''So be it,” he said.
“Climb onto me,” Mortugal said. “Do not worry, I will not let you fall. You awakened me from my slumber and you awakened my flying skills from me. I will die myself but not let you fall.”
“Don’t say so,” Xuhn said as he put one foot on Mortugal’s hind leg to climb. “If you die up there, both of us will fall straight down.” With some difficulty Xuhn got atop Mortugal’s back and wrapped his arms around the latter’s neck since there was nothing else to hold onto. Xuhn was only a few feet above the ground, and looking down he felt rather dizzy, although he was used to cutting wood high up trees. He gulped and tried to not think about what was coming.
“Hold on tight,” Mortugal said. He flapped his wings once, twice and they were in the air. Xuhn closed his eyes, his head spinning. He tightened his grip around Mortugal’s neck.
“Are we high up?” he asked Mortugal after sometime.
“In the clouds, lad,” Mortugal said. Xuhn took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Wisps of clouds were slowly moving about just metres away from them. Xuhn dared to take a peek down.
Oddly, he didn’t feel any of the initial fear. He could barely distinguish anything from the other. The woods were mere patches of green, while the lake below was just a patch of blue. Far away in the village, the houses were mere dots. Down below it was a different world altogether and he felt detached from it at best, for he was now in the world of clouds and of the wide sky. He reckoned this was the very same reason why the gods who lived even higher up cared little about the folks on earth— they just felt too detached from them.
“Care to go to the north?” Mortugal said. The dragon had been stationary at that height so far, probably so that Xuhn could get more comfortable with being so high up.
“Let’s do it,” Xuhn said.
“Don’t fall off!” Mortugal cried and flapped his wings in a different manner, propelling himself forward. The dragon flew so fast that the wind lashed hard against Xuhn’s face and he could barely keep his eyes open. A chill caught him.
“It’s cold up north, right?” Xuhn asked.
“What?” Mortugal asked. The sound of the wind was so great that it wasn’t a surprise that Mortugal couldn’t hear him properly.
“It’s cold up north, right?” Xuhn repeated.
“Aye, it is,” Mortugal replied.
“I should have brought some woollens along.”
“No time for that, the Bnomes are already way ahead of us. I shall look out if anybody has any woollens out in the villages that we pass. You will have to do with those.”
As they flew along, faster than arrows, Xuhn realised he had never had such a good time in life. The thrill coursed through his body and he felt jubilant.
“Can you fly to the sun?” Xuhn asked after a while, looking at the ball of fire that was slowly climbing in the sky. It looked to be always at the same distance from them no matter which direction they flew in.
Mortugal laughed.
“The sun is too far away even for us dragons. There was this myth of a little dragon who decided to fly to the sun and never returned home. I wonder if he has reached it, though I don’t think he has. Besides, why do you even want to go to a place that can vaporise you?”
As they went farther and farther, the clatter of Xuhn’s teeth apparently got loud enough that Mortugal heard it. The dragon dived down with such speed that Xuhn thought for a moment he would pass out. At the bottom of his dive, Mortugal grabbed a shawl, that was being sunned outside a house, with his claws and then rapidly climbed higher and higher until they were back among the clouds. Mortugal flung the shawl up to Xuhn who caught it.
“Thanks,” Xuhn said as he wrapped the shawl around himself.
A couple of hours passed thus and Xuhn began having aches all about his body as he had been sitting atop Mortugal since morning. He hoped they would catch up with the Bnomes soon and all he wanted to do presently was stretch his legs somehow.
“How long do you think it’ll take for us to reach the Bnomes?” Xuhn asked against the roar of the wind.
“Not long, lad, not long,” said Mortugal in his raspy voice. “They passed this way only a short while ago. Their scent is getting stronger. We are on the right track.”
That was some assurance. But Xuhn failed to shake off his impatience. The aches seemed to get worse the more he thought about them and there was little else to think at all. Plus he hadn’t eaten a thing since last night or pissed in a long while. Then the impatience got better of him.
