Dragonslayer

by Tui T. Sutherland

  When she was seven, she had a sweet teacher named Miss Laurel, and she thought maybe she’d try again. She waited until recess, when the children were all sent to run to the underground lake and come back with a bucket of water, and then she approached the teacher shyly.

  “Miss Laurel? Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, Ivy.” Miss Laurel was sitting on the floor, trying to sew a tattered book’s pages back together. She gave Ivy a smile that looked tired in the torchlight and patted the ground beside her.

  “D-did you hear my dad’s speech last night?” Ivy sat down and picked up a scrap of paper that had fluttered out of the book.

  “In the great hall? Yes, everybody did. It was a mandatory gathering. Do you know what mandatory means?”

  “That everybody has to go except kids. But Mother brought me anyway.”

  “Oh.” Miss Laurel’s forehead wrinkled. “Oh dear.” She took Ivy’s hand and squeezed it between hers. “Did it scare you, sweetheart?”

  Ivy thought about the flickering torches, the shouting crowd, the boy in the torn green uniform standing hunched beside her dad with his hands tied in front of him. Should it have been scary? Mother always brought her to banishments. Ivy usually fell asleep on her shoulder, wishing they could have had a normal bedtime instead.

  This time she’d stayed awake and listened, though. This time she sort of knew the boy in trouble. He was one of the nice Wingwatchers who brought peaches to the school after outdoor patrols. Daffodil said he had cute hair and she was going to marry him one day.

  “I guess it was mostly confusing?” Ivy said. “I didn’t understand what Daddy was saying.”

  “He was saying that Pine was a danger to the community,” Miss Laurel said gently. “Pine went to the old village and scavenged in the ruins. If any dragons had been watching, he could have led them right back to us.”

  Ivy took a deep breath. “But … Daddy goes to the old village all the time,” she said in a rush.

  Miss Laurel’s face did something strange, like all her expressions were falling off of it at once, so it looked like a mask for a moment.

  “I’m sure that’s not the case,” she said finally.

  “He does!” Ivy said. “He brings things back. Spoons and horseshoes and a little ball for me and other stuff.”

  Miss Laurel patted her head. “Aren’t you lucky to have such a brave father to take care of you.”

  “But, Miss Laurel, why can my dad go there whenever he wants, but Pine went there once and now he’s banished from Valor forever?”

  “Perhaps you’ve misunderstood where he goes, dear. Anyway, he’s the Dragonslayer and lord of Valor. They’re his laws. So he can’t possibly break them.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” Ivy said. “And he told the Wingwatchers to go looking for iron. Aren’t the ruins a smart place to look?”

  “But the law —”

  “I think Daddy made up the law after Pine went there,” Ivy said firmly.

  Miss Laurel stood up and dusted off the book she’d been working on. “That’s silly, Ivy. You’ll learn more about how laws and lords work when you’re older. Now you’d better hurry if you want to have time to play after you get your bucket of water.”

  Ivy sighed. Miss Laurel was just like the other grown-ups, after all.

  She ducked through the classroom door into the tunnel outside and made it about three steps before she was suddenly seized and dragged into a different classroom.

  “Hey!” she yelped.

  “Shhhhh.” Daffodil covered Ivy’s mouth with her hands. As always, her long dark hair was tied into pigtails with bright yellow scraps of fabric, which matched her bee-pollen-yellow tunic. Ivy had once heard her mother say that Daffodil’s mother dressed her like that so everyone would remember the sunny flower her daughter was named after, and then hopefully forget Daffodil’s actual “dreadfully strong personality.”

  Ivy realized that Violet was in the otherwise empty classroom as well, sitting on one of the tables carved from the rock and blinking owlishly.

  Violet and Daffodil were the loudest girls in her year and best friends — whenever they weren’t absolutely furious with each other. Daffodil practically vibrated with energy when she had to sit still, and Violet made up all the best pretend games.

  Ivy’s mother often said “those two are not my favorite children,” but there were only so many kids Ivy’s age in the underground city, so Mother couldn’t exactly stop her from playing with them.

