“Hold it . . . hold it . . . Could a dragon do this?” Drudder asked, the little girl's words echoing in his mind.
“Yeah . . . Yeah, a dragon could. Course a dragon could. Dragons can do damn near anything,” replied Delnick, in the distinctive tone of growing certainty shared by all supposed leaders when confronted with something they are unsure of. “But if there was a dragon about, someone would have seen it.”
“The Rinton girl saw one, weeks back. I figured she was just imagining things.”
“Well, we’ve gotta be sure. You boys head home and arm yourselves. We need to find out if there is a dragon around here,” Delnick quickly ordered. There were already plenty of people whispering doubts of the old man's ability to lead. Now that there was a direction, best to start moving immediately. “If there is, at least we know why we’re in such a bad state. Go, now!”
Hesitantly, the most able men the town had to offer set about the task. Starting with the forest where Jade had first seen the beast, they searched. Slowly but surely, the clues began to arise. Here and there, a half-hidden footprint that no beast in the area should have been able to leave would be found. Then came the partially buried remains of a charred stag. Finally, some distance out of town, a shallow cave leading into the sandy ground bore a smell unmistakable to Kruck, the one and only man in town who had encountered a dragon before. The men gathered again to discuss their findings. The fact that Kruck waved a hook in place of a hand while he spoke added significant weight to his words.
“You’re dealing with one of the fire-breathing devils, all right. Down in Teller’s Pit. It is a smart one, too, or someone is trying to cover for it. It tries to wipe up its tracks, and it tries to hide its kills. Gods willing we won’t ever see this thing, but I can tell you that it is damn sure here,” Kruck raved.
“And as long as that thing is here, this drought will continue . . .” Delnick surmised, “What will it take to kill it?”
“More than we got, that’s for sure,” Kruck replied, “You don’t want to fight the thing, anyway. That’ll just make it angry. We should all just be glad it hasn’t attacked us . . . yet.”
All eyes turned to Delnick. He stroked his chin.
“I want all of you to go back to your homes. I’ll think of something . . . and if any of you have an idea, you share it with me . . . Until then, we’ll just hope that whatever has kept that monster from killing us with fire instead of drying us out will keep doing it. Just try to pretend you aren’t living with a dragon breathing down your necks.”
With that less than sage plan, life in the town of Isintist continued, such as it was. Days passed with no solution, each of the townspeople nervously working in the shadow of the monster. Drudder leaned upon his hoe and peered over the half-tilled field. The land stretched all the way to the trees and, impossibly, it was fruitful. It was anything but a bountiful crop, but scattered patches of land had managed to produce wheat. He looked over the spotty green stretches, vaguely recalling that each had been worked by Jade . . . As a matter of fact, only those worked by Jade seemed to grow. He set the thought aside. It must have been the land. It was nothing like his own. Last year’s harvest, in a year that had seen plenty of rain, had barely been enough to survive on, let alone cover his gambling debt. That wasn't a problem anymore, though. Once he'd secured this land, he'd been able to sell his own, save the patch that held his home. He shuddered at the thought of what would have happened to him had he not paid on time.
“Nice bit of dirt you've got here,” came a voice suddenly from behind him.
Startled, Drudder turned to find a tall, thin man with a smug grin on his unmistakably elfish face. In one hand was a piece of wood, in the other a knife. Intricate designs covered the wooden rod and, as he spoke, he casually traced out another symbol. Drudder knew the man all too well. He was the fellow in charge of placing the bets down at the races, the one who had kindly allowed him to gamble away more than a year's earnings on credit. After a string of losses, he was also the man in charge of collecting. The sight of the knife made him cringe.
“What are you doing here? You . . . you got the money, right?” Drudder stammered.
“Oh, yes, yes, my friend. I am here on other business. By the way, I heard about that fire. Terrible tragedy. But, then, it served you fairly well, didn't it?” remarked the visitor.
After a glance to see that no one else was in earshot, he smiled, “I'll say. Now all of this land is mine.”
“Well . . . Not quite yours. Technically, it still belongs to the girl.”
“Yeah, but the girl belongs to me.”
“For now.”
“What do you mean 'for now'? You told me that there wasn't any other family to worry about.”
“Oh, there isn't, there isn't. But little girls grow up, and when she does, the land is hers.”
“ . . .I could . . . marry her to one of my sons.”
“You could, you could.” He nodded, carving another well-placed notch. “But then the land would be his, not yours.”
“ . . .So . . .” the man said slowly, brow furrowed in the unfamiliar activity of deep thought.
“Well, back before the unfortunate fire, you had realized, quite on your own, that if the owners of this land were to die, you would be able to claim it as your own, yes?”
“ . . .Yes . . .” Drudder said slowly.
He remembered the conversation well. After a calm, frank explanation of the very severe consequences of not paying his debts, the strange man had remarked that he knew a fellow with family in this village. He'd just passed away and, thus, in the unlikely event that the whole Rinton household were to die, their land would be up for grabs, and Drudder himself would have a very strong claim to it. The hypothetical scenario had been laid out with remarkable detail. True, he never did specifically suggest that Drudder do anything, but he did everything but put the lit torch in his hand.
