Dragonslayer

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “But my treasure,” he muttered sulkily.

  “If losing your treasure is the worst punishment you get for everything you’ve done,” Lark said, “you’ll be more lucky than you deserve. Let’s go home.” She hesitated. “Ivy?”

  Ivy shook her head. “I’m sorry to leave you,” she said, “but I can’t stay here. Not after everything I’ve seen outside. We’re going to change the world, Mom.”

  Now she knew it was possible. Dragons could learn to speak Human; humans could speak Dragon. Wren and Sky proved that, and they were only the beginning. There were kind dragons out there, thoughtful dragons, dragons who liked humans. Dragons who were ready for peace.

  Ivy just had to find them. And with Wren, and Leaf, and Sky, and anyone else who wanted to join them, she was going to try.

  It was just a lovely coincidence that they arrived on Dragonmancer Appreciation Day. The entire town of Talisman was gathered for the festival, awkwardly drinking apple cider and talking in loud voices about how wonderful the dragonmancers were, as they had to do every year.

  The sun was shining in a cloudless azure-blue sky when Wren dropped into the town square on her dragon.

  “Hello,” she sang, sliding down his leg. “I’m baaaaaack!”

  There was no screaming or running like there had been in Valor. In Talisman, the villagers stood petrified, their apple doughnuts halfway to their mouths. They stared at the dragonmancers, waiting for them to save them.

  Master Trout was caught by the food table with a mouthful of goat cheese. He blinked at the dragon in horror as Wren sauntered toward him.

  “Hello, you very terrible person,” she said. “This is your last Dragonmancer Appreciation Festival, I’m afraid. Remember me?”

  “No,” he said in a choked voice.

  “Yeah, you do,” she said. She beckoned to Crow and Gorge, who were trying to sidle behind some of the bigger townspeople. “Come on over and be appreciated,” she called.

  In the trees, Leaf and Ivy darted around the outskirts of the village. They’d found Cranberry and Thyme two days earlier, hiding in one of the caves where Leaf used to train with Rowan. They told him that Rowan had gone back into the village on her own to bargain for Grove’s life, and the dragonmancers had thrown her in jail. She’d refused to give them the treasure until Grove was free, and they’d refused to let either of them go until they had it.

  “Because they won’t actually let them go,” Wren had said. “They’ll sacrifice them to the dragons as soon as they have it.” She rubbed her hands together. “But we’re going to stop them.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Leaf asked her.

  “I’ve been up for this for seven years,” she pointed out. “I just didn’t think it would make any difference to anyone, until you found me. And I didn’t know what I knew, until I was standing in Valor, looking down at that treasure, and I realized what I’d read. Now that I do, I can’t not do something.”

  Leaf shimmied up to the top of the jail roof. From there, he had a clear view of Wren facing off against Master Trout. The dragonmancer looked old and pale, but every inch of him still radiated evil.

  He narrowed his eyes at Wren. “You,” he said slowly.

  “Should be dead?” she guessed. “My dragon and I disagree. We think the world is better with me in it.”

  Leaf smiled. He had started making a habit of telling Wren that every day.

  “How —” Master Trout started, and once again Wren jumped in to finish his sentence.

  “Did I survive?” she said. “I used that temper and that bad attitude you were always complaining about. Listen, this conversation is going to take forever if we have to wait for you to complete a whole sentence. I’ll just cut to the exciting part. Hey, town of Talisman, did you know that your dragonmancers used to be treasure smugglers? They stole treasure from the mountain palace, probably more than once. But there weren’t three of them back then. There were four.” She held up four fingers and pivoted in a circle, making sure everyone’s eyes were on her.

  “Guess what happened to the fourth?” Wren said. “No, not you, Trout; we know you’ll just lie. The fourth treasure smuggler, ladies and gentlemen, was the very first person our fine dragonmancers decided to ‘sacrifice to the dragons.’ Why? Two great reasons. One, it was very dramatic. It established the dragonmancers as mystical visionaries who received messages from the dragons; messages like ‘kill your friend for us, we’re hungry today!’ Which are all lies, in case you’re curious.

