by Chrys Cymri
A blast of wind flicked hair from my face. I looked up just in time to see James knocked to one side by a dragon’s green-black snout. Then long toes were wrapping around my waist, claws prickling through fur and clothing as I was snatched from the ground. My last sight of James was of him struggling to his feet, his face fading away as the dragon lifted me high into the grey skies above Llundain. Of the many words going through my head, Oh, bother, was the only one worthy of a priest.
Chapter Five
Although I should have been cold from the wind rushing past me, fury chased warmth through my chest and arms. I tried to identify the search dragon carrying me towards the clouds. Not Raven. I had immediately worked that out, as I had seen enough of the snout to realise that it was too narrow to be that of a male dragon. I cricked my neck upwards. A translucent torc dangled from the thin neck. My eyes were watering, but I was certain I’d seen the engravings before. ‘Tyra!’ I bellowed. ‘For the love of God, what are you doing?’
A chuckle rumbled through the dragon’s chest and throbbed down her legs. ‘I have no love for your God, Father Penny.’
‘Where are you taking me?’ There was no answer. ‘It must be very important for you to leave your post. Why aren’t you guarding the settlement?’
‘The fur is slippery, and you are heavy.’ I swallowed my retort. My coat was only a ‘medium,’ which wasn’t all that bad for a woman heading towards her fourth decade. ‘Quiet, now. Let me concentrate.’
And we passed through a thin place. Once again I wondered why crossings in the air carried no awful darkness or dread. We were flying over forest. Another difference between land-based and airborne thin places was that the latter did not lead through to the same geographical spot in the other world. I tried to work out where on Earth we might be, squinting at the low angle of the sun in the sky and the distant sea I could see glinting in the distance.
Tyra flipped her wings, and sent us into a deep dive. I took deep breaths, refusing to be ill, although wine and lamb were threatening to break free. Part of me wondered if the dragon were deliberately testing me. But then, Raven had the same tendency to aerial acrobatics.
We went through another crossing. The sun was high in the sky. I winced, dazzled by the sudden change from semi-darkness to bright light. As my eyes adjusted, I noted with relief that we were skimming over black lava fields. Tyra had brought me to the Daear equivalent of the Galapagos Islands, where the search dragons lived. Then I felt ill for an entirely different reason. What if she had brought me here to meet Raven?
The obsidian walls of the settlement came into view. Sunlight glistened on the glassy black surfaces. The scent of sulphur bit into my nostrils. I watched uneasily as the jagged ground rushed up towards us, and I slid my hands deep into the sleeves of the fur coat.
Tyra reared up, her wings spreading out as she landed on her hind legs. I was dropped only a few feet from the lava surface and, with a fair bit of staggering, managed to stay on my feet rather than land on hands and knees.
‘And where is my son, skrælingjar?’
I straightened, and tipped my head back to look up at the largest dragon I’d ever met. ‘Matriarch Eydis Asgersdottir. You’re a long way from your longhouse.’
The dark blue dragon was twice Tyra’s height. Her long claws, the size of kitchen knives, tore up the ground as she stepped closer to me. I forced myself to stand my ground. The heat was making me sweat, so I casually removed my coat and folded it over my arm. Eydis lowered her massive jaws to my face, and inhaled heavily. ‘You smell of ice.’
‘I was enjoying a frost fair in Llundain.’ I glanced at Tyra. ‘Until I was kidnapped by a search dragon. What do the search dragons want with me?’
‘You must come with me into the settlement,’ Tyra declared. ‘You must see the destruction with your own eyes.’
‘I demand to speak to the offeiriad,’ Eydis countered.
‘And we would have done,’ I said. ‘I agreed to meet with you. Didn’t you get the rat?’
‘I don’t wait for your convenience, offeiriad.’
Tyra turned towards the matriarch and switched to Welsh. ‘I found her, I brought her, I get her first.’
The dragon’s Welsh was a thicker accent, but I picked out the gist of her response. ‘And I am paying you.’
‘You haven’t paid me yet.’
Eydis snorted. Small flames danced around her red-rimmed nostrils. ‘I haven’t finished with the skrælingjar.’
