The Color of Dragons

by R. A. Salvatore

  The horses’ hooves clomped along the stone pavers, ticking off how long it was taking for me to answer him. His hopeful gaze fell by degrees into a disappointed frown.

  He was doing something very dangerous for me. Defying the guards by sneaking me out, taking me to a place neither of us was supposed to go. If the king found out, it would be very, very bad for Griffin. The least I owed him was the truth. “You won’t like my answer. I’m afraid the dagger will remain with the prince. It was magic, Griffin.”

  “There is no such thing.” He kicked his horse to a trot. The hooves’ clatter was so loud, speaking over it would require shouting. But what was there to say? I didn’t care if Griffin believed in magic or not.

  The Top was quiet. Peaceful. Crisp night air mixed with smoke from smoldering fires. After roads of spacious homes, a steep crag led to the Middle, where a fair few stumbled out of taverns, singing off-key, staggering for home. Griffin finally slowed as we passed a row of shops that included a blacksmith. He paused, his gaze passing through the shop as if he were looking for someone or something.

  “Is someone there?” I asked, worrying.

  “No. I’m betting they’re all in the tavern this time of night,” he said.

  “Perhaps you should avoid making bets in the future.”

  He laughed. I liked making him laugh.

  “Is this your family’s shop?”

  He smiled as we moved on. “I suppose they are my family, though not by blood. I haven’t any of that variety left.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My parents were killed by draignochs when I was small. Our family farm in the South devastated. I came to the city, looking for work.”

  “And the smith hired you? Were you an apprentice?”

  “Not a very good one. Spent too much time practicing with the swords. Caught Sir Raleigh’s attentions. Luck aligned. With a good deed for the prince, a wish granted by the king, and Raleigh took me on, training me for the armies I think, but I knew I wanted to enter the tournament. It was all I ever wanted. So last year, I did. Raleigh told me I was too young. That I wouldn’t make it past the first draignoch. When I did, he didn’t take it well.”

  Now that he was talking, I found I liked the sound of his voice. He had an easy way about him, calming. Helpful since I felt so lost in this labyrinth. “Why not? I would think him proud if he taught you.”

  “It was his title I took. A title he had held for a very long time. And when I won, the king’s favor shifted from Raleigh to me. I was moved into the castle. He was moved out.”

  “Was he angry with you?”

  “Anger I could take. He’s been distant.” A crease formed between his brows. “I’m not sure why I told you all of that.”

  “I won’t repeat it.”

  “No. I don’t think you would.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “And you?”

  I shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “What happened to your mother?”

  “I don’t know, actually. I don’t know who she was.”

  Curiosity pursed his lips. “Xavier never told you?”

  I shrugged. “Xavier doesn’t know.”

  “Now you’re just being contrary. Is this all some kind of secret?”

  My eyes lifted to the moon, unsure of the answer to that question either.

  “Xavier isn’t your father.” His face lit up as if he knew he was right. “You look nothing like him. Not a hint of relation. And if you’re with him, and not your parents, I would guess they’re either dead, and you’re a foundling, as I am, or they sold you.”

  “No one sold me. Although Xavier threatened to on more than one occasion.”

  “They’re dead, then?”

  A strange knowing prickle tickled deep down inside. “I—I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve lost me, Maggie.” He sighed but smiled.

  I’d lost me too. Whenever Xavier and I got to a new place, I would ask if anyone had lost a little girl. The answer was always the same. No. And every time, hearing that word, or seeing their heads shake, hurt just as much as it did the first time. I stopped asking and accepted the fact that I was on my own in this strange world.

  I didn’t know if it was because Griffin had done so much to free me tonight, or because I never really had a friend, and I wanted one. But I decided to trust him. I told him. Everything. About Xavier finding me. About not knowing who I was or where I came from. About the travels through the Hinterlands and Xavier’s relentless search for magic.

  Griffin asked a few questions here and there. What was the East like? Had I been to the North? He’d always wanted to see the North. “Like me,” I told him.