  “But the second reason was more important, of course. The second reason was that with her dead, these three only had to split the treasure three ways. More treasure for them! Plus a town full of gullible idiots who worshipped at their feet. Two excellent upsides, for just a tiny bit of murder.”

  “Lies,” Crow hissed. “You don’t know anything, brat.”

  Sky snarled at her, and Crow staggered back into a table with a squeak of terror.

  He’s doing a much better job of being scary, suddenly, Leaf thought. This was the most ferocious he’d ever seen the gentle dragon look. Because he’s actually mad at these people. He knows what they did to Wren.

  “And then some time passed,” Wren went on, ignoring Crow. “And they missed the treasure, but they were too lazy to go get more themselves. New brilliant idea: Let’s get some apprentices, train them up, use them as free servants for a while, and then send them off to the palace in our place. If they die there, no big deal; just get another apprentice. But if they succeed, and return with treasure … well, that’s great, but then we have the dividing-treasure-four-ways problem again. There’d be so much more treasure for the dragonmancers, plus a little useful fear in the hearts of the villagers, if we just had another sacrifice.”

  “Is that true?” called Leaf’s old teacher. “Did you send my nephew to the dragon palace? Is that how he really died?”

  “What about my daughter?” cried another. “What happened to her?”

  “Now, now.” Master Trout raised his hands with a superior, patronizing expression. “Are you all seriously going to listen to the mad ramblings of a bitter teenager? Everyone knows teenagers are melodramatic and hysterical. Especially the girls.”

  “Sky, eat this gross man,” Wren said.

  Sky took a menacing step toward him and Trout let out a shriek of fear, throwing his arms over his head. Wren held up her hand and Sky paused.

  “Just kidding. For now anyway.” Wren glanced around. “I’m happy to show everyone the proof. Let’s check the books. You know, the ones I read when I was seven, which made you decide a little girl was too dangerous to be allowed to live. Gorge, the keys to the dragonmancers’ meeting house, please.”

  “Do not give them to her,” Trout cried.

  But Sky leaned forward with a growl, and Gorge quickly fumbled them out of his robe and tossed them to Wren. She lobbed them to Cranberry, who was already in place by the door of the meeting house. Cranberry unlocked the door, then removed the ring of keys and threw them up to Leaf.

  “Hey,” Gorge protested as Leaf vaulted off the roof and started sorting through the keys. “You didn’t say you’d be unlocking the jail as well.”

  “Surprise!” Wren said. “Let’s think of it as payback for that one time when you didn’t mention that you were feeding me to dragons.”

  Leaf found the right key and let himself into the damp, musty cell. Rowan was kneeling on the only cot, her eye pressed to a crack in the wall so she could see everything happening in the square outside. Her hair was matted and she was thinner than before, but her face lit up like a sky full of lightning when she saw Leaf.

  “It is you!” she cried. “I thought I was hallucinating — am I hallucinating?”

  “I’m really here,” Leaf said. He crouched to check on Grove, who was lying on the floor, looking ill. Grove gave him a weak smile.

  “But out there — is that — it can’t be —”

  “It is Wren.” Leaf helped Grove to his f
eet. Rowan slung his other arm around her shoulders, and they all staggered back out into the sunshine.

  “I can’t believe it,” Rowan whispered, staring at Wren. Her eyes drifted to the dragon, then back to her long-lost sister.

  Cranberry emerged from the meeting house with three books stacked in her arms and carried them over to Wren. In a calm, ringing voice, Wren held up each one, explained the contents, and read a few passages. Lists of accumulated treasure. Drafts of vision-related speeches and ceremonies. Notes on each apprentice and how they’d died.

  The silence in the square was hollow, as though she read to a crowd of empty wax figures.

  She closed the last book and looked around. “I don’t care what you do with them,” she said. “That’s up to you. But if I hear that any more kids are going missing in Talisman, we will come back, and we will burn all your houses down, and we will take the children away somewhere safe.” Her eyes fell on a small boy. It was Butterfly, Leaf realized, not much taller than he had been when they hid in the cellar together six years ago.

