by Kirk Dougal
“You, young miss, you freeze my bones, biting into my skin,” His gaze dropped from her face to the dagger. “I feel its cold seeping into me. Cold! Yes, tea for everyone.”
Card was too busy looking around the room to notice the man had left again, and DeBrest, who initially had stared with wonder at all the nooks and crannies, suddenly plopped down on the barrel top as if he could not possibly stand another minute.
I continued to walk around, looking over everything from little figurines to a carved three-headed dog, half hidden under a pile of scrolls. I moved back to the center of the room when I heard the kettle whistle, and a few moments later, the man appeared with a tray holding the tea pot and several cups.
“Brewed green and strong,” he said. “This is good for driving away the chill and curing what ails you.” He poured everyone a cup, serving Saleene first, before taking one for himself and settling onto the couch, his feet dangling a couple of inches above the floor.
“So tell me about this matter of death,” he said. “And I'll warn you. I'll be very disappointed if you tell me you'll just die without getting to a certain treasure.”
“We are…” I started before Card interrupted.
“Excuse me, Beast, but before we start, I'd like to hear about the night the dragon attacked the castle.” I glared at him, but he patted the air with his hand, signaling me to calm down.
The old man started to laugh but choked it short. Instead, he stared at the far wall for a few moments, his eyes clouding over again into a darker blue. When they cleared, he glanced around our group.
“Not a lot to say about it,” he said. “The dragon came and people died. Their protector failed them.” He raised the cup to his lips, but he did not drink, setting it down again before it reached his mouth. “We knew the beast was coming for a couple of nights before he reached us. We could see her off in the distance, burning down villages, roasting whole herds of sheep, launching fireballs into the night sky and sending the stars running for cover.
“On the third night, she dove from the sky, blocking out the moon. Lord Dellacont had his men on the Dunollie Castle wall, in the streets, hanging from rooftops. Archers, pikemen, knights—good men to the last. But this was no hatchling, no half-wyrm still wet from the egg. This was a massive beast, full grown and raging from the fire in her belly. The wind from her wings knocked men for thirty feet or more, tumbling them across the ground. Fire poured from her mouth like a waterfall gathering in a deep pool. The flames rolled down the streets in waves, turning everything to ash.” He stopped and stared at the far wall.
“Into the death and destruction, Dyllar, the Dragon Slayer, met the beast with fire and rage of his own. He stood in the middle of Dunollie, gave everything and more, until finally the dragon crashed to the streets and did not move again.” The old man continued to stare into the distance.
The room sat in silence for several minutes, even DeBrest holding his tongue. Saleene moved first, shifting her weight on the edge of the overturned box that served as her chair.
“Coalton had a working mine,” she said. “This castle and surrounding area could hold a thousand people. What happened to them all?”
“Dead. Most of them, anyway.” He rubbed his arms, rough cloth scratching across his skin. “The fire was so hot. Melted skin off the bones. The air burned your throat, burned in your lungs.” He swallowed. “The rest, they went below. The sickness got them.”
I nodded, remembering what Traxel had said the night before about a sickness wiping out the rest of Coalton.
“We have a great need,” I said. “People are dying. We need the last dragon slayer to help us.”
The man laughed and glanced at the wall again. “That's what the last one said. Help us, he said. We're fighting evil, he said. And when I refused, he stole what he wanted. Stole it and rode away.”
“It's the man Traxel talked about last night,” Card whispered. “The man who brought an army.”
I barely heard him. My eyes had followed the man's gaze, the gaze that kept returning to the wall opposite his seat. Directly across from him, a worm-eaten door leaned against the wall, canvas hanging from the gray wood of one corner. But peeking around the edge, a purple-rimmed tapestry told of something just out of sight. I walked to the door and grabbed the edges, lifting it away.
I heard Saleene gasp before I turned from placing the door on its side. When I stood straight again, I saw the full tapestry and felt the breath leave my body as well.
