The Dragon Whisperer

by Lucinda Hare

  His friends gathered round admiringly.

  'Professional racing leathers in my colours!' Darcy boasted. 'With integrated body armour and wand sheath ...' He pirouetted, arms held high. 'Check it out. Dual-density spinal pad and embossed—'

  'Reinforced shoulders, thighs and knees!' Guy DeBessert interrupted him enviously. Guy was wearing last year's Dragoneye racing leathers in DeBessert kingfisher-blue. 'And a level five defence spell woven into its armour.'

  'And look at the helmet,' Rupert Grime breathed, tracing the flaming dragon artwork and the spread wings that moved beneath his hands. 'A Griffin and Gamblepiece! Individually made to order – I've been waiting for one for almost five months!'

  'It's got a titanium core and wide racing visor.' Darcy was delighted with their reactions. 'Light as a feather and reinforced with energy impact spells!'

  'Like the spurs!' Rupert bent down to have a look at the vicious dragonspurs with four-inch spikes. Rumour had it that the Racing Guild was thinking of making them illegal.

  'Dragonspurs?' Simon Woodville grinned. 'Does that mean you've finally got your own dragon again, Darcy? About time!'

  'Yes.' Darcy smiled, pleased that their significance had been noticed. He would have to take them off again before he mounted his hippogriff. 'My own dragon, not one of Father's. I'll take you to see him. The Grand Master himself has given me an Arabic stallion from his stables for my birthday,' he boasted. 'He's called Desert Sandstorm. He's—'

  'A dragon?' Though one year younger, Guy was even taller than Darcy, with long hair battle-braided on either side of his handsome face in the fashion of the SDS. He intended to apply to the SDS Battle Academy the following autumn on his seventeenth birthday the moment he passed his knighthood ceremony. 'You can fly a dragon?' he challenged. 'But I thought your father had banned you from flying anything but griffins or hippogriffs after you killed ...' He hesitated, but the damage was already done. 'After Highland Moonshine died at the midwinter races—'

  'My father isn't here!' Darcy was furious at being reminded. 'And this dragon is not his, it's mine!'

  The public humiliation of that day, of being stripped of his winner's cup for taking his father's much-loved mare without permission, was still raw in his memory. It didn't seem to matter what he did, he never seemed to gain his father's approval! He'd won the race, hadn't he? What did it matter that the mare had died afterwards of exhaustion and blood loss? It was just a dumb animal after all. Surely, as in battle, it was winning that mattered? Not the cost of it!

  Darcy's face twisted into an ugly snarl. Even when his father was at war he somehow managed to ruin things, he thought. 'One day he won't come home.' His lip curled bitterly. 'Sooner or later they don't. Then I'll be Earl Darcy DeWinter! And I'll be able to do whatever I please. I could even fly a battledragon if I wanted.'

  'A battledragon?' Simon was unconvinced. 'No way, Darcy! No one can just fly one of those things! It takes six months of training at the Battle Academy before they even let you near one, let alone fly one. They're deadly! You could never handle one of them. Stick to unicorns,' he added scornfully. 'Leave the battledragons to the SDS.'

  That was the final straw. Pumped up and angry, Darcy recklessly rose to the challenge to his authority. His friend Simon had been making a lot of pointed comments about Darcy's decision to stay with the Household Cavalry rather than join the SDS. He was even beginning to sound like his father.

  'I could too – if I wanted,' he blurted, his new dragon already forgotten. But the enormity of the lie was already giving him second thoughts. 'But today I'm going to take a battlegriff instead.'

  'Come on, then!' Guy grinned. 'Let's just pick a mount and we're out of here. I've heard Reginald is racing his new stallion this afternoon. You could pit your battlegriff against him. Then we'll see which mount is the better trained.'

  They headed down the great tree-lined avenue towards the battlegriff roosts. In front of them a number of Bonecrackers were drifting over towards the paddocks, their rough voices raised in excitement. Darcy had never troubled to learn Dwarfish, so he had no idea what they were saying.

  'Look ...' Rupert paused. 'Look at that Sabretooth over there!'

  'So?' Darcy shrugged. 'They're training battledragons. It happens all the time here,' he added casually.

  'But it's a Sabretooth! That might be the battledragon that Tangnost Bearhugger nursed back to health.' Guy was suddenly excited. He cocked his head to listen to the dwarfs. He had already mastered the basics of their difficult language.