And one day, when I wasn’t hemmed in by two adversarial dragons, I’d ask what that term meant. ‘She’ll be returned to you,’ Tyra snapped. ‘But we have first claim upon Hrafn. He’s one of us.’
I decided not to let them know that I’d been able to follow their conversation, so I spoke in English. ‘Whatever you two decide, can you do it quickly? I’d like to get out of this heat.’
Eydis snarled. Tyra roared back. And I edged towards the opening in the nearby wall. If these two started a real fight, I wasn’t hanging around to be squashed between them.
‘Harm me,’ Tyra warned, ‘and no search dragon will ever assist your family ever again.’ She glanced down at me, and switched to English. ‘The Father will be more willing to listen when she’s seen what Hrafn has done.’
‘I’d better go with her,’ I told Eydis. ‘Then we can talk about Raven.’
‘I’ll be waiting for you. But don’t try my patience.’
I rolled up the coat, and placed it just inside the entrance to the settlement. Tyra huffed impatiently as I strode to the dragon-sized obsidian fountain. Water streamed from the cone-shaped top, flowing through two other basins before reaching the largest at the bottom. I lowered my hands into the waist-high pool and scooped water into my mouth.
The lava field inside the settlement had been smoothed, most likely by the same dragon flame which had created the walls and the fountain. My boots felt cumbersome on the even surface. ‘I should warn you,’ I told Tyra as I hurried to keep up with her long strides, ‘that Raven and I didn’t part on the best of terms. If you’re expecting me to talk him into seeing his mother, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’
‘Hrafn is not here.’ We were passing the colourful tents in which the search dragons lived. Unlike my past visits, however, the entry flaps were resting down, their tasselled ends touching the ground. The settlement was eerily quiet, lacking the sounds of dragons talking, working at looms and carving, or even slurping loudly at bowls of tea.
We turned a corner, and the smell hit me. I gagged on the acrid blend of burnt hair and fused metal. Ahead of us, where Raven’s purple tent used to stand, was nothing more than a blackened pile of cloth and twisted metal poles. I could just make out what had been his work table. Once it had displayed the obsidian he had carved into intricate shapes. Now the wood was charred, and the statues had been splintered into gleaming fragments.
My hand lowered into a pocket to grip my knife. ‘Who did this to Raven’s home?’
‘You misunderstand, knifebearer,’ Tyra said, backing away. ‘Hrafn did this himself. And others almost lost their own tents to the flames.’
I forced myself to relax. ‘When did all this happen?’
‘A fortnight ago.’
Soon after Raven had stumbled away from me in the unicorns’ forest. ‘And then afterwards?’
Tyra snorted. ‘We were too busy putting out the fire to worry about Hrafn. He’s not been seen since.’
‘What, none of you have gone after him?’ I glared at her. ‘You’re search dragons. You can find anything. You must know where he is.’
‘We could find him,’ she agreed. ‘But why should we?’
‘He’s one of you, all outcasts from your blood families.’ I walked over to the remains of Raven’s home. ‘I thought you’d all come here to make a new family.’
‘We exist together because we must. That does not obligate us one to another.’
‘The young search dragons, the pufflings who escape their mot
hers,’ I asked slowly, ‘do you offer them any protection?’
‘We’ve relied on our settlement being hidden from our blood families. That’s the only protection we’ve ever offered to a puffling who found a way to us.’
I looked back the way we had come. ‘So how did Eydis find her way here? Did you bring her?’
The loud hiss made me jump. ‘How she found us, I do not know. But we’ll expose the location of her gold should she spread our secret.’
‘Let’s hope that’s enough.’ I fished out a handkerchief to wipe my eyes. The stench from charred remains led me to suspect that Raven had also incinerated a meal, and the meat had since begun to rot. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
Tyra snaked her head around, the long green-black neck twisting and flexing as she checked that we were alone. Then she lowered her snout down to my face. The dragon smell of grass and sweet wood smoke helped me to breathe more easily. ‘I understand your customs require you to keep secrets?’
I looked into the large eye hovering just beyond my nose. ‘Are you asking me to hear your confession?’