  “We heard you talking to Miss Laurel,” Daffodil said in a stage whisper that could have been heard on the far side of Valor.

  “You heard her,” Violet said. “You made me go get all our water buckets.” She waved one hand at three buckets of water lined up beside her.

  “Wow,” Ivy said. “Did you carry all of those at the same time?”

  “Yes,” Violet said matter-of-factly. “I’m really strong. One day I’m going to get super tall and lift the roof off the whole city and then we won’t be underground anymore and it’ll be very shiny and smell nice and everyone will say thank you, Violet, you’re so great and I will say, you are so welcome, what else can I lift?”

  “No, they’ll say thank you, DAFFODIL, because I was the one who even told you to do that in the first place,” Daffodil said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “No!” Violet argued. “I thought of it myself! You did not!”

  “It was my idea!” Daffodil said. “I said you could lift off the roof! I said it yesterday!”

  “But I thought of it the night before that, I just hadn’t SAID anything about it yet!”

  Ivy could see that this was nosediving into one of Daffodil and Violet’s epic fights, which turned the whole classroom into a war zone at least once a week. She edged toward the door. “I should maybe …”

  “Look, you’re scaring her away!” Daffodil said, pouncing on Ivy and dragging her back into the classroom.

  “I think YOU’RE scaring her away!” Violet objected.

  “IVY,” Daffodil said, heroically ignoring Violet, which Ivy knew from experience was quite nearly impossible. “You were asking Miss Laurel questions about Pine.”

  “Yes,” Ivy admitted. She tried to remember whether Daffodil had been at the banishment. She didn’t think so; the bright yellow would have been hard to miss.

  “Is he really gone?” Daffodil said. “Never ever to return?”

  “I think so?” Ivy said.

  “But WHYYYYY?” Daffodil wailed, throwing herself to the ground. She flopped onto her back with one arm dramatically over her face. “My life is RUINED!”

  “Did your dad say he had to go let himself get eaten by dragons?” Violet asked.

  “No!” Ivy said. “He just said Pine had to leave and never come back.”

  “Hmmm,” Violet said. “So, like, almost the same thing.”

  “VIOLET, YOU ARE SO MEAN!” Daffodil shouted. “HOW DARE YOU SAY MY BOYFRIEND WILL GET EATEN BY DRAGONS!!!”

  “He’s not your boyfriend,” Violet said. “He is very old. Like seventeen maybe even.”

  “But he could have been! When I grow up! If he wasn’t BANISHED FOREVER!”

  “What did he do?” Violet asked Ivy.

  “Yeah,” Daffodil said, sitting up abruptly. “You told Miss Laurel your dad does the same thing all the time.”

  “Well … I thought so,” Ivy said. “But Miss Laurel said I must have misunderstood.”

  “That is such a grown-up thing to say,” Violet said, rolling her eyes.

  “Did you guys know that there’s a law saying nobody’s allowed to go to the old village?” Ivy asked.

  “What? No, there isn’t,” Violet said.

  “What old village?” Daffodil asked.

  “The one the dragons burned down!” Violet said impatiently. “Where everybody used to live!”

  “I KNEW THAT,” Daffodil barked. “I meant WHAT do you mean, the old village, like, what law. It was a good question, shut
up!”

  “Saying shut up is not nice at all,” Violet said, turning up her nose. “That’s bullying. You’re bullying me.”

  “No, YOU —” Daffodil started, and Ivy hurriedly intervened.

  “I never heard of a law like that before,” she said.

  “Me neither,” said Violet. “My dads work on laws and orders with your dad, and I know they’ve been to the old village. They brought me a half-burned doll and said maybe I could fix it to make it pretty but that sounded boring, so instead I pretend she’s a furious ghost who haunts the ruins waiting to get her REVENGE on the dragons!”

  “YES!” Daffodil cried, running to the wall and bouncing off it and running back and slicing the air with an imaginary sword. “Fight me, dragons!”

