Here, There Be Dragons

by LeRoy Clary

  “You first,” Tyler said, pointing to Bender and motioning so he would understand over the roar of the river.

  Bender leaned close to his ear and shouted, “What will you do for the next fifty years without a best friend?”

  But, Bender’s foot was already on the log, bouncing it up and down to test the strength and integrity. The log sprung back but didn’t break. Bender climbed on top and jumped several more times so that if it snapped, he would fall on the bank instead of into the river. It held. He stretched his arms out for balance and took one small step, then another. He didn’t slow, but as he reached the middle, his steps became lighter, and faster.

  Tyler looked up and down the river, searching for another way to cross. He considered following the river bank, letting its course determine where he’d go instead of crossing the log. Anything would be better than attempting to balance his way across it. Then his eyes found Bender, on the other side of the river, waiting.

  Bender had put his egg on the ground across the river, and had found a long branch. Bender carried the branch to the edge and extended it, motioning for Tyler to cross the log and grab hold.

  A last look down at the river, and one up at the empty sky for passing dragons. Then he took a long breath to steady himself and settle his mind. Hesitating any longer would allow his fears to fester and increase. Tyler placed a foot on the log and lifted himself, he took the second step—and wavered, first losing his balance and nearly falling to one side, then almost falling over the other as he over-corrected.

  Heart pounding, he righted himself and looked to the far end of the log at least a hundred steps away, or so it seemed. He looked at Bender, only ten steps away if the ground had been solid, who was reaching out as far as possible with the branch, placing his life in danger to help Tyler. There was no choice but to go on. Tyler took two more steps and felt the log groan as if it held a coiled spring inside. He took another step, and he both heard and felt the pine tree crack. The log under his feet dropped a few inches, and Tyler knew it was going to break in half. He sprinted four or five steps and dove, feeling Bender’s hand grab the back of his shirt to help him travel the last steps over the gorge.

  Tyler looked back over his shoulder. The tree trunk had snapped near the center, but had not fallen into the river. It had broken closer to the far side, where the pine trunk now made an abrupt angle that had not been there before. Another snap sounded above the roaring of the river, and then both ends of the pine tree fell, tumbling and turning until they struck the churning white water, and were instantly submerged and carried off.

  Bender shouted as he led the way away from the river, “You must be gaining weight.”

  “Let’s never do that again.”

  “I was almost as scared on that log as when we were in that cave, and the dragon attacked,” Bender said.

  Tyler laughed. “Hey, I was the one that was going to get eaten first.”

  “That’s only because you’re the lucky one. If it had eaten you for the meal, I’d have been a tasty dessert for the Grays, but I’d have had to listen to them crunching your bones before they came and ate me. Think about it. You were getting the better part of the deal with them nasty dragons eating you before me.”

  “You always have an opinion, even if it’s usually wrong,” Tyler said, walking faster.

  “Okay, you take the lead, and I’ll follow. Just don’t go too fast.”

  Tyler turned, grinned, and then set a grueling pace, continuing west, downhill where possible so that they could travel faster. He remembered only the one river crossing on the way to the nests. If they found another, he would swim or go around, but no more log bridges. The late afternoon sun turned into twilight, and both started looking for a place to shelter for the night. Tyler also set his mind to ignore any caves or crevice’s in the rock but didn’t mention it. During the trek, they’d seen two dragons circling high above, one flying over repeatedly as if on the hunt, probably for them. They had huddled at the bottom of a small ravine, eyes glued to the Black soaring overhead. In the end, she drifted off to the east where the mountains were the highest, and where the nests were located.

  As the last of the light faded, Bender said, “I think we may have got away.”

  “At least one of those dragons will begin another search for her eggs at first light, possibly all three of them. Then they’ll be after us again.”

  Bender shook his head, “The Grays hurt that one back at the cave really bad. She’ll be perched somewhere trying to heal from the missing foot, or maybe she’s already dead, and the grays are feasting, so we only have two Blacks and three or four Grays to worry about.”

  “Only?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I think I can sacrifice a little sleep tonight if it means getting farther away from those damn dragons. On second thought, even the one with the missing foot might still be searching for us because you pissed her off so much in that cave when you wouldn’t let her eat you. Poor thing was probably hungry.” Bender said in a droll voice. “You should have done what was right.”

  “Like it was right for you to take the time to cut off the claws during our escape? Even more stupid to spend the extra time down in that nest to grab the second egg, so don’t lecture me.”

  “Hey, don’t complain. Look at the results. We have one claw and one egg for each of us,” Bender laughed. “Besides, I don’t want them transferring one of us and leaving the other behind.”

  They continued hurrying down the mountain, knowing that dragons only fly at night on rare occasions. Tyler didn’t dare mention the mountain lions hunting at night again, even if it was true, or Bender would start in once more. Their travel was easy in the bright starlight, and even easier when the half-moon showed itself and revealed their path.

  Tyler placed his right hand on the leathery-feeling egg at his hip, noticing how the soft shell now curved to match his side. Near the middle of the night, he became so sleepy while walking that he thought of taking a brief nap, but knew once he fell asleep he wouldn’t wake again until long after dawn.

