Which probably won’t be until midday if he was out at the inn again last night. A twinge of embarrassment and shame warmed my face. My father liked his flagon of ale at the end of a working day. He also seemed to like it in the evening and halfway through the night as well.
Stop that, Sebastian, I chided myself. It’s not right to think ill of your father no matter how much he drinks! I didn’t mind the work. It felt good to be up early and to get everything ready for the other apprentices and junior smiths. I even made time to chop some wood for Old Widow Hu a few doors down. I always tried to do what I could for her because the poor woman was nearly blind, needing all the help she could get.
But the dragons—I loved to see the dragons. All of my short seventeen years I had been dreaming of them— the freedom they knew of flying through the air, above the world and all its troubles, the power of every muscle, the strength of every wiry sinew. They are such beautiful creatures. They offered the steady loyalty, strength and wisdom of a horse, but with the playfulness, speed, and sometimes the temperament, of a cat.
Sometimes we work on the rider’s tack, which was such an honor, but sadly that didn’t happen often enough to please me. The Dragon Riders of Torvald usually got their kit remade and polished at one of the bigger, throne-endorsed smithies. But every now and again, a few small buckles or harness-clips filtered down our way to be seen to.
I would hold them in my hand, imagining which part of a rider’s kit they corresponded to, taking care to re-tool the fine designs etched into their surface, polishing and polishing until they gleamed as good as new. It was one of the few paid jobs that my father let me do by myself, knowing I would put the extra work in just because I loved dragons.
I’d seen a flash of one last year. A brilliant scintillating flash of blue and green that soared over Mongers Lane. It moved as fast as a hawk. For a moment, I swore I had looked up past the towering, crowded houses of the street down here and had seen it looking down at me with eyes like the golden green of a summer lake or the first flush of spring leaves. No one believed me of course. They said I was imagining it. That dragons only had eyes and noses for their riders, but it had happened. I knew it had. I’ll never forget it.
This morning, I was working extra hard trying to clear my duties for the day, hoping I might get to finish early enough to see the last few choices of the day. Everyone would talk about the choices for the next five years. How this blue dragon or that white wyrm approached their rider. Did they go on foot? Did they snatch them from their windows?
I moved the final barrow of split logs, seeing a whole collection of end-pieces, scrappy tops and tree-hearts left. It would be too much work to break them down and feed them into the kilns. Besides, they would give an uneven burn, so I loaded them onto a wheelbarrow and decided to take them to Old Widow Hu. She would be pleased for the free firewood, and Father couldn’t do anything with them anyway.
Mongers Lane was a tight little community, more than just a lane really, but not much bigger than one. The poorest district in the city, with people living in makeshift houses next to each other, cheek by jowl, my ma said. I knew it wasn’t much, but I liked living here. The people were honest.
Old Widow Hu had a hovel poorer than most, a collection of mud and brick walls and wooden beams almost leaning against the stronger houses next door. As I neared her home, in the background I could hear the cheers and gasps as the dragons must have swooped overhead. I knocked on her oddly-fitting wooden door and waited as a breeze blew down the alley behind me.
It took a little while for Old Widow Hu to answer her door, but I didn’t mind. When she did, she peered past me and blinked, then looked at my barrel. “Oh, thank you Sebastian, but you’ve already done me such a kindness,” she was saying in a cracked and croaking voice.
“These are free, ma’am. I’d like to think someone might take care of my step-mam if ever she got older and had no one around.” I heaved the wood onto the pile by the side of her door. I was forced to jump back immediately as a few of the tiles fell off her roof above us.
“Oh, dear goodness!” Old Widow Hu was looking up at me.
She must not be able see me, I thought. “It’s okay, Mrs. Hu. It’s just me, Sebastian.”
“N-no, Seb…” her voice quavered. “I think there’s someone to see you.” She hurriedly stepped back into her hovel.
Oh no. It must be Father. He must be annoyed at me for something.
I turned and came face to face with the long, sinuous, muscular neck and the strong snout of a red dragon. It had golden-green eyes, eyes the color of the sun glinting off polished gold or seen through the leaves of a beech forest at midday. She was beautiful.
How do I know it’s a she? I thought, but I knew. I just knew.
She didn’t look like a dragon to me. She looked—she just looked like herself. Not a thing, not a lizard or a beast. I could feel something stirring in my breast, my heart thumping and a lump in my throat as I raised a hand up to her.
She put her snout on the edge of my fingers, letting me touch the sensitive mouth that I knew surrounded her teeth and then huffed a warm breath of pine smoke and coal-dust over me, fluffing my thatch of hair.
You’re playing with me, aren’t you? I smiled, blowing air back onto her snout.
With a sudden sneeze, the dragon shook its head and made a chirruping noise, oddly musical, like a bird.
“Seb! Seb! What are you doing?” a voice shouted, alarmed and fearful—my dad, his drunken gait exaggerated by the alarm and anger in his voice.
The dragon then did something I had been hoping for all my life, but never expecting. It seized me with its front feet, black talons the length of my whole forearm curling gently against me and not even hurting a tiny bit, and launched itself into the air.
“You’ve got the wrong boy!” I heard my father yell, along with the Old Widow Hu’s reply, “no, I think that it’s got just the right one!”
Exclusive Excerpt from Dragon Trials (Return of the Darkening Trilogy Book 1)
Dragons of Wild (Upon Dragon's Breath Trilogy Book 1) Page 23