  “But that’s all Pine did,” Ivy said. She WOULD get through this conversation, no matter how easily distracted the other two were, and even if they didn’t remember it for more than a day. She’d never tried telling other kids about the weird things that didn’t line up in the world. Maybe they’d say something a grown-up had never said.

  “Pine did what?” Violet asked.

  “Fight a dragon?” Daffodil chimed in.

  “No, no — he went to the old village. That’s why he got banished. Because there’s a law that says you can’t.”

  They stared at her for a long moment, the quietest Ivy had ever seen them. She waited for Daffodil to poke Violet in the stomach and run away giggling, or for Violet to explain why Ivy was wrong.

  “That’s not right,” Violet said finally. “There’s no law like that. Which means someone made up an unfair reason to get rid of Pine. That’s grown-up lying, which is worse than kid lying. I don’t like that.”

  “Me neither,” Daffodil agreed. “LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES,” she added in a dramatic stage whisper, peering through her fingers.

  Ivy shivered, half in awe and half in terror. Nobody ever said the Dragonslayer was lying. She realized she’d been kind of waiting for someone to say it out loud, so that she wouldn’t have to, but now that someone had, it felt stabby and bad in her insides. That was her father they were talking about.

  “Maybe I’m wrong, though,” Ivy said. “Maybe it’s a new law.”

  “I will find out,” Violet said. “I am excellent at thing-finding-out.”

  “But won’t you get in trouble?” Ivy asked anxiously. “My parents yell at me when I try to find things out.”

  “Then I will yell BACK,” said Daffodil. “That is what I am excellent at.”

  “I think we should invite her to join the secret club,” Violet said to Daffodil.

  Daffodil threw up her hands. “What?! You can’t say that in front of her! That is so rude! What if I said no?”

  “You can’t say no,” Violet said inexorably. “She already knows about it.”

  “She doesn’t know what it’s called,” Daffodil said, crossing her arms.

  “So are you going to say no?” Violet asked.

  “No! I’m saying yes! But it’s not fair because I was thinking we should invite her except I was going to wait until she left the cave to ask you like a NOT RUDE PERSON!”

  “Um … should I leave the cave?” Ivy asked. She was already in most of the “secret clubs” formed by the other seven-year-olds. It was actually surprising that she hadn’t even heard of Violet and Daffodil’s. Maybe it was a very new club. But she guessed it would probably break up like all the others, probably faster because of how Violet and Daffodil fought all the time.

  Also, she wanted to go sit by herself for a moment to think about lies and why her dad would tell lies, if that was what they were, and why all the other grown-ups let him, when kids like Daffodil and Forest got in huge trouble for their lies all the time.

  “Nope, you’re in. Welcome to the club,” Violet said, reaching out her hand, which Daffodil knocked aside as she shouted, “WELCOME TO THE CLUB,” over her. Ivy didn’t know whose hand to shake first without getting in trouble, so she used both her hands and shook theirs at the same time.

  “It is a club about knowing things,” Violet said solemnly. “It is a club about secrets, so you have to promise to keep them, even when certain people are being very loud about everything.” She glared at Daffodil.

  “We’re the only people in it, but it is not a club about excluding people,” Daffodil said, apparently missing Violet’s veiled jab. “Except Daisy because she is VERY VERY annoying and I hate her.” Daisy was Daffodil’s older sister, age nine, and, as far as Ivy could tell, a perfectly pleasant, quiet person.

  “Don’t say hate,” Violet said. “That is a mean word.”

  “Fine,” said Daffodil. “I LOATHE her.”

  “What is the club called?” Ivy asked, trying to head off another argument.

  “We are the Truth Seekers,” Violet said. Maybe it was the hushed, somber voice she said it in, or maybe it was just the exact words Ivy wanted to hear at that moment, but something about it felt right and good and much more important than the other secret clubs.

  I hope it doesn’t fall apart too quickly, she thought. She’d never wanted a secret club to last before. She usually just went along with whatever the others were playing.

  “We will find out the truth about Pine,” Daffodil said, matching Violet’s solemn tone. “We will find out the truth about everything.”

  Everything, Ivy thought as the other two touched their hands to their foreheads and then to hers, and then to each other’s, and then made her do the same to them. Truth that other people don’t know.

