Dragonslayer

by Tui T. Sutherland

  It was freezing up in the night sky, with the wind whipping Ivy’s hair all around her face, but the golden dragon’s scales were warm, like lying on sunbaked rocks in the summertime.

  “I think I love you,” Ivy said to the dragon, resting her cheek on the dragon’s neck. They soared over the forest, over the hillside that hid all the entrances to Valor. The dragon glided in a wide circle, as if this was the simplest evening stroll for her. As if she was just popping down to Violet’s cave and back, when in fact she was taking Ivy three times as far as Ivy had ever been.

  Valor is just one city in this enormous world, Ivy thought. We’re just one tiny group of people. All their heavy, insurmountable problems were like dandelion seeds up here; Ivy felt like she could blow them away with one breath.

  She didn’t know how long they spent flying — later it seemed like a dream. But at some point the dragon tilted its wings and arrowed down toward the blackened hole in the forest; the ruins got closer and closer, and then the dragon landed gracefully, and there was Leaf.

  He leaped back with a yelp of fright. “Ivy! I thought she’d taken you and eaten you and — IVY! YOU’RE ON A DRAGON! YOU’RE SITTING ON THE DRAGON IVY I THINK SHE MIGHT NOTICE!”

  “She put me there!” Ivy said, sliding down the dragon’s wing to the ground. The warm scales moved away from her and her legs felt wobbly. “It was her idea! Leaf, she took me flying! I have no idea why!”

  “That sounds very unsafe!” he cried. “I don’t know why I’m shouting. But it was alarming to come back and find you gone. I can’t believe you rode a dragon!”

  “It was everything, Leaf! I want to do it every day for the rest of my life!”

  The dragon cleared its throat, reached over Ivy, and seized the bag that Leaf was holding.

  “Oh,” Ivy said as the dragon carried it over to the torch. “Oh, wow, you got it!”

  “Your mom helped me,” he said. “She says she loves you and not to come back yet.”

  Yet, Ivy thought with a thrill of relief. That means she thinks we can sometime. And she helped Leaf — I wouldn’t have guessed she’d do that. Oh, Mom, I love you, too.

  The dragon emptied the treasure into an enormous glittering pile of gold, with gems the size of fists, each one more than enough for an entire family to become rich. Ivy remembered how her father talked about the treasure and how much he loved it. But he didn’t need all this. It made him powerful, but it also made him paranoid and suspicious and furious all the time.

  Ivy watched the dragon sort through the gems, carefully at first, and then faster, with a look on her face that Ivy would have called distress if she’d been a human.

  She’s looking for something specific, Ivy realized. Something she really needs.

  Maybe all the dragons are looking for it, and that’s why they burn villages — not for vengeance, but because they need it back.

  The golden dragon whipped around and roared at them.

  “That’s all of it!” Leaf cried. “It’s all there, I promise!”

  She roared again and lashed her tail, smoke rising from her snout. “ROOOOOAAARRR roargrrrrROARGRRROAR! ROAAARGH?”

  “We’re sorry?” Ivy said. “Maybe … someone else has what you’re looking for?”

  “GRRRRMPH,” said the dragon, sitting down and glaring at the treasure.

  “She seems less thrilled than I expected,” Leaf said to Ivy.

  “I can see that,” Ivy said.

  The dragon started talking to herself in little growls and grumbles, as though she was listing all the things wrong with stupid treasure-stealing humans. Or possibly she was trying to figure out where else to look. Or she might have been debating whether to eat them, since they’d disappointed her so much; Ivy couldn’t really tell.

  Ivy edged closer until she was right at the dragon’s feet. She reached out and patted one of the warm golden talons. “It’ll be all right, big scary dragon. Don’t be mad.”

  The green eyes looked down at her like the dragon actually understood her. We can communicate with dragons, Ivy thought. If we try harder. They’re not all mindless hungry monsters. At least some of them are like this. If dragons like this can convince other dragons to stop eating us … maybe one day we can all be safe.

  The dragon said something else, possibly to itself.

  “I’d still like to know about Aunt Rose,” Ivy said. She pointed to the dragon’s shoulder again. “What happened to the human? Where is she? Can we have her back?”

