Dragon Champion

by E. E. Knight

  An alarm rang among the buildings. The humans acted with the typical energy of their species. Narrow boats put out from shore as they lit a smoky bonfire on the beach. Auron poked his head up, part of his kill yet unswallowed, and saw the faraway fishing boats abandoning their half-empty nets. His head gave the narrow boats a mark, and they plied their oars toward him.

  He floated, finished his meal, and decided he had time to wait for a belch to come up. An arrow or two whistled from the thin boats, but they fell short. Auron rolled over and began to swim out to sea, keeping underwater as much as possible.

  The fishermen were more skilled than the men in the narrow boats. Every time he came up for air, they adjusted course. The oar boats put up sails, but by swimming west straight into the wind, Auron stayed well ahead of them. The fishermen came at him in two pairs of two boats, smaller nets strung ready and men hanging on to the bows with iron spears in their hands.

  Auron could see the nets coming in time to avoid them easily. As he breached again behind the fishing boats, a barbed spear plunged into the water beside him. Men in the stern stood ready, as well.

  The spear had a line attached, and Auron grabbed it in his mouth. He pulled, and the men at the other end pulled back, stronger than he could. He kept up the fight until he knew the boats were gathering, then came to the surface and drew breath, released the line and dived. He swam as fast as he could out to sea, and when he came up again, the boats took up the futile chase one more time.

  Auron conserved his energy. One of the fishing boats turned back, but the other three, and the narrow boats, came on in a straggling line behind him, each making its best speed into the wind. Auron did not know much of men, but he admired the way these used their ships like hunting horses. Their boats, nets, spears, and the determination behind their inventions impressed him. No wonder enough men like these, working together, could kill even a great dragon like his grandsire.

  Now he had to complete his plan in such a way that would take advantage of their deadly tenacity. Yet not allow them a good shot at him.

  Auron reached the chain of islands. As he came to shore, he saw the men had anticipated this chance. Barking dogs and clusters of men were already setting out in little boats from the larger fishing vessels. The narrow boats had taken down their sails, and they knifed through the water under a spray of oar power. Grim-faced captains stood in the bows, spears pointed at him as they directed the oarsmen.

  Auron would not run just yet. He turned and faced the hunters, and let out such a bellow as would have put all the bats by the egg shelf to flight, were he still in the cave with Mother. It was no dragon roar, but it was no hatchling peep either. Let them come with their dogs! Land or sea, he had the room and energy to run.

  He just hoped they didn’t get too good a look at him.

  Auron ran for the trees, thick on this side of the little island, a hummock of rock-strewn land, perhaps the tips of some lost mountains swallowed by the sea. Auron disappeared among the rocks, but not before he saw one of the fishing craft racing around the point to the other side of the island, in case he took to the water again. The men thought ahead!

  “What-what?” the slate-colored drake brayed from the ridge of the island. His head stood above grasses, and he saw Auron putting the rocks between himself and the beach. Shrieking birds circled above him—he must have been among their nests. “Back again-again? Ye shan’t live this day, intruder-intruder!” The slate drake advanced through the tangle of vegetation holding the shifting sand in place.

  Auron looked at the murder burning in the drake’s eyes. He heard a dog bark. “I think not-not,” Auron said, and dived into the boulders. He fanned his tail along behind to cover his tracks in the sand.

  Auron could not see the spearmen coming through the rocks behind their dogs, the fishermen with their harpoons, or the determined captains of the seacoast people among them signaling and giving orders. But the drake did. Auron read confusion in his enemy’s mind as the wingless drake shifted his gaze to the noise of the approaching hunters and froze. Confusion became realization; realization gave way to panic. The drake turned and ran for the trees. The men pointed, released their dogs, and sounded wailing horns as they followed.

  Chapter 9

  After weeks of gorging on an ample sea diet, Auron burst his chest collar by flexing his back muscles until the pin holding it closed gave way. The one on his neck proved more troublesome. Though he could twist his head enough to chew at it, the iron hoop proved invulnerable at clasp and joint. Even with his rear claws under it, he could not break the thing, at least not before his neck gave way, or so he felt as he strained. In the end, he decided to live with it until such time as he grew strength enough to break it, hopefully before his neck thickened enough that it would choke him. This was not as far-off a worry as it might seem. His neck had already grown to the point where the collar no longer rested at his shoulders.

