Tamora Carter

by Jim Hines

Tamora scanned the clouds.

  “What’re you doing?” asked Captain Coke.

  “Looking for the dragon.”

  “In the sky?” The pix shook his head in disgust. “You don’t know the first thing about ’em, do you?”

  “We don’t have dragons here,” she snapped.

  “One of the best things about your world,” Coke commented. “Spread out, and stay alert. Where’s my Second Bow?” Tamora thought he was searching for a weapon, but Vernors flew to his side. “Stay with the human. Second Squad, get ready to fall back. The rest of you, with me. Anyone rushing in like a blasted glory-dog will have his wings clipped.”

  That last was shouted directly at Fanta.

  Wherever the dragon was, it could clearly broadcast its thoughts. But it couldn’t read minds. Otherwise it wouldn’t need anyone to tell where the goblins and pix were hiding. Tamora tried not to think about the junkyard anyway, just to be safe. Instead, she turned her mind to the library and her conversation with Ms. Pookie. What was it the librarian had said?

  “…your best bet is to use the dragon’s pride against it. Either that, or run away.”

  Steam shot from the storm sewer grate across the road. Blacktop cracked and crumbled, and the grate fell inward.

  “It’s in the sewer?” Tamora whispered.

  “They prefer tunnels,” Vernors said coolly. “Loathsome beasts.”

  “Fanta seems to think you can handle it.”

  The pix stared, her head cocked sideways like an owl. “Fanta?”

  Tamora pointed to the orange-clad pix.

  “Ah, yes. ‘Fanta’ is young. And an idiot.” Vernors flew onto Tamora’s shoulder and dropped into a crouch, one hand clutching Tamora’s ear. “We’ll do our best to get you and the goblins away, but it won’t last. We knew the elves would come for us. They don’t like loose ends. Now that the dragon has our scent, it’s just a matter of time. You can’t outrun the filthy things. No matter how fast we fly, it’ll be waiting for us when we touch down.”

  An idea began to form. “Dragons are that fast?”

  “On a short, open stretch, they can take down a horse at full gallop.”

  Tamora spun toward the house. “Gulk, grab my skates. My wheeled boots. They’re next to the door.”

  “Nope! Not coming out!” the goblin shouted.

  Tamora heard the sounds of a scuffle, and a thump like one goblin smacking another on the head. A moment later, Pukwuk stepped into the doorway, Tamora’s skates in hand. She threw them one at a time. Tamora had to dodge to avoid being hit.

  “What are ye doing, human?”

  Tamora sat and pulled on her skates. “Your friends are getting ready to fight the dragon to give the rest of us time to escape. What’s going to happen to them?”

  Vernors didn’t answer.

  “That’s what I thought.” Tamora stood and stepped toward the sewer.

  “Hold up.” Vernors tugged Tamora’s ear hard enough to make her yelp. “My orders were to keep you safe. That means not marching toward the dragon’s gullet. I’ll shoot you myself and haul your sleeping body away if I have to.”

  “You can’t keep me safe. Even if we escape, it will find me, right?”

  “Can’t fight tomorrow if you die today,” Vernors retorted.

  “I can lead it away,” Tamora insisted. “These are…they’re magic boots.”

  “Right,” said Vernors. “And I’m a phoenix.”

  “The elves have my friend. That dragon might know how to get him back. I’m not running away.”

  Vernors chuckled. “I’m starting to see why those blue-skinned fools took a shine to you, Queen Tamora. All right—but I’m coming with you.” She pinched Tamora’s ear again. “No arguments. Otherwise, I go ahead and shoot you.”

  Tamora nodded and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hey, dragon! What’s your name?”

  “You’ll not have my name that easily, mortal.”

  “The pix here says you’re fast.”

  “As swift as the river, as strong as the mountain, and as fierce as the untamed wildfire. The magnificence of a dragon is unrivaled on this world or any other. I am, in all modesty, the finest hunter in existence today.”

  “All you had to say was yes,” she muttered.

  “What in blazes are you doing?” yelled Captain Coke.

  Vernors whistled in response, a shrill sound that made Tamora wince in pain. Apparently it was some kind of pix code, because the other pix fell back.

