First, here was a dragon, and quite possibly a female, and a female might have eggs or hatchlings nearby, and it was too good an opportunity to ignore. The gods had sent him this chance. He should follow the trail—and yes, there was a visible trail through the underbrush—and track the beast to its lair, and see what the situation was. This might be the only chance he would ever have to realize his dream of capturing dragons he could raise as his own, to start a dragon-farm and get rich selling dragon's blood and rubbing the wizards’ noses in it. His father might not be able to buy dragon eggs, or might not get both sexes, but he might be able to just pick up a couple for himself if he followed that trail.
On the other hand, here was a dragon, and dragons were flesh-eaters, by all accounts and by the evidence at the farm perfectly willing to settle for eating people if they couldn't find anything tastier. It was a fairly large dragon, too, no mere hatchling—the scale fragments on the oak were level with the top of Dumery's head, and presumably came from the beast's flank. An animal defending its nest was likely to be particularly vicious, and dragons had remarkable teeth and claws. This was no half-tame farm dragon, either, but a wild dragon, that might breathe fire, might be able to fly—it could be lurking overhead, waiting to pounce, even as he stood and debated with himself.
He looked up quickly, and scanned the treetops, but saw no sign of a large red-gold dragon anywhere.
The gods might have sent him this opportunity—but he was an Ethsharite. He knew the proverb, “Trusting the gods is no better than throwing dice.” The gods were powerful and benevolent, but that didn't necessarily mean that everything they did would work out for the best. If he went after the dragon the gods probably wouldn't help him fight it, or escape from it, or rob it. If it was some god doing him a favor, just putting the dragon in his path was probably the extent of it, he couldn't hope for any further protection. The gods could be whimsical, and they generally kept their meddling to a minimum.
If there were eggs or hatchlings, he would have to steal them from their mother, and the mother was likely to strenuously object to that. He would do best to kill the mother, if he possibly could—but how could a twelve-year-old boy kill a grown dragon? He didn't even have a sword or a shield, just his belt knife.
For that matter, if there were hatchlings, how could he hope to capture them and get them back to Ethshar? He had no tools, no rope, no sacks or nets, he was tired and footsore and didn't really know where he was. He was in no shape to handle even hatchling dragons.
Eggs, though—if he could slip a couple of eggs out when the mother dragon wasn't home, he could wrap them in the blanket and carry them that way.
Or if there were no eggs, at the very least he could see where the lair was, what it looked like, and maybe he would be able to find his way back to it later, when he was better-equipped.
He would go and take a look, anyway, and hope that he didn't encounter the dragon.
That brought up the question of whether the dragon, when it passed through, had been going to its lair, or from its lair.
It was still morning; Dumery guessed that it was going from its lair, and therefore he wanted to backtrack, rather than following the beast.
Besides, this way he was far less likely to wind up as the dragon's lunch.
He knew he was being reckless following the dragon's path in either direction, but after all, one couldn't be a great hero or become fabulously wealthy without taking some risks.
He studied the scraped bark, the trampled underbrush, and turned eastward, back the way the dragon had come.
Chapter Thirty-Two
As he walked, Dumery wondered just what he was actually looking for. He had never seen a wild dragon's lair. In the stories, dragons lived in caves, or forgotten crypts, or ancient tombs, or abandoned castles, or at the very least on rocky mountain ledges, and he wasn't in the mountains any more, just in rolling wooded hills, where it seemed very unlikely that he would find caves, castles, or crypts.
What if the beast lived in a concealed pit, like a hunter's trap? He might fall into it and wind up as an evening snack.
What if it had no lair, but just roamed about from place to place? He could wander on indefinitely, in that case—and he was going the wrong direction to get home.
He decided to give it until sundown, and if he hadn't found the lair by then he would turn around and head southwest.
At least the dragon hadn't tried to hide its path; it had just marched on, more or less in a straight line, without worrying about obstacles.
He crossed a boggy area where he found a few clawprints, and he almost reconsidered what he was doing; this was no ten-foot yearling. The claws were as long as his arm.
On the other hand, it was going in the other direction. If he turned around now, for all he knew he'd meet it coming back.
He wondered why it was walking, rather than flying. He mulled that over for a time, and a suspicion arose that he might be dealing with one of the escapees from Kensher's farm. Its wings could well have failed to heal properly after deliberately being broken each year for two or three years, leaving it too weak to fly. Or maybe it had just gotten accustomed to walking. Was flying something a dragon had to learn young, or not at all, perhaps?
It didn't really matter; he pressed on.
One pleasant thing he noticed about following the dragon's trail was that he didn't need to worry much about tripping over branches or catching his tunic on thorns—the dragon had stomped all such obstacles flat. He marvelled at just how mashed some of the brush was.
He looked up from a pile of shattered twigs that had once been a rhododendron and spotted something in the distance.
At first he took it for a fallen tree, and then for several fallen trees, and he wondered whether the dragon had knocked them down, or whether some storm had left them there.
As he approached, though, he realized that these were not just downed trees. No storm knocked trees into stacks.