‘If I entrust a secret to you, will you keep it?’
‘The usual caveats of safeguarding and illegal activities notwithstanding.’ Then I felt foolish. What would that mean to a dragon? ‘Yes, I will keep it. If the secret doesn’t lead to harm for someone else.’
Red swirls traced across her blue-green iris. Then, in a voice so quiet that I had to strain to hear, she said, ‘The abilities of search dragons vary widely. Mine is very weak. It took me ten days to find you.’
‘But other dragons think that you can find anything, immediately.’
‘Some can. It suits our purposes that they believe all of us can.’ She lifted her head slightly, looked around again, then returned to her previous position. ‘We’re small in stature and in number. Eydis has found our settlement. We must make sure that no others follow.’
‘Your secret is safe with me,’ I promised her.
‘Do you swear on your blade, knifebearer?’
I pulled the knife from my pocket, and allowed it to rest on my palm. ‘I swear on my blade.’ Then I forced back my reluctance. ‘If I expose the knife, Raven will come. He always does. Is that what you want?’
Tyra stepped back and studied me for a moment. ‘You’ve called for him? What did he have to say?’
‘I haven’t summoned him.’
‘I thought you were friends.’
‘So did I,’ I said bitterly. ‘But he couldn't bring himself to say it, not when it really mattered. Why would I want to talk to him now?’
Her tongue flicked out. Before I could react, the blue tongue had wrapped around the closed pocketknife and lifted it from my hand. Tyra tipped back her head, opened her jaws, and with a loud gulp it disappeared down her throat.
I stared at her. ‘What did you do that for?’
‘You don’t deserve him,’ she snarled. ‘You never did. How dare you carry his blade!’
Keeping a tight hold on my temper, I pointed out, ‘But now I can’t call him at all.’
Her ears flattened against her skull. I was hot and sweaty and even more annoyed than after my last Parochial Church Council meeting, but I forced myself to keep quiet. Finally, she said, ‘You can have it back in several weeks.’
‘Several weeks?’ Then I groaned. ‘That’s how long it’ll take to pass through your digestive system?’
‘I’ll dig it out of the midden myself,’ she said helpfully.
‘And give it a thorough cleaning?’
The sudden roar of a dragon made us both jump. ‘Search dragon! Knifebearer! I grow old waiting for you!’
‘She has offered to pay me well,’ Tyra said, as if to herself. ‘Come along, Father.’
And as I followed her across the settlement, I couldn’t help but feel that the loss of my knife meant that I’d been demoted. My clerical title sounded far less grand than ‘knifebearer.’
A search dragon smaller than Tyra stood watch at the entrance. Eydis towered over him, but he still had his teeth exposed and his wings spread. ‘Chewch chi ddim mynd mewn,’ he snarled. I couldn’t help but admire his bravery.
‘I’m here, I’m here,’ I called out and hurried past. One of my hands brushed across the warm hide of the green-black dragon, and I stumbled as I suddenly found myself remembering how comforting it felt to press my palms against Raven’s soft neck.
‘So, knifebearer,’ Eydis demanded. ‘Where is my son?’
I slid my hands into my pockets, and my fingers closed on the emptiness where my knife should have been. ‘Why are you looking for him? You’ve never struck me as the motherly type. Not when you tried to kill him as a puffling.’
‘He flamed the family longhouse.’
The word ‘Good’ nearly left my lips. I managed to bite it back just in time. ‘That couldn’t have done much damage. Your longhouse is built out of rock and slate.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Tyra snapped. ‘By destroying his place here, and expelling flame onto his birthplace, Hrafn has cut all his ties. He was preparing to go to his death.’
My legs trembled, and I wished desperately that dragons did sensible things like build benches. ‘Go to his death? You think he might be considering suicide? Is that why you brought me here? You want me to stop him?’ Then a surge of anger lent me hot strength. ‘Why should you care? It’s too late to be a good mother to him now.’
Tyra was the first to chuckle. The other search dragon quickly chimed in, his laughter at a higher pitch. The ground rumbled as Eydis slammed her tail in her mirth. I felt my cheeks redden, feeling as out of place as my first day at Ashburn High when all the cool kids had laughed at my immaculately straight school tie.
