Dragon Tamer

by J. A. Culican

  When she stood, I recognized her as the woman that had spoken to Ally the morning after Stone had died.

  I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “My people took his body and his soul, but I don’t think they took his life. The slayers’ swords gain strength with each dragon soul they capture. There is an ancient magic that traps the soul within the sword. I don’t understand it myself but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. My father’s sword is one of the most powerful in the whole village. For the longest time, I thought taking a soul meant taking a life, but after hearing Ally speak yesterday about still being able to feel Stone, I believe that Stone might still be alive.”

  “I can feel him!” I looked to my left. Ally had been sitting in the third row back, but now stood. “I told you all. It makes sense. I knew he was alive.”

  The sound of the murmuring crowd swelled. They were beginning to question things thanks to Ally. If enough of them believed me, maybe Ash and I would live to see another day after all. The feeling of dread I’d been carrying in my stomach ever since we were escorted here began to dissipate. I didn’t want to count my chickens before they hatched, but with Ally on our side, Spear would at least have to consider the fact I was telling the truth.

  “If what you say is true, and your people’s swords do harbor the souls of our kind, then surely Ally is sensing Stone’s soul. Whether his body is dead or alive seems immaterial.”

  Ally slumped back into his seat as a man in the front row spoke. He was right. How had I not thought of that? The gallows seemed to loom closer as I realized my best defense was completely useless. The best I could hope for was that they believed that I had left the dragon colony in good faith. Judging by the angry faces in the crowd, good faith was in short supply.

  “I think we can all agree,” began Spear, “that the slayer has acted in a manner that has caused our people grave danger and that Ash has abetted her. The penalty for both of them is death by hanging. I’d like a show of hands of those that believe they are both guilty.”

  I held my breath as I waited to see if I would live or die. One by one, hands rose. I didn’t need to count them to see that a lot more than half the people in the room had deemed us guilty.

  It was then that I noticed Edeline for the first time. She sat at the very edge of the courtyard holding on to a very scared looking Lucy. She looked even more terrified at the prospect of us being put to death than I felt. Of course she did. She was about to lose her only son. She’d already lost her husband to my people and now because of the slayers, her eldest child was going to die.

  “Wait!”

  All eyes turned to Ash. I didn’t know what he could say that would get us out of this mess. Whatever it was, I hoped it was good.

  “You’re sentencing us to die for what? Neither of us has denied going to the village. Did we bring anyone else back here? No. Nor have we brought weapons to hurt anyone here. I’ve known all of you my whole life, and now you’re raising your hands to have me hanged because I took a trip down to the village? It’s crazy. If you were so worried that we were bringing the slayers up here, why aren’t you out there guarding our town? You all know as well as I do that it’s impossible to climb all the way up here. Think about it. What reason do I have for bringing the slayers up here?”

  “You might not, but she does,” someone shouted out from the back of the hall. Ash’s hand tightened around mine.

  “Julianna risked her own life last night. She climbed the mountain in last night’s storm and attempted to get down to her village in the belief that she could steal a sword to test her theory. She didn’t do it for herself. I was with her and I saw with my own eyes the devotion she has shown to the dragons. She even fought her own brother. Her house caught fire. She had to run away, knowing that her home was burning to the ground, and she did all of this for you. You should all be thanking her, not condemning her to death. I’m ashamed of all of you right now, and I’m ashamed to call myself a dragon.”

  Looks of unease and uncertainty passed through the crowd. Ash had stirred something in them with his speech, but would it be enough to save our lives?

  A sharp clap to my left caught my attention. I glanced over to see Ally standing once again, bringing his hands together in applause.

  Someone else stood and began to clap. It was Edeline, quickly followed by Lucy. Just as they had raised their hands to condemn us, the rest of the dragons were now standing and applauding us.

  Not everyone stood and not everyone joined in, but it was enough to show Spear that they had changed their minds.

  “Enough!” Spear strode to the front of the stage and waved his hands to quiet the crowd. Eventually, the clapping stopped. “It seems that your fellow villagers have listened to you. I am not convinced that Julianna knows the truth herself. Her theory has no merit whatsoever beyond Ally thinking his twin is still alive. Denial is a strong part of grief and I believe that Ally is mistaken; however, at this point, we have nothing to lose. I’m not going to send anyone who doesn’t want to go to the slayer’s village but if anyone wants to volunteer for this fool’s errand, then I will not stop you either.” He turned to me, anger drawing his brow together. “Once we have gathered the swords, what do you propose we do with them?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. After Ash’s wonderful speech, I felt pathetic.

  “You don’t know?” repeated Spear, making me look even more foolish.

  “Let’s get the swords first,” said Ash. “Then we can worry about what to do with them. Who will come with me to the slayer village?”

  A small number of people raised their hands. Not as many as those that wanted us dead ten minutes ago, but it was a start.

  “Come on!” Ash carried on. “You felt brave enough to kill me by raising your hands five minutes ago. Why not raise your hands again, but this time to show me how brave you really are? These are our ancestors, the trapped souls of our brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. Surely that is worth a trip down the mountain!”