“Um, can we land?” he said.
“Land, why?” Mortugal asked.
“I need a break, I can’t help it. I am tired of sitting, and I really want to piss.”
“All right, then,” Mortugal descended down and landed softly beside a small stream. Xuhn jumped down. He relished the presence of solid ground below his feet.
It felt so good.
He pissed on a bush and then went to the stream and splashed the cold water on his face. There were little fish moving about in the stream water, and though Xuhn thought they looked beautiful with their shiny red and orange coats, he would have preferred if they were in his stomach. Deciding to spare the fish, he instead looked about the place and found a plant that had edible roots. He dug around it and carefully uprooted it. After removing the skin of the bulbous root, he ate it raw.
“Where do you think we are?” he asked the dragon, chewing.
“You’d know that better than me,” Mortugal replied, his head turned in the direction of the woods. “I have been asleep for ages after all. The lands might remain the same, but the names would have definitely changed and their rulers too.”
“I reckon we are in werewolf territory,” Xuhn said. While on Mortugal’s back he had spotted few houses for some time. It was well known that few werewolves lived in houses. Most of them preferred the woods.
“We might be,” Mortugal said, not sounding very interested in the conversation. Instead he kept staring at the trees, a mysterious look playing in his eyes. Just around the time Xuhn was eating the last bits of the root, Mortugal went into the woods.
“Where are you going?” Xuhn asked, suddenly afraid Mortugal would leave him and go away. If that happened he would never see his old village again.
“I do not know why,” Mortugal said, “but this place feels familiar to me. Wait for a moment.” And the great dragon disappeared into the woods. Xuhn did not follow him, instead preferring to remain by the stream. Xuhn guessed if Mortugal had wanted him to go along then the dragon would have said so.
Some time passed. Xuhn looked around the place. After Mortugal had gone a sinister atmosphere seemed to have settled over the place. He hoped Mortugal would return soon. Xuhn had stretched his muscles enough and was quite ready for another half-a-day atop a dragon’s back.
A noise occurred in the bushes behind Xuhn.
“Mortugal?” He turned.
It was a wolf.
Xuhn gulped down bile and took a few steps backwards as the wolf came out of the bushes, growling. Then it dawned upon Xuhn that it was very unlikely that the animal was an actual wolf.
“Are you a werewolf?” he said with some hesitation.
The wolf transformed into a woman. She was around Xuhn’s own age, with cold sharp eyes and a pointed nose which made her face look wolf-like even in human form. Her long hair streamed down to her knees and she wore clothes made of animal skin.
“Why have you come here?” she asked, the hostility in her tone obvious.
“We just decided to stop here for a while,” Xuhn said.
“You are from Sura?”
“Yes.”
“You said ‘we’, where’s your companion?”
“He wandered off into the woods. He should be back in a while.”
“You Surans are allowing vampires into your country, is that right?”
“Not really,” Xuhn said. “In fact, the woods near our village have a pretty good werewolf population. We
live in peace as brothers.” Now that wasn’t very true. The werewolves were as much brothers and sisters to humans as deer or rabbits. They minded their own business and kept out of the way of humans. But the pointed nose of the woman wouldn’t allow Xuhn to forget that she had very sharp canines in her wolf form which could easily shred him to pieces. So it was wisest to sound like a friend.
“How long have you been here?” the woman asked, not easing her hostility at all. “You are in the territory of our clan but none of us scented you until now.”
“No, we have only been here a short while. We’ll be on our way once my friend returns.”
Barely did he say so that there was another noise in the bushes, and out stepped the great Mortugal. The woman immediately turned into her wolf form as Xuhn ran to the dragon and quickly climbed atop him.
“It’s my friend I told you about!” Xuhn said aloud as Mortugal flapped his wings, and higher and higher the two of them climbed. Down below the she-werewolf disappeared into the foliage.
“You were correct when you said we were in werewolf country,” Mortugal said.
