The Little Dragons

by Rowan Starsmith

  Eldrin raised his head and blew his nose. “He gave his life to bring his people back into the light of day,” he said.

  Jessa immediately felt shamed by her anger. His methods were all he was taught by a life spent in the school of war, and Eldrin was right, his goal was the same as everyone else’s, Kings People and Earth People alike.

  After a few more minutes of respectful silence, she asked him, “What do you usually do with the bodies of fallen soldiers? Carry them back to the Westlands?”

  Eldrin shook his head. “If we have enough able-bodied men, we bury them on the field,” he said.

  Jessa opened her mouth to ask what happened if there were not enough able-bodied men, but closed it again. She knew.

  “Just before we leave, we’ll have the Chaplains say the Prayers for the Dead in Battle. We’ll carry Torrie back, though. He was King, if only briefly. He will have a Royal Funeral.”

  Well into the night, lanterns bobbed around in the woods as the men finished setting up the camp and crews cut and piled saplings to make stretchers to carry the wounded on the long journey back to the Westlands. Later, Eldrin and Jessa decided that everyone should rest. Most of the men congregated around the cooking fires to talk, eat and sleep. Jessa settled beside Locheil. There was heat in him now and he was restless. The Dragon wounds were beginning to fester, as Dragon wounds were famous for doing. The same must be happening to the men all around her. There was a chorus of groaning and tossing, screams and cries for water and other cries from the depths of nighmares. Those caring for the wounded were kept busy comforting, restraining and running with buckets and dippers of water. Jessa prayed to both the Warrior God and the strange Mother Goddess of the Earth People until she could keep herself awake no longer. She curled up at Locheil’s side and slept.

  She woke at daybreak with someone shouting Liandra’s name and title at her. “Princess Liandra, wake up, look!” She sat up. The men working with the wounded had backed away into a large circle a distance from her, staring with wide-open eyes. Any of the wounded that were conscious were staring at her the same way. There was a chittering noise behind her. She turned, and found herself looking into the whirling eyes of Liandra’s Little Dragon.

  He bobbed his head up and down and made that chittering sound again. It seemed he was trying to communicate with her. “What, Roxtrianatrix?” she whispered. “I wish I could hear you in my thoughts the way Liandra can.” He chattered, bobbed more quickly. In the end, all she could do was extend her hands. He became quiet, slithered forward a little and laid his head in her palms the way he had on the battlefield the day before. This time he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Her arms were aching with the need to shift position by the time he lifted his head, touched his nose to her outstretched palm, then unfurled his iridescent wings and flew away. All around her the men were on their knees, their heads bowed to him, to her.

  It was tempting to take one more night of rest, but Eldrin and Jessa felt it was urgent to get the wounded men into the hands of healers. Eldrin was thinking of the King’s People’s healers in the capital city. Jessa had promised herself that she would ask any Earth People they met where she might find one of their Healers.

  As soon as the sun set, they ordered the army to pack up. Everyone gathered for the chaplains’ prayers over the dead and left them with sadness, still arrayed in their rows at the edge of the woods. The King’s body went with them, tied to a sapling stretcher carried by two men, the same way they transported the men who were seriously wounded. The less seriously wounded hobbled along, supporting themselves with crutches and walking sticks also cut from the woods. By midnight, they were on the road, although traveling slowly.

  There were only a few horses going back with them, and they decided the best use of their strength would be to pull some of the wagons, loaded with tents, food and supplies. Only one was saddled, to assist Eldrin and Farrell as they alternated in the task of riding up and down the crawling procession, giving encouragement and solving problems. Jessa walked beside Locheil’s stretcher. When Eldrin was not working on horseback, he walked beside her.

  “What will happen when we get back?” Jessa asked him.

  “First thing, we’ll commandeer one of the larger halls and set up an infirmary to care for the wounded.”

  “Of course.”

  “My Father’s Head Bailiff, Ermin, will be very important. He knows everything about running the government, and he oversees Royal ceremonies. He will arrange Torrie’s funeral.”

  “And then a Coronation?”

