Dragon's Egg

by Sarah L. Thomson

  “You think we’re spies?” Mella demanded.

  Alyas’s sigh tumbled the pebbles from their places on the grid. “I do not think so. You are only children, after all. And what army would send children as spies? But humans…I’ve always been told how easily humans lie. Still, if you are what you say, if you have saved the Egg through hardship and danger—what a song that would make! Will you tell me?”

  “Why should I?” Mella snapped. “Why do you want to hear it? If humans are liars.” She didn’t have to talk to him just to be insulted, she thought, and sat back against the rock wall, her arms folded.

  Alyas looked at her humbly with his brown gold eyes. “Pardon for offending you. I spoke carelessly. But…” His voice took on a coaxing tone. “Do you not wish it known, the truth of how you brought the Egg to us? You and the boy. Coel’s son.” Coel’s great-great-great-great grandson, more like, Mella thought, but didn’t bother correcting him. “If Coel’s house helped to save an Egg, that would do much to balance the debt between your kind and ours. His name and yours will be remembered by dragons for all time! And of course…” He tried to look modest and failed utterly. “Mine as well. As the bard who made the song.”

  Just to be contrary, Mella made him wheedle a little more. But at length she told him the story. The Egg in the fire and her promise to Kieron. (She admitted that Kieron had been killed by a Defender but neglected to add that the Defender had been Roger’s master; no need to give every detail.) Alyas growled in appreciation as he heard how the little wild dragons had rescued them from Alain. Gwyn’s village and Alain again, the waterfall and the pool and the passageway up through miles of rock. Alyas listened attentively and asked eager questions as the sun slid past its highest point and began the long slide down the other side of the sky.

  When she had finished, Alyas made a rumbling sound of appreciation. He seemed to be thinking deeply.

  His turn to tell a story now, Mella decided. Why were the dragons so angry at humans? Why did they call Coel a traitor? Gwyn had said something about that as well, about a great betrayal. And did their reason have anything to do with the diamonds of Coel’s house carved in the stone before the staircase that led to the Hatching Ground?

  But as she drew in a breath to ask the question, a sound interrupted her. It came from high overhead, drifting over the edge of the valley and down to the ledge where she and Alyas sat together.

  It was not a roar, or a growl, or a hiss, or any of the sounds Mella was used to from dragons. It was music. If there were words in it, she could not understand them. But the sound was sad and sweet and fierce all at once, and it made her think of the wind before a wild storm and the cold depths of the sky on a winter’s night.

  “What is it?” she whispered to Alyas.

  “It is a lament,” the white dragon said softly, blinking his amber eyes. “For Kieron.”

  Mella could not ask questions then, could not stir, could do nothing but listen, her mind drifting on a river of sound. The song went on and on. It contained, Alyas whispered, all the names of Kieron’s ancestors since the first true dragons had hatched.

  At last the sound lulled Mella into a sleepy trance. She hadn’t slept much the night before, between worrying over the Egg and escaping from Gwyn’s village and fleeing from Alain. Not to mention walking up a mountain. She curled up on the ground and her cheek came to rest on something scaly and soft and warm. Alyas tucked a wing snugly over her. She heard a deep rumbling and felt it through her skin as he hummed quietly to himself, working on his song.

  Something jerked Mella awake, a long, clear note that might have come from the mouth of a trumpet or the throat of a dragon. She sat up quickly, her head still muzzy with sleep.

  “What?” she asked groggily. “What’s happening?”

  “Amazing,” Alyas breathed. He was stretching his long neck out into thin air, peering down at the foot of the mountain.

  “What’s amazing?” Mella, on her hands and knees, crawled out to look over the edge too.

  “He has done it. The army is retreating.”

  And indeed, Mella, squinting in the rising wind, could see that some of the white squares were disappearing even as she watched, being taken down, rolled up, and packed away into parcels too small to be seen from so far above. A line of horses and carts was forming, heading away from the waterfall and the pool.

  The anxiety that Mella had been refusing to let herself feel melted away. “I told you,” she said, feeling a smile stretch wide across her face. “Now you can take me down.”

  Alyas shook his head. “Now I must take you to the queen. She has said so, indeed.” He crouched down so she could climb on his back. “Hold tight.”

  This time Mella was prepared for a plunge off the ledge, and hugged his neck tightly until his wings caught an updraft to send them soaring back up toward the Hatching Ground.

  The queen was waiting for them once more by the lake. And around her, in a circle a respectful distance away, were rows and rows of dragons. Their wings overlapped, and their long necks stretched and strained as they peered overhead to catch a glimpse of Alyas, spiraling down with Mella on his back. She suspected him of adding some graceful turns and flourishes to his descent, purely for drama.

  The white dragon landed neatly in front of the queen and dipped his neck in an elegant movement that Mella decided must be the dragon equivalent of a bow. She slipped off his back. One of her feet hit the ground first and the second followed a few moments later, so she had to hop awkwardly to keep her balance. It was the very opposite of graceful, and Mella felt her face blush hot. What was she doing here, alone before a dragon queen? Roger was used to the company of royalty. He would have known what to do or say. Without him, Mella felt grubby and insignificant and extremely small.

  However, Roger was not there, so she would have to do the best she could without him. Remembering how her friend had bowed, she made the dragon queen a curtsy.

  And the queen, with the little dragon chick frisking around her feet, dipped her neck in response.

  Had the queen just bowed to her, to an innkeeper’s daughter? Mella made sure her mouth didn’t drop open in astonishment. But she couldn’t stop her eyes from widening.

  “We are once more in your debt,” the dragon queen said.

  And all the dragons, even Chiath, gave a muted roar of agreement and approval. They kept the sound low, Mella realized, to spare her ears. But she felt it making the air tremble, vibrating the ground beneath her feet. The breeze of it lifted and stirred her hair.

  The queen held her front foot out to Mella. Dangling from a claw were two thin leather thongs. From each swung an ivory white tooth longer than Mella’s finger.

  “A gift for you and for your companion,” the queen said. “These will mark you as dragonfriends. They are yours to wear for life and to pass on to your children.”

  Every dragon watched as Mella walked across the black sand and reached up to take the two pendants from the queen’s claws. She had to blink and squint as the sunlight flashed bright on the queen’s golden scales. The dragon towered over her, massive, like a mountain herself—the strong curve of her neck, crowned with her elegant crest, the long slope of her back, the graceful curl of her tail. Mella longed to touch the warmth of those scales, to smooth the crest or rub behind the ears, as she would have done with one of her own herd. But she did not dare. Instead she took the two pendants carefully in her hand, slipping them both over her head for safekeeping.

  “Thank you,” she said. That was all she could think of. And it seemed to be all that was needed.

  The dragon chick had noticed Mella by now, and with chirps of delight pