Dragonslayer

by Tui T. Sutherland

  And it helped him discover that Rowan was way more interesting than he’d expected.

  For one thing, she knew a lot about dragons.

  “We think there are six or seven different kinds,” she said one day, parrying his thrust.

  “What?” he said, stumbling back. “There’s more than one kind? I thought they were all the same.”

  “Leaf, seriously. Haven’t you noticed the difference between the swamp dragons and the mountain dragons? Their faces are different, their scales are different — Grove says even their dens and castles are different, according to what he learned in the Indestructible City.”

  “You said six or seven — what else is there besides the swamp kind and the mountain kind?”

  “There are desert dragons, like the one the Dragonslayer killed. Arctic dragons, apparently, who live in the ice and snow. And ocean dragons who live under the sea, we’re pretty sure.”

  He shuddered. He’d only seen the ocean from a distance, from the top of a mountain — but he did not like the idea of dragons lurking underwater. The same hungry threat coming from above and below at once was too creepy to think about.

  “And maybe one or two more,” Rowan went on, spinning into another attack so he had to dodge away. “Grove swears he once saw a totally black dragon, but I’ve never heard anyone else mention them. Plus there are parts of the continent where no one’s ever been, so there could be other dragons there.”

  “I wonder if any of them are easier to fight than the others,” Leaf said. “But we’re closest to the mountain dragons, right? The red and orange ones. Those are the ones I have to slay to protect the village — the ones who ate Wren.” He jabbed his wooden sword toward Rowan, and she easily knocked it away into the bushes.

  He harrumphed and went to retrieve it. When he came back, Rowan handed him a blueberry the size of his fist; she had one for herself as well.

  Leaf sat on the grass, holding the berry in his hands and remembering blueberry expeditions with his little sister. She’d make him laugh with imitations of the stuffy dragonmancers, and he’d challenge her to tree-climbing races so he could win, and then she’d get furiously angry and throw all her blueberries at him and scream, and then he’d fake apologize, and then she’d get even more furious, and then ten minutes later they’d be swimming in the lake and laughing again, and then the next day, after he’d forgotten all about the fight, he’d climb into his bed and discover she’d filled it with squashed blueberries.

  He sighed. “I miss Wren.”

  Rowan gave him an odd, searching look. “Do you think you would hate dragons so much if they hadn’t taken her?” she asked. “I mean … like if it turned out it was someone else’s fault?”

  “How could it be?” Leaf asked. He thought for a moment. “You mean, like if someone pushed her off a cliff, and then the dragons found her and ate her?”

  “Yes,” Rowan said carefully. “Something like that.”

  “Then no,” said Leaf. “I would hate that person instead. But I think I’d still have to slay the dragons to make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else. Right?” He traced one finger along the flat of his sword. “Don’t tell anyone, but I a little bit hate the dragonmancers for not seeing the dragon coming that day. They’re always telling us to hide in the shelters, or when to avoid the forest, or that we need to spend an entire day gathering some particular fruit as tribute for the dragons. All they do is have visions about the dragons. But on the most important day, when it’s the most important person …” He trailed off, swiping at his eyes.

  Rowan nudged his shoulder with her knee. He knew that was the closest she ever came to physical affection or sympathy. It helped the tiniest bit.

  “But Mom and Dad say it’s not their fault,” Leaf said. “I guess they told everyone to avoid the river that morning, and Wren went anyway.” Disobeying the dragonmancers did sound like something Wren would do, but standing still out in the open long enough for a dragon to spot her and catch her … that didn’t sound much like his little sister at all. She never stopped moving. She was quick and clever, and he would have thought she could roar dragons out of the sky with her own fury.

  Furious — that’s what he needed to be. There wasn’t time for sad. He needed to train, to become strong and powerful, and then he needed to go slay the dragons who’d done this.

  He finished his blueberry and jumped to his feet. “Let’s go again.”

  Rowan came at him and he ducked under her arm. She spun and whacked his shoulder with the flat of her wooden blade.

  “Good move, but too slow,” she said. “Try again.”