The purple edging surrounded the scene the man had just described about the night the dragon attacked. A dragon hovered in a moonlit sky above the great castle, breathing fire toward a man standing on a wall. He held one hand above his head, light shining from one finger, beating back the flames. In his other hand, a spear, ready to thrust into the dragon's breast above him. Behind the dragon slayer, a young man cowered under his protection, his face raised up in fear.
I turned and stared the old man in the eyes.
“The man who came three years ago,” I said. “The man with the army waiting below in Coalton. He lied to you, stole something valuable.” I pointed at the light. “He stole that ring.”
The man leaped up from the couch. In his hands was a spear.
“What do you want?” he screamed.
“People are being killed, innocent people. Women and children.” I paused, my thoughts on the man on the Dinas Farwolaeth wall, directing the dragon in its attack against us. “They're being killed by the man who stole the ring. He controls a dragon. That is who we must defeat.”
The man's chest heaved, his eyes still swirling in shades of blue so dark they were almost black.
“Who am I?” The volume of his voice had fallen but the words still held the same anger. I saw his knuckles go white from his grip on the spear.
“You're Dyl…” Card started.
“Stop!” I yelled. Card swallowed the rest of the name while I rubbed a hand across my chin. “Just wait, Card.”
I stared at the man, and then turned to the tapestry. The ring, the spear—the answer was too neat, too easy. If the man asked everyone who wanted help from the last dragon slayer who he was, then why hadn't he helped them? Why did the man from Dinas Farwolaeth need to steal the ring?
My world became the size of the tapestry. I felt the weave of the fibers, smelled the dust and smoke from the battle. The heat seared my face and still I stared. The dragon swung close, then flew away, leaving flames around my body. My robes smoldered. I looked up, and now I saw the beast from a new perspective. It was me standing on the Dunollie Castle wall. I was holding the spear while the young man behind me screamed in fear.
I blinked. The walls of the house still leaned in crazy directions, DeBrest still sat on half a barrel, and Saleene and Card were both over-wound springs waiting to be released if the old man attacked. I was back in this world, and I needed the last dragon slayer.
I walked to the tapestry and jabbed my finger at the man fighting the dragon.
“Dyllar, the Dragon Slayer.” My finger moved to the light on his finger. “The ring that was stolen from you.” I smiled, moving my hand one last time until my finger rested on the young man dumbstruck by fear. “You. You're the boy behind Dyllar.”
The clouds cleared from the old man's eyes, the blue returning to the color of the sky on a cloudless day.
“Tobin,” he said with a bob of his head. “I was Master Dyllar's apprentice, though he usually called me Slop. It seems I never kept my studies table clean enough for his taste.”
I glanced around the room, taking in all the clutter. My smile grew into a grin.
“Will you help us, Tobin?” I asked. “Will you take us to Dyllar?”
Slop glanced down at the spear in his hands. “By all rights, I should be giving it to you,” he said, looking up at Card. “I see the strength in you, and I think Master Dyllar would have been up for your challenge.” He turned back to me. “But I'm told you should wield it. That in this fight, it
may be the strength of the bear that sways the end.” He held the spear out to me.
I glanced at the others before reaching for the shaft. The moment my skin made contact, electricity ran through my body, jolting my muscles and jerking me from side to side. I heard my companions screaming my name, but underneath their shouts was a river of whispers, rolling around my feet and legs and rising toward my head. They climbed past my shoulders, seeping into my ears and filling my mind with rambling, sing-song chants. I felt the scream rising from my lungs, and I ripped my head back to let it out.
And the voice was gone.
“What was that?” I asked Slop, my chest heaving with each word.
The little man grinned.
“You've just had the pleasure of meeting Master Dyllar, the Dragon Slayer.”
Chapter 44
I shook my head, Slop's words seeping into my thoughts. “What do you mean I just met Dyllar?”
