Isle of Dragons

by J H G Foss

  Meggelaine gasped in horror as she saw that the huge wooden wheel was being pulled by two chained dragons. They had no claws or wings and their jaws were bound shut with irons. They looked weak and emaciated, and whenever one faltered, a man with a whip struck them on the back.

  Floran was equally dismayed at such a sight, but translated what the foreman told him. ‘These are Chasm dragons, captured in previous wars. They are sent here as punishment. They have their claws and wings removed to stop them escaping and their mouths bound shut to stop them breathing fire.’

  ‘How do they feed them?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Floran once he had received the answer from the foreman who was gesturing at the side of the dragons’ heads. ‘They have cut a hole in the side of their cheeks and they feed them slops through it.’

  ‘This is horrible. Please let’s go,’ said Meggelaine. ‘Can he take us to the top?’

  Using ladders they moved up the tower, sometimes moving through areas that were used as sleeping quarters. ‘Apparently they can live out here for years at a time,’ explained Floran.

  The top of the tower was flat, covered in wooden beams covered in tar. A few miners, presumably on a break, were also here, enjoying the fresh air. In the distance a dragon wheeled around, high in the sky and far away from the island. Floran spoke to the foreman then reported to the others.

  ‘He’s no idea what that dragon is doing, maybe hunting for dolphins. He seems to think we are auditors sent from the city. I wonder why the Chasm dragons don’t attack these towers, they look like easy targets to me. This old man has no idea about that either. Still, what a view.’

  ‘It’s incredible,’ admitted Meggelaine as she wandered around the edge of the tower, taking in the panorama. ‘Dozens of towers just like this one. How many bricks I wonder? Oh look over there.’

  She pointed to where a tower had collapsed, some way off, and around it were dozens of ship wrecks, piled up against the rubble.

  ‘What’s all that lot, Tup?’

  Floran asked the foreman then explained, ‘It is as it appears. That tower collapsed a long time ago, a hundred years ago he says. Now it is used as a ship’s graveyard. They pillage it for spares when required.’

  Both Tankle and Arrin were shielding their eyes and squinting at the wrecks and continued to do so when Meggelaine and Floran wandered off to the other side of the tower.

  ‘Notice how she acts when Roztov and Ghene are not around,’ remarked Tankle. ‘She acts like a child when in their company, but now look at her, ordering the men about.’

  Arrin laughed. ‘Yes, she’s a character. Do you see anything interesting in that lot?’

  ‘Piles of junk. I think I see the masts of a caravel on the other side of the tower. It must be an antique.’

  ‘Even so, an ocean-going vessel. I wonder how it got here.’

  When they reported this to Meggelaine she ordered the captain of their collier to detour around the collapsed tower on the way back.

  ‘He says it’s not safe,’ said Floran.

  She looked at Arrin. ‘It’s safe enough,’ he said, ‘if he keeps wide of the wrecks. We are laden down with coal, but the wind is with us.’

  ‘Give him another gold, Tup and tell him to get on with it,’ she said testily.

  The captain made some token objections, but the gold was a convincing argument and besides, he didn’t like the look in the eyes of the little girl that was giving out all the orders.

  As they passed the far side of the graveyard, Arrin and Tankle were able to get a good look at the wrecked caravel.

  ‘It would have been a fine enough ship in its day,’ remarked Tankle. ‘It’s like an Elbonian trader, but from a hundred years ago.’

  ‘Shame about the big hole in her hull though,’ said Arrin with a sigh.

  ‘It was ocean-going though?’ asked Meggelaine. ‘We could get away in it?’

  ‘Well, there are no sails. One of the masts is broken and there is that big hole...’ said Arrin.

  ‘Yes, yes, but if all that was fixed?’

  ‘She’d get us home for sure,’ said Arrin with certainty. Tankle nodded in agreement.

  ‘Don’t worry about the hole and the mast. Druid magic can fix that. The sails are more of a problem though. Oh, and a crew I suppose. How many would we need?’

  ‘Twenty, maybe twenty-five,’ answered Arrin.

