by LeRoy Clary
The goat’s halter in hand, he tugged and pulled her to the road and walked, slowly at first. As the sun climbed higher, he found himself moving faster and his mood lightened until he found himself humming a sprightly tune. The goat limped along behind. Gareth couldn’t account for his good feelings, but allowed them to wash over him like a welcome wave of cool water. He didn’t know many songs, but there was one bawdy tune he’d heard often enough at the inn in Dun Mare, late at night after the children were asleep. He liked the melody as well as the suggestive lyrics.
The words passed his lips softly at first, and then without thinking about it, his voice grew louder and more confident. He sang aloud and smiled inwardly when he saw a pair of teachers gliding in his direction. Walking side by side, their attention lay elsewhere if their vacant eyes were a good indication. Stopping his singing might draw their attention, so he kept on, but slurred words and sang through his nose as Tom suggested.
The teachers glided up to him with their curious gait, their eyes looking past as if he was not walking on the same road, and that indifference irritated Gareth. They acted so superior. One of them spoke to the other, so softly Gareth couldn’t hear the individual words so he assumed they were talking about him. Still, neither acknowledged him. When only ten steps separated them, Gareth tipped his straw hat and called, “Mornin’ sirs,” before continuing singing the song and repeating the bawdy refrain in a louder voice.
Neither responded with as much as a twitch.
Despite knowing he shouldn’t push the subject, Gareth was about to make a rude comment fighting himself to maintain control. It was no time to act the fool. He turned to check on them one last time. When he did, he saw the head of one teacher spin around to stare directly at the crusted blood on the hip of the goat. The stride of the teacher didn’t break, but the inquisitive action put Gareth on edge, and any words he was about to sing stuck in his throat.
He watched the teacher, expecting him to return and ask about the wound on the goat, but the teacher turned away, and they continued down the road. The Brotherhood looked ahead for as long as Gareth watched.
Hustling on, he reprimanded himself for being so stupid. It would only take one tiny slip to alert the teachers he was not the farmer boy he pretended to be. Rounding a bend in the road a short time later, he saw Tom’s wagon a fair distance ahead. It stood still in the center of the road, the mule loose in its harness, head hanging low. Tom sat high above in the wagon seat. Beside the wagon stood four men wearing leather armor in the king’s wine and white colors. Each wore a sword. Their attention centered on Tom.
Tugging the goat’s lead, Gareth sidestepped from the road into the edge of the trees and waited for his heart pounding. They hadn’t seen him, and his breath came easier. He eased a few steps further into the underbrush, keeping a partial view of the wagon while hiding himself and the goat.
Their swords remained sheathed, but their body stance belied any peaceable intent. The four looked angry even from a distance. One appeared to be the aggressor and spokesman for the group as he did most of the talking. The old fisherman sat and answered his questions calmly, but the soldiers appeared agitated and waved an arm in frustration. He took one step forward and raised a fist at Tom, but only for effect. Tom drew back but didn’t look as if he’d given up on whatever the argument was about. Then one of the others stepped forward and flipped a coin high into the air.
Tom snatched it. He reached into the bed of his wagon, pulled a handful of ears of sweet corn, and passed it to them. More tense words flew between the soldiers and Tom. He reluctantly handed them a few more ears of corn before slapping the reins of the mule beginning his slow travels again.
Gareth wondered why Tom had not simply given them the corn to begin with, but then realized the obvious answer. A farmer on the way to market wouldn’t give away his crop to anyone without payment. Doing so would raise suspicions. Besides, Tom probably suspected Gareth was close behind and wanted to delay the transaction long enough to warn him of the soldiers on the road.
The soldiers settled down in a small clearing beside the road. One went to work with steel and flint building a fire while the others gathered additional dry sticks and branches. They were going to roast the corn and eat it for breakfast. A young man with a goat traveling down the road might find himself “donating” his goat to the army for them to enjoy a meal or two. Worse yet, they might search him, including his shoulder bag, for whatever else he might have that they could relieve him of.