  They whirled and jabbed for a while in silence. Leaf’s arms ached and he was pretty sure he’d have bruises all over his back tomorrow. But he refused to complain or ask for a break. Every bruise made him stronger, more ready to stand between the dragons and the children of Talisman.

  Rowan whipped his sword out of his grip again, and this time he had to climb a tree to retrieve it. She turned in a slow circle, studying the clearing and the forest as if to make sure there was no one else nearby.

  “Do you ever wonder whether the dragonmancers are hiding something?” she asked as he swung himself back down.

  “Wren thought they were,” he said. “She once said they were just grumpy old folks ordering everyone around.”

  “I think that might be what Grove thinks, too,” Rowan said, glancing out at the trees again. “He keeps hinting at it, but because he’s smarter than Wren, he won’t say it directly.”

  “He’s not smarter than Wren!” Leaf objected. “I mean. He’s OLDER than Wren. So he KNOWS more things. But that’s not the same.”

  A flash of pity crossed Rowan’s face, and Leaf knew why. He couldn’t stop talking about Wren in the present tense, even seasons after losing her.

  “You know what, you should become a dragonmancer apprentice, if they’ll take you,” she said.

  “No way!” Leaf said. “I want to keep learning how to stab dragons, not be locked up in a hut with some musty paper and even mustier old people teaching me how to bow and scrape.”

  “But that’s not all you’d learn,” Rowan said. “You could find out all their secrets!”

  “I don’t want to be a dragonmancer,” Leaf protested.

  “You wouldn’t have to be,” she said. “Get in there, put your head down and pretend, and learn everything they know — like what happened to most of their apprentices, and how do their visions work, and why have they forbidden anyone to go try to steal treasure? And then tell me everything, and we’ll use their knowledge to go kill all the dragons!”

  “YES!” Leaf cried. “Wait, no. This is a trick. How much studying are we talking about? Like, years stuck inside with those grouches? Aaaaaargh. Can’t you do it?”

  “I tried, actually,” Rowan said, looking down and whacking the nearest bush with her sword. “Last year. They said I failed the tests. But I have a theory it’s not about the test scores — it’s about who they trust.”

  “Why wouldn’t they trust you?” Leaf asked.

  Rowan made a weird, wry, inscrutable smile face. “Maybe I already know a little too much,” she said. “Anyway, they seem to like you. I bet you could do it.”

  “Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyuck,” Leaf said firmly. “No, THANK you.”

  Rowan suddenly tensed. Leaf froze in place. They both tilted their heads, listening.

  The warning bell was ringing.

  Which meant dragons were coming.

  “Quick,” Rowan shouted, grabbing his hand and running toward the village. Leaf realized they were still clutching their swords; there was no time to hide them. He knew his child-sized wooden sword would be less than useless against a dragon, but somehow the weight of it in his hand made him feel a little safer.

  They pelted through the forest, branches whipping at their faces. The bell pealed on and on desperately. The bell towers were built a ways up the mountain, deliberately far so the sound wouldn’t draw the drag
ons to their village. Leaf imagined the apprentice out there pulling on the rope, knowing he or she had to stay with the bell instead of racing to a shelter like everyone else.

  He didn’t think it was much of a mystery why the dragonmancers’ apprentices rarely survived very long.

  No, Rowan, he definitely did not want to be one of them.

  He wondered if this one had been sent to the bells because of a vision, or whether actual dragons had been spotted. Despite his conversation with Rowan, despite his frequent doubts, he still wasn’t quite willing to risk his life testing the theory that the dragonmancers were lying.

  They burst out of the forest behind the schoolhouse and saw someone running up the road toward them. At first glance, Leaf guessed it must be one of his parents — but as the figure came closer, he realized it was Grove.

  That’s weird, he thought. Grove came looking for us … well, for Rowan … but Mom and Dad didn’t.

  They must be in the closest shelter to home. They had three other kids to protect, after all. They must trust Rowan and Leaf to get to safety on their own.

  But it still wasn’t the greatest feeling.

  “Grove!” Rowan cried. Leaf never saw her face light up that way for anyone else.

