Dragonslayer

by Tui T. Sutherland

  At first glance, the only way to enter the city was by climbing an endlessly long set of stairs that had been chipped out of the cliff face, cutting back and forth on a path into the sky, and now worn smooth and alarmingly slippery by thousands of feet going up and down. There was no railing; nothing to hold on to, and nothing to keep someone from tripping and plummeting off the cliff to their doom.

  Soldiers guarded the bottom of the stairs and the gate at the top, as far as she could see. A few people were climbing the stairs, but far more were gathered around the foot of the cliff, within sight of the soldiers. Wren could see wagons and tents and rugs spread on the ground; she saw families asleep in huddled piles, far back in the line, and she saw others stirring pots over campfires. Some of the travelers looked as though they’d been there quite a while … as though they’d made camp, and were prepared to wait as long as necessary for a shot at the stairs and the safety of the city.

  She climbed a tree and watched from the forest for a while to see if there were any other ways into the Indestructible City. There was a waterfall plunging from the top of the cliff, not far from the city walls. Wren could see a contraption set up along the outermost wall to gather water from it.

  Hanging from a set of pulleys next to the waterwheel was a large platform with tall woven sides. Wren studied it for half the morning before it finally moved, creaking slowly all the way to the bottom of the cliff. There, a trio of hunters wearing animal pelts loaded the platform with a live goat and a pile of deer carcasses. Oh, Wren realized. It’s for things that would be too heavy or unwieldy to carry up the stairs.

  As she watched, a group of travelers approached the hunters and started talking to them. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was a lot of hand-waving and pointing. Finally the travelers handed over a basket — Wren guessed it contained food or herbs, but what were they paying for?

  Then one of the travelers came forward supporting a hunched, limping elderly man with a long white beard. She helped him climb over the side into the platform basket with the goat and the dead deer, and he settled himself awkwardly on the bottom.

  That looks like an uncomfortable ride, Wren thought as the platform jolted into the air. But better for the old man than the steps, I guess. The platform banged against the sides of the cliff as it was hauled up, and she imagined being surrounded by the smell of the carcasses. She would have thrown up over the edge onto the heads of the hunters, she was pretty sure.

  But that was the only other way into the city apart from the steps, and it was clearly guarded and policed by people who would demand payment for anyone to use it. That wasn’t going to work for her. She would have to climb the steps along with everybody else if she wanted to get inside.

  Did she want to get inside?

  Those were also the only ways out of the city, other than leaping off the cliff, which meant a quick escape wouldn’t be possible if she needed it. Wren did not like that at all.

  Also, small point, but the people stuck on the steps, inching slowly toward the city, were sitting ducks for any hungry dragons flying by. Wren wondered how many of them got eaten every day. Surely the dragons must know about this easy one-stop snack parade.

  She swung her legs for a moment, thinking. She really needed something new to wear — she’d torn a new hole in her dress just by reaching up to the tree branches. But was it worth the risk of talking to people … and maybe getting stuck in the Indestructible City?

  She studied the line of people waiting to climb the steps. Near the front was a group that seemed to include a few families and several children; they had half their goods packed up as though they were hoping to be allowed in today. Maybe she could sneak in as one of them and avoid any questions.

  Wren jumped down from the tree and wandered casually toward the base of the cliff. No one paid her very much attention as she wove through the encampment; most people were nervously watching the sky or trading stories of close escapes and clever hiding spots.

  She reached the big family group as they got to the foot of the steps, where two men stood with slates and frowns and stiff shoulders. Both men were wearing leather armor covered in sharp, thornlike spikes. That would make them difficult for a dragon to pick up, Wren supposed, but it looked uncomfortable and hot, especially for climbing up and down the cliff. Plus they look like a couple of grouchy porcupines, she thought. She wished Sky could see them.

  “Intent?” one of the men snapped.

  “We’re looking to settle here, if we can,” said a tall woman with a baby on her hip. “Our village was destroyed.”

  “We’ve been waiting in this line for three weeks,” a man behind her added.

  “No room for refugees at the moment,” the soldier said brusquely. “New lord’s orders.”

  “Isn’t there a quest?” the tall woman asked. “We heard there was a way to earn a place in the city.”

  “Not for all of you,” he said, raising an eyebrow at two little boys who kept pushing each other, despite their father hissing at them. “The Invincible Lord will generously admit one family, consisting of no more than six people, if they bring the Dragonslayer to him.”

  A dragonslayer? Wren wondered. Like … a person … who slays dragons? She felt indignant on Sky’s behalf. That jerk! I hope someone eats him.

  “What does the new lord want with the Dragonslayer?” another woman in the group asked.

  “An alliance, of course,” said the first porcupine soldier. Wren didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. “If the Dragonslayer worked for the Invincible Lord, they could save us from the dragons forever. They could build new Indestructible Cities. We could take back our world.”

  “That’s what the Invincible Lord says,” interjected the second porcupine soldier. “He says this world should be for people, not dragons.”

  Wren snorted to herself.

  “We sent one of our villagers to seek the Dragonslayer, to ask for his help,” said the tall woman with the baby. “But our village burned before the Dragonslayer arrived. What if he’s dead? Or what if he won’t come here?”