‘Dyw hi wir ddim yn gwybod?’ the small search dragon asked Tyra.
‘Of course she doesn’t know,’ Tyra responded in English. ‘She’s a human.’
‘Then tell me,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘He was a search dragon,’ Eydis said, ‘a disgrace to his family. But we will show him the respect due to any dragon. I want to know where he is so we can make arrangements to eat him.’
‘We have first claim,’ Tyra growled.
‘Never.’ Eydis lowered her head to the much smaller dragon. ‘I birthed him. His body is mine.’
‘And you need a search dragon to find him.’
‘For which I will pay you in gold.’
‘Gold cannot replace honour.’
‘Stop it,’ I told them. Then, as Eydis opened her jaws to speak again, I drew myself up to my full lack of height and shouted, ‘Stop that right now!’
Ears and horns went flat against heads. Lips smoothed over teeth. Tyra was the first to speak. ‘Yes, Father?’
‘You don’t know if he’s actually dead,’ I said, forcing myself not to add ‘yet.’ Then a thought struck me. ‘Why do you need me to find him? Why can’t one of you go instead?’
‘If he’s not dead,’ Tyra said, ‘he would fly away once he knew we were near.’
‘Is that like some sort of Highlander thing?’ I asked. ‘He’d hear some sort of whooshing sound in his head if another dragon came near?’
The three dragons stared at me, and I felt my face flush. Finally Tyra spoke. ‘No. He’d pick up our scent.’
‘Wouldn’t he pick up mine?’
‘He wouldn’t flee from you,’ Eydis said. ‘He made you a knifebearer.’ The huge head came near, and the red-rimmed nostrils fluttered as she drew in my scent. ‘Although I seem not to smell that steel now.’
‘The blade is nearby,’ I said hastily. Which wasn’t entirely a lie, as Tyra’s belly was only just beyond my reach. ‘Don’t tempt me to draw it out.’
Eydis took a step back. ‘Of course not, knifebearer.’ And Tyra gulped nosily.
‘So,’ I said slowly, ‘you want me to find him, and then let you know where he is.’
‘We will arrange for his body to be brought to the longhouse to be eaten.’
<
br /> ‘To the settlement,’ Tyra hissed. ‘That is our right.’
‘He might still be alive.’ I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice. ‘You don’t know for certain that he’s dead.’ At their lack of interest, I added, ‘Or that his body hasn’t already spoiled in the heat.’
‘Dragons go somewhere very cold to die,’ Eydis declared. ‘His flesh will have been preserved.’
Somewhere very cold. This was just getting better and better. ‘Okay, if I were to go, how am I to find him?’
‘I can drop you within a dozen miles,’ Tyra said.
For a moment it looked like she was about to launch herself from the ground. ‘Wait, I’m not going now,’ I protested. ‘I need better clothes, supplies, a team of huskies?’ And, although I was not going to admit it to three dragons, at some point soon I’d need to visit a loo.
The two female dragons considered each other for a moment. ‘A dozen miles?’ Eydis repeated. ‘Can she find him before she drops dead as well?’
Tyra’s tail lashed behind her. ‘We can contact the wereships,’ she said, reluctance dragging out her voice. ‘They know their lands. One of them can give her supplies and passage.’
‘They’ll want payment.’
‘Obsidian points,’ Tyra answered. ‘For their hunting. But it will take a couple of days to make the arrangements.’
A couple of days. I blinked away visions of Raven slowly sinking into snow covered ground. Then I marched over to the wall to collect my fur coat. I was hot, and tired, and in no condition to make a decision. ‘Then you might as well take me home. And I’m riding on your neck, this time.’
Tyra huffed. But she lowered herself to the ground, allowing me to clamber up her side. The space between the last two spines on her neck was smaller than on Raven, and I winced as I lowered myself into place. Then she kicked us into the air, and we left the settlement behind.
Chapter Six
Night had well and truly fallen when Tyra deposited me onto my front drive. I scrambled down from her neck. ‘Back garden,’ I told her. ‘I said, land me in the back garden.’