  Meggelaine then went over to the other side of the ship to talk to the captain, using Floran to interpret her questions.

  ‘Do you think she’s trying to hire a crew?’ asked Tankle. ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Maybe Roztov could summon some... um... monkeys or something.’

  Tankle made a ‘pff’ noise with her lips.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Arrin. ‘We’d need proper sailors, I’m not sure about these fellows, they seem sturdy enough, but these scows and lighters will have never been sailed beyond the mines.’

  ‘We’re the last of the Red Maiden. We’ll get off this island somehow,’ said Tankle with determination. Arrin, thinking about it just at that moment, realised he had never doubted it until the death of Broddor. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  At the harbour, they disembarked from the collier and went to get a drink at one of the quayside taverns. Down on the docks they only served mushroom beer, that if anything was even less palatable than the sweet stout that issued from the dole carts. They sat in the late afternoon sun, a stiff sea breeze blowing the smoke from the tower out over their heads.

  Floran went to do some shopping and left Meggelaine with the sailors to continue talking over nautical matters. After a short while Tankle, who was sat facing the other two, noticed a commotion down at where the collier had been moored.

  ‘Here comes trouble.’

  The collier captain was leading a group of gendarmes towards them. He pointed to where they were sat and with animated hand gestures bid the armed men follow him.

  ‘Typical,’ said Meggelaine. ‘Just when Floran’s not here to translate. Let’s just see what they do. If it all kicks off, I’ll do... something.’

  One of the gendarmes addressed himself to Arrin, ignoring the two women. Arrin had picked up a few words of Draconic from being on Tanud. ‘Me, village man, run dragons,’ he said, gesturing towards the unseen mountains, trying to imply they were refugees.

  The gendarme pointed at Tankle and Meggelaine and told them to pull back their hoods.

  ‘Wife,’ said Arrin nervously. ‘Daughter.’

  The gendarme, a man in his forties, smiled and tickled Meggelaine under the chin. She faked a childish laugh.

  ‘Wait,’ said the gendarme. They waited ten minutes, then a large black dragon bearing a blue stone around its neck landed and waddled towards them. All three of them were terrified by this huge dark beast, but stood as still as they could as it activated and shone its stone on them. When nothing happened it snarled and took off again. The gendarme turned to the collier captain and cuffed him hard around the back of the head and then walked off, gesturing his men to follow him.

  The captain gave them a dazed look then ran back to where his ship was moored.

  ‘What did they expect? We were a bunch of dragons in disguise? What a nerve after all that gold we gave him. Call the watch on us, eh?’ growled Meggelaine. ‘I’m going to teach that fellow a lesson he won’t forget.’

  She hopped down from her chair, adjusted her belt and stormed after the captain.

  ‘In the name of Blimaron,’ gasped Tankle. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We’d better follow her.’

  ‘Should we do something?’

  Arrin gave a couple of notes of script to the waiter, settling the bill and set off after the torm. ‘If the captain goes for her, you grab her and run for it. I’ll punch him on the nose.’

  Meggelaine, walking quickly, had reached the moored collier and was facing down the captain. Arrin and Tankle arrived behind her, but stood a few steps back. They respected Meggelaine t
oo much to stop her giving the captain a piece of her mind.

  ‘Give me the gold back, you hooligan!’ demanded Meggelaine, waving her finger at him. She then pointed at the palm of her hand. ‘Gold? See? You idiot. Stop smiling at me.’

  The captain laughed, but then stopped when he realised he was beginning to draw a crowd. Meggelaine continued to scold him in a language he didn’t understand and not wanting to be a laughing stock in front of his fellow sailors he decided to do something very foolish and pushed Meggelaine to the cobblestones. Meggelaine squealed, and then raised her right hand. A blast of magical wind knocked the captain from his feet and he too landed on the cobbles. Meggelaine stood up and as some of the ship’s crew rushed at her, she blasted them away with a magical wind too, sending them rolling back, tumbling head over heels, half of them falling off the quayside and landing in the sea, yelling and screaming.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ snarled Meggelaine, raising both hands. ‘You dirty rotter!’