  Other than that nagging doubt, Auron enjoyed his time on the island chain. He discovered the joys of lobster and crab hunting, oyster prying and clam digging. He watched pelicans fish by swooping low over the water, folding their wings and striking when they spotted the scaly flash of their prey. The odd-looking birds could then scoop up the stunned fish. Auron imitated them by clinging to a reef offshore, and when he saw a fish, he would belly-flop into the water. It didn’t work every time, but he caught enough fish to keep his appetite at bay in only a morning’s effort.

  He learned to speak with the seagulls and terns, though their simple discourse bored him unless he wanted to know the state of the tide or what the weather would be like the next day or where the fish were reputed to be running.

  He swam and explored some of the other islands in the chain. Most were little more than grassy sandbars. Because there was wood on his, the men returned to it at times to build fires on the beach and smoke their catch. Boys from the inlet settlement learning their fathers’ skills never failed to explore the lair of the late and unlamented drake: a cave dug into a rockpile. They raked over the sand for dropped dragon scales, and pointed to the place where two dogs and a man had died while killing the drake. Auron watched their visits and those of the fishermen from the sand, his body speckled over and striped with sea-oat shadows, doing his best to pick up their words.

  Most days it rained as spring warmed and grew into summer. For the first time in his life, Auron had all he could eat. When sated, he sat atop rocks if the sun shone, and measured his growth by watching the collar in its progress up his neck. He swam among the islands in nervous bursts of energy. He felt the beginnings of the wanderlust that Mother told him drove young dragons many horizons from their birthplaces. But the hungry hatchling part of his brain still argued for staying among the islands where food was plentiful and dangers few.

  The only real conversation with anyone he had was after a storm, when a mighty rounded beast was washed to shore. It was armored like a dwarf, and had a beak on it like a bird. Auron saw it resting on the sand, as it pushed its bulk back from the grasses to the sea.

  “What are you, a sea dragon?” Auron asked, circling the creature’s bulk. Deep down, he thought it couldn’t be a dragon, but he didn’t want to offend it if it was some strange offshoot.

  “Waat dat?” The creature understood his speech, though he returned it with a thick accent.

  “Sea dragon. You. What are you?”

  “I’m de greaat sea tuurtle. Kippeesh, my naame. You sum overrsize iguuana?”

  “I’m a dragon. A young one, no wings or fire yet.”

  “Draagon. Oh, yees, I know of dem. Long ago, dey say, draagons rule de world. Before demen came.”

  “Demen?”

  “De’ men. Demen, dey go in sheeps, of wood and net.” The sea turtle pushed himself a little farther along the sand, building a wave of it in front of him, as if he were some great vessel traveling through the water. “De’ world theirs now.”

  “Men don’t rule the world. They live on it, same as
the rest of us. They hardly go in the Lower World, and they don’t control the Upper One.”

  “Ha! Eveery yeear is moore men. Moore sheeps. Eveen on de’ old draagon isle, amoong the mists. De inlaand oceean is deers now.”

  “Inland ocean? What’s that?”

  The turtle waved a flipper. It could hardly be called an impatient gesture, slow as it was, but its voice cracked. “Hatchlings! Same with sea turtlees. Queestions. Dis, all dis wateer. Inlaand oceean. I go in heem, follow de summar across de waatar. Demen alwaays, eveen wheere elvees leeved. Draagons, too.” The sea turtle dropped its head, exhausted from long speech.

  “Even on this dragon isle?”

  Auron had to wait for two more pushes through the sand for an answer.

  “Yees, I stay away, no place for eggs, seence long ago. Draagons gone now, just de’ men. You want adveece of old tuurtle, hatchling, you staay far from de’ men. Faar.”

  “Where do the dragons live now?”