  “Why are you helping the elves, dragon?” Tamora made her way through the grass toward the street. “I thought they meant to destroy all the monsters on your world.”

  “Monsters, yes. But I am a dragon.” The voice in her head sounded highly offended. More blacktop crumbled into the storm sewer, creating a series of echoing clunks and splashes.

  “All right, dragon. How about this? If you can catch me, I’ll tell you where the goblins are hiding.”

  Mocking laughter filled her head. “You cannot run from me. I sense your presence. I taste your fear.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about. But if I win, you leave us alone, and you tell me how to find my friends.”

  Buzzing wings drew near. “It’ll bite your limbs off one by one when he catches you,” said Captain Coke. “The beasties play with their prey, like cats. You do have cats here, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, we have cats. And I don’t intend to let it catch me.” Her hands were shaking. Her breath came too quickly, and her mouth was dry as sand. She hadn’t been this anxious since her very first derby bout.

  She clenched her fists and concentrated on the dragon’s laughter. It wanted everyone to fear it. It took pleasure in tormenting its victims. This thing wasn’t a cat; it was a bully.

  Dean Avenue had a slight downward slope to the south that should give her a little extra speed.

  Coke flew closer. “Tamora, it’ll smash through the road and eat your legs before you reach that intersection.”

  “Pix might be good fighters, but you suck at giving encouragement. And don’t call me Tamora.” She stepped onto the road, bent her knees, and tightened her core muscles. “My name is T-Wrex.”

  The road quaked, sending vibrations through her ankles. “Others have tried to outrun me. They failed, as you will. You will die knowing your efforts to protect your friends were futile, and that they will—”

  She took off.

  “—die before this day is— How are you doing that? Humans can’t move that fast!”

  She pumped her arms hard, racing downhill toward the intersection of Dean and Mason. A quick glance showed two cars coming from the left, and a truck from the right. Ignoring the stop sign, she ducked her head and skated faster.

  A maniacal whistle warned of incoming company. Fanta swooped down to catch the back of Tamora’s outermost sweatshirt. The pix climbed into the hood and whooped again. “You’re daft if ye think I’m missing this!”

  “She’s daft for doing this at all,” Vernors shot back.

  “Shut up, both of you!” Tamora barely cleared the first car. It honked as it passed, the wind buffeting her from behind as she turned left in front of the truck. The truck driver slammed his brakes and shouted obscenities.

  Tamora ignored him. She kept to the yellow stripes down the center of the road as more traffic honked and rushed past on either side. A block later, she veered right to cut down Auburn.

  “Your metal carriages can’t protect you.”

  Maybe, but the dragon didn’t seem to be in any hurry to emerge from the sewers and test a match-up between dragon and pick-up truck.

  Another block would take her to the bridge over the town’s namesake river. Crossing the bridge should slow the dragon down and give her time to figure out the rest of her plan. Her legs were starting to ache. Sweat dripped down her face and soaked her torso. She was used to skating hard, but that was on the smooth, flat floor of the rink. On the road at this speed, a wipe-out could break bones, even through the p
adding of Andre’s sweatshirts. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have long to worry about fractures, since the dragon would be eating her.

  She wove past another car and coasted onto the bridge, letting momentum carry her up to the middle. There, she skated to the side and spun to see what the dragon would do.

  A drainage grate shot from the steep riverbank and tumbled into the water. Her pursuer followed, giving Tamora her first glimpse of a genuine dragon.

  “Told you they were ugly,” said Vernors.

  It looked like a giant serpent with scales the color of pond scum. She spotted stubby legs and short, useless wings that reminded her of used garbage bags. Long, skinny tendrils surrounded an elongated snout, like it had tried to grow a mustache and instead ended up with a hyperactive octopus stuck to its face.

  Wet, half-rotted leaves spread outward in a circle where the dragon entered the river. Mud and shimmering oily residue followed, all washed from the dragon’s body by the water of the Grand River.

  Heart pounding, Tamora pushed off, using the downward slope of the bridge to regain her speed. A black convertible screeched to a halt on the opposite side of the road. The driver stared down, oblivious to the honking behind him, as the dragon clawed and dug its way into the sewer line on the far side of the river.