  Why Pine was really banished. Why her dad told lies to the people of Valor.

  And if he was lying about one thing, what else had he lied about? The treasure had to be real; her dad was a lord now. And the severed dragon tail was definitely real. But had he left anything out? Were there lies buried in his story about the dragons — in everything he said about dragons?

  On the way home from school that day, Ivy borrowed a Wingwatcher’s Dragon Guide from the library, and that night she studied the drawings as if she’d never seen them before.

  Mud dragons. Sand dragons. Ice dragons. Each of them were painted with little tiny scales the color of gems. Sapphire blue, tangerine orange, diamond white. And their faces … their faces looked so intelligent.

  Maybe Daddy didn’t have to slay that dragon, Ivy thought. This was a forbidden thought. The Dragonslayer was a hero. That was the story of Valor in one sentence.

  She traced one finger along the shimmering wings of the rainforest dragon. In the drawings, it had the kindest face, which was a silly thing to say about animals that would eat you in a heartbeat … but it still felt true to Ivy.

  Maybe some of the Dragonslayer story is a lie, too, she thought, feeling the danger of even thinking the words to herself.

  I wonder how the dragons would tell it, if they could tell their own stories.

  Wren would never say there was something wrong with her baby dragon — he was a million percent perfect and she’d bite anyone who said he wasn’t, if there was anyone around to try it.

  But she had to admit he was kind of a weird little guy.

  For one thing, he loved animals, in a sort of adorably obsessive way. His favorite was snails. Anytime he spotted one, he would throw himself to the ground nearby and stare at it with wide eyes, watching the little antennae slowly blorb in and out. He could watch snails inch around under the grass for an entire morning if Wren didn’t make him get up and keep moving with her.

  In fact, snail was the first word she learned in Dragon. He said it so often that she finally tried saying it back to him, which he found delightfully hilarious.

  As they walked, he’d sit on her shoulder and point and chatter at every bird as though each one was the newest, shiniest, most amazing thing he’d ever seen. He freaked out with joy when ladybugs landed on him, and he moped for days when squirrels ran away at the sight of him.

  It also made him a completely useless hunting partner. The first time Wren
brought Sky a rabbit that she’d managed to bring down with a slingshot, he gently stroked its fur for a moment, and then he burst into tears.

  Tears! She hadn’t even know dragons could cry, much less over food!

  “Baby Sky,” she said as he blubbered into her skirt, “you very silly dragon. You must have eaten meat before. I thought dragons only ate meat.”

  He clambered up her lap and onto her shoulder, still boo-hoo-hooing, and buried his cold nose in her hair. Another tear dropped off his snout and slid down her neck.

  “Did they give it to you already cooked?” she asked. “Is that why this is weird, because you can tell it used to be a rabbit?”

  “Urrrblroarf,” the dragon snuffled.

  “Well, if you won’t eat it, I will,” she said. “But you have to eat something.” She emptied her pockets of the nuts and berries she’d scavenged while hunting. Sky leaped off her shoulder and pounced on them, gobbling all the fruit first.

  “Such a strange small dragon,” she said, tugging on his ears affectionately. He made a noise somewhere between a purr and a growl. “On the plus side, if you won’t eat a rabbit, then I think you probably also won’t eat me? What do you think? Are my fingers safe?”

  “Mrrrowr,” he agreed, or disagreed, or burped; she wasn’t quite sure what any of his noises meant yet.

  She’d kind of been hoping he could roast the rabbit for her and save her some work, but Sky showed no sign of setting anything on fire. He never had smoke rising from his nostrils the way the dragons flying overhead did. He never sneezed out bursts of flame (although he did sneeze quite a lot for a while after his time in the river). He never even breathed heat, not even on the coldest nights when they both really needed it.

  And still it took Wren over a year to figure it out. For a long time she thought he just didn’t want to, or that maybe he was sick from the cold river and needed to get better before his fire came back. And then for a while she guessed that baby dragons must hatch without fire and grow the ability to make it later.