by J.A. Clement
crystals out of the gravelly mud. “What are they, Jorr? They’re a pretty colour – emerald-green, almost.”
“Well, emeralds often are.”
Rosalia froze. “Emeralds? Jorr, you’re not telling me that these are really...”
“Oh yes. The taste is unmistakeable. There don’t seem to be many others, but I thought you might like them...”
“Like them? If these are real I can buy a hundred new cows with them!” Rosalia threw her arms around his muzzle, muddy as it was. “Thank you! This will make things a lot easier for us!”
“They’re useful then? Excellent. I’ll keep an eye out for any more.”
Jorr became firm friends with Edred and Rosalia. The little herd of deer kept the edge off his hunger, but as the days and weeks went past he continued to grow and the larger he got, the less the deer satisfied him. He took to winging further afield in the search for wild beasts, though Rosalia warned him against taking anything that might be domesticated.
In winter when it snowed and the wind howled, he curled himself around Rosalia’s house so that the fiery warmth of his body would keep out the chill of wind and snow. When wolves came down from the mountains in the long winter, he hunted them until the few that he did not catch fled from the area. The wolves did not taste very nice, but it was the only time he did not feel hungry in several years.
It was amazing how fast the humans changed though. They built extra bits onto the house, and bought horses and cows, and sheep, and Jorr was happy to discover that his gift of emeralds had meant that they did not have to work so hard all the time. But they aged so fast, as well! The boy Edred shot up in height in only a few years. Jorr was a little bit sad when Edred found a mate and left to work in the town where she lived, but Rosalia explained that he was of an age to do so, by human standards.
As for Rosalia, her hair suddenly bleached white, and she became much more stooped, all in only ten or twenty years. Edred and his mate came back to live with her, but the new woman did not want to talk to Jorr, saying she was afraid of him. Then there were more younglings, and to Jorr’s great shock and sorrow, Rosalia died.
A hundred years passed, and Jorr had rather lost track of the humans. At first many of them came to see him and often, but gradually they became fewer and fewer, and Jorr began to feel rather lonely sometimes. The youngling Rosa was a good friend to him, but he rarely saw anyone else.
One day Rosa came and sat by him. Now that he had more of an idea of human years, he knew that she was just coming into full womanhood, and by human standards was very beautiful. “Jorr, I am worried. I am too young to protect you, and the people in the village are nervous. My grandfather is on his deathbed and my father will take over the estate when he dies. He wants to keep all the deer for hunting. I am afraid that he will attempt to drive you away. You have looked after my family for a long, long time now, and I value your friendship, but I am afraid that the others do not. I know you have already lost one home and it pains me to ask it, but please, Jorr, leave my father to his foolishness here and find a place where you will be safe, for my sake if not for your own.”
Jorr was astounded and upset. Boiling tears rolled down his nose and frazzled the grass on the forest floor beneath. “Rosa... Did I do something wrong?”
Rosa threw his arms around the dragon’s muzzle, far larger than she. “Please don’t think that this is your fault. There is nothing that you have done to deserve this, and nothing that my father has done to deserve your forbearance. He is headstrong and avaricious and if he incites all the villagers to fear and hate, I am afraid that you will be hurt. He will not pay me any heed, so my only hope is that you will go somewhere where he cannot hurt you.
“I’m sorry, Jorr. My father is not a very nice man. I don’t want to stay here either, when Grandfather is gone. Will you take me with you? Wherever we end up, it might be helpful if I go and talk to the people there and tell them that you are not going to eat them.”
There was a long silence.
“I will leave, as you ask. It is a long time in human years since your family stopped feeling friendly to me, and this does not feel so much like home any more. And yes, Rosa. I will take you with me,” Jorr said gruffly.
“Thank you, Jorr. I think it will be for the best for both of us.”
A few days later, Rosa arrived with her belongings tied up in a sack. “It’s time. Grandfather died last night. My father is not even waiting for the funeral. He is rounding up men to chase you away. For what it’s worth, Jorr, most of the villagers don’t want you to go, but he is the Lord of the Manor now and they have to do what he says. We should leave.”