  “We did it,” Bender finally said in a voice of near wonder, not bothering to lower his voice in the early morning light of predawn. “We got away clean.”

  “We still have a way to go, but I think you’re right.”

  Bender said, “I think we should take these eggs directly to Captain Torrie and the Dragon Corps, and not Fenton even though he is our commander.”

  “You talk like you don’t trust our Lieutenant.”

  Bender spat a cruel laugh over his shoulder. “He’ll just try to get a promotion for himself if he gets the location of the nests from us. He’s done crap like that before for far less than a dragon egg. What do you think the thievin’ bastard will do if he gets his hands on these eggs?”

  Tyler didn’t have to think too hard to arrive at the most likely answer. Lieutenant Fenton would use them to advance his future if he could, leaving nothing for Tyler and Benton. He’d been their lieutenant for almost two years, and the quality and quantity of food had diminished over that time; yet Fenton always dined on the freshest, most expensive meals, and he grew fat in the process. While he cut the portions of the men’s food rations, skimped on uniform replacements, he also fined the men for little-known, minuscule violations of military regulations, while rumor said he pocketed the forfeited fines.

  “Do you really think we should do that?” Tyler asked.

  “Avoid him and take the eggs directly to Captain Torrie? Yes.”

  “Fenton will be furious.”

  Bender said, “What do we care? If Captain Torrie transfers us to his Dragon Corps, we’re free of Fenton, and he can’t touch us.”

  “A good trade for us, and good for the Dragon Corps. We’ll get our soft assignments behind the lines, and the Dragon Corps gets a pair of eggs from a prime Black, along with the location of nests containing more eggs.”

  “Listen. We have all the bargaining power. Think about it. We’ll stroll int
o the Dragon Corps headquarters and hand over these two eggs. Then we say we know where there are more, but first, we want transfers.” Bender's grin as he spoke appeared wicked and evil, while amused at the same time. His normally serene features took on the appearance of a predator for a brief second.

  He’s right. Tyler weighed the detriments and benefits of going to the commander of the Dragon Corps instead of following the Army chain of command. Even if Fenton complained to Captain Torrie about skipping the chain of command, Captain Torrie would still have the eggs. He wouldn’t send them back to their old company just to keep peace with the infantry officer, especially since they still held the knowledge of the locations of more nests.

  Fenton could always get himself two other men to charge first into the face of the enemy. He and Bender would be stationed miles from the fighting, caring for the dragons, feeding them and cleaning up after them, and they’d be safe, and maybe live to be dirty old men.

  Tyler said, “I think it’s worth the chance to take them directly to Captain Torrie, but we don’t tell anyone where the nests are until we’re officially transferred.”

  “The clincher,” he laughed. “If we play this right, our futures will be filled with aged wine and young women.”

  “I do like good wine,” Tyler said, brushing aside branches as he pushed his way through the increasingly dense undergrowth as they moved lower down the mountain.

  “Leaving all those lovely young girls to me.”

  “From what I saw at the Bear Inn a few weeks ago, you have enough trouble with one young girl at a time,” Tyler said. “Especially that one with the long brown curly hair who caused you so many problems.”

  “I keep telling you that wasn’t my fault. Besides, if you hadn’t been so drunk, or if you were a better friend, you could have found me some clothes to wear, so they didn’t arrest me for being nude.”

  “I suppose I could have managed a pair of pants, but that little wench with the big chest wouldn’t let me leave her side. At least, not while I still had a few coins in my purse.” Tyler was still chuckling to himself over the memory as dawn broke with a swatch of red across the east. They watched the empty sky as much as the ground. Twice they spotted Blacks circling high above and hid. Each time they rested during the day, it was under the cover of spreading branches to hide them. They knew the reputed vision of dragons, and that, like men, they saw movement before anything else, even color.

  As the second dragon flew over the slope they had traveled during the night, Bender spat, “Ugly damn beasts.”

  “Never did like them.”

  Eyes still on the dragon, Bender said, “They stink, too. Are you sure this job of shoveling their crap is worth all this? I once smelled a fresh pile of dragon dung and gagged for days.”

  “Well, I’m glad we traveled all night so we could get away. What ever happened to those Grays who were hanging around?”

  Bender shrugged, “They either killed the Black or they didn’t.”

  “As simple as that, you say. Sometimes you still manage to amaze me with your observations, even after all these years.”

  “The amazing thing is, we’re still alive, no thanks to Fenton for sending us here. If you ask me, the two kings should just shake hands and end this stupid war, then everyone can go on about their business.”

  Tyler shook his head. “After all, they’ve done to us over the years, and all the men who have died, it can’t be that simple.”

  Casting him a look that conveyed near contempt for Tyler’s angry statement, Bender muttered, “I wonder what a common soldier in their Army would say. Probably the same words?”

  “Do you even know what started this damn war?” Bender asked, his face red with anger, and Tyler just shook his head. Bender continued, “Me neither. We’re fighting a war that we know nothing about, and we will get nothing in return when we win.”

