good look round. Lo and behold, there was a nice fat sheep, which he gobbled down immediately. Behind it there were many more, and he ate another and another. Each tasty little morsel only whetted his appetite more, so he trotted into the field to find the others which he could smell.
What a noise, then, a baaing of sheep and a roaring of dragon! Soon Jorr had eaten enough to satisfy his hunger, but there were still a few sheep left and it was such fun to chase and pounce on them that he couldn’t resist gobbling the lot, though it left him fuller than was really comfortable.
“Ah...” Jorr sighed contentedly. “That was a good meal! Now for a comfortable sleep in the sun.” He should probably find a safe ledge to sleep on, but he was so full and the grassy field was so comfortable that he could not bring himself to move. Besides, who should he fear? He was so big and powerful that even his own Colony were afraid of him! He curled up on the grass, and was asleep in moments.
He woke up with a start, to a great uproar. There were men all around him! Little as they were, they did not frighten him exactly, only there were a lot of them and they were very irritating. Idly he raised his head to flame them all, but to his horror, nothing came out of his muzzle but a solitary “phut” of smoke. Again he tried and again, but no flames would come, and now the little creeping men had ropes and were trying to pin him to the ground.
Jorr reared up in sudden fright, and leapt into the air. He left them behind quickly, and circled until he found a clear stretch of land to land on. Once down, he tried to breathe flames again and again until he was dizzy, but still nothing came of it.
He had lost his beautiful flames! “I still have claws, though, and I am armoured in gleaming scales...”
It did not make him feel better. If a dragon came to fight him, they could flame him from afar and he could only defend himself if they came near enough. Still, he was a very large dragon, so perhaps the problem would not arise.
All this flying had made him feel awfully sleepy again. He clambered up onto a high rocky outcropping, and lay watching as the sun flew down low into the West. What a flame it had, what beautiful colours! Just like his own lost fire. He hoped his flames would come back. Perhaps tomorrow....
In the night he was awoken by the neighing of a horse. Slitting his eyes open, he became aware that the field was crawling. The men were back! They must have followed him from the river. At first he was not inclined to pay them any attention, but when he felt them climbing over him, he was indignant at their lack of respect. He tried to sit up – but while he was asleep they had bound him with a great net, and he could not. He writhed and struggled, and could not think what to do.
The men were lighting their way with burning branches. Perhaps if he ate one it might relight his flame? He lunged at the nearest, snapping at it like a bird after gnats. The men scattered, all apart from one, a man who was larger than the rest. His armour glimmered under the torches, and he held a mighty axe. It was very large, and very sharp and very shiny. He swung the axe, which bit deep into Jorr’s neck. Blood splashed red in the flickering firelight as the man raised the axe again. Jorr panicked – they meant to chop his head off! He thrashed and tore at the net that held him. It hurt his wings and strained his legs, but he was strong. Ropes snapped, and then more. The axe-man was swinging wildly now, trying to hit any part of Jorr within his reach. He chopped at his tail, smashing the tender scales at the end. In pain and outrage Jorr leapt into the air, and flew blind in the night, just anywhere away from the axe.
After the panic of the first few wingbeats, Jorr was assailed by a howling pain from his shoulder. He had strained his wing, trying to beast his way free from the net. He kept flying until his shoulder hurt so much that he had to find a place to land. Even then he did not want to stop, and spent the remainder of the night trotting through the wood, trying to get as far away from the axe-men as he could. In the end he dropped, exhausted, and slept uneasily through the night.
The next few days were difficult for Jorr. His wing would not heal because he was too impatient to rest it, and every time he tried to fly, it wrenched it a little more. Besides, he was still mortally afraid of the axe-man. For the first time in his life he was vulnerable and there was someone who could harm him. His neck still hurt where the axe had bitten through the scales, and Jorr realised that all his strength would not help him if he was pinned down again.
He wandered restlessly through the forest day after day, searching for enough food to satisfy his hunger. Bitterly he regretted his greed in the Colony. He had been so sure that he was the best, the strongest, the most worthy that he had persuaded himself that he deserved to have everything he wanted.
“If I was in the Colony now, I should not be afraid of a human,” he snorted sadly. “My mother and my friends would defend me against the axe, and help me until my shoulder became well.” And he realised that the Colony was not just a place where the dragons lived, but a collective that all helped each other. It made his idea of being the most powerful dragon look a bit pointless, really.
“I was such a fool!” Jorr laid down, dejected.
To his surprise a human leapt out from behind the rock on which he laid his head. Jorr shied back, but as the human ran away, he realised it was a youngling, not fully grown, and his stomach grumbled. He pounced upon the little beast, but to his shock, just as he was about to eat it, it shouted “Stop! Wait! Please!”
It sounded so much like the hatchlings when he used to bully them that he dropped it and stared. It tried to run away, so he pinned it down again, but much more gently this time.
“Please don’t eat me!”
Jorr sighed. “That’s all I need. The first food I’ve had in days, and it talks to me. You are a human, are you not?”
“Yes...” the youngling said cautiously.
“But you talk?”
“Of course I talk. I’m not a baby, you know – I’m nearly eleven years old!” The youngling cringed as the dragon began to shake and rumble, but Jorr was laughing.
“Eleven years old? You are barely out of an egg!”
“Am not! How old are you, anyway?”
Jorr regarded it gravely. “I am three hundred and seventy years of age, and even I am barely an adult.”
“Three hundred and seventy? That seems pretty old to me.” The youngling wriggled. “Can I get up, please? You’re pressing a pointy stone right into my back.”
“Are you going to run away again?”
“Are you going to eat me?”
Jorr considered this. “I suppose not. I am very hungry, but talking food – well, it puts me right off, if you must know. How long have humans been talking, anyway?” He lifted a claw, and the
youngling climbed to its feet, dusting itself off.
“What do you mean, how long have humans been talking? Always, I think. Or at least, babies don’t talk much and little children aren’t that good at it, but I’ve been talking for years and years and years.” The youngling regarded him with interest. “So how long have dragons been talking?”
The question took Jorr by surprise, and he thought about it. “Always, I think. On the first day of the world, Dragons awoke from the stone, and they sang the rest of creation into being.”
“Did it work?”
Jorr laughed again. “We are here, are we not?”
“I suppose. Anyhow, thanks for not eating me. Probably just as well though – my mother would have been really cross, and you don’t want to be there when she’s really cross.”
“Does she have an axe?” Jorr shifted his feet nervously.
“No. But she can give you a proper telling off.”
“Oh! Does she speak too, then?”
“Of course she does! We all do, silly!” The youngling giggled.
Jorr was about to be offended by this when he realised that he was enjoying this conversation. “Do you have to go? I am quite lonely here. Can you stay a little while?”
“No, I’ll be late for dinner. But I will ask my mother if I can come out and play again if you will promise not to eat me.” The youngling cocked its