His mind played over a scene of them searching him and one of them reaching into his bag and pulling out his hand with only four fingers remaining as the dragon stuck his head out and licked his bloody lips. The scene in his mind continued with his arrest and the dragon killed. He didn’t see any favorable outcome.
Moving slow and easy so the goat didn’t make noise and warn the soldiers, he ducked deeper into the trees until coming to an animal path heading more or less parallel to the road. Before long, it joined another, wider path. When it crossed a stream, he stopped and spent the time required to wash the dried blood off the goat’s leg, and examined the wound again. It seemed stiff, but otherwise showed no signs of infection. The clean leg should not attract any attention from the Brotherhood. The goat drank its fill of water and Gareth scooped several handfuls for himself.
Do dragons drink water?
Gareth hadn’t seen it drink, but it was only the third day they’d been together. When they stopped, he had placed his blanket and shoulder bag near the edge of the stream. Glancing around, he saw no sign of the dragon, only a deflated leather bag.
“Where are you, this time, you little beast?”
“Snort?”
He turned. The animal stood downstream a few paces, balanced on a rock at the edge of the water. It looked at him for a brief second, then quickly turned and watched the stream. In a move almost too fast to for human eyes to follow, the head darted into the water, and the mouth lifted a small fish the size of his little finger into the air, wriggling and twisting. The dragon looked to Gareth as if asking permission. When he didn’t object, it tossed its head back and swallowed.
“You’re not going to need me to provide food for you much longer, are you?” Gareth laughed and reached out grabbing the dragon’s neck to hold it still. With his other hand, he splashed water on the dragon and cleaned some of the caked blood and grime from the loose skin. The dragon turned and twisted in his grip, baring teeth and hissing with each splash of water, but Gareth managed to clean most of him off. He held the flap of the bag open. “Now get in here and let’s be on our way.” The dragon leaped from the side of the stream and raced inside. As if you’re going to need me any longer. You’re doing fine without me. The creature darted inside the bag, seemingly wanting no more of Gareth’s attention.
The road Tom followed had been on Gareth’s right when he departed from it. It would be somewhere in that direction now unless the road had taken a sharp turn. The four soldiers eating corn should be well behind, but he hesitated to approach the road, again. Those soldiers had been deployed by their officers to search for him. He felt certain of it. There were probably many more of them on the roads nearby, and more on the road, Tom traveled. Teachers and the king’s army both hunted him, casting a loose net that they seemed to draw in tighter and tighter with every step. He left his things, including the bag with the dragon sleeping inside, beside the stream while he jogged through the thin underbrush to check on the road and look for Tom. In less time than he expected, he came to it.
Nobody in sight. No sound of the creaking wheel of the wagon.
The road appeared to go straight ahead as far as Gareth could see. Fresh wagon wheel tracks told him Tom was somewhere ahead. He ran back to the stream and gathered his belongings. Instead of returning to the road and all the danger of teachers and soldiers, he chose to continue traveling on the path. The goat seemed to have more spring in her step, and they made good time. Twice more he checked on the road fo
r the army or the Brotherhood, or Tom, before returning to the path. The third time he heard the rumble and squeak of the wagon long before seeing it.
Instead of calling out and possibly alerting unseen enemies, he decided to get further ahead of the wagon and find a private place on the road to wait where they could speak. Drakesport couldn’t be too far ahead, and if they couldn’t talk beforehand, he remembered the name of the inn Jenson suggested while floating down the river. The Sleeping Lion. Tom would too. If necessary, he could sell the goat at the market and use the coin to eat a meal and get a room while waiting for Tom.