  The first soldier shrugged, rattling his spikes. “Sounds like a problem you’ll have to solve. That’s why it’s called a quest, isn’t it?”

  “Or you can keep waiting and see if the lord changes his mind,” the other offered with a grunt.

  They don’t care whether these people live or die, Wren thought scornfully. They wouldn’t lift a finger if dragons swooped out of the sky to eat them right now. This is just another place where powerful people step on everyone below them. The Indestructible City is no better than Talisman.

  She slipped quietly behind one of the bigger men in the traveling party and started to sidle away.

  “May we enter to trade, at least?” the tall woman asked. “We have been traveling for so long, and some of our children need medicine.” Her baby made a sad, restless sound and she pulled it closer to her, wrapping one big hand around its little head.

  Wren wondered whether the woman would trade that baby for a safe place to live — or if a bunch of dragonmancers told her to.

  “You may have a pass to visit the market for a day,” said the porcupine soldier in a bored voice, “if you leave your children down here with us.” He pointed behind him to a fenced-off area up against the cliff. Inside, three children huddled together silently. The oldest looked younger than Wren.

  The other soldier smiled an unfriendly smile. “That way we know you’ll come back,” he said.

  The woman took a step away from them, wrapping her other arm around her baby, and the two bickering boys fell silent, staring up at their father’s anxious face.

  “Orphans must be stamped and turned over to the city,” the first soldier went on. “We’ll find a place for them.”

  “You mean forever?” asked the tall woman. “You keep the orphans?”

  “Invincible Lord’s orders,” said the second soldier with a nod that rattled the spikes on his helmet. “They’re safer
with us, after all.”

  Nope, Wren thought. Nope nope nooooooooooooooooo thank you, nope. She ducked under someone’s arm and wove quickly back through the group, who were all muttering and whispering about the new lord’s rules.

  She wanted to run all the way back to Sky immediately, but she didn’t want to attract the guards’ attention. She doubted they’d want to chase her in all that armor, but it would still be safer to put a lot of distance between them before she made a break for the forest.

  Toward the end of the line, she nearly ran headlong into a pile of orange fur, which turned out to be a positively enormous cat in the arms of a boy.

  “Wings above,” Wren yelped in surprise. She remembered the kitten she’d wanted from years ago. Would it have grown as big as this creature?

  The cat hissed lazily, as if it couldn’t really be bothered to scare her away. Its face was flat and gorgeously grumpy and its fur was long and silky. It was seriously nearly as big as Sky was.

  “Don’t touch my cat,” the boy said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I definitely won’t!” Wren said. “Why WOULD I? I like my face not clawed off.”

  “She doesn’t scratch,” he said. “But I do. If anyone touches her.” He was a hair shorter than Wren, with bushy eyebrows and a moon-shaped face and one silver earring shaped like a dragon, which was entirely too excellent for a person this obnoxious.

  “I’m not going to touch your stupid tiger,” Wren said. “But when it grows up and eats you, don’t be surprised. You deserve it.”

  “Did you growl at us?” he asked. “When you nearly ran into my cat?”

  Oops. Had she said wings above in Dragon? “I wasn’t growling at you,” she said. “It was more of a general growl at everything, probably, if I did.”

  “Why are you going to the back of the line?” he asked. “Are you running away from your parents?” He considered that for a moment. “If you are, I should tell.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Wren said fiercely. “I know eight different ways to kill you before you take your next breath.”

  He regarded her skeptically. “You do not. You’re tiny.”

  “You’re tinier than I am!”

  “Nuh-uh. Besides, I have a cat.”

  Yeah, well, I have a dragon, Wren heroically managed not to say, with very impressive self-control, if she thought so herself.

  “And I have guards to protect me,” the boy said, as if that fact was extremely boring, but something he had to live with. “So where are you going?”

  Guards? Wren wondered. Why? He did look much more pampered and much less desperate than everyone around them.

  “I have decided not to go to the Indestructible City today,” she said, lifting her chin. “Not that it’s any of your business. Good-bye.”

  He did not move out of her way. The cat blinked thoughtfully at her.

  “You look silly,” said the boy. “That dress is too small for you.”

  “Well, that cat is too big for you, and so is your stupid face,” Wren said. She wondered where his parents were, and why they let him have a cat that size, and whether he was planning to try to carry it all the way up the steps to the Indestructible City.

  “Oh,” he said. “You’re funny. Are you one of the new clowns for the manor? Is that why you’re dressed like that?”

  “Why are you bothering me?” Wren demanded. “I don’t like people. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I don’t like people either,” he said. “Only cats. No, wait. Only this cat. Her name is Dragon.”

  “You are so weird,” Wren said. “It is WEIRD to name an animal after a totally different animal!”

  “Is it?” he said indifferently. “Dragon doesn’t care. I’m Undauntable. What’s your name?”

  “None of your business,” Wren answered. “Wait, what? You’re what?”

  “Undauntable,” he said. “That’s my name.”

  “That’s even worse than Dragon for a cat,” she said. “You made that up. Undauntable? That’s like putting a sign on your head that says ‘Go ahead and try to daunt me!’ Do your parents hate you?”