  A few more hands raised. I started to count them when a flash of light at the back of the room took my attention from them. The gallows had gone up in flames. How was that possible? Had someone set fire to them to save us? The flames rose higher and then the inevitable happened: the thatched roof caught fire. Panic broke out with the people at the back of the courtyard rushing forward to escape the flames. People screamed as the fire quickly engulfed the thatching. Most ran for the exits, though some turned into dragons and flew into the air to escape. Still others turned to protect the ones still in their human forms. Someone grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd of terrified people towards the exit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The heat of the fire became more and more intense as we tried to push our way through the crowd. The whole roof was burning away merrily while chaos reigned in the circle below.

  “We aren’t going to make it!” I cried to Ash as the fire took hold of the wall beside the exit nearest to us. Ash changed direction, pulling me away from the flames that now surrounded us and into the center of the courtyard. Nearby, someone shifted and flew up into the air.

  I grabbed hold of Ash. “Change into a dragon. We can fly out.”

  “It’s not that easy. It takes a lot of energy to shift from one form to another. It’s been too long since I last ate or slept. I don’t think I can do it.”

  I had wondered why the others hadn’t all shifted into their dragon form and escaped. It would have been easy to fly up and out of harm’s way, and yet there were still so many in their human forms wrestling for the doors that would take them outside. Except they wouldn’t take them outside. Every door leading away from the courtyard would take them right into the burning building. Anyone trying to escape would have to run through a wall of fire to get through to the other side, and that’s if they could even find their way out through the thick blanket of black smoke.

  We stood there, just the two of us, right in the center of the chaos. There were still so
many people trapped in the courtyard and yet I couldn’t see how they would survive if they ran into the burning building. Smoke reached my lungs and I began to cough.

  “Do you think we’ll survive if we just wait for the building to burn around us?” I asked. Intense heat surrounded us but the walls of the burning building were far enough away to keep the flames from us unless the wind picked up.

  “Normally, yes, but the chairs are made out of wood. The ones at the back have already caught fire.” Ash guided me away from them, back to the stage.

  “We need to make a run for the exits like everyone else then.”

  “We can’t. The others will get through relatively unscathed. As dragons, we can withstand great temperatures, even in our human forms. We cannot withstand fire forever, but all those running for the exits will survive with little damage.”

  It was because of me that we were trapped. Ash could escape like everyone else, but my human body would burn in the fire. Even if the exits were clear and we could run right through, the chances of me getting through without being badly burned were slim. I couldn’t even see the walls now, just a great wall of orange with thick plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. Most had escaped, either up into the air or through the burning building, but I could still see some stragglers trying to get through the doors. It wouldn’t be long until we were the only ones left.

  “If you can run through fire—”

  “Don’t even think it.” Ash wrapped his arms tightly around me as if just this small act would shield me from the flames. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “But you’ll die with me.”

  “Then Spear will get his way.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  But he was right. For a second I wondered if Spear had wanted this to happen, had planned it out somehow, but then I remembered the look of shock on his face as the flames took hold, just before he’d changed into his dragon form and flown up into the sky. He could have pulled me up with him and saved me, but he chose not to. He chose to let me die in the flames, but he didn’t start them. I tried to think back to what started them, but just as the fire had come from nowhere in my own house, the same had happened here.

  “Why would a village of fire-breathing dragons make a town hall out of wood and straw?” I asked feebly. “You were just asking for trouble.”

  Ash didn’t answer, and I didn’t expect him to. I couldn’t see anyone else now. The flames and their heat were close in every direction. It wouldn’t be long before some part of me caught fire, probably my hair and then I’d go up in flames just as the town hall had. Maybe then Ash would be able to escape. The thought gave me a little peace. At least there would be only one casualty in all of this. Ash still had a chance.

  I closed my eyes and rested my head on Ash’s chest, waiting for the inevitable. A huge gust of cold air made me snap my eyes open. Hot and cold air spun around us as if we were in the center of a small tornado. I couldn’t see a thing except for my bright orange hair flapping across my face, mimicking the flames that had surrounded us only moments before. As quickly as it had started, the wind stopped.

  I pulled my hair back away from my face to take in the scene before me. The town hall still stood but barely. What was left of the walls was charred black. Wisps of smoke curled into the sky. Most of the chairs were now nothing but ash, although a few closest to us were still intact, showing me just how close the flames had come to us.

  The wind came again but this time in a powerful blast as a pair of massive wings flapped, causing my hair to fly out behind me. I shielded my eyes from the soot that blew toward me. The biggest dragon I’d ever seen landed in the center of the ruined courtyard, its wings spanning the entire space. It was green with a tinge of gold glinting in the sun on the tip of every scale.