  “Oh, thank the moons,” Grove called, looking enormously relieved. “I wasn’t sure you’d hear the bell out there.” He paused by the schoolhouse, trying to catch his breath.

  Rowan tugged open the trapdoor that led to the schoolhouse shelter. That was where all the kids had to go whenever the alarm rang during the school day. Leaf had done it often enough just in the last year that he knew how many steps led down to the hollow below and exactly where the candles were, even in the dark.

  He wished they could hide in the schoolhouse instead. It was supposedly camouflaged from the air — hidden by trees and roofed with leafy branches — but there was still a fair chance a dragon would set it on fire one day.

  Leaf was about to follow Rowan and Grove into the shelter when he heard a sound from inside the schoolhouse.

  “Leaf!” Rowan called. “Come on, hurry!”

  “Wait —” he said. “I’ll be right there.” He tossed her his sword and darted up the back steps into the school.

  Someone was huddled under one of the desks, crying. Someone small, with thin shoulders. Too small to be Wren, and Wren never cried, but still, for a moment, Leaf felt his heart try to reach out and catch her.

  He crouched beside the desk and recognized the child. It was Butterfly, the teacher’s youngest son — Leaf thought he was about four years old.

  “Hey,” Leaf said softly. “Don’t be scared.”

  “Don’t be SCARED?!” Butterfly yelped, raising a tear-streaked face to glare at Leaf. “Dragons are coming to EAT ME!”

  “Pffft,” Leaf scoffed. “You’re too scrawny. They wouldn’t like you. I bet you taste like chicken feet.”

  “No, I don’t!” Butterfly looked outraged now. “Mommy says I’d be the most delicious thing they ever eated! They want to eat me so much they fly here looking for me all the time!”

  Who would SAY that to a four-year-old? Leaf wondered, and then remembered that his parents said stuff like that all the time.

  “That is completely stupid,” Leaf said. “Is there one super-delicious rabbit in the woods that we’re all looking for when we go hunting?”

  “Um.” Butterfly blinked a few times. “I don’t know! Is there?”

  “No! We catch whatever rabbits we can, silly. Same with dragons. They eat whatever they can get. They’re not hunting for you especially.”

  “Mmmmmmmaybe …” Butterfly said skeptically. “But they are scary.”

  “I guess,” Leaf said, waving one hand. “You don’t have to be super scared of them, though. Be smart scared instead.”

  “Smart scared?”

  “Like, it’s a good idea to hide from them, especially when you’re little. But is this the best, smartest hiding spot?”

  “I don’t know.” Butterfly rubbed his grubby face. “I came looking for Mommy.”

  “No, it isn’t. The best hiding place is in a shelter, with a big strong warrior like me guarding the door.”

  Butterfly laughed. “You’re not that big and strong.”

  “Bigger than you,” Leaf said. “I bet I could carry you on my back all the way outside.”

  “Outside?” Butterfly said warily.

  “AND down into the shelter,” Leaf said. “WHILE singing about dragons.”

  “I like songs,” Butterfly said, scrambling to his feet. Leaf turned around and let the four-year-old climb onto his back. He was heavy, but Leaf managed to stand up and head for the door.

  “Oh, dragons are totally stupid! And dragons are totally bad!” he sang off the top of his head. Butterfly giggled.

  “The way they keep eating our … goats … it makes me so terribly mad!”

  “You have a very bad voice,” Butterfly said, snuggling his face into Leaf’s neck.

  “Whenever I see a dragon, I want to shout, ‘Go away!’ But since I’m polite, and never start fights, I just hide for the rest of the day!”

  His ridiculous song had gotten them across the schoolyard to the shelter steps. The warning bell was still clanging ferociously in the distance, and the treetops were stirring as if the wind — or dragon wings — were rising.

  Rowan was standing a few steps down, waiting for them. She lifted Butterfly off Leaf’s back and carried him into the shelter. Leaf glanced around for a moment, making sure no one else was coming. Then he closed the trapdoor, and Grove lit one candle, and they were safe in the semi-dark.