  “A Coronation?”

  “For you.”

  Eldrin abruptly lost his horseman’s posture, walking with a bent head. “Oh God,” he muttered.

  “What? Do you not want to be King?”

  “No. Never. You see, after my Father it was always understood that the crown would go to Torrie. I always assumed he would have a long life. So did everyone else. It was him that got whatever training was to be had in statecraft, little as it was. I never, ever thought in terms of mounting the throne of the Westlands.” He looked at her, brow creased, almost panic in his eyes. “Oh the poor people of the Westlands,” he said. “I’m not cut out to be a King.”

  “What are you cut out for?” Jessa asked him.

  “I’ve always assumed I would have a life-time career in the army. I want to expand the cavalry. Not because I like fighting and all that,” he gave Jessa a guilty glance, “But I love the horses.” His face brightened and his back straightened at the very mention of the animals. “I have some ideas for breeding taller, faster horses, and training them to be athletes, horses that can quickly carry a messenger any distance without effort, dance through a sword fight as quickly and gracefully as any man on foot, fearless horses, horses with heart.” He stopped, breathless. Jessa marveled at the light on his face now. It outshone his travel lantern, but as quickly as it had arrived, it faded away. “But now I guess that’s not to be,” he said.

  “Why not? Can’t a King breed horses?”

  “Well, sure, but do you have any idea how many hours a day it takes to govern a Realm? Kings oversee military matters, but the day to day work is left to the men under them. I will be the one that walks through the stables or watches the training exercises, suggesting this or that, not the one that knows each horse intimately, its strengths and failings, what it could offer to its offspring when paired with the strengths and failings of a mare I know just as well.”

  Jessa found his passion moving. “Oh Prince Eldrin, I’m sorry about what fate is handing you.”

  He nodded, watching the ground at his feet again, apparently not trusting himself to speak. Jessa watched him, so much like his father—their father.

  “Is your Father dead, then? We had only heard that he was wounded.”

  Eldrin looked up at her. “Oh I imagine he’s dead by now. He was very seriously wounded.”

  “Would no one have sent a messenger with the news?”

  “While we were fighting? I think they would assume a messenger could not get through to us alive.”

  “Hmmm,” Jessa took a few more steps before responding. “But we don’t know for sure he’s dead.”

  “Well, no, but surely, by now.” Eldrin fell into his own thoughts, his brow once more creased the way it did when he was thinking.

  Chapter 137: Maida

  Maida prepared herself as best she could. She filled the stone tub in the bathing room and built a fire in the stove. In a cupboard she found some creams and powders that she could identify. Some were relaxants, others were intended to soften skin and muscle. She sprinkled a generous amount of both powders into the water. The bath smelled lovely. She lay in it until she felt a relaxation beyond anything she had ever experienced before. Roxtrianatrix curled beside her, on the lip of the tub.

  When she felt she was as ready as she ever would be, she dried herself and wrapped herself in the golden cloak from the closet beside the couch. With Roxtrianatrix accompanying he
r, she lit the torches, lay down on the blankets and pillows she had arranged on the altar and waited. She thought about the chorus of singers and drummers who once would have filled this ritual space with traditional chants. As Maida lay on the stone altar, the only sound was the guttering of the torches, her breathing and that of Liandra’s Little Dragon where he sat a few feet away.

  Because it was so quiet, there was no mistaking the weight of Glenardinaliat landing on the platform at the end of the room. Maida’s heart beat faster, but she quelled her fear with deep breaths and closed her eyes. His claws scratched the stone as he crawled into the room, accompanied by the softer scrape of scales on the floor.

  Even through her closed eyelids, Maida was aware of the light of the torches blocked out by Glenardinaliat’s reptilian head bent over her. She couldn’t resist opening her eyes. He looked straight into them. His were whirling quickly, a spiral kaleidoscope of brilliant colour. There was no mistaking his love for her, strange as it seemed.

  She lifted and parted her knees, supporting her feet on the rounded ridge at the bottom of the altar. His front claws scraped lightly on the stone floor, moving past her on either side, and then his vast golden belly was arched over her.