The old man sat back down, all the twitching and crazy antics gone. I saw that those were all part of the act, his way of tricking those who came to live off the legend of the last dragon slayer. Now when I stared into his eyes, he stared back with intensity and intelligence.
“Everything I told you before was true,” he said. “But I left out how the battle really ended.” He reached for his tea and took a drink, gesturing for all of us to sit down.
“It was a horrible, bloody, deadly battle,” he continued. “It was also the most magnificent sight that has ever crossed these eyes. Master Dyllar beat back the dragon, and then the dragon returned, swooping out of the sky like a bolt of lightning, scorching everything in its path. This was a full-grown female, mature, at the peak of her strength, and she had a rage boiling in her that threatened to devour all of mankind. It was close, a hair's breadth between Dyllar's power and her raw strength and fire. The difference was in the will.” He stopped and stared at the tapestry again.
“Tobin, please. How did Dyllar kill the dragon?” I asked.
“The dragon had a secret, a secret she wanted to live to see fulfilled. She fought with all her strength but, in the end, she wanted to live.” Slop smiled. “That was the difference, the will. Master Dyllar's only goal was to protect the people of Dunollie Castle. Death was nothing to him, so he accepted it for the victory.”
My heart sank. “The last dragon slayer is dead.”
“In your way, yes. But not in the way of a wizard as powerful as Dyllar.” Slop leaned forward, the words tumbling faster. “On the last pass, Master poured all his power, all his strength, into the spear you hold. While the ring held back the flames, he let the dragon fall onto him, and as his life went into the spear, the spear drove its way into the dragon's breast, skewering its heart and dropping it from the sky.” He leaned back. “When the flames died and the dragon's body was gone except for its bones, I went back and gathered the spear from the disaster, hiding it here as he wished, waiting for someone of great enough need to be useful again.” He glanced up at me. “But the ring was gone.”
“Stolen?” Saleene asked.
“I didn't think so at first,” Slop said. “I thought it had been destroyed by the dragon's fire. But then, years later, I learned of an army in the east, attacking with soldiers dressed in black and fire raining from the sky. I knew at once that the ring was being used.” DeBrest sucked in a breath at the words.
“I don't understand something,” Card said. “Beast, you said you believed the man on the parapet was controlling the dragon with the ring. If the ring can control dragons, then why didn't Dyllar just order the dragon to fly away?”
“That was the terrible secret,” Slop said. “The dragon carried an egg still inside her body, One body, two dragons. And even with one still in the egg, the power was too great for the ring to overcome. He slowed her, flayed her thoughts, but Dyllar could not control her—not as the next dragon would be controlled by the ring.”
I was not the only one to gasp at the statement. I felt the pieces turning, finding slots to fall into place.
“Where was the dragon held captive?”
“Far to the east, beyond the White Mountains on a great plain, in a castle surrounded by the hand of the world.”
“Dinas Farwolaeth,” DeBrest said, pain in each syllable.
Slop nodded. “Yes. The dragon was held there and forced to live life as an attack dog, burning villages, razing castles, ruining the lands he touched. For more than ten years, the new dragon rained fire and death on innocent people, all because of another's wish.”
One piece refused to find an opening to fall into, a dark spot against a growing wall of white.
“If the ring was stolen when Dyllar was killed more than fifty years ago,” I asked, “and Breton and the others were destroyed by a dragon controlled by that ring about twenty years ago, then what did you lose three years ago when the man with the army paid you a visit?
Slop smiled but then his lips turned down into a grimace. “The next dragon.”
“The egg,” Card said. “The man stole the dragon's egg!” He paused. “But why?”
Slop shrugged. “Only he knows. The attacks stopped soon after Bretonia was destroyed, so perhaps the dragon escaped, perhaps it was killed. But what is obvious was that this man needed a replacement.”
“So you're saying the dragon we fought at Dinas Farwolaeth is only three years-old?” Saleene shook her head, eyes wide and unblinking. “My god, how big and powerful will it get when it's full grown?”