  She lunged at the captain, making him clamber backwards on his rear end. Meggelaine then went over to the collier and with a sweep of her hands, magically created a large dip in the water that the ship rolled into, causing the cargo that had not been taken off it yet to spill into the sea. With gurgling groans the ship sunk, pulling its rope off the mooring post with a twang.

  With a sweep of her hand, a strong wind blew the captain off the quayside and out into the harbour where it deposited him a hundred yards away. When near the sea, a druid’s ability to control the wind was strong.

  ‘I hope he can swim,’ gasped Arrin.

  Tankle found her mouth was hanging open. ‘She did all that,’ she gasped. ‘While wearing the cutest little red shoes with pink ribbons...’

  Meggelaine turned to them and said, ‘let’s go,’ and as they went she summoned up a thick mist to hide their retreat from the harbour, with hood up and heads down they returned to their apartment.

  Once she’d had a nice cup of tea and her anger had subsided, Meggelaine was remorseful.

  ‘What have I done? Maybe he genuinely thought we were Chasm dragons in disguise. That ship would have been his livelihood. What if his family starves now?’

  ‘Meg, what are you talking about? You kicked arse back there, it was amazing!’ gushed Tankle.

  ‘Aye, don’t worry about that old tosspot,’ agreed Arrin. ‘The boats all belong to the dragons anyway, remember? This isn’t like back home. Even back home, generally the captain doesn’t own the ship. Well, our captain owned the Red Maiden, but that’s not always the case.’

  ‘Oh, well...’ sighed Meggelaine, warming her hands on the tea cup.

  ‘That was amazing Meg,’ said Tankle who still could not get over how the small torm had thrown back all those men then sunk a ship.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Arrin. ‘Hey, who do you think would win in a fight? A druid or a wizard?’

  ‘Oh well, even so,’ said Tankle with an apologetic bow to Meggelaine, ‘I think a wizard.’

  ‘You’re just saying that because you’re in love with Tuppence!’ joked Arrin.

  Meggelaine snorted with laughter at Arrin’s remark. Floran and Tankle were not making any effort to hide their relationship any more, as they spent each night downstairs in the big double bed.

  ‘A wizard would kill a druid instantly with a fireball,’ Tankle argued.

  ‘A druid would change into a bear, or a dragon, shrug off the fireball and rip the wizard’s head off.’

  Arrin made wild gestures with his hands in an attempt to illustrate his point.

  ‘Only Roztov can be a dragon,’ said Tankle.

  Meggelaine finished her tea and started preparing the evening meal. The friendly argument continued until Floran returned, and not long after him, Roztov and Ghene.

  ‘Well, actually, me and Floran did fight once,’ said Roztov, having overheard some of it.

  Tankle and Arrin gasped simultaneously.

  ‘We’d been captured by Nog pirates, north of Fiarka, on our return from Joppa. They thought it amusing to make their captives fight each other.’

  ‘Who won?’ asked Tankle.

  ‘Well, I think I won,’ said Roztov with a smile towards Floran, ‘I tied him down with roots then beset him with a swarm of stinging insects.’

  ‘Bah,’ grunted Floran. ‘I remember that. I was holding back though.’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Roztov holding up his hands. ‘You set fire to me!’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Meggelaine. ‘I’ve heard this pissing contest discussed quite a few times before, it never leads anywhere good.’

  ‘But how did you escape the pirates?’ asked Arrin.

  ‘Yes, how did we escape?’ wondered Roztov, pulling on his beard. ‘I think it involved Broddor doing something stupid. That was probably it.’

  As they ate together they went on to tell each other how their days had been. Roztov and Ghene agreed that the caravel out at the mines sounded interesting.

  ‘If Floran can translate for me, I think I can find sails and a crew. You pair of fools finish up your skyscraper nonsense and we can be on our way.’

  ‘Not long now, Em,’ said Roztov. ‘In truth, part of me will be sad to leave. There is so much to learn here. We know more about dragons now than anyone back in Nillamandor I’ll warrant. Here, the dragons are aggressive by nature, more so than men, but they do not universally mistreat their human thralls and servants. Just as a man may be kind to his horses and hounds, another man may be cruel. So it is with dragons. Even a kind man, when he has no use for an old horse, will most likely kill it.’