“And the survival of the girl is the only deviation from that sequence of events, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then it would seem that you could bring about the initially intended outcome by correcting that minor flaw.”
“So . . .” he began, his mind slowly catching up to the logic, “you are saying I should kill the little girl, too.”
“I am saying nothing of the sort. It would be despicable to even suggest it,” he said, pausing to brush some shavings from the carving. “I am simply indicating that her death is the only way for this land to be irrevocably yours.”
“All right . . . all right, plenty of dangerous jobs around. She's bound to have an accident.”
“Considering the fact she survived a fire that killed the rest of her family, I am not certain simple misfortune can be trusted to do the job. And if you were considering helping fate along, you should know that more than a few suspicious eyes are turned in your direction already.”
“ . . .Well, what else is there?”
“Why, selflessness, my boy. You must put your village before yourself.”
“I . . . I don't know what you mean . . .”
“Well, it just so happens I came to deliver a message to the church. It seems a note was received up north informing Conner Celeste about the Rinton tragedy. Conner, you'll recall, is the young man who I'd mentioned had died.”
“Yeah . . .”
“Well, you never did ask me how he met his end, did you?”
“No . . .”
“Poison. Perhaps a poisoned knife, perhaps a poisoned claw or tooth. And not only that, but a dragon was seen near his body. Funny thing about dragons. They tend to carry a vendetta--”
“A what?”
“A grudge,” he simplified with a roll of his eyes, “against whole families--”
“Can . . . dragons poison people?” Drudder asked, quickly falling behind in the conversation again.
“A venomous dragon is a rare but not unheard of occurrence. Please try to focus, I'm coming to a point. You see, if the dragon killed Connor, and
it is seeking to exact some sort of vengeance on the whole of his family, then it would have come after the Rintons. It may have even started that fire,” he led.
“No, but I--yeah, the dragon started that fire. Say, how did you know we had a dragon problem?”
“Word travels fast. Now, if the beast wants to punish the entire family, then it won’t leave until it has the girl, yes?”
Drudder nodded slowly, struggling to connect the pieces, “So . . . You are saying I should--”
“No, Mr. Drudder. No. I am not saying you should do anything. I am merely musing out loud that were to you to offer the girl as a sacrifice to the dragon, it might appease the beast, simultaneously ending the drought, clearing you of any suspicion, securing the land for you once and for all, and making you a local hero. Any decision to do this contemptible thing would be yours alone!” the strange man growled.
“Okay, then . . .”
“Well, I’m off to deliver this message to the church. And good luck with your dragon problem.”
Chapter 2
With that the strange man paced away, while Drudder hurried to the home of Delnick. That night, another meeting was called. By the time the relevant parties were gathered, Drudder was almost giddy with excitement. He had lit the fire that killed the Rintons, and the fact had haunted him from that day.
It would be nice to suggest that he felt guilty for what he’d done, but of the many things that troubled him, his conscience was not one. It wasn’t that he was an evil man. Evil requires passion, ambition, motivation. Drudder didn’t care enough to be evil. He didn’t care about right, he didn’t care about wrong. Right now, sacrificing the girl would solve every last problem he had. That was the only thing he cared about, and once he’d found something to care about, it was the only thing on his mind until it was done.
“Are you certain?” Delnick asked.
One does not become the man a village looks to for leadership by throwing children to monsters without good reason.
“Of course I’m certain! Listen, you heard what the priest said the note said. The man died from poison and there was a dragon. The dragon was the one that did it, it must have. Then the whole family dies in a fire. Dragons breathe fire. Now, when he couldn’t kill the girl, he brings this drought down on all of us. This is the answer, Delnick. This is what we have to do. We have to . . . to . . . appease the beast,” Drudder added, recalling the fancy-sounding word his mysterious adviser had used.
Delnick looked over the crowd. It was clear by the muttering and change in expressions that the thought of a quick and simple solution to their many problems appealed at least as much to them as it did to Drudder, with the added benefit that there would be no blood on their hands. On the surface, it is leaders who guide their people, but this is almost never true. A leader who takes his people where they don’t want to go seldom remains a leader for long, so leadership instead becomes the art of assuring obedience by ordering to be done what would have been done in the first place. He didn’t like it, but if the village felt that this was the only way, then he would see that it was so.
“Right. Kruck, when do these things come out to hunt?” Delnick asked.
“I had my run-in ‘round about dusk,” he replied.
“Then tomorrow, a bit before the sun sets, I want you to take the little girl to Teller’s Pit and . . . leave her there. Don’t tell her what she’s in for. The least we can do is give her this last day without fear,” Delnick decreed sadly.
With that, the frightened, unsure minds of the town left, set on the only desperate solution to present itself. Jade had her evening meal that night unaware that it would be her last, and woke the following morning to find that there would be no work that day. Instead, Drudder pulled her aside.
“You there . . . er, Jade. I want you to come with me. The boys will see to the field today,” he explained to her.
“Why? Where are we going?” she asked.
“To Teller’s Pit. We’re going to . . . try to find a way to get some water,” he said.
“And I get to come?” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. You get to come.”