Something had stacked up whole trees like kindling for a fire. Something had yanked them up by the roots and then laid them in a rough approximation of a circle, piling them up so that the roots and branches interwove and held them in place, forming a great wooden ring at least ten feet high—probably more, Dumery thought, looking up at the massive barrier.
It looked a little like a gigantic bird's nest, using fifty-foot trees instead of five-inch twigs.
Dumery hadn't really been thinking in terms of a nest, despite the winged, egg-laying nature of the beast, but this was obviously the dragon's lair.
This, he thought as he looked at the huge trees used as building material, could be dangerous. Suddenly wary, he crouched down and crept closer, moving as silently as he could, mentally cursing the twigs and leaves that crunched and rustled underfoot.
What if the dragon had returned by another route? What if its mate was in there? What if it had young—not hatchlings, but yearlings, big enough to dismember and devour a full-grown cow—or a half-grown boy?
Dumery inched closer.
The trees were not stacked very tightly; Dumery could see daylight through some of the gaps between them. He decided that he could sneak up and look through one of those chinks and see whether there were any eggs or hatchlings in there.
As he drew nearer he moved ever more slowly, taking his time with every step, struggling to minimize the sound he made, but finally he reached the wooden walls of the nest.
By stooping slightly he could peer between two of the massive logs; he stooped, and peered.
The inside of the nest was a sunny, treeless, bowl-shaped enclosure—a bowl full of dragons.
Most of them he took to be yearlings—he counted four, three of them various shades of green and the fourth a brilliant red, that were eight or ten or twelve feet long. It was hard to judge lengths when the only background was uprooted trees, which could be almost any size, but he was fairly sure that those four were yearlings.
One larger one, with gleaming sea-blue scale
s that faded to a fishbelly white along its underside, was curled up in the sun; Dumery estimated that, uncurled, it would be at least a fifteen-footer, probably more.
And he could hear, but not see, something stirring about just below the crack he was looking through. He was pressing his forehead up against a log, trying to get a better angle, when the rustling of leaves abruptly stopped. A head popped up into view.
There, staring at him through the crack, was a hatchling dragon, a black one, with golden, slit-pupilled eyes.
It looked exactly like the black one back at Kensher's farm.
It blinked at him, and hissed loudly, thrusting out its long dark red forked tongue.
Dumery sat down abruptly, dropping out of the little creature's line of sight.
The hissing stopped; the dragon was silent. Dumery wondered what it was doing. Was it waiting for him to reappear? Was it going on about its business?
Getting spotted hadn't been in his plans. If that little nuisance had some way of communicating to the other, bigger dragons that there was a human being snooping around uninvited Dumery might well wind up as dragon food.
He cowered, crawling down beside the bottommost log and making himself as inconspicuous as possible.
He listened, and heard no more hissing, no roaring or bellowing or growling.
That probably meant that he was safe enough.
Still, he waited.
While he waited he thought about that black hatchling.
If that was the same one he'd seen at the farm, it was a healthy, spirited little beast. If he could capture it somehow, take it home with him, he'd have half the pair he needed.
How in the World had it ever gotten here, though? True, when he fled the farm it had been out of the cage and running about loose, and it might be small enough to have squeezed out through the fence the same place he did, but how could it possibly have come all this way and wound up in this other dragon's nest?
And who were all these other dragons, anyway, and how did they relate to the one whose trail he had followed? Was the big blue one the mate of the one that made the trail, and these others their offspring?
That would make sense, but it didn't explain the hatchling. Dragons never hatched just one egg.
Of course, maybe there were other hatchlings he hadn't seen. He hadn't gotten a very good look at the entire nest.
Suppose, though, that the yearlings were the young of the blue one and the wandering red one, and that the black hatchling had escaped from the farm and somehow found its way here, seeking out its own kind?
In that case, would the other dragons really object if he captured the little one?
How could he capture it, though? He had no chains or rope, no sacks or restraints of any kind. All he had was his belt knife, and the borrowed—no, stolen—blanket, and a dwindling supply of trail food.
That, and his bare hands.
That wasn't really enough, and he knew it.
Still, that hatchling—was it the one he had seen at the farm? Were there any other hatchlings in there?
He still heard nothing alarming from inside the barrier; apparently he was safe, for the moment. He crawled out of concealment and inched along the outside of the nest, looking for another vantage point.
About a fourth of the way around he found an opening level with his chest that seemed wider than most; it looked as if he could lean through it and look around.
Cautiously, he did just that, slipping his head between the logs, his hands to either side.
The wall was thicker here than he had realized, and he pulled himself forward, into the gap. His feet left the ground and he tugged himself along with his hands.
The problem was that this section of the barrier was two trees thick, and the inner layer was made of very large trees indeed. He slipped through the outer wall, and then had to work his way along the trunk of a gigantic oak until he found an opening in the inner wall, an opening into the bowl-shaped enclosure itself.
He lay along the oak and slipped his head through the gap, into the nest.