  “Roarmorgrrroarble,” the dragon said. She turned and swept the treasure back into the sack, including the sapphire. Then she made a little bow to Leaf and Ivy, spread her wings, and said something else in her growly way.

  “Wait — don’t go,” Ivy said. “This is an enormous breakthrough for human-dragon relations! And you have to help me find Rose!”

  The dragon patted Ivy’s head and then Leaf’s, and then she leaped into the sky and soared away, carrying the treasure sack in her talons.

  “Wait!” Ivy cried, waving her arms. “Come back!”

  The dark sky swallowed up the little golden dragon, and in a moment, she was gone.

  Ivy looked at Leaf. Leaf looked at Ivy.

  “So, wait,” he said. “Did … that dragon just … fly away with all our treasure?”

  “Um,” said Ivy. “Yes. But! Maybe she’s going to give it back to the sand dragons?”

  “She went that way,” Leaf observed, pointing east. “The desert is in the other direction.”

  “True,” Ivy said. “True. Concerning, I’ll admit.”

  “Do we think she’s coming back with your aunt?”

  Ivy gazed up at the empty sky. “Maybe?”

  But the dragon did not return. Not that night, not the following day. Ivy’s new best friend, her best chance at establishing peaceful human-dragon coexistence, had apparently not understood one single word that she’d said, and had flown away forever.

  “That’s just fine,” Ivy said to Daffodil. “Who needs her? I’ll find a different dragon to change the world with me. No problem.”

  “At least you got to fly!” Daffodil said indignantly. “SO unfair! I would obviously like to go flying, too, all you friendly dragons out there! Come on!”

  Stone appeared next to the temple — very literally, suddenly materializing out of thin air about an arm’s length away from Leaf.

  “YIIIIIIEEEE!” Leaf yelped in alarm. “What — how —”

  “Oh, your invisibility necklace!” Ivy said. “I forgot about that! Did you use it inside Valor?”

  “Did you see anyone?” Daffodil asked. “Like Violet or Foxglove?”

  He shook his head. “Got horses,” he said. “Ready to go?”

  Ivy scrambled to her feet. “Now? Yes! Now! OK! I’m ready. Oh, wow, we’re going to a dragon palace! Uncle Stone, wait until you hear what happened to us last night!”

  Stone stopped Daffodil as she jumped up, too. “I could only get three,” he said. “Sorry — but a mob of humans showing up at the gate probably wouldn’t go well anyway.”

  “I’m not a MOB,” Daffodil objected. “Ivy’s my best friend! Wherever she goes, I’m going, too!”

  “Violet’s your best friend, too, though,” Ivy said, taking one of her hands. “She needs someone here in case things go badly in Valor. You and Forest might have to rescue her or something.”

  “Yes!” Daffodil whispered, her eyes lighting up. “A heroic rescue, and then she’ll have to be grateful to me for forever! I am so up for that!”

  Ivy hugged her. “We’ll be back as soon as we can. Hopefully with Aunt Rose. Stay safe.”

  “Um, you stay safe,” Daffodil said. “You’re the one charging off into the dragons’ jaws.”

  But as she and Leaf and Stone galloped into the desert, Ivy thought of the golden dragon again, and she felt just a bit less terrified.

  They’re not all monsters, she reminded herself. That means we have a chance. A chance to save Rose, a chance to bring her ba
ck and save our friends, maybe even a chance to communicate with them.

  Whatever was waiting for them at the palace of the desert queen, they could face it.

  After all, Ivy told herself, now I’m a girl who’s ridden a dragon.

  The palace was in an uproar, and Wren, for the first time, really did not know what to do.

  The dragons fighting in the desert had ended up inside the palace and there was a lot of hubbub and commotion and then some more fighting, and finally several dragons had flown away, but then a very short time later more dragons had arrived, and one of them was apparently the queen everyone had been waiting for, which made absolutely all the dragons FREAK OUT.

  On the plus side, in all the chaos and commotion, everyone seemed to have forgotten about Sky, who was still chained up in General Sandstorm’s room. Sandstorm had been saving him to be a special gift from the general alone, so nobody else apparently remembered or cared that there was a weird little dragon waiting to be handed over.