  I left out the recent bits, about seeing the draignoch, meeting Jori in the woods—about the strange connection with the moonlight, the magic, because it wasn’t mine. As far as he knew, it was all Xavier.

  “I wish I could remember something about my family, but I can’t. Not a thing,” I said.

  “I have a hard time remembering my parents’ faces anymore. I can’t see the house we lived in or the lands we farmed. Only the day they died. Something I wish I could forget, honestly. And this draignoch? Why do you want to see it? Is it possible it killed your family?”

  I gazed at Griffin. His moonlit eyes looked the same murky green color of a sea turtle’s shell. His parents were killed by draignochs, and we were the same age, so it was a definite possibility. There were many orphans from that time. Parents who hid children in underground cellars and went out to fight the draignochs, never to return. It was a story I had heard from loads on the road. But I had no answer to that question either.

  Griffin nodded as if he could read my unspoken thought. “So, you’re just alone, like me?”

  The softness in his tone gave me pause. It was a sadness I knew all too well.

  “Yes.” Only, riding beside Griffin, I was the least alone I had ever felt.

  Another turn and the wind hit us. I shivered and pulled the cloak’s hood lower, getting a whiff of a familiar scent. “Is this Sybil’s?”

  Griffin shifted forward in his saddle. “Yes. I told her you looked cold today and she said I should give that to you after dinner.”

  “Wouldn’t have expected Sybil to be the way she is. Charitable and all. She’s nothing like her sister.” I couldn’t keep my eyes from rolling.

  Griffin reached into the pouch on the side of his saddle and came out with two apples. “Hungry?”

  He tossed one to me before I could answer.

  “I missed dinner,” he added.

  His injured hand rested on his lap, barely holding on to the reins, while he ate with the other. He was in pain. That’s why he’d missed dinner. So no one would see the extent of his injury. A pull in my chest, like a taut bowstring, ached for release. The moonlight seemed to hum, vibrating through me, making it difficult to keep from touching his hand. It was the same instinct that hit me hard at the practice field when I saw the bandage. I wanted to heal him. To take his broken hand and mend it. I would too, if he would let me. But he didn’t believe in magic.

  “Sybil said you sent her to escort me this morning.”

  “I did ask her to check in on you.”

  “Not that I’m not appreciative. I like her. But why did you do that?”

  He chewed over his next words carefully. “Because I couldn’t.”

  You’re safe, Maggie. That’s what he said to me last night. Maybe it was his nature to be protective. I met many men on the road like that. For every one trying to pull up my skirt, there was another telling him to stop. Not that I needed their help. Most of the leeches ended up like Moldark, with a knife sticking out of their boot. But I appreciated the thought—the effort.

  “Is that why you tell strangers you don’t know that they’re safe?”

  He gave me a sort of secret smile. “My best mate, Thoma, said that actually, first day we met. The city feels big and scary, but there are good people here who watch
out for each other.”

  “So, you wanted me to know you were watching out for me?”

  “I guess I did.”

  Griffin stopped his horse outside a small tavern.

  “We don’t have time for ale, Sir Griffin.”

  He smirked. “This was my home until last year. We can leave the horses here.”

  Griffin dismounted. I did as well.

  Lights flickered through the window. The place was crowded with revelers, drinking and singing along with the lute player’s pluck. The sign on the door was a painting of a wilting red rose. I laughed. Perhaps not all in the city were happy with the king.

  The door popped open.

  “Look out!” Griffin pulled me out of the way as a bucket of piss landed on the street.

  A boy our age with a mop of light hair leaned out. “Griffin?” He sounded confused. He hustled over, wiping his hands on his apron. “That really you?”

  Griffin let go of my hand. “Thoma—”

  “Didn’t expect to see you slumming it down here,” Thoma sniffed.

  I suddenly felt like I’d walked into the middle of an argument. “This is your best mate?”