  “If we win,” Tyler muttered. Bender had a way of breaking things down into their basic components, and of seeing truth where others didn’t. That ability often stood out as a major advantage in confrontations. But it was negated by his snarky, lazy, irreverent attitudes about life in general, and disdain for the King’s Army. If Bender had ever learned to keep those ideas to himself, they would both wear more stripes on their sleeves, but instead, they remained corporals and dug latrines, served food in the soup lines, scrubbed brown tents until they turned white, and stood extra guard watches at night.

  But Tyler wouldn’t have his friend any other way. If nothing else, Bender provided stability and familiarity, along with the humor to face another day. Without him, life in the King’s Unity Army would be dull, coarse, and dangerous. Bender had saved them in skirmishes so many times he couldn’t recall all of them.

  When Tyler tried to recall the times he’d saved Bender in their conversations, Bender would lose his memory. Bender liked being the hero. But Bender also managed to always have a few needed coins jingling in his purse when Tyler ran out of money at a pub. Bender always came through.

  When they stopped at a stream to drink and to eat a handful of hard biscuits, Bender pulled the two dragon claws from inside his backpack and used his knife to cut away the excess skin, muscle, and tendons. He had them semi-clean when he said, “We’ll leave these out tonight for the ants to finish cleaning them for us.”

  “I think you need to stop at the next stream and wash your backpack, and you. Get that dragon stink off.”

  Bender examined the little-dried gore still hanging off the claws and then peeked inside his backpack and sniffed. “Okay.”

  “Let me see one of those.” Tyler held out his hand.

  Bender compared the claw sizes by holding them beside each other. He naturally selected the larger one and held the smaller one out.

  “You took the smaller one, I assume?” Tyler asked wryly, accepting the claw and examining it. Less than half of the claw had been exposed by Bender’s cleaning, while the rest remained within the tough skin of the toe. It was twice the size he expected, slightly curved, and deadly. The claw was nearly as long as his forearm, a reminder of the deadly encounter at the cave. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Not just me. We. One for each of us. We’ll drill holes in them and wear them around our necks on thongs to remind us of the day we stole a pair of dragon eggs.”

  Tyler laughed and said, “They’ll weigh us down so much we’ll bend over when we wear them. Who wears something so big? Besides, I’ve heard a single claw is worth a large silver royal. Are you sure you don’t want to sell them?”

  “I’d blow that silver royal in a single night on a fat ugly woman and pitcher of cheap red wine, or three. A claw like this will last forever and confirm the future lies I’ll be telling. A good story and a claw to back it up will have men at the pubs lining up to buy me mugs of ale for the next fifty years, and that’s a hell of a lot more to me than a silver coin will buy.”

  “You could tell people the truth, and that’d be worth enough for a maybe one mug of stale ale.”

  “But, that would be no fun. Imagine how I can turn this into a great tale that might last two or three nights of telling in a warm tavern on a cold night. Have you ever met anyone who stole an egg from three mighty dragons that chased them for six days and nights, and then they had to fight a full grown Black in a dark cavern before reaching the bloody meadow where they cut off the foot of a raging Black with one mighty swing of a sword?”

  Even I’m impressed. Tyler crossed his arms as he thought of a proper witty response, but none came to mind. “You thought of all that bullshit just now? I can’t imagine what that story will grow into a year from now.”

  Bender pointed up. “My point, exactly. Now, stand still. A dragon’s coming closer.”

  Tyler slowly turned his head and spotted the Black flying directly at them, low, just above the tops of the trees. To move would certainly draw her attention. To remain standing in the open invited attack. He felt sweat break out on his forehead and tried t
o stand as still as Bender.

  The dragon suddenly veered to its right, the long neck extended, its eyes searching the ground. Bender said softly, “It didn’t see us.”

  “Keep talking, and maybe it’ll hear us.”

  “With all that wind whistling past its ears, she can’t hear us if we shout. Want me to do it and show you?”

  “No.” The dragon drifted away to follow another valley, and both relaxed somewhat. Tyler said, “So it’s still hunting for us.”

  “That one was to try to flush us out by flying low, I think. Scare us so we’d break and run. It’s a trick dragons use,” Bender replied, obviously pretending he knew more about dragons.

  “Almost worked,” Tyler agreed, wiping his brow. “No matter if you’re lying or not. We need to watch the sky better, and maybe take care to travel under treetops the whole way. Avoid any more clearings.”

  “Take us longer to get there, but you’re right. I’ve heard of dragons searching for days when an egg is stolen. If they smelled the scent of a human at the nest, anybody in these mountains is in danger, especially me and you.”

  Bender also had a way of bringing things to light, or better put; he said what others only thought. The words simply poured from his mouth and had often caused them trouble, and a few times in the military brig. Even when they were younger, Bender was the one who had asked the school teacher about her love affair with a logger from Danbury in front of the whole snickering class. She’d piled the homework on the two of them, and still failed both at report card time while promoting all the other students.

  Tyler said, “Not me. They smelled your scent, not mine.”

  “Because I was the one that left my smell at the nest?”

  “No, because I don’t smell and you do.” Tyler tried not to grin, thinking he may have one-upped Bender for the first time in a while.

  “Are you thinking of leaving me out here to fight them alone?” Bender asked.