“Did you run into more werewolves?” Xuhn asked. “Why did you go into the woods?”
“No, I didn’t meet any werewolf like you did,” said Mortugal. “But I discovered something else.”
“What?”
“My birthplace.”
“Your birthplace?” Xuhn asked. Mortugal was a dragon so it made little sense that his birthplace should be in werewolf country.
“I found the tree below which I hatched,” said Mortugal. “I wonder how that tree survived the ages, but some trees live long, don’t they? I had made a mark at the base of the tree when I was very little. The remnant of that mark is still there.”
“But why should your birthplace be in werewolf country?”
“I don’t know,” Mortugal said. “Maybe my mother brought me here. I remember little and I cannot even recall her face. But I remember some good werewolves and playing with the water in that small stream from which you drank today.”
“Your past really is a mystery, isn’t it?” Xuhn said.
“Yes, a big chunk of it is,” said Mortugal and he sighed. “I am not even interested in finding out more about the past.”
“I am,” said Xuhn. He remembered so little about his own past. He couldn’t remember who his parents were or if he had any siblings. Whenever he strained his mind, all that he recalled about his childhood was a frightening lady with a gaunt face, that seemed the very face of cruelty. He remembered crying a lot and working a lot. At some point he had probably run away with help from some good people, who probably were also slaves of the gaunt lady. Then he had reached the village of Bindi where he now resided and he worked at the homes of the villagers until he had enough money to buy a house and took up woodcutting for a living.
Chapter 6
As they flew further north, the cold grew and Xuhn’s hair stood on their ends even in the relative warmth of the shawl.
“We are nearing them,” Mortugal said. They had reached a cloudy area and it wasn’t possible to see more than a few metres ahead. “Hold tight.”
And Mortugal increased his speed so much that Xuhn could barely hang onto the great dragon’s neck.
“There they are!” Mortugal yelled, his voice like thunder.
Xuhn peered hard and saw two dots far ahead moving fast. As they neared them, Xuhn saw that the dots were actually two carpets with people atop them. One carried Ritika and Ruponi, along with two Bnomes. The other carried two more Bnomes and—
Mayesha?
It could only be her. She was clad in white as she had been in the morning. Had the Bnomes captured her too? He needed to save her at all costs.
“They have caught Mayesha too,” he said.
“Mayesha, who?” Mortugal asked.
“That girl dressed in white.”
Mortugal suddenly slowed down.
“What happened?” Xuhn said. The Bnomes were getting away, what was Mortugal doing?
“I-I,” said Mortugal. “I think I have seen her before.”
“You have?”
“Mayesha you say her name is?”
“Yes… You don’t want to save them? Why have you slowed down?”
“Mayesha is a mortal?”
“Of course,” Xuhn said. He failed to understand what was going on inside the mind of the dragon. Wasn’t it obvious that Mayesha was a mortal person, just like everybody else?
“Then how do I remember seeing her before? Ages ago, before I went to sleep.”
“Hey, put that aside, all right?” Xuhn said, worried the Bnomes would escape. “They are getting away!”
“Um, all right,” Mortugal said. The dragon increased his speed, but the reluctance was clear, like Mortugal was lost in thought.
Once again the two dots ahead began growing in size. The Bnomes increased their speed, while Ritika and Ruponi waved for help. Mayesha would occasionally glance behind, but most of the time she would look ahead. And as Mortugal and Xuhn closed in on the flying carpets, Mayesha’s face looked less and less like hers until Xuhn realised that the girl wasn’t Mayesha in the first place.
Mortugal pushed himself to his limits, and soon the two of them were hovering over the flying carpet that carried Ritika and Ruponi. Mortugal attacked the two Bnomes with his claws and they retaliated with daggers and swords. Mortugal yelped as the blade of a dagger hit the soft flesh between his claws, and for a moment his speed decreased and the Bnomes went ahead. But Mortugal caught up soon enough and was able to hit one of the Bnomes on the head, knocking him to the edge of the carpet. The Bnome failed to maintain balance and fell off to certain death. In the meanwhile the wind roared all about Xuhn, and he could only wonder how the second Bnome was still standing and attacking Mortugal. Soon however, the dragon succeeded in knocking the second Bnome off the carpet as well.