  He probed her gently once, twice, and then filled her, deep into her belly. There was pain, but he also felt as golden as his colour inside her. A few minutes later, a ripple passed through the golden scales above her and she overflowed with warm liquid, pouring down her buttocks and flooding the blankets under her hips. She could hear it dripping from the altar onto the stone floor. She barely felt him withdraw, except for blinking away the light as his shadow left her.

  She lay there for some time, feeling a glow deep in her belly. It was only when she began to feel chilled that she returned to her still-hot bath, Roxtrianatrix close beside her.

  Interlude: The Dragons

  Mighty wings unfurled

  Great Golden One

  Flies to the Sun

  He has planted his seed

  In his beloved’s womb

  It lies deep within her

  Hope curls warm within her

  She will be a Keeper

  Of Dragons

  Fly, fly with him

  O Dragons

  And rejoice

  For hope lies golden

  Within the womb of his love

  And she will be a Keeper.

  Chapter 138: Melisande

  Anglewart walked unevenly to his chair by the fire, leaning heavily on his walking stick. He sat and indicated the chair beside him for Melisande. “So, our oldest son is dead,” he said.

  She watched the fire. The sadness of this loss weighed heavily upon her. “And Eldrin?” she said. “Will we see him crowned King, so young?”

  “He knows his duty.” He was watching her. “And this rumour, about Liandra being a Dragon Priestess, what do you make of that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and it was the truth. The rumours that were filtering into the capital city in advance of the returning army were extremely muddled. The last she had heard about Liandra, word that she could trust, was Marle’s report that the young woman had been snatched by Dragons from the Barrens near the Healer’s School, and her Little Dragon had gone with her.

  “And why is she with the army?”

  “That I don’t know either.”

  Anglewart turned back to the fire. “I guess we will know more when they arrive.”

  Chapter 139: Maida

  Maida pushed herself forward, barely aware of the dense Northlands forest all around her. She walked until she was too tired to go any farther, paying no attention to whether she traveled by day or night, except to blow out the travel lantern when its circle of light melted into the greater light of the sun. She became warm in the sun, wet in the rain, cold in the wind, and didn’t notice. When she couldn’t lift her foot one more time, she would lie down wherever she was and curl up under her cloak. Only complete exhaustion allowed her to sleep without seeing Liandra again, twisting and turning through the air, down, down, leaving Maida clutching the cliff’s edge, screaming her lover’s name in terror, helplessness and loss. Sometimes Maida wished she had jumped too, but then her attention would focus on the little knot of golden, glowing warmth in her belly. It was this that moved her forward. She must carry it to the Healer’s School, where the knowledge was.

  Before she had departed, her Servant self clicked into an automatic need to leave the Dragon Priestess’s School in good order. She had cleaned, tidied, put things away. Any food that would keep on the road she wrapped and stowed in her travel pack. She had put the goats into the slings Liandra had made to transport them to the mountains and asked Roxtrianatrix to ask the Dragons to take them to Father Mallory and Lynna. She had no idea if Roxtrianatrix understood spoken words or not, but when she was ready, three young Dragons came, picked up the frightened goats and flew away in the right direction. For all she knew they had stopped just out of her sight and eaten them but, if so, it couldn’t be helped. At least the Dragons were well fed at that point. She hoped they prefered dead soldiers to live goats. She tried not to think about it.

  One night she passed a clearing where the retreating army had laid out some of those who had died along the way. It was obvious the Dragons had feasted. She was glad it was dark. Her lantern gave her only a momentary glimpse at the edge of the scene. If she had had anything in her stomach at that moment, she would have lost it. She hurried on.

  When she woke from her troubled sleep, she would nibble some of the food she carried, find a nearby stream for a drink of cold mountain water, light her lantern if it was dark, and continue on. In daylight, Roxtrianatrix was often with her and overhead she sometimes became aware of Alethilion and Glenardinaliat keeping pace with her.