  'No.' Darcy shook his head in denial. How had Guy heard that tale? 'It doesn't look injured to me. It can't be the same one.'

  'It might be!' Guy held up a hand to silence Darcy while he listened. 'I think it is. They're talking about "the injured dragon". Why else would Bonecrackers be watching? They must know that's the one! Come on! Let's take a look!'

  Without waiting for an answer Guy turned towards the arena, Rupert and Simon on his heels. Angry that attention was no longer on him, Darcy followed grudgingly behind them. The youths joined the small crowd gathering at the paddock walls just as the battledragon landed in front of Quenelda. Rearing up, he was beside her in two heavy strides, his weight hardly making a dent in the frozen ground. Folding away his stubby wings, he dipped his head to nuzzle her, long tongue rooting for honey tablets.

  Quenelda slapped him away, her face flushing with embarrassment at being caught out. She had been spoiling her dragon, and Tangnost and his roostmasters would certainly not approve of Two Gulps' recently acquired sweet tooth. No! Not in front of One-Eye! He will not like it ...

  'There he is!' Simon pointed, craning to see round two red-hooded juvenile Imperial Blacks that were tethered close by. The dragonmaster's broad-shouldered stocky figure was unmistakable even without the double-headed axe strapped across his back.

  'That's Tangnost Bearhugger all right.' Simon's tone was reverent. 'He's a legend in the Bonecrackers! He's with a couple of his roostmasters and esquires ...' He suddenly paused. 'No ... No, it can't be ...' His tone changed to one of disbelief as Quenelda turned round to face them. 'Is that your sister beside him, Darcy? In breeches and buckled blue flying boots?' He stared at the small group. 'Yes, it's her. So she's still wearing boy's clothes! I thought she'd be in satin and lace by now like all the other young ladies at court.' He smiled fondly and shook his head. 'My sister thinks of nothing but clothes, diets and boys! She would never go near a big dragon, let alone a battledragon!'

  He watched Quenelda. 'She's in the arena with the battledragon too! So' – he turned to look quizzically at Darcy – 'the rumour that she's helped Tangnost nurse an injured battledragon is right, then? I didn't really believe it. No one's ever done that before, not even on Dragon Isle. And I've heard she's already flying solo on dragons!'

  Darcy's face clouded with jealous anger. If it wasn't his father and the SDS, it was Tangnost and the Bonecrackers everyone talked about, and he was beginning to hear Quenelda's name with monotonous regularity. So she could already fly dragons when she was eleven, barely old enough to have her first wand, while he'd not managed till last year? So what!

  'Dragonsdome dragons are the best-trained dragons in the world.' He shrugged casually. 'That's all. Anyone could fly one!'

  Just because he wasn't eager to die under a hobgoblin cleaver, he thought bitterly, watching the Sabretooth take off a second time. No one seemed to care that he was a superb swordsman or that he could handle a temperamental unicorn. Sons were expected to follow their fathers. He shivered. The ancient dented and cloven suits of black armour that lined Dragonsdome's endless halls bore witness to the fact that his forefathers had rarely died in their beds.

  For as long as Darcy could remember, everyone had expected the heir to Dragonsdome to excel at everything he turned his hand to, just as they had expected him to follow his famous father into the SDS. But that was not what he wanted. It had never been what he wanted.

  'He's magnificent ...' Simon was awestr
uck. 'I don't think I've ever seen such a huge Sabretooth. I've dreamed of flying one of them since I was knee-high. I wonder if Tangnost would le—'

  'Look!' Guy interrupted, startled to see Quenelda step forward. A warbling bugle call beside her rang out, gradually gaining in strength. 'Look! Your sister is the one controlling the battledragon! And the roostmasters are listening to her!'

  'Don't be ridiculous.' Darcy stuck out his jaw as the small group closed around his sister, evidently congratulating her. 'They can't be. What does a girl of eleven know that's worth listening to? She knows nothing about tactical training. She'll just be watching. It will be Tangnost or one of the roostmasters training the Sabretooth. Ignore—'

  He suddenly realized that he was the one being ignored. All heads were turned skyward. He reluctantly followed his friends' gaze, feeling the familiar dizziness grip him. The dragon had become a dark speck against the glare of the sky ... He put a hand out to steady himself.