  Hopefully safe. More or less safe. Leaf had heard of other shelters caving in, or of fires set close by that smoked out the people hiding so they were caught. But those stories were few and far between — and this was a good shelter, sturdily built by the whole village to protect the schoolchildren, stocked with pallets to sleep on and barrels of water in case they were trapped down there for long.

  It was also quite large, too big for just the four of them. He swung his sword in the open space, then stopped quickly, glancing at Grove.

  “He knows what we’re doing,” Rowan said. “Don’t worry. He thinks it’s great.”

  “Yeah. The world needs more dragonslayers,” Grove said with his charming grin. “Wish I didn’t have to work so I could join you.” He sat at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the dirt wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Butterfly promptly sat down in his lap and curled up, as though no one could possibly mind his dazzling four-year-old presence on their knees. Grove chuckled and patted Butterfly on the back.

  Leaf understood why Rowan liked Grove. Grove was different, and that’s what she’d always wanted. He even looked a bit different from the other village boys; his eyes were narrower, his hair was a long, shaggy dark mop instead of close-cut, and his clothes were dyed dangerous colors like orange. Mostly, though, he carried himself like someone who’d Seen the World and Knew Things.

  Grove was the only person near their age who had traveled beyond their village. He and his father had arrived in Talisman two years earlier, looking for a place to settle after their own village, farther south, had been burned to the ground by dragons. That fire was how Grove had gotten the burn scars on his hands and face. Whatever other family they’d lost, neither of them ever talked about it.

  That much Leaf knew from Rowan’s stories. But she usually never let her little brother or sisters get anywhere near Grove. Apparently they were “embarrassing,” although Leaf had no idea what she could possibly mean by that.

  “Hey, Grove, have you really been to the Indestructible City?” he asked. Rowan sighed theatrically and slid down the wall to sit beside Grove. Butterfly stuck out his feet to rest them on her.

  “Of course I have,” Grove said. “It’s massive. And it’s never been burned. We figured for sure it’d be the safest place to live.”

  “Isn’t it?” Leaf asked. “Why didn’t you s
tay?”

  Grove thought for a moment, tilting his head toward Rowan. “It’s … hard to get in, and then … it’s not as safe as it sounds. I mean, it’s safe from dragons, but …” He trailed off.

  “But what?” Leaf pressed. “What else is there? Bears? Wildcats? Do they have a spider problem?” Wren had really hated spiders.

  “No,” Grove said, looking amused. “More of a human problem.”

  Leaf swished his sword, practicing his footwork. “Really? Do people attack them?”

  “No, that would be impossible. More like …” Grove glanced at Rowan. “I mean, it’s the people inside the city that are the problem.”

  “Don’t give the children nightmares,” Rowan said with a yawn.

  “I’m not children! I won’t get nightmares! And Butterfly is practically asleep already. Tell me!” Leaf yelped.

  Grove glanced at Rowan again, and she shrugged.

  “All right,” Grove said slowly. “Do you know anything about the Invincible Lord?” Leaf shook his head. “He runs the Indestructible City right now. His family always has, but this lord is different from the ones who came before. He has all these ideas about who is useful and who isn’t, and what he can use everyone for. He has plans to expand beyond the city, risky plans, and he’ll do anything to make them happen. To him, everyone’s expendable.”

  “I heard he wanted to hire the Dragonslayer,” Rowan interjected.

  “Really?” Leaf thought about that — the power of the Indestructible City combined with the might of the Dragonslayer. They could take on the dragons together! Maybe they could save the whole world!

  “The rumor says he’s been trying to get the Dragonslayer to come to the city for years,” Grove agreed. “But I think ‘hire’ might be the gentlest way of putting it.”

  “What?” Leaf glanced from Grove’s face to Rowan’s, but he didn’t understand the expressions they were making.

  Grove shrugged. “I wouldn’t trust him if I were the Dragonslayer. Besides, kid, the IC has a lot of rules. Everyone’s mad strict and scary. Not my kind of place. So when my dad heard about the legendary ‘magically protected’ village of the dragonmancers, he decided that would be better for us.”