  One day she awoke to find herself in a translucent golden tent, warm and dry, although she could hear rain falling somewhere. It was Glenardinaliat’s wing, arched protectively over her. The warmth came from his side. She had been curled against him. When he realized she was awake, he had lifted his wing, giving her more room to sit up and eat her scanty rations. When she was ready to travel again, he bent before her and cupped his front claws into a basket, his anxious eyes upon her. He was offering to carry her, but where? “You want to take me back to the School in the mountains, don’t you?” she said. His eyes whirled slowly. What was he thinking? “It’s the Healer’s School I’m going to, on the coast, to the east of the Eastlands.” His eyes didn’t change. In the end she couldn’t imagine him wanting to take her anywhere but the place he thought of as home and she couldn’t risk losing all the miles she had already walked. She kissed his lowered nose, just that one part of him bigger than she was, thanked him and walked on. He flew overhead for the rest of the day. From then on she chose clearings for her rest when she could make it into one, giving him room to shelter her.

  Chapter 140: Jessa

  The journey home had been terrible. They traveled only a few miles a night because of the wounded men struggling to keep up on crutches and walking sticks. Those who were not injured were exhausted from carrying the stretchers. Every evening when they took to the road they arranged another group of dead soldiers in a nearby clearing and said prayers for their rest. Every morning when they stopped, supper was scantier. They had almost run out of food, lantern fuel, and hay for their few remaining horses.

  Jessa did what she could to tend all the men and work with Eldrin making decisions while her heart traveled with Locheil. Sometimes he lay deathly still, and at other times he tossed and moaned, burning with fever. Jessa did not know which she feared the most. She wanted so badly to find an Earth People Healer, but the Earth People, it seemed, were staying out of their way. Once they reached the villages of the Westlands, the King’s People came out with food and comfort for their retreating army. As word spread about the visits from Roxtrianatrix, they would stare at her or bow to her, always from a safe distance.

  While they were still in
the wilderness of the Northlands, Liandra’s Little Dragon came to visit Jessa every day, usually just after dawn. He would sit quietly with her while she sat beside Locheil. After awhile, he would touch his nose to her hand, unfurl his wings and leave. Once they reached the villages of the Westlands, his visits stopped, although she was aware of him flying over occasionally, looking for her.

  She had lost track of the number of nights they had been on the road when they finally reached the capital city. It was a huge relief to have many fresh hands helping to settle the wounded in the hall Eldrin commandeered for an infirmary and the able-bodied but exhausted in their own familiar barracks. The King’s healers reported to the infirmary and were of great assistance making the wounded men more comfortable. About actually healing the poison of Dragon wounds, they didn’t seem to know much.

  Travelling beside Eldrin in a large, closed carriage, Jessa leaned her head against the padded seatback. Although Locheil had rested quite well on a cot the day before, and someone had brought a pallet for her to lie on the floor beside him, she had slept little.

  “Are you worried about what we’ll find?” she asked Eldrin. He turned to her, looking just as exhausted as she felt. He had spent the day walking the barracks, seeing to the comfort of his remaining men, and then had spent some hours in his father’s study, reading the Constitution of the Realm. He had changed into fresh clothes, but apart from that looked as battered and unkempt as he had on the road. She, too, had done nothing to prepare for this visit besides borrowing a dress, the simplest one she could find in the closet in Princess Liandra’s unused room.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m glad to know he’s still alive, but that might be all. I feel confident about our plans, though.”

  “Me too,” Jessa assured him. They had spent many hours of the journey walking side by side, making plans. Their first choice hinged on what they would find at the Men’s Retreat House.

  As the carriage pulled into the square in front of the Cathedral, Jessa’s eyes were riveted to the lighted windows of the Women’s Retreat House. How much she wanted to be free to go there, find the Lady Merrit, the real Queen Melisande, who would understand that the Little Dragon everyone was talking about belonged to the real Liandra, find Ev and fall into her arms, tell her everything. However, she was not Jessa now, Servant of the Women’s Retreat House, she was Liandra, wife of Prince Locheil, a Dragon Priestess in rumour alone.