  For now … but Wren was sure someone would remember him eventually. That prince, perhaps, or one of the kitchen dragons who had been assigned to bring him food. Nobody showed up for the whole day after Queen Burn arrived, but at some point someone would go, “oh, right, wasn’t there a gift for the queen around here somewhere?” and maybe also, “hey, I can take credit for that present now!” And then they’d come for Sky, and her chance would be gone.

  “His body is just lying out there!” Wren said, pacing back and forth on the windowsill.

  “They’ll bring it inside the walls eventually, won’t they?” Sky asked.

  “But when?” She picked up one of the general’s sparkly pebbles from his collection and threw it as hard as she could at the stupid endless sand. “What if they pick up his body, see the key, remember you, and come straight here? Or what if they decide to burn all the bodies out there and the key melts along with everything else?”

  “Yeeeesh,” Sky said with a shiver.

  “I don’t know what this tribe does with its corpses,” Wren said. She put her hands on her hips. “I have to get to it. I’ll have to climb over the wall or sneak through the gate.” But she was worried about leaving Sky alone for however long it would take for her to do that. If someone remembered him while she was gone, he could vanish into the tower, or somewhere else in the palace.

  Or worse. Wren remembered what the general had said about killing and stuffing her friend. She wasn’t thinking about it; she couldn’t think about that.

  “I wish I had fire,” Sky said disconsolately. “Maybe I could burn up these chains if I did.”

  Wren climbed down from the window and went to hug him. Sky hadn’t said anything about wishing he had fire in years. She wished she could chop off the heads of every dragon who’d made him feel bad about it again.

  “They wouldn’t have left you in chains that fire could melt if you had fire,” she pointed out reasonably. “So don’t even think about it.”

  “Can we break them some other way?” Sky whacked his wrist cuff into the stone wall and winced.

  They tried everything. Wren found a large knife in Sandstorm’s things and tried to pry one of the links open, but she only succeeded in nearly impaling herself. She jabbed several pointy things into the keyhole to see if she could pick the lock, but none of them worked.

  By nightfall, the chain was still on, and the body of General Sandstorm was still out in the desert.

  “Maybe that human could help you,” Sky said. “The one who lives here.”

  Wren rubbed her eyes, thinking about that. She didn’t like the idea of asking a human for help — but then again, Rose wasn’t like other humans. Wren would have to tell her about Sky … but if anyone could understand being friends with a dragon, it was Rose.

  “I’ll see if I can find her,” Wren said. “Good idea, Sky.” He looked so delighted with himself, she couldn’t resist hugging him again.

  Of course, it wasn’t the easiest thing, finding another small human in a palace this size. Wren searched for part of the night, and then decided to at least try scaling the giant wall from one of the empty courtyards.

  “Ow!” She leaped back with a hiss. Sharp spikes and glass were embedded in the wall all the way to the top. Its height wasn’t the only thing that was human-proof about it.

  “Sorry, I should have warned you,” Rose said, appearing from the shadows. “It’s pretty awful, isn’t it? The new queen here — the one who took over after the one my brother killed — really hates humans. I can’t even climb these walls, and climbing was always my thing.”

  She ripped a strip of cloth off the bottom of her pants and took one of Wren’s hands, wrapping the bandage around it with no particular skill or gentleness. She hasn’t taken care of another human in a long time, Wren thought. Something we have in common.

  “I’m fine,” Wren said, pulling her hand back and rewrapping the bandage herself. “What were all those dragons fighting about earlier today?”

  “Wasn’t it exciting?” Rose said. “I mean, I missed a lot of it because my dragon put me in a room and tried to make me stay there. But I eventually found a place to watch some of the action.”

  “And?” Wren said. “Who was attacking?”

  Rose lifted her hands, palms up. “Who knows? Other desert dragons, for some reason. I think they came to get this one prisoner, because they flew off with her.”

  “The one in the tower?” Wren asked. “Who was always roaring about killing everyone?”