  “You be in charge of these,” Wren said, placing the books in his arms. “This is about all the glorious homecoming I can stand.”

  Cranberry and Thyme came forward with horses and helped Rowan and Grove to climb on. They had a horse for Ivy and one for Leaf as well.

  Somebody moved, finally, in the frozen crowd. Leaf’s father stepped forward, his hand outstretched toward his children.

  “Wait,” he called. “Wren —”

  “No,” she said to his face. “No to you, and no to her.” She nodded to their mother, close behind him. “No forever.” She turned her back on them and climbed onto Sky. The dragon hissed at them, spread his wings, and vaulted into the air.

  “Leaf?” his mother called. “Rowan?”

  Neither of them answered. They turned their horses and galloped away, following the trail of the dragon overhead.

  A long time later, Wren finally spiraled down to land by the river. She grinned at Leaf and Ivy as they rode up.

  “Holy dragons, Wren!” Ivy cried. “You are so scary when you want to be!”

  “Eh, it was all right,” Leaf said. “I would have done a little more tugging on the heartstrings, maybe —”

  “Shut up,” Wren said. “Sky, splash this impertinent loudmouth for me.”

  Sky enthusiastically whacked his tail in the river, dousing all of them as thoroughly as if they’d fallen in, including Wren.

  “Ack!” she yelped, holding out her drenched sleeves. “Sky! Naughty dragon!”

  He chortled with delight and flapped his wings.

  Wren looked down and noticed Rowan, standing at Sky’s feet and gazing up at Wren as though Wren might be a dragon herself. Leaf saw Wren hesitate before saying, “Hey, Rowan.”

  “Wren, I’m so sorry,” Rowan said. She reached up to touch Wren’s foot, and then pulled her hand back. “I am so, so, so sorry I told on you about the books. I had no idea what would happen.”

  “Oh, that,” Wren said. She thought for a moment. “Hmmm … no, I don’t forgive you. Sky, eat my sister.”

  Sky swung his head around and said something stern in their mixed-up language; the only word Leaf caught was teasing.

  “All right, all right!” Wren leaned down and clasped Rowan’s hand. “I forgive you. For that anyway. Not for making Leaf such a warrior, though. He’s totally insufferable now.”

  “He forced me to!” Rowan protested. “He was driving me nuts about becoming a dragonslayer! Um, no offense,” she added quickly, glancing up at Sky.

  “Thank you for not becoming a dragonslayer,” Sky said to Leaf in Human. Ivy started giggling at the astonished expressions on the others’ faces. “It would be very confusing to be friends with you if that was your job.”

  “I thought I had to slay dragons to protect people,” Leaf said. “I never thought I could actually work with a dragon to protect them instead.”

  “I’m very grateful,” Rowan said, and Grove nodded in agreement.

  “What are we all going to do now?” he asked.

  “Well,” Leaf said, “you could take your stolen treasure and do something good with it. Like build a town where people can actually be safe.”

  “People like the refugees living in the shadow of the Indestructible City,” Wren suggested. “The ones whose villages have been burned, who need somewhere to go that will actually welcome them in and protect them.”

  “And tell them the truth about dragons,” Ivy added. “That we could communicate with them, if we try. That there’s hope for peace.”

  “We could do that,” Cranberry said. “Dibs I get to be mayor!”

  “But what about you three?” Rowan asked. “Don’t you want to help build it with us?”

  “Maybe when we come back,” Wren said.

  “We’re trying out kind of a new idea for our destiny,” Leaf added. He looked at Ivy, who smiled back at him.

  “That’s right,” she said. “We have a little golden dragon to find.”

  UNDAUNTABLE

  From the window of the throne room, Undauntable could see half the world, and he found it all aggravating.

  There were the jagged teeth of the mountain range stretching north and south, full of dragons who might eat Wren. There was the blue-green river winding away toward the sea, the one Wren always followed when she left. There was the forest that was supposed to magically produce her again, any moment, but there was no sign of her and she kept not being there, moment after moment, day after day.