The path he walked was wide enough to travel without slowing. Animal tracks of many kinds showed in the patches bare dirt, but never the footprint of a man, nor a boot. The forest thinned into spreading trees with wide leaves, covering rolling hills. Many of the shallow valleys were alive with fields of lush wild grass. He saw no signs of farmers or their homes. While crossing one of the small clearings in the forest, he stumbled to a stop and knelt down because he felt dizzy – the same feeling as earlier. A fever? He looked for something to grab onto to steady himself. Inside his mind, the blurred vision crystallized. He saw the cloudless blue sky with a massive red dragon flying just above the far off treetops, near the next ridge. Gareth had never seen a red dragon and hadn’t known they existed. He had only seen the female black dragon that sometimes flew over Dun Mare, and that only for the mating season the last spring and early summer.
He shook his head and the vision blurred. He saw from his eyes as normal. Feeling his forehead, there was no indication of fever, and he felt fine. He spun and looked off to his left where he saw a ridge like in the vision. It was the same one his dragon now watched intently from the bag he carried. Yes, it was all there as in his sight, the ridge and a red dragon in the distance, against the pale blue of the sky. It was flying low and fast.
From inside the shoulder bag, he heard an angry hiss and glanced down. The black head extended as far as possible from under the flap. The small dragon growled and hissed. Then it quivered and stilled, eyes still fixed on the far off dragon. It inhaled deeply, drew its head back and spit a minuscule dot of black spit at the red dragon.
Gareth’s eyes automatically tracked the arc of the black dot. It landed four or five paces away, in some green grass. He stepped nearer to the landing spot and found a few green blades shriveling and turning a deadly shade of black. Looking up at the sky again, the red dragon was gone.
“How did you know it was up there when you were asleep in your bag? Were you warning me?”
The dragon’s head turned at his voice, and the red eyes examined Gareth. It slowly pulled its head back into the bag as if detecting disapproval.
“You knew about it before I did. You saw it in the sky, but how? You were inside your bag, last I looked.”
There was no reply. The incident gave Gareth food for thought as he trudged down the path. Twice he’d felt the odd sensation of dizziness followed by a shift in his vision as if a shift in his point of view. It might be exhaustion or lack of food or water. Maybe the local water was making him sick? But he didn’t think so.
While reviewing what had happened, he imagined an experience of a sort of shared sight with the dragon, Gareth seeing what it did. The concept was completely new to him, and he wanted to think more about the idea. He paused near the top of a rise and turned a full circle, examining the lay of the land. More rolling hills lay ahead on the path, with a ridge of snow-capped mountains far beyond. The land appeared flatter to his left, where the river flowed down a wide valley. Off to his right heavy forest obscured his vision. No sign of a town or city appeared anywhere.
Gareth sat in the grass to rest and covered his face with his hands. His head ached with tension and dozens of unanswered questions. Tom, the egg, the dragon, the teachers, the Brotherhood, the bounty hunters. Too many things to think about at once. Before following a single thought to a conclusion, another sidetracked him. Back in Dun Mare life had been easier. Maybe I should have stayed there like Faring said.
The dragon slipped out of the bag and explored the surrounding area, sniffing and looking at all things, as if each item might be a potential meal. Gareth watched it, allowing the antics of the chick amuse and distract him. When a yellow flower swayed on a breeze, the dragon snapped its jaws to grab it and chewed before spitting the flower out. A few petals and specks of yellow pollen remained on the evil looking face. Gareth smiled at the comical expression it created, feeling somewhat better.
However, the thought of the dragon face being “evil” triggered the truth. The animal was a vicious killer of anything edible, and in some ways, not. In time, it would attack and eat anything smaller than itself. No, that was not its limitation. The goat it had attacked was ten times its size and the dragon hadn’t hesitated to make a meal of it. Black and fearsome appearing, it was all ridges, points, claws, teeth, and barbs. Nothing to like. While it normally moved deliberately, the dragon was capable of incredibly fast speeds for short distances.
Who in their right mind would purchase such a mean, ornery, and dangerous beast? The army purchased eggs. Why? For making war on others with the dragons after they hatched and trained? Dragons fighting dragons in the sky. Doing what came naturally to them. The king’s army seemed the only potential buyer, and even it had now aligned themselves against Gareth if his experiences on the road were any indication.