Jorr sighed deeply. “I will miss this place, but not as much as I miss Edred and Rosalia. You are right though. It is time.” Rosa clambered onto Jorr’s neck, and he leapt into the air. “Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere,” Rosa answered. “Anywhere that isn’t here.”
Jorr was seized by a sudden longing to see the mountains again. It seemed a long time since he had left them, and he hoped somehow to find the Colony and ask to be forgiven. He loved his humans, but their lives were so brief that it made him sad.
He winged towards the distant hills, and the mountains behind them. Eventually he saw something that he recognised, a rock with claw marks on it. His heart leaped, and angling his flight he eventually came to the very bowl where the Colony gathered for council. He landed, and paced round, sniffing at the rocks. Rosa unfastened the rope and clambered to the ground.
“This is my Colony,” he told her. “They said I would not be able to find it. Perhaps if I call, they will hear.”
“But it’s so empty.” Rosa walked around the great bowl. “Is anyone here still?”
“Let us go and look.”
Rosa climbed back up to her seat, and Jorr flew her around the Mountains but to his dismay, all the eyries were deserted. Swooping low to the springs where the dragons had loved to play, he found that they had been all dammed up into a lake for the watermills and boats of a little town along the edge. The deer which had run freely on the mountainside were gone, and where the forest had stretched all across the foothills was now a patchwork of fields with stone walls, each holding sheep or cattle or horses.
“There are no dragons here anymore,” Jorr murmured.
Rosa patted his neck. “Perhaps we will find them tomorrow.”
They flew back to what had once been Jorr’s mother’s eyrie, a cave on the sunny side of the mountain. It smelled so familiar that Jorr was suddenly lonelier than he had ever been. He curled up beneath the little ledge where he had once slept – how small he had been then! – and would not speak.
Rosa set up her bedroll and lit a fire, and with the warmth of the dragon keeping the chill off the cave long after the fire had gone out, she spent a comfortable night there. In the morning she ate a frugal breakfast, and then stood. “Come on. They must be somewhere.”
The seasons passed and everyday they looked for dragonsign, but there was none. Their flights over the town had not gone unnoticed, and a delegation of hunters went up to investigate, but Rosa explained things to them. One of them, Arin, remained when the rest returned. He spent long hours talking to Jorr about the history of the town. Some odd things had happened when the town was founded, according to his granddaddy, but no-one believed the old tales and nothing had been seen of the dragons in Arin’s lifetime.
Jorr and Rosa spent a long time exploring. Jorr was free to go anywhere he wanted, and there was so much that was interesting; but everywhere he went, human teemed like ants in a nest, and the quiet spaces of the hills were spotted with towns and neatly divided into patchwork fields. They did not go near the cities that had sprouted like great mushrooms, crouching along riverbanks in the fertile valleys, but it was getting increasingly difficult to find food and shelter where the dragon’s huge shadow would not cause chaos amongst humans and herd animals alike.
However, then Rosa and Arin became mates and had children.
Jorr stopped looking for his Colony and became more and more taciturn. He was still growing, though not as fast as before. He could no longer fit in the cave and simply curled up in the Council chamber. Rosa came to see him when she could, but quickly as the lives of men flickered past, she became older. Soon she could not manage the strenuous climb up the mountainside anymore and, busy with their everyday lives down by the lakeside, Rosa and Arin’s children of forgot that the dragon was anything more than a tall tale.
Forgotten, Jorr fell into a deep melancholy. Eventually in the dark night of his soul, he began to sing. He sang of his loneliness, and of how he missed the friends and dragons that were no longer with him. He sang of sorrow and foolishness, and how his youthful hubris seemed shameful to him now. He sang of his mother and the other dragons, and of his wish to be back in the heart of the Colony, one among equals, asking their forgiveness.
Scattered across the hills, the humans came out of their houses to listen to the bronzed notes rolling across the mountains under the stars, and they wondered at the richness and the sorrow of it. At the first note Rosa, now old beyond belief, struggled to sit up in her bed. They tried to pacify her, but she insisted they carry her to the place of the Dragons.
Jorr sang on until his tale was finished, then dropped his