  It had been fifty-nine days since he’d proposed to her and she’d stormed off. If she stayed away a full year again, that meant hundreds more days like this, long and boring and Wren-less.

  But she can’t, he thought to himself. She didn’t get the supplies she needed. She doesn’t have any books to read. So she has to come back sooner.

  It was not all right with him that she cared more about books than about seeing Undauntable, but at least she’d have to come back to the Indestructible City.

  And maybe next time she’ll stay.

  The spiked helmet was oppressively hot and the spiky jacket was worse, jabbing him in weird places whenever he shifted his weight. He could feel sweat rolling down his back and gathering in his armpits. But he was only allowed to sit by the window if he wore his spikes, and this was where he had to sit if he wanted to see her coming.

  Sometimes Undauntable wondered what would happen if he decided to leave with her one day. What if he snuck away from his guards and followed her to wherever she went when she left him? He had no idea where that was. He’d always imagined a small village down the river somewhere, but sometimes she would say things or buy things that made him think she lived alone, traveling around instead of staying in one place.

  What would that be like? Seeing a new place every day, instead of the same walls over and over again?

  It would be terrifying. Without the walls, the dragons could get you. Without the catapults and spikes and guards and weapons, you’d be the easiest prey they ever ate. Staying in the Indestructible City was the only way to stay safe. Undauntable knew that was true. He was terrified for Wren all the time; every time he heard a dragon overhead, he wondered if it had Wren in its claws. It made no logical sense to him that she’d survived all these years out there.

  It made even less sense that she would choose that life instead of safety with him.

  He heard movement behind him and turned to see his father entering the throne room with his usual entourage of councillors and sycophants. The Invincible Lord spotted Undauntable and beckoned imperiously.

  Undauntable sighed and took off his helmet. He knew his hair must be slick and disheveled, and that his father was judging his appearance as he approached. The lord looked perfect, as always, each dark hair combed into a thick royal mane, rings on every long thin finger, ruby-red robes without a wrinkle in sight.

  They reached the throne in the center of the room at the same time and Undauntable made
a polite bow.

  “Father,” he said.

  “Sit with me, boy,” his father said, indicating one of the stools beside the throne. “Apparently we have a visitor with a story worth hearing.”

  Undauntable unbuckled the spiked jacket with some difficulty and handed it and the helmet to one of the servants, trying not to gasp for air as it came off. His own pale orange robes were crumpled and damp, but he smoothed them out as best he could as he sat down.

  Even when I’m not perfect, I have something no one else has, he reminded himself. No one else in the Indestructible City wore dragon scales like the ones embedded in his earring, rings, and necklace. Wren’s scales were completely unique. They made him special, even when he felt alone and awkward and out of place and convinced that everyone hated him.

  The lord seated himself on the throne in a swirl of scarlet robes and nodded to the guards by the door.

  Undauntable squinted at the man who strode into the room, all big shoulders and crooked teeth and rugged streaks of dirt everywhere. He had the aura of someone who would cheerfully kick anyone in the face for money. A mercenary, Undauntable guessed.

  “Your Invincible Lordship,” the man said grandly, bowing until his forehead nearly touched the floor.

  “Boar,” said Undauntable’s father, and it took Undauntable a moment to realize he was saying the man’s name, not commenting on how dull he was. “Welcome back. How was the city of Valor?”

  “Very illuminating, sir, but nothing like as great as your city, of course. It was quite easy to get close to the Dragonslayer. He was willing to hire anyone who’d promise to protect him from you.”

  Father rubbed his chin and frowned. “And what have you learned? Did you plant the stories I told you to?” he asked. “Is he coming here at last?”

  “Much more interesting news than that, sir,” said Boar. As the Invincible Lord scowled, he hurried on. “There was an incident in Valor, my lord. The Dragonslayer is no longer in charge. In fact, he admitted in front of the entire town that he never killed that dragon after all.”