  'Lord Darcy!' A man's excited voice broke rudely into his thoughts. 'Lord Darcy ...' The man-at-arms gripped his shoulder, his gap-toothed smile wide, breath stinking of stale beer and garlic. 'Is that the injured Sabretooth we 'eard about? He's flying again. Yer lord father's own battledragon!'

  Darcy started, angrily shaking the man's hand away, noticing for the first time that they had been joined by a throng of men-at-arms. A large contingent of off-duty Bonecrackers were still gathering at the distant paddock walls, their guttural language carrying clearly as they pointed upwards and called to their fellows to hurry. Nearby, a returning Sabretooth patrol had landed; the tired troopers rested on their saddle pommels to watch Two Gulps. One of their dragons lifted her head, harness jingling, and called out a greeting as he flew past. 'Eeaaawaaak!'

  Quenelda called out again, to be echoed by Root's bugle call. Up, up the circling Sabretooth slowly flew. Dozens of telescopes were now pointed skywards. For a moment the dragon hung in the air before folding his wings.

  The crowd held their collective breath. No one moved.

  'Drop Dead!' Simon's voice rose to an excited squeak. He coughed to cover his embarrassment. 'Drop Dead!' he repeated gruffly in imitation of the armoured men around him, who had now raised their weapons and were cheering hoarsely.

  Quenelda looked up and saw her battledragon falling as swiftly as a flaming meteor. Trailing red flames haloed him. He swooped down with the sheer joy of flying in Open Sky once again. Now the battledragon and his mistress were showing off, choosing one of the hardest SDS manoeuvres to execute: Drop Dead.

  Pride warred with doubt; adrenaline flooded Quenelda's bloodstream, making her legs weak. Have I pushed him too quickly? she wondered. She was suddenly scared. What if he's injured again? The growing crowd had encouraged her to show off. Nervously she jigged from side to side, setting her boot buckles jingling.

  Two Gulps ... She started to call out to the dragon, and then hesitated. Would he hear her thoughts through the roaring air as the ground hurtled towards him? What if she distracted him at a critical moment? What should she do? Feeling suddenly guilty, she chewed on her lip, realizing that she knew so very little about battledragons in combat.

  Tangnost put a quiet hand out and nodded. Quenelda sighed with relief. If the dragonmaster was happy then she had nothing to worry about.

  'Now ...' he growled softly.

  Now! Quenelda whispered fervently.

  Her soft words were followed by the loud crack of sinew and tendon as the small wings unfolded. At the last possible moment the battledragon swung his hindquarters round and spread his wings, slowing his rate of descent. Would it be enough?

  A gasp whispered around the paddocks. Flattening out, belly only inches above the ground, he hurtled forwards with a flick of his mended tail. Touching down, wings wide to balance, he bounded across the training arena, zigzagging around wooden posts, leaping over and around obstacles with his powerful back legs, smoking and setting dozens of straw-stuffed dummies alight in his wake.

  Root stood horrified as this apparition from hell filled his vision and thundered towards him. And then, unbelievably, springing on his powerful hind legs, the battledragon somersaulted, to land with toes and talons outstretched, crushing three more dummies before flaming a further four. The wind roared and red smoke billowed across the paddocks as the dragon punched through, leaving a fiery trail like a comet. Inches from the arena wall, he skidded to a halt, his great hind claws furrowing the ground, sending clods of earth and a shower of pebbles raining over the stands.

  Tangnost and Quenelda and the more experienced esquires ducked as stones flew overhead, striking a resonant note from the tri-horn and a squeal from Root. He crumpled to the ground, pale-faced and sweating, and promptly threw up – right into the bowl of his horn. No one noticed.

  Cheers and shouts broke out around the paddocks. Then a groom was sent to the tack room: Quenelda was about to mount up.

  'Drop Dead followed by Incinerator and a Single Twist Disembowel!' Guy coughed as he caught a lungful of smoke. Like all youths, Darcy's Devils followed the SDS's latest exploits closely, and their legendary manoeuvres were constantly debated on the racing circuits and at court.

  'Amazing!' Rupert whispered, wide-eyed, having never been so close to a battledragon before.

  Forgetting where he was, Simon stepped down from the paddock wall to whistle loudly and bang his hand on helmet in approval, followed by Rupert and a tight-lipped Darcy.

  'Come back!' Guy hissed at them. 'Get out of the paddock! Those are battledragons!'