  “No,” Rose said, squinting at her again. “The one who arrived two days ago, who was little and cute. I mean, for a dragon. She had sunshine-yellow scales, kind of golden, and she looked a little bit like a sand dragon, but with no tail barb. I kept her company in the tower for a night. Poor little thing, she was so scared. I’m glad she got away.”

  “I don’t think I saw her,” Wren said. She realized she was walking back toward Sky without even thinking about it. It made her nervous to have left him alone for so long.

  “The other prisoner left, too, though,” Rose said, falling into step beside her. “They’re both gone. Maybe the dragons who attacked wanted both of them? But they went in different directions. I don’t know, it was confusing, but the queen was absolutely FURIOUS.”

  “What did she say?” Wren asked.

  Rose looked at her sideways. “Um … ROOOOOOOOAR, and by the way ROAR and oh, wait, she also said, ROOOAR ROOAR ROOAR.”

  Wren couldn’t help laughing. She didn’t know how Rose had lived with dragons all this time and not picked up some of their language, but that was still pretty hilarious.

  “So what are you up to?” Rose asked. “Did you slay your dragon? And now it’s time to go?”

  “Sort of. Yes and no,” Wren said. They walked for a moment, and then Wren realized from the expectant look on Rose’s face that she was waiting for more of an answer. “Yes, he’s dead,” she clarified. “But I need the key he’s wearing, and his body is out in the desert.”

  “Oh!” Rose said. “You should have told me that in the first place! I know where there are a lot of keys. My dragon keeps copies of all the keys in the castle around his neck.”

  Wren stopped and faced her. “He does?” Her mind was racing. Rose must be talking about Prince Smolder — he did have a lot of keys clanking around his neck.

  “Sure.” Rose pushed her hair back. “What does it look like?”

  “I can get it, if you tell me where to find him,” Wren said.

  “But I can get it way more easily!” Rose said. “Come on, I haven’t had a quest in years. I can be so helpful!”

  Wren was surprised to realize that she believed her. Rose could be helpful.

  What is this weird feeling? she thought. Like … being able to rely on someone else? Believing they will not betray you? Someone other than Sky?

  First Murderbasket, now Rose. Am I making … friends?

  She kind of wanted to laugh at herself, and she kind of wanted to go build a sn
ail shell of her own to hide in for a while.

  “Sure … but maybe you don’t have to,” Wren said. “Would you say Prince Smolder is a pretty reasonable dragon?” They stepped back into the kitchens, where only a pair of older dragons were still awake, preparing breakfast for tomorrow at the far end of the room. The dragons didn’t look up at the small patter of feet scurrying along the walls.

  Sky had said the prince was less hostile than the other dragons in the palace. And Wren herself thought Smolder seemed different from Sandstorm — not amused by the loudmouth dragon either. Perhaps she could bargain with him. Or wave her sword at him, if all else failed.

  “Who?” Rose asked.

  “Prince Smolder, your dragon,” Wren said impatiently. “Unless there’s some other dragon around here with lots of keys around his neck.”

  Rose pulled her to a stop and dragged her behind one of the baskets of lemons. “You did not just guess a name like that!” she cried. “Is that real? Is his name really Prince Smolder?”

  “How can he be your dragon if you don’t even know his name?” Wren demanded.

  “I’ve been calling him Ember all this time!” Rose said. “We sort of traded names at the beginning. He pointed to a picture of coals burning low in a fireplace … I guess he could have meant Smolder. I thought it was Ember!”

  “It’s Smolder,” Wren said. She’d confirmed that with Sky, and also learned a few new dragon words like weirdling and general. Sky had picked up a lot more Dragon while he was with the SandWing soldiers, although some of it was language that Wren did not care for.

  “You do understand the dragons!” Rose said. “How is that possible? I’ve lived with them for twenty years and I’ve only figured out a few words! How old are you, fourteen? Where did you learn it?”

  Do I trust her, or don’t I? Wren asked herself. She’d always always kept Sky a secret — but if she wanted Rose’s help, she had to take a chance.

  “I have a dragon of my own, too,” Wren confessed. “His name is Sky, and he’s chained up in Sandstorm’s room. I’m trying to set him free before someone gives him to the queen. Sandstorm said she might kill him and stuff him.”