  “Well, yeah,” Griffin answered me, then frowned at Thoma. “Oh, is that how it is, then? That’s hardly fair.”

  Thoma suddenly realized Griffin wasn’t alone. His face broke into a huge grin. “I saw you on the king’s balcony.” He narrowed his gaze on Griffin. “You dating Topper ladies now?”

  “I’m not a Topper, and not a lady,” I exclaimed harsher than intended.

  “Certainly look like one.” Thoma smiled.

  “Thoma, meet Maggie . . . of the Hinterlands. Maggie, meet Thoma, son of the owner of this fine establishment called the Wilted Rose.”

  Thoma softened at that. “Yes. My inheritance is secured with ale and a job by day at the blacksmith shop. All I need now is to find a good woman. I’m not discriminating. Hinterland girls are always welcome at my table, and other places,” he said, and winked at me.

  “That’s enough,” Griffin insisted.

  Another boy walked out. Similar height and age to Thoma, he was dark haired, only his was cropped short. His eyebrows were so thick they looked like they could pop off, crawl away, and have a life of their own. He didn’t look so happy to see Griffin either.

  “Well . . . look who finally decided to grace us with his presence?”

  “Dres, Griffin’s with company,” Thoma said.

  “Company, is that what he’s calling it now?” Dres laughed, staggering back into the building.

  “Ignore him. He’s drunk,” Thoma explained.

  “We should go anyway,” Griffin said to me.

  “Go? Because of Dres? Martha and Hugo are here too. All the gang from the shop. My father will open a fresh keg. Come on. Let us toast our champion.” Thoma’s proud gaze fell on me. “King takes credit when it’s us who made him what he is.”

  Griffin sighed, as if this was a repeated refrain. “I wish I could, but we have something else to do right now. It’s important. I need a favor.”

  “He’s too good for us lot anymore, Thoma.” Dres came out. He leaned on the side of the building to keep from falling over, his drink still in his hand. “Go back to the castle, Griffin. No one wants you here.”

  Thoma tore the glass from Dres’s protesting hands, spilling it all over his trousers. “Get inside, Dres, before you fall down.”

  Dres made a rude hand gesture, then tripped down the steps into the tavern. He must’ve bumped into a table because suddenly his name was yelled out by many.

  “He’s a cheery fellow,” I said.

  “He’s . . . well . . . Dres.” Thoma shrugged. He cast a weary glance to Griffin. “You want to leave the horses? That the favor?”

  Griffin nodded, looking relieved. “Thank you.” He tied both sets of reins to the hitching post, then grabbed a torch tied to his pack and handed it to Thoma. “Can I get a light?”

  Thoma went into the tavern and returned with the torch lit. He handed it to Griffin.

  Griffin tossed him a coin.

  Thoma held it up and gave them a cheeky grin. “I’m not too proud to take it. My someday wife is going to need pretty things.” He winked at me, sliding back into the tavern, and shut the door.

  Griffin and I started walking again.

  All the doors in the Bottom were shut, but the windows were open and loud conversations spilled into the street.

  “You lived there? In the Wilted Rose?” I asked. I liked the name.

  Griffin nodded. “I stumbled down the stairs practically frozen in the middle of the night. Half dead from working in the ducts. The stench must have been pouring off me.” Griffin cringed. “Thoma got his father to let me work for supper that night, stink and all. When it was done, Thoma hid me in the cellar with the casks. Gave me a bucket to wash myself and a cot. I lived down there for a week before his father noticed. Wolfbern’s his name. Told me I could work there at night in exchange for the cot. First home I had here. They live above it.”

  Griffin pointed to the dark windows above the tavern.

  I nodded. “And the Hugo he mentioned. Is he the blacksmith you worked for?”

  A slow, shy smile spread over Griffin’s face. “You were listening.”

  “I’m always listening.”

  Griffin glanced over his shoulder at the old tavern. “They don’t like me much these days. My life feels so far away from them, and so different from theirs. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes, and no. I don’t have friends like that. Xavier and I, we move all the time.”