The carpet slowed down. Apparently the Bnomes and the carpet had some magical connection which had been allowing them to steer it whichever way they wanted. And now, with its masters gone, the carpet fell from the sky, taking down Ritika and Ruponi. Mortugal rushed to their rescue and caught them with his claws. He descended down and softly placed them on the ground.
There was no sign of the second carpet in the sky.
Mortugal flapped his wings harder and began to ascend, but Xuhn said,
“I don’t think there’s need for that.”
“Why?” Mortugal asked.
“That girl wasn’t Mayesha. She sure looked somewhat like her but no, it wasn’t her. I was mistaken.”
“But she might be some other vampire the Bnomes had caught,” Mortugal argued.
“I don’t think so,” said Xuhn, “Didn’t you see her? She was quite comfortable with the Bnomes.”
But she had waved at him earlier in the morning. Xuhn guessed she had mistaken him for someone else.
“Well, if that’s what you say then…” Mortugal returned to the ground, landing just near Ritika and Ruponi. Xuhn climbed down.
“We can’t thank you enough!” Ruponi said, her eyes moist with tears.
“Well,” said Xuhn, and gestured at Mortugal, “here’s your dragon.” Xuhn turned at Ritika.
“Who was that girl with you?”
“We don’t know,” Ritika replied. “But I think she was friends with those men. She was talking with them in a strange tongue.”
“I think I know who she was,” Mortugal said, gazing up wistfully at the sky.
“You do?” Xuhn asked, astonished.
“Well, wasn’t I telling you I might have seen her before? She is Corpsia, daughter of Malthur, the undead king of the Bnomes. That is why I never saw her in the dead Bnome’s eyes back at the lake,” Mortugal sighed. “I have remembered more than I would have liked to. Corpsia is the girl because of whom I forced myself to go to sleep.”
“You loved her?” Xuhn asked.
“Aye, once upon a time.” Mortugal looked away from them and at t
he sky, “These things ache my heart, please ask me no more.”
A moment of silence passed. Xuhn struggled to digest the fact that Mortugal, a dragon, had fallen in love with Corpsia, an immortal human. He just couldn’t get his head around that. How could they fall in love when they were so different? But he decided to not ask Mortugal anything further. The spirit of the dragon seemed to have lowered very much.
After sometime Ruponi finally spoke to Mortugal.
“Will you help us end the war?”
Mortugal exhaled and looked at Xuhn.
“This young man awakened me. Without him I would have never again experienced the joys of flying. If he wants me to end the war, then I will.”
“Of course I want you to help them,” Xuhn said. Hadn’t he been telling that to Mortugal from the beginning?
The dragon exhaled.
“Then it is to Dragonland we must go.”
***
Chapter 7
It was noon.
Vivek was alone in his room, staring at his legs which refused to support his weight. Every time he tried to stand up, splitting pain would erupt below his knees. He hated his legs. Why should they be so weak?
He remembered well the night when he had had the fall. It was the Night of Duel in Werewolf culture. The moon had been brightest and every young male werewolf had participated in the event. Two werewolves were supposed to choose each other and fight till one surrendered. The other werewolves would cheer as the two fighters kicked and boxed each other— in human form, not wolf. Dori had been present amongst the spectators and Vivek had intended to impress her, maybe even ask for her hand if he won. The fighters were allowed to hit each other wherever they wished, except the groin. Vivek had chosen Mejanta, a werewolf that lived in the woods near the village of Bindi. He would have preferred fighting on the ground, but Mejanta challenged him to fight high up on a tree. He should have known Mejanta was good at climbing trees.
The Banishment of the King Page 4