  “Don’t worry,” Fanta shouted from Tamora’s hood. “It’s not a dragon! You’re just imagining things! Get about yer human business!”

  “I’m sure…that was reassuring,” Tamora gasped. “Coming from a…little winged man.”

  “This grows tiresome,” grumbled the dragon.

  “Maybe…we should call it…a draw?” Tamora gasped.

  The only response was a cruel chuckle in her mind.

  “What’s the rest of the plan?” asked Vernors.

  “I’m working on it.” If it would come out of the sewer, she might be able to draw it out in front of oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, the further south she went, the quieter the streets became, as residential blocks gave way to farms. She could already smell the manure in the distance, as well as the faint odor of the waste treatment plant farther on.

  “Your strength fails you. Our game is almost over. You’ve fought well for a human, but your inevitable defeat draws near. Surrender now, tell me what I want to know, and perhaps I won’t eat you.”

  She clenched her fists, trying to pretend this was nothing but trash talk. Not a death threat, but the same old verbal jabs the girls threw during practice, or the way Andre talked smack while playing online games. “Oh, please,” she said, panting. “I’ve seen more game…from garter snakes.”

  That earned a roar loud enough to make her jump. “I will crunch your bones to splinters, chew the splinters to dust, and stomp the dust into…into…”

  “Molecules?” Tamora suggested. “Subatomic particles?”

  “Yes, those things. Whatever they are.”

  Fanta laughed and whooped again as they turned onto Enfield Road. Cornfields marked the end of the block, where the old, pothole-cracked street terminated at Wilcox Road. Every breath ached deep in her chest, and her legs felt like Jell-O.

  Tamora scanned for traffic and leaned hard as she cut left onto Wilcox. Another tremor shook the earth. Had the dragon begun smashing its way from one sewer tunnel to the next? “Be careful,” she called out. “The storm sewers are bad enough…but humans have other types of waste…and you really don’t want to end up…in one of those sewers.”

  “Such transparent attempts to dissuade me from my pursuit are a sign of desperation.”

  She veered across the road. The street rumbled again, and a crack spread down the center line. Putrid air wafted up, and with it came a mental cry of disgust and horror. “What are these tunnels?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I will kill you all for this outrage!” the dragon screamed. “I will kill you to death!”

  “Impressive,” commented Vernors. “You’ve managed to make a dragon smell worse.”

  Tamora was approaching the old barn at the end of the cornfield. Light-colored shingles spelled out the name Reed on the dark roof. Past the barn was a white two-story house and a large fenced area for cattle.

  She jumped from the road into the grassy ditch, dropping instinctively to a double-knee slide to control her fall. Both pix took to the air.

  “Weapons ready,” snapped Vernors, drawing her bow.

  “About time,” said Fanta. “Now we show this limp-winged, dung-faced—”

  The dragon’s roar drowned out the rest of the pix’s insult.

  “No,” said Tamora. “Keep going. Over the fence!”

  Several cows looked up as she crawled toward the fence. It didn’t look like much to contain such large beasts: four wires stretched between upright posts. The bottom wire was about a foot and a half off the ground.

  Dirt and blacktop erupted, and the dragon surged upward from the edge of the road. It rose ten feet…fifteen…twenty feet high before falling to one side and coiling its body in the ditch. It would have been a majestic figure, if not for the muck and worse dripping from its body, and the torn plastic grocery bag stuck to one of the horns above its eye like a dirty white flag.

  Well, that and the stench.

  Its scales were rough, with serrated edges. The row of horns curling around the dragon’s head were the color of coffee-stained teeth. Majestic or not, it was unquestionably scary.

  Panic sent new strength surging through Tamora’s aching body. She shot beneath the fence, pushed herself to her feet, and limped backward. One of the younger cows bleated in alarm, a high-pitched wail that drew the older animals. Most of them retreated toward the barn, away from Tamora. Or, more likely, away from the giant, angry reptile.

  Tamora’s legs gave out. She fell backward in the mud. “I’m warning you.” Her voice quavered. “Don’t cross that fence.”