Jade grinned ear to ear. This was the first time her caretaker had taken any sort of interest in her, and the first time in ages that she’d had a break from the daily routine. She didn’t need to know why.
“Thank you!” she said, throwing her arms around Drudder.
For just a moment the man felt a pang of conscience. For just a moment.
“What should I bring? What are we going to do?” she asked.
“It is just a little walk. You don’t need to bring anything. Just you, me, and a few of the other fellows from around town. We’ll take a nice walk, look around a bit, and then come back.”
“Okay!” she said cheerfully.
Drudder, Jade, and three of the more able-bodied men of the town set off just as the sun was beginning to droop. The little girl's spirits were sky high. She was hungrier and thirstier than she'd been in weeks--but, for the first time since the loss of her parents, someone was treating her like she actually existed. The person she had been before the tragedy, long buried beneath impenetrable sadness, was beginning to show. After barely uttering a word for so long, she seemed to be making up for lost time. Questions were coming in a continuous stream, with little regard for the fact that there were no answers.
“Is Teller's Pit far? Have we ever looked there for water before? We should do this more often . . .” she babbled as they continued along.
Just over an hour and just under two hundred questions later, the group reached their destination. Teller’s Pit was aptly named. Dry, brittle grass tapered off to a rocky lip that fell sharply off for a few dozen feet. At its bottom, a bed of gravel and debris took on a gentler slope as it led into a low-roofed tunnel. As the four men drew closer to it, they became visibly tense and nervous. Only the girl was oblivious to the danger that lurked within.
“W-o-o-ow,” Jade said, inching up to its edge and peering in. “Are we going to explore it?”
“No. But I want you to stay here while the rest of us look around a bit. Don’t move from this spot, no matter what, and keep a good eye on that cave. We’ll be back in a while,” Drudder said, eying the pit anxiously.
“Okay! I hope you find water,” she said cheerfully, as the men who had brought her retreated at a near run.
For a few minutes, Jade paced about the edge of the pit, pleased that she’d been given something important to do. As the minutes turned to hours, and the sky began to redden, boredom set in. She kicked a few stones, took off her shoes to give her feet some air, and tried not to think about how thirsty she was. With a sigh, she gathered up an armful of stones and began to throw them, one by one, into the pit.
One of them took an odd bounce and tumbled into the tunnel, clacking and echoing as it went. At the sound of the echoes, the mouth of the tunnel became her new target, with each stone echoing louder and bouncing further. She was listening to the final stone click along in the darkness when something suddenly felt wrong. The clicking was getting louder, not quieter. She stared curiously at the mouth of the cave. As she did, memories she’d thrust aside for the last few weeks began to work their way to the surface again. Finally, a creature emerged from the mouth of the cave, and Jade realized that she was seeing it for the second time.
She caught only the merest glimpse of it, but in half that time it had burned itself into her memory. Emerald green scales armored its back, its belly protected by yellow plates. At the end of a cruel, serpentine neck was a vicious reptilian head, set with piecing, yellow-gold eyes. Jade was already sprinting away, screaming at the top of her lungs, by the time it fully emerged from the shadows. At the sound of wings unfurling, she turned to see the monster launch from the mouth of the pit and into the air. Jade doubled her speed as the shadow swept across the ground, and when the earth shook with the creature’s landing, she doubled it again, moving with a speed only fear could allow.
&nbs
p; At the midpoint between the pit and the town, Drudder waited. The others had wanted to return to the town, but he convinced them to remain. Maybe it was the fact that the fire had failed to kill her. Maybe it was the fact that he was only now realizing how tenuous his grip on the land that rightly belonged to her was. Whatever the reason, he wanted to be absolutely certain the job was done. And so he was dutifully watching the trail when the terrified girl, quite alive, came trudging through the trees. Upon seeing him, the girl found the strength to run to him for protection.
Rather than comfort her, Drudder took her firmly by the shoulders.
“Mr. Drudder, I was right, I did see a dragon! It was in the pit! It almost got me!” she sobbed.
“I know there was a dragon, how did you get away from it!?” he growled.
“I ran! Y-you knew there was a dragon?”
“Of course we knew there was a dragon! You can’t just run away from a dragon. What did you do!?” raved one of the others, a man called Mirren.
“I swear! I swear I just ran! I don’t understand what--”
“I’ll tell you how she did it. She’s a witch!” Drudder said in a tone more of realization than accusation, “She must be a witch. She survived that fire that killed her family. The only land that grows anything is the land she works. Now she escapes a dragon!? She's got to be a witch!”
“What? No! No, I--” she objected tearfully.
Drudder quickly threw a hand over her mouth.
“I won’t have you speaking any spells, girl,” he said, with the desperation of a man who believes he may have killed the family of a girl who could turn him onto a toad. “Tie her up, and gag her. Quick!”
Ropes and rags were produced, brought along in case the girl were to realize her fate and try to escape. Her hands were bound behind her back, her feet bound together, and a rag tied across her mouth.
“What do we do now?” asked Mirren, nearly manic with anxiety.
“We take her back and we feed her to the dragon,” Drudder replied.
The Book of Deacon Anthology Page 132