The word ‘beast’ is a good one for describing the dragon. Baby beast, to be more accurate, but in a short time, the awful dragon would grow. It would destroy and kill at leisure. Nothing could stop it. Did he have any right to feed and care for it? Let it continue to grow into a monster feared by all men? Wouldn’t it be better for all if he killed the dragon and returned to his village and worked on the farm for Odd for the rest of his life?
Would I be happy with that life?
The little dragon pulled to a stop near a fallen log and the only the small head on the end of the neck moved. It twitched and paused, then repeated the action. The dragon searched for food, grabbing an insect from the air as it flew past and searching for more. Then its posture changed, becoming aggressive. It gradually turned in Gareth’s direction and snorting while keeping its eyes looking up into the sky.
Dizziness swept over Gareth again. His vision blurred and when it cleared his eyes looked at the sky behind him, but he hadn’t turned his head. In the vision, he saw himself sitting in the grass, and in the air far behind him, a gray dragon flew. Trying to hold onto the mental image of himself sitting there, he opened his mouth wide and made a face. In the vision of his mind, he saw himself do the same thing. He stuck his tongue out.
Almost like looking in a mirror.
He saw himself from the vantage of the little dragon’s eyes.
The strange sensation came again, and he was looking at the baby dragon, as normal. He’d never heard of anything similar happening. Did the dragon somehow touch Gareth’s mind and allow it to see the same things that it saw? Did it only do it when danger was near?
The questions tumbled over each other. Before determining an answer, another question came to mind. He told himself to just look at the facts. Ask questions later.
The small dragon acted upset every time it saw another dragon. It hated other dragons, maybe sensing their hate for blacks. Maybe other colored dragons didn’t have the ability to sense blacks. Otherwise, they would have reacted to him and attacked. Or, being a chick, maybe it was too young to be sensed by others. If so, when would they sense him and attack? A day? Week? Year?
Before Gareth shifted his gaze to his rear, he knew what he’d see. The gray dragon disappearing above a far hilltop. Gareth turned to his dragon again. If the dragon could send pictures to his mind, could he send pictures to it? If possible, how could he test that the dragon “heard” and “understood”?
“Dragon, move closer to me,” he ordered within his mind, no sound passing his lips. He projected the image of the dragon moving closer. Noth
ing happened for several long breaths. The dragon tilted his head to the left, then the right, looking confused. It took two tentative steps in Gareth’s direction.
The action may have been a coincidence. He projected his thoughts again, picturing the dragon leaping onto a near log. Nothing happened at first. Gareth subvocalized, “Jump onto that log.”
The dragon leaped onto the log looking expectantly from the top of it at him as if seeking approval. Then it spun and raised its head to the sky, a low snarl issuing from the tiny mouth.
Gareth’s eyes followed where it looked. Still far off in the sky, the gray dragon flew in the opposite direction it had earlier. Closer. It traveled on a parallel course, only nearer.
His dragon could definitely sense others, at least that much was solved. It also followed his wordless instructions, or so he believed until he found time to test it further. “I need a name for you besides ‘little dragon.' Maybe I’ll have to call you Blackie like the night whispers said. No, that sounds cute, and you’re anything but cute.”
His mind was not concentrating on the name or words as he spoke. They were just words. His thinking roiled around something as simple as giving an animal a name while considering on a deeper level the idea that the dragon obeyed his wordless orders. It also managed to find other dragons before they were seen. Could it be true the dragon could touch his mind? Easy enough to check. He would make time to check for a skill so important. In his mind, careful to allow no sound to pass his lips, he said, “Come here, Blackie.”
The dragon leaped from the log and happily ran a few steps to stand next to his leg. He gave it a pat on the shoulder and watched it cuddle closer. Gareth knelt and scratched the ridged back between the wings with his fingernails. He caught a whiff of stench. Rotting meat. The animal’s bad breath. Looking closer he noticed dried blood caked in some of the creases of the skin again, and bits of mouse-fur clung to the chest. “Next water we come to, you’re getting another bath.”