  He scowled with enormous ferocity. “NO. They think I am PERFECT.”

  “Then they should have called you Perfect,” Wren said. “If they were so determined to give you a terrible name.”

  “It’s NOT terrible,” he shouted. “I AM Undauntable! What’s your so-great name, then?”

  “Still none of your business,” Wren said. “I have places to be, good-bye.”

  He shoved the cat in her way so she had to stop again.

  “Will you tell me your name if I get you a new dress?” he demanded.

  “Definitely not,” Wren said. “I don’t want a new dress and I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  She turned to go another way and discovered a new, gigantic porcupine solder bristling with spikes, standing just behind her.

  This was a rather alarming discovery.

  “That’s my bodyguard,” said Undauntable. “So you probably shouldn’t kill me any of your eight ways.”

  “You’re from the city,” Wren realized. She should have guessed from the earring and the clean, shiny look of his clothes — what she could see of them beyond the cat (which she was NOT going to call Dragon. It could be Cat, if it had to be anything). And maybe his silly name was also a clue. Maybe all the kids in the Indestructible City had absurd pompous names, like the Invincible Lord. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I got bored, and so did Dragon,” he answered. “New people at least have a chance of being interesting.”

  Easily bored, rich, and powerful usually means dangerous. Wren narrowed her eyes at him, wondering what the safest way out of this conversation was.

  “Bodyguard,” Undauntable said. “Find me someone in this line who has a dress to trade in this girl’s size.”

  “Do NOT do that,” Wren said. “I don’t want a dress; I want a tunic and pants, and I will get them myself.” She hadn’t thought of trading with someone in the line. That would be much easier than going up to the city, although it might also draw more attention to her than she would like.

  “With what?” Undauntable said, sizing her up. “You don’t have anything to trade.”

  Wren slipped her hands in her pockets and felt a small, cool shape. “I have this,” she said, pulling it out. It was one of Sky’s baby scales that had molted off him recently. In the palm of her hand, it looked like a small, pale orange jewel.

  Undauntable gasped, and even his bodyguard’s eyes widened. “Is that a dragon scale?” Undauntable demanded. “I’ve never seen one that color before.”

  “Like I said, none of your business.” Wren pocketed the scale again and turned to saunter back up the line.

  “Wait,” Undauntable said. “I want it. Please let me have it. I’ll give you way more than anyone else here for it.”

  “You don’t have anything I want,” Wren said loftily.

  Undauntable hefted the cat over his shoulder and seized a pouch off the bodyguard’s belt. “Here,” he said, pouring round silver pieces into his palm. “You can have all of these.”

  “What good are little bits of silver to me?” Wren asked. “I can’t eat them or wear them or read them.”

  “What?” Undauntable said. “How backward is your village? You don’t use coins?”

  Wren didn’t think her parents had used “coins” in Talisman, but she wasn’t sure. “I just don’t want them,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” Undauntable said impatiently.

  They argued a bit more, until finally he walked her up and down the line and showed her how everyone would accept the silver coins in exchange for the things she really wanted. It was kind of a weird phenomenon. No one in Wren’s village had ever traded like this, with bits of shiny metal instead of useful things, as far as she could remember. But the travelers were eager to take them, so they must be useful in other places.

  The dragonmancers had all the shiny me
tal, she suddenly remembered. She’d seen lots of it in Master Trout’s secret cabinets when she stole the books, but she hadn’t thought it was very interesting. Maybe this is like the “treasure” the books talked about. All those pages of notes on which dragonmancer had what stuff. She’d skimmed that part; it was beyond boring to read about how two gold rings equaled one ruby equaled whatever whatever, with lots of notes on dividing it fairly into four exactly equal parts. Yawn.

  With Undauntable’s help, Wren ended up with dark green pants — too long, but she could roll them up and then unroll them as she got taller — a moss-green tunic, fawn-brown boots that felt weird after a year of bare feet, and a soft wool cloak dyed the gray of a stormy sky. She also got a map of the continent, two loaves of cranberry nut bread, a canteen on a strap for carrying water in, five books she’d never read before, and, in the end, Undauntable’s silver dragon earring, because she couldn’t think of anything else she needed and he insisted she needed more to repay the price of the scale.

  “All right, you can have it,” she said, dropping the little scale into his hand.

  “Where did you find it?” he asked. He breathed on it and rubbed it shiny, then held it up to the light. “I bet this came from a baby dragon,” he said shrewdly. “If we could track it down, I could have a whole chest plate made of these.”

  Wren shuddered. She did not like the image that popped into her head of Undauntable hunting down Sky, searching for more scales.

  “I found it in the swamps,” she said, pointing northeast —the opposite direction from where Sky was hidden. Undauntable did not look like a guy who’d enjoy wading through swamps. “If I find another one … I could bring it back to you.”

  “Yes!” he said delightedly. “Do that! Don’t sell it to anyone else!”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll come back and look for you in a year. Maybe a little sooner if I finish these books and need something else to read.”

  “A year?” he said, dismayed. “That’s so long!”

  “I think you’ll survive,” she said, rolling her new possessions up in her cloak.