  'They're just juveniles,' Darcy scoffed at him as he clambered over behind Rupert and Simon. 'Scared?'

  'Darcy ...' Tangnost scowled in exasperation when he saw him. Darcy might be the Earl's son, but he and his spoiled aristocratic friends knew precious little about dragons, warfare and chivalry. They were disobedient, lazy and careless – dangerous traits around dragons, and almost certainly fatal around battledragons. They were going to get someone killed soon. Didn't they know that untrained juveniles were particularly dangerous? Surely everyone knew that red hoods were a warning sign.

  The Earl had banned his son from the battlepaddocks and roosts last year, until Tangnost was satisfied he could behave more responsibly. Now he and his friends had climbed the far arena wall, perilously close to where two juvenile Imperials – Dangerous and Deadly and Leave in Smoking Ruins – were tethered. Even hooded, the dragons could easily kill using their acute sense of smell and hearing.

  'Have they no sense at all?' the dwarf growled.

  'I'll send an esquire over to warn them.' Shaking her head in disbelief, Roostmistress Greybeard turned to one of the mounted esquires whose Sabretooth was licking Quenelda's hair in the hope of getting some of the honey tablets hidden in her pockets.

  'Darmeed, over there at the double, please, and ask the young lords to stand down from the wall before they're injured.'

  'Sir!' Dragon and rider bounded away with great leaps.

  Then Tangnost noticed for the first time that Root wasn't beside him. 'Oh, lad ...' He shook his head as he spotted the pale-faced gnome leaning against the stone wall, sweat running down his face and neck. 'Go and rinse your mouth out,' he said kindly. 'And I think you should rinse the tri-horn out too. In its four hundred years it's survived much worse, and so will you! Then go and muck out the empty roost stalls – you've done enough bugling for today.'

  Root fled gratefully.

  As if to give weight to the dragonmaster's words, Dangerous and Deadly's long neck snaked out sideways. The bells on the red leather hood jingled ominously as jaws snapped in irritable warning. There was an undignified scramble back over the wall as hot breath licked over Darcy and his friends. The rank blast showered the youths with saliva; gobbets of raw meat and bone smacked them in the face; a wisp of smoke curled from Darcy's hair. The soldiers around them guffawed at the boys' evident inexperience. Darcy looked thunderous.

  'Ugh!' Rupert shook a stringy morsel off his leathers in disgust: it lo
oked like a fleshy rope of intestines. 'That was a close shave!'

  'See what I mean?' Guy looked defiantly at Darcy's high-coloured face. 'It doesn't do to go near them until you're trained. Otherwise you get bitten ...' His voice trailed off as something caught his attention.

  He and his friends watched in silence as Quenelda strode across to her battledragon and leaned up to scratch him behind his spiked ears. 'Your sister's certainly got a way with dragons,' he commented thoughtfully.

  Aware of Darcy's hot eyes on him, Rupert closed his gawping mouth and tried to hide his admiration.

  Darcy laughed. 'She's just a girl! Look at her in her scruffy boy's clothes and tangled hair. She's quite the scandal at court, a disgrace to the family name. No ladies of noble birth will be seen with her. She reeks of dragon—'

  Simon wasn't listening. 'I wonder if it's true?' he said.

  'What?' Darcy snapped, angry at being interrupted.

  'The rumour that she wants to go to Dragon Isle too—'

  'Dragon Isle! A girl ?' Darcy laughed derisively. 'Forget her! Come on!' He stormed out of the arena towards the battleroosts. He'd show them that he could handle battlemounts too!

  Striding past the huge stallions, Darcy stopped in front of a roost where a small silver-dappled female battlegriff lay curled up, asleep. The name on the stall was RIDE THE RISING WIND. Well, he could handle a battlegriff that size easily! The creatures were highly trained, weren't they? He had been flying hippogriffs since he was fourteen, so a battle-trained one couldn't be too different, could it? If his younger sister could handle a battledragon, then surely he could handle a battlegriff! He tried to remember Tangnost's tedious lessons on battle training and briefly wished he had paid more attention.

  'Hey, you there, boy. Saddle her up,' he commanded Root, who had just arrived with bucket and mop to muck out the empty stalls. He'd show them all, he thought, especially Quenelda, their father's favourite. He was not going to be outdone by his younger sister.

  'But ... my l-lord,' Root stuttered, frozen to the spot. 'I'm not – I – I can't—'