“The bones of the dragon Master Dyllar killed are still here in Dunollie,” Slop said. “Perhaps you can visit them as you leave.” He turned and looked out the window. “The sun is beginning to set. You should go. Dunollie Castle is no place find yourself after darkness falls and the road down is dangerous even with the light.”
We walked to the door. I stopped, my hand on the latch.
“When I stepped on the porch and you came outside, you had something in your pocket,” I said. “What was it?”
Slop smiled. He pulled something from his coat and opened his fist. An irregular black rock, lined with a reflective vein, sat in his palm. A blue halo surrounded the stone so bright that I squinted against the light.
“Send Master Dyllar back to me when you've completed your quest,” Slop said. “I will protect him until the next need arises.”
I led the others out into the afternoon sun. I glanced back as I started to climb into the saddle and my foot slipped clear, splashing in the mud.
The house was no longer a ramshackle hovel, walls teetering on collapse with wood and stone blocks clashing. Instead, the building was a fortified stone structure, walled with thick stones and windows covered with steel bars. The wooden door with knotholes missing was gone. In its place was metal-banded ironwood, sealed against fire.
“It was a glamour,” Card said. “A trick of the eye.”
I glanced around the area. “Be careful. That house was built to keep something out, something dangerous.”
Saleene led us back inside the crumbling castle walls. She chose a route close to the heart of Dunollie, angling toward the remains of the tower in the center. The ruins cast a long shadow toward the mountain wall, laying a path leading to the road down. Saleene headed in that direction but stopped at the next intersection, staring down the street to the right. I heeled my horse closer.
“What is it?” I asked.
Saleene tilted her head toward the street but stayed silent.
I turned, mouth dropping open.
A massive pile of bones lay down the street, some piled high in the open while others covered the crumbled stone of flattened buildings. Pointed directly at us was the skull of a dragon, its mouth tall enough for me to ride my mount between the teeth without scraping my armor. I jumped when Card and DeBrest rode up beside me.
“We may never get another chance to see this,” Card said. I know his voice was low, but the sound still echoed like a shout in the quiet. I nodded.
We dismounted near the bones, the
horses refusing to go any closer. I stepped over some piles, walking around ribs big enough I could not see over them. Card hefted up a talon, needing two hands to carry it a few feet and grunting under the strain. I watched DeBrest rifle through a pile of teeth, finally finding one small enough to fit in the pouch at his waist. Even Saleene got into the act, stooping over to gather scales and stuff them into her saddlebags. By now, I was standing near the skull, and I bent down and picked up a finger-sized chunk of dragon glass, the solidified remains of the beast's eye.
That was when I saw the human skeleton, tiny bones beneath the enormous chest cavity of the dragon.
My stomach roiled. I felt like a grave robber, digging through the leftovers of the battle where so many had died. I spit on the ground to clear the taste in my mouth.
“Let's go,” I said. “It's getting late.”
I was almost back to my horse when I heard DeBrest gasp.
“What? Who's there?” The duke pointed at what was still standing of a great building, two sides defying gravity and remaining upright. “Did you see them?”
“No,” I said. “Did you?” Card and Saleene both shook their heads. “What was it, Duke?”
DeBrest backed toward me, his gaze remaining on the building.
“I don't know,” he said, stumbling over a bone and nearly falling. “It was like two rocks came to life, moved like people.” He turned and ran to his horse, almost leaping into the saddle. “I saw two pairs of eyes and…” His voice faded.
“And?” I asked. “And what else?”
DeBrest turned to me, stiff and slow, as if he was a machine trying to move after rusting in the weather. “Teeth.”
Saleene ran the rest of the way to her mount after the word and sped down the street. Card was close behind, and we all spurred our horses into a gallop, hooves beating on the roadway in rhythm to the pounding of our hearts. I glanced back once and was certain I saw several figures moving in the lengthening shadows, following us.
Chapter 45