  The dragon shook its head, spraying sewage in all directions. Twin jets of steam shot from its nostrils. “I have shattered stone fortresses that stood for generations. The mountains themselves fall before the power of dragonkind.”

  It seemed impossible for a creature so large to move so quickly. It swooped down, the tendrils of its mustache reaching for Tamora to shove her into those huge, open jaws. They coiled around her legs like ropes, yanking her off balance.

  The dragon’s belly brushed the top wire of the electric fence.

  The wet, muck-covered scales were an ideal conductor. Unfortunately, that conductor carried the shock through the dragon’s body and into Tamora’s. The jolt was like she’d been punched from the inside. All her muscles went taut.

  The dragon reacted instinctively, like a dog stung by a bee. It released Tamora and jerked back to attack the thing that had hurt it. Its huge jaws clamped onto the fence. Tendrils wrapped like vines around the wires.

  It was the worst thing the dragon could have done. Current pulsed through its body. The wires broke, but the tendrils had locked into place and clamped around the broken ends to form a slimy circuit. The pulses kept coming, sounding like the world’s biggest, most powerful bug zapper. With each surge, the dragon’s muscles locked involuntarily, tightening its hold on the wires.

  “What—” Bzzzt! “—sorcery—” Bzzzt! “—is—” Bzzzt! “—this?”

  “It’s called electricity.” Tamora scooted further away. “I win.”

  Chapter 11: Hail to the Queen

  When the electric fence finally shorted out, the dragon collapsed like an overcooked noodle. Wisps of smoke curled from its mouth and mustache tendrils.

  Fanta flew from Tamora’s hood, buzzing straight toward the dragon with an undulating squee of what Tamora assumed was triumph.

  “Not the outcome I’d expected,” Vernors said. “Well done, human.”

  Tamora felt like an overinflated balloon ready to burst. She didn’t dare try to walk yet. One step and her knees would give way. “Is it dead?”

  Fanta hovered in front of the dragon’s nostrils. “Alas, t
he bilge-swilling belly-crawler yet breathes.”

  Tamora lay back in the mud. At least, she hoped it was mud. “I raced a dragon.”

  “Aye,” said Vernors.

  “And I won!” Hiccuping laughter bubbled from her chest.

  “I’m as shocked as anyone.” Vernors twirled one of her arrows through her fingers like a cheerleader’s baton. “Back home, we’d raise a drink to celebrate your victory, but this world has nothing with any real kick.”

  From behind came a shout of, “Long live Queen Tamora!”

  Tamora twisted around to spot Gulk standing in front of the maple trees on the far side of the road. His fellow goblins crept out to join him.

  “What are you doing here?” Tamora yelled. “You were supposed to get away!”

  “The crazy blighter insisted on following his queen.” Captain Coke perched in the branches with a handful of other pix. “From a safe distance, of course.”

  “You came after me?” Tamora smiled at Gulk. “That’s sweet.”

  Gulk ran across the street. “When dragon killed Queen Tamora, Gulk could tell dragon all the secrets, and then dragon wouldn’t kill Gulk!”

  “That’s…less sweet.”

  “But Queen Tamora beat dragon.” Gulk beamed and puffed out his chest. “Saved goblins and stupid pix!”

  “You realize I can put an arrow up your nostril from here, goblin?” asked Vernors.

  “Who’s out there?” The house’s side door slammed open, and a girl Tamora’s age stomped down the stairs, carrying a baseball bat. “You’re scaring our cows. I’m going to call— T-Wrex, is that you?”

  Paige Reed, better known as Terror Swift, looked different without her roller derby jersey and pads: skinnier, and more cautious. Tamora rubbed her lower lip. “Hello, Paige.”

  “You’re trespassing. The police are going to—” She froze, her eyes going huge. “What is that?”

  Tamora turned to look. “A sewer dragon.”

  “There’s…there’s no such thing as dragons,” Paige stammered.

  “Oh, good,” said Tamora. “Why don’t you tell it so when it wakes up?”

  Paige’s bat shook, magnifying the trembling of her hands. “Look, I promise I’ll never trip you up at practice again, just get your stupid dragon out of here!”