  The sea turtle said nothing; it had reached the point where water flowed up and around it. It went another body-length through the sand, inspired by the waves’ touch.

  “Where do dragons live now?” Auron repeated.

  “Dis place, seence you here. Not know otheers.”

  Auron felt the waves pull at his ankles. The wash of the sea seemed a constant, menacing hiss. His claws sank into the sand. He wanted dry land, mountains, and forests around him, real caves, rather than crannies between piles of rocks. Not an island of birds and fishermen. He watched the sea turtle catch another wave and swim, transformed from a plodding lump of horn to a graceful aquatic. It didn’t so much as say good-bye.

  He switched to swimming in the bay. He wanted to find a way east, to the forests and then the mountains. Then he could go south to more familiar lands. Finding Wistala and Father was but a faint hope, but it was the only hope he had. Then there was Hazeleye’s tantalizing story of NooMoahk. What was this great weakness of dragons? Was it why they were dwindling from the world?

  If he could find the right sort of river, he could feed himself on fish for much of the journey. There were three rivers flowing into the island—sheltered bays at breaks in the cliffs, all had settlements similar to the one whose garbage he raided when he first arrived.

  The group of dolphins who had rescued him came alongside in one of his explorations. He recognized some of the faces from that night, so long ago in the reckoning of a hatchling. They gathered, the males swimming loops around him while the females and their calves kept a respectable distance.

  Auron slept at one of the freshwater cascades splashing down the rocky cliffs. There were frogs everywhere in the pools of spray that night. He absently snapped them up as he considered his choices. He would have to climb the cliffs again and go overland as best he could. He’d just hurry to the forests; it couldn’t all be man country from here to the mountains.

  The fishing boats were in sight again at dawn, four of them working their nets. He took care to dive deep as he fished for his morning meal, only surfacing for air in masses of floating seaweed. Tiny fish sheltering in the green coils dashed away in all directions as he entered the mass.

  As he relaxed with just his nostrils poking up from the seaweed, his ears picked up a strange underwater screaming. It took him a moment to make out the sound of Dolphin speech, so different was it from their usual clicks and squeaks. It came from the fishing boats.

  So the men hunted dolphins as well as dragons!

  Auron’s nostrils flared, and he ground his loose hatchling teeth, already being replaced by larger ones coming in. It was a hard world. Small fish were eaten by bigger fish, and the bigger fish were in turn eaten by the dolphins. It was not surprising that man ate the dolphins. A hard world.

  Auron dived. A hard world for men killing the creatures who saved his life!

  His water-lidded eyes made out layers of nets around the dolphins, and the boats around the layers of nets. Perhaps the men had fed the dolphins, tempting to come closer and closer until one day they could use their nets. Or the dolphins had blundered into them. A few males swam outside the nets, circling frantically, and Auron saw a dead dolphin hauled to a ship by its tail, a harpoon projecting from its back. Blood tinted the water pink.

  The sight of nets only increased his fury. Ancient—to a hatchling—wrongs gave his slender frame a hot strength. He tore into the nets circling the dolphins, a mad dervish of claw and tooth. He grabbed strand after strand in his jaws and pulled back; his rows of serrated teeth parted even the wet, limp lengths of netting.

  The dolphins didn’t know what to make of him. The netted ones shrank away from his thrashings, and it wasn’t until one of the males went through the ever-widening gap and back out again that the rest got the idea.

  Auron needed air, and he surfaced within the nets as far from the boats as he could. Shouts sounded across the surface of the bay. A harpoon arced toward him, soaring into the air before nosing over and diving like a kingfisher. Though deadly at a few yards, a harpoon was not a weapon for this kind of work, and it fell impotently into the sea.

  He went under again as the men drew in their nets in an attempt to catch him. He swam furiously at the approaching web.

  Anger hinders wit, which you will need to prevail, he heard Mother singing. The net was not the enemy; the enemy was the arms of men hauling it toward him. He turned away, but another net seemed to swim up from behind as the men handled their boats to trap him. He dived straight down, and the nets came together in a tangle as his tail brushed the closing weights at the bottom.