  “That hard?”

  I shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

  It was all that I could remember. . . .

  As we passed under a wooden arch, Griffin’s demeanor changed. He handed me the torch without explanation. His shoulders lifted. He shook his sleeve. A dagger dropped into his palm, the blade’s tip visible in his hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  We stepped beyond a gap between buildings. I heard scuffling.

  “Muggers,” he groaned.

  Before I knew what was happening, a pudgy, sweaty arm grabbed me around the neck, pulling me against a soft belly. Another plump limb knocked the torch out of my hand and pressed a dagger against my chest. “Donna move.” His breath smelled like ale.

  Another stepped out of the shadows. A boy close to our age, he was short, light-haired, in a black cloak that was far too big on him, and as scarred as Griffin. Maybe more so. His scars started at the patch over his left eye, heading both north and south, with wide berths.

  “Lookie lookie, Finn,” he said, spitting at Griffin’s feet. “If it isn’t the reigning champion. Slumming, Sir Griffin? With this fine-lookin’ lady too.” He pulled a dagger. “If you don’t want her cut like your ugly mug, hand over your pockets.”

  Griffin held his hands up, his expression turning cold. “My pockets are empty. Check for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  The blade inched upward to my cheek. “Careful, Nesbit, he’s quick.”

  “Not so quick as we are,” Nesbit said, inching toward him.

  A second later, Nesbit was facedown on the ground, gasping for breath, Griffin’s own dagger digging into his shoulder blade. Griffin managed all that one-handed. He turned on the larger man holding me. “Let her go.” When he didn’t, Griffin applied pressure.

  “Gah! Let her go, Finn. Do it.”

  His grip loosened. I ducked out, kicking him in the shins on my way to retrieving the torch. Griffin yanked Nesbit up, shoving him at his partner. “Now run.” He spun the grip, taunting them.

  Our assailants fumbled over each other, racing into the shadows.

  I laughed. “They can’t be very successful if you could run them off so easily.”

  “Was that an insult to them or to me?” Griffin shook his head, feigning offense, then checked my cheek, his fingers lingering longer than necessary, but I didn’t mind in the slightest.


  “I’m fine.” My cheeks burned, and not from the moon. I looked down, trying to hide my face.

  Griffin and I walked on swiftly. He kept a firm grip on his dagger as we continued on, changing sides with me so he passed closer to any dim spots.

  Not long after, we came to what I thought was a dead end, but it was actually the beginning of a long thin set of stairs, descending between the buildings. I couldn’t see where it went. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything beyond the first step. My palm tingled. I wondered if I could draw down a beam to light our way, not that I would. My magic was Xavier’s, I told myself, although I was starting to hate the sound of that.

  “Ten more of these and we’ll come out beside the base of the arena.”

  “Lead the way, Sir Griffin.”

  About halfway down, I heard crowd noises coming from open windows. A girl not much older than me stumbled drunk out of a basement door. She stepped under the glow of a torch. I could see her dress was slit up the sides, the bodice cut low, revealing too much. As she turned her head, catching my stare, I saw bruises on her cheek and scratches on her neck. She quickly turned away, embarrassed or frightened. A soldier spilled out after her, adjusting his trousers. He sneered at Griffin, then started walking toward us, using the stone facade to prop himself up.

  “Over here, my lady. Got a pretty coin, just inside.” He patted his crotch.

  “And I’m sure a rash as well.”

  Griffin wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me down the stairs.

  “As much as you seem to like to goad everyone you meet, please remember we’re not supposed to be here!”

  “Sorry.” The draignoch’s voice carried on the cold breeze, raising goose bumps on my arms. She was close. “We should hurry too. Let’s move faster.”

  The stairs, going both west and south, descended into the lowest part of the Bottom, where the putrid odor from the ducts nearly knocked me off my feet. It permeated everything.