  ‘Men are not animals,’ Floran commented.

  ‘Of course yes, but that is what we are to them. The people of the Stovologard have no more rights than the rock lizards.’

  Once the dinner things had been cleared away they brought out the cards and Roztov, Floran, Ghene and Meggelaine played a few hands of the four player game they had learned while living in the city.

  ‘I think I’ve worked out why the tenements are half empty,’ said Roztov. ‘They don’t write down human history here, but the dragons are long lived and I hear them talk. Stovologard was once much more populated than it was, but two hundred years ago there was a very big war and half the population were killed.’

  ‘There must be some racial memories about it though,’ said Floran. ‘The top floors of tenements are considered bad luck to live in. As are the bottom floors. The middle floors are considered the best bet. This may be because they are safest from dragon attack.’

  ‘I have heard stories of population purges too,’ put in Ghene. ‘The dragons keep down the human population the same as men do with rabbits. It is not the dragons directly that kill the most people though, it is the air. No one lives past forty here because by that age their lungs are full of soot.’

  ‘Oh don’t,’ shuddered Meggelaine. ‘I don’t want to hear about it. Stop finding out about miserable things. Has anyone found out where the chocolate comes from?’

  Roztov gave her a smile and tried to ruffle her hair, but she ducked out of the way with a growl.

  ‘I’m going back to see Lorkuvan in a couple of days,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask her about it then. I should ask her where all the elephants have gone too, while I remember. No one I've asked yet seems to know.’

  'The dragons ate them Roz,' said Meggelaine with certainty. 'The dragons ate them.'

  Roztov did indeed return to speak to Lorkuvan on the day she had told him to come to her.

  ‘There will be a diet,’ she told him. ‘Blavius will meet Primus. There will be a delegation from the Spire. I will be there as a diplomat to the Chasm. You can be there as my advisor.’

  ‘Can I bring a friend?’

  ‘If you must. They apparently want to talk about the terms of the ceasefire. It is usual sort of thing. It will hold for a few months, a year or two maybe, then it will all flare up again.’

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘Come again in three days. Then stay here.
It will be on the third day, or the day after.’

  At lunch, in the long, gloomy servants hall Roztov and Ghene went over their plans, sat as far away from the other men as they could.

  ‘It’s probably best to lie low from now until this diet. We have enough food back at the apartment. We should just shut the door and keep our heads down.’

  Roztov was already getting nervous and fidgety about it. 'It will kick off, I just know it. Something really big and bad is going to happen and we'll be right in the middle of it. How are your visions?'

  ‘They continue,’ admitted Ghene glumly.

  ‘Anything to report?’ asked Roztov with nervousness in his voice.

  ‘Nothing that you want to hear,’ answered Ghene.

  Chapter 21

  The Caravel

  Roztov spent the rest of the evening fidgeting and pacing up and down.

  ‘Just sit down,’ said Meggelaine. ‘You’re causing a draft.’

  ‘I need tobacco, Em,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll never make it through these next three days without a pipe to smoke.’

  ‘Just make yourself one.’

  ‘I’ve not tobacco to put in it though!’

  Meggelaine tutted at him and waved him away with a dismissive gesture and went back to her cooking.

  He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. Meggelaine went over and patted him on the head. ‘Just calm down.’

  ‘Lost pipe. Lost pouch. Lost Broddor. All is lost.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ she said, being the less anxious one for once. ‘Besides, you know, those holy knights, sometimes they come back.’

  ‘That’s just stories.’

  ‘Well, what about that pouch you had from Moletown?’

  ‘I finished it ages ago. Nothing since we got to Stovologard,’ groaned Roztov, his head still on the table. ‘It was pretty nasty anyway. How did it come to this? How can Broddor be dead? We should never have come here.’

  ‘There’s no use crying over every mistake. You just keep on going, for the ones that are still alive.’