  Auron corkscrewed his body and came up under the nets. He clung to the bottom of the mass, pushing and pulling at them as a dragon caught within might. The smaller boats came away from the main; Auron saw sharp faces and sharper harpoons of men leaning over the front. If the best harpoon men were in the smaller boats, who remained in the larger?

  He swam down, then up again to the far side of one of the fishing boats, his body colored like that of the sea bottom.

  There was nothing he could do about his shadow. One of the men, more wary than the rest bent on sticking a harpoon in him, raised a shout Auron heard even body-lengths beneath the water. But he was already on the other side of the largest of the boats. He climbed up the fishing craft’s side and clung to the rail with sii and saa.

  Two men came at him, graybeards gripping clubs and hooks.

  Auron stuck his neck straight out, as stiff as the central tree of the ship. “Oh, will you?” he roared with a mouth leaking blood—having left several hatchling teeth behind with the nets.

  The men shied at the bellowed Drakine words. One hurled a club at him; it bounced off his nose before cracking him in the crest. White-and-yellow pain raced from his sensitive nose tissue to his eyes and back again, blinding him for a moment. His neck arched reflexively. Through a mist he saw the other coming at him with a hook. The grandfather buried it in his neck at the collarbone.

  Auron screamed and leaped into the rigging, tearing free of the man’s grasp at the cost of further pain to his neck. He saw red. His body seized up, and he spat down on the fishermen.

  Something hotter than his fury boiled out of his throat, pulsing along the roof of his mouth. As the hot slime struck air, it burst into flame, surprising Auron as much as the men—if the man who plunged the hook into his neck had time to be surprised before his skin caught fire.

  The flame’s smell came through even his instinctively clamped nostrils and made him think of Father. A river of orange blossoms raced across the deck to cordage and sail, spread still farther along the rail by the screaming fiery figure who had thrown the club. He rolled on the deck, but succeeded only in setting a furled sail alight as he died. Another man in the front of the ship dived overboard.

  One of the small boats rowed toward Auron’s. The launch was only a few oar strokes away from the fishing boat. Auron jumped to the other side of the rigging, and this time summoned his flammable bile from deep within. One m
an realized what was coming and dropped his oar to better leap from the boat. Another braver one in the bow brought his harpoon back for a throw, pointing at Auron with out-thrust arm before hurling the missile.

  The harpoon and flame met in midair. The iron weapon and Auron’s flamecast crossed in the sky; the burning liquid hit the boat but the harpoon missed its mark by a hand’s breadth, diverted by the fiery spray. It flew past Auron close enough for him to get a whiff of hot iron, the wooden handle trailing smoke.

  The little boat turned, engulfed in flame, writhing heat-distorted shapes of the harpooner and oarsmen still at their positions. Auron marked the nearest fishing boat and dived into the water. The legs of the swimmers waved enticingly above, but he had bigger boats to fry.

  Auron swam to the shallow bottom of the bay and shot back up, sudden pressure changes hurting his sensitive ears. He exploded out of the water, landing on the deck amid dropped lines and discarded fishing gear. Men dived overboard. He spat again at the mast, but instead of a liquid jet of fire, small droplets of flame flew out as his muscles squeezed out their spasm. Auron looked at this phenomenon, head swinging side to side as he took it in from all angles, when movement behind him caught his eye.

  A boy—holding a harpoon taller than its bearer in his twiggy arms—lunged from a hiding place among the rolled nets. The point bit into his side. Auron lashed out with his tail, sending boy and weapon overboard. Pain driving him, Auron went into the ship’s wheel and ravaged it: he tore apart fittings, struck wheel and tiller ropes, and finally hurled the remains overboard before moving on to the hold. He splintered enough oil-soaked wood so that even the minuscule gobs of fire he could spit began to crackle and pop as they spread.

  He crawled back to the rail and poked his head up. The other “hunting” boat with the harpoon men moved toward his as the other two fishing ships raised sail, abandoning their tangled nets and floated lines. Auron did not know if they were coming for him or to fight the fire—and he did not wait to find out. He went over the far side.