  It folded its wings as its feet touched the ground. I barely had time to comprehend what was happening and how the dragon had seemingly extinguished the flames when the tell-tale sound of bones creaking told me that it was shifting into its human form. I wanted to close my eyes but it was mesmerizing. I’d not seen a dragon shift before and now that I was watching it, I couldn’t look away. He shrunk, every part of him seeming to curl up into itself. His snout shortened as his legs lengthened. The green color warmed until it was the pink of skin. All of this was accompanied by the horrible creaking and squelching sound I’d come to associate with shifting.

  Finally, a man stood before us. He was tall and muscular and completely naked. I didn’t know where to look.

  “Dad!”

  Dad? Ash dropped his arms from around me and ran to the man, flinging his arms around him. The man embraced him back.

  This was Ash’s father? The one who had been killed by a slayer?

  He was supposed to be dead! Unless...

  Unless my theory was right. I remembered the great green and gold dragon now, Jasper’s first kill. I remembered its body being brought down to the village and the big party we had afterward. My mother had remarked on how the dragon’s scales glowed in the sunshine.

  It was a bizarre scene set out in front of me. The smoldering ruins of the town hall, Ash hugging his naked father. I looked around for something that would cover Ash’s dad but almost everything around me was blackened and burned.

  Ash’s father looked very similar to his son. They had the same thick dark hair and strong jaw line. He was perhaps a couple of inches taller and his shoulders were broader, but it was unmistakable. He opened his eyes. When he noticed me, his expression changed almost immediately. I’d never seen a look of such hatred as the one that Ash’s father directed at me now.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The world seemed to stand still.

  “You,” he said, “are a slayer.”

  “Dad, how are you here?” Ash’s voice brought me back to reality. A dozen or so of the others had returned, still in their dragon forms. One of them had a blanket in its claws, which it dropped at Ash’s father’s feet. He picked it up from the floor, wrapping it around himself so he was fully covered. He pulled himself away from Ash, ignoring his son’s last question, and strode toward me purposefully.

  “You’re the reason I’m here. You tried to kill me.” His voice was menacing and the speed with which he came towards me made me step back in fear. I’d never seen anyone so angry in my whole life.

  “Dad! Stop.”

  Ash ran forward as his father prodded me in my chest, pushing me back a foot. “Julianna came here to help us. Leave her alone.”

  Ash’s father prodded me again, prompting Ash to pull him back. “No slayer ever helped one of our kind.”

  “She is helping us.”

  “Why are you defending her?” He finally took his eyes from me and turned to his son. “Do you have any idea what I’ve had to endure at the hands of her people? I’ve been trapped inside a sword for over a year. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your soul taken from your own body and imprisoned in a space as small as that?” He pointed at my sword. “It’s cold and dark. I haven’t been able to see or feel for over a year. I couldn’t speak or hear or move, and yet I could think. I knew I still existed and yet I didn’t know how to escape. For a whole year of torment, I was there and yet I was not. If hell exists, I have surely been living it.”

  “My theory is right.” I had thought as much, but to finally hear it from Ash’s father’s mouth was something else. A small thrill ran through me to know that my friends and family were not murderers at all, but it quickly died when I thought of all those other dragons trapped in the swords, some for decades, even centuries. The thought of being trapped in the darkness for years on end with nothing but my own thoughts horrified me. Maybe death would have been kinder after all.

  “What theory?” spat Ash’s dad.

  “Julianna is one of the slayers, Father, but she didn’t know we were shifters. To her, we were nothing more than animals to be hunted.”

  His father interrupted him. “They know what they are doing. T
hey have always known.”

  “I didn’t. I swear. I knew nothing of your people. I thought of us as hunters and nothing more. Now I see how wrong I was, and I’m sorry.”

  If I thought my apology would quell his anger, I was wrong. He seemed even more incensed by my words than he had been before.

  “You are nothing more than a murderer. Maybe you didn’t know that you were trapping our souls, but you cannot tell me that you didn’t strike your sword into our bodies to kill us.”

  “Actually, she didn’t kill anyone.” Ash stepped in again. “She had the chance to kill me, but instead defended me against her people even before she knew we were shifters. While you can argue that her people did strike to kill us, are we really any better ourselves? We spend our lives training to hunt for meat.”

  “We hunt to eat, Ash. They hunt for fun, for the glory of the kill. That’s what sets us apart from them.”

  I couldn’t defend myself because he was right. We didn’t eat the dragons or use their hide for shoes and belts. We killed them and then had a party to celebrate. Shame flooded through me. How had I not seen how sick and utterly pointless it all was? My village was surrounded by bountiful farmlands as far at the eye could see. We were in no danger of starving. If the dragons ever came down to the village to hurt us, perhaps it would have been justified, but yesterday with Ash was the first time I’d ever seen a living dragon in our village.

  “You have every right to be angry with me. Ignorance doesn’t seem like a very good defense, but it’s the only one I have. I can promise you something though. Now that I know about you, I will never slay a dragon, and I’ll make it my life’s work to stop my people killing yours. I’m glad this has all happened because I would have spent my whole life mindlessly following a path that had been set out for me from birth. I will be blind no more. You have my word.”