The big blue dragon was still sound asleep, over on the far side. The four yearlings were entirely concerned with each other—they were arguing, or playing, or doing something that involved twisting their long necks about one another and tugging back and forth.
Dumery spotted the hatchling off to the side, and just as he did, it spotted him.
It came slithering over the thick layer of broken branches that lined the sides of the bowl, its tail winding back and forth like a snake, its broken wings hanging down and brushing across the shattered wood.
The broken wings convinced Dumery—this had to be the same hatchling he had seen at the farm!
He hesitated, debating whether he should pull back, get back out of sight before the creature reached him. That would certainly be the safe and sensible thing to do.
It didn't look hostile, though, merely interested. He watched it approach until it was just a few feet away, looking up at him.
He looked down at it, and at the tree branches beneath it, and he suddenly noticed that many of the tree branches were white, rather than grey or brown.
Wood isn't white, Dumery told himself. He leaned forward to get a better look.
Those white things, he realized, weren't branches.
They were bones.
This graphic reminder that dragons were carnivores convinced him that it was time to leave; he started to shift his hands, which were positioned for sliding forward.
Just then a titanic booming sounded, and the sky overhead darkened. Startled, Dumery looked up.
At first he saw only an immense darkness, but then his eyes adjusted and the thing dropped lower and he realized what it was.
A dragon, the biggest dragon he had ever seen, bigger than any dragon he had ever even imagined, was flying overhead. Its great translucent green wings hid the sky, its head blotted out the sun, its body was like a flying mountain, dark with shadow. Something dangled from its jaws, and its talons held squirming objects that Dumery didn't have time to recognize.
Those tremendous wings flapped, and the booming sounded again; a great wind swept down into Dumery's face, blinding him for a moment. He blinked, and wiped at his eyes, and came within an inch or two of losing his balance and sliding down into the nest.
By the time he had recovered himself the dragon had dropped the load it had been carrying, and three large brown steers had fallen thunderously to the ground.
The four yearlings immediately leapt upon them, the blue dragon—Dumery could scarcely continue to think of it as the big dragon, under the circumstances—close behind.
The hatchling paid no attention to this bounty from the heavens; it was staring at Dumery.
Dumery stared back, then looked quickly up as the shadows deepened.
The big dragon, having delivered its cargo, was coming to rest, settling down into the nest. Dumery could see now that its scales were a rich emerald green on its back, legs, head, neck, and tail, while its chest and belly were golden yellow.
It was immense, easily larger than all the other dragons put together. The head alone was as large as a yearling's body, the neck as long from jaw to collarbone as the blue dragon was from nose to tail. The talons on the foreclaws were at least as big around as Dumery's thighs, the claws themselves as big as his entire body.
Those talons looked as sharp as spear points, nonetheless.
There was also a look of age and maturity about this creature, a more hard-edged and finished look, rougher and more worn than any other dragon Dumery had ever seen; by comparison, even the biggest back at the farm appeared as soft and harmless as infants.
It struck Dumery that the fact that it was green rather than red-gold meant it wasn't the one whose trail he had followed, and any scales it lost against trees would have been much higher up than the traces he had found. That hardly mattered, under the circumstances.
The yearlings looked up and began scampering—Dumery had never
imagined ten-foot dragons could scamper, but there was no other word for it—out of the way of the descending behemoth, dragging the freshly-killed cattle with them.
The huge dragon landed lightly in the center of the bowl, touching down first with its foreclaws and then its hind ones, facing toward the blue dragon. The tail snaked down into a graceful coil. The gigantic wings stretched, shuddered, and then with a sudden snapping motion and a deafening slap, folded against the broad green-scaled back.
The wind from that action dislodged Dumery from his perch, and with a great crunching and rattling of dead branches and dry bones he tumbled down into the nest.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The hatchling hissed and thrashed its tail like an angry cat; the yearlings and the blue dragon, busy as they were with their feasting, paid no attention.
The gargantuan green dragon swung its head around to see what the commotion was about, and two huge golden, slit-pupilled eyes focused on Dumery.
Dumery scrambled back, snatching at his belt knife, but as the great head drew closer and closer he realized that even with a strong man's arm behind it, let alone his own far weaker muscles, his pitiful little tool—even calling it a weapon was an exaggeration—wouldn't so much as scratch this creature's armored hide.
He'd wanted dragons, he thought bitterly—well, now he had plenty of dragons, in all sizes and colors, and they were about to be the death of him. He would be swallowed by the big one in a single gulp, or ripped into shreds and devoured by the yearlings, or gnawed on by the hatchling. He would never raise dragons, never have a farm of his own, never rub Thetheran's nose in the dirt, never see his family again, never see Ethshar again, never grow up to be a man.
He would be eaten by dragons. He would be nothing but dragon fodder.
He should have just gone with Teneria.
The ponderous jaws began to open, and sudden inspiration struck Dumery.
This creature was surely the one that had built this nest, and that had put at least some of the other dragons in it, giving them a place of safety, a home, a nest. It had brought them food. It cared for them. It might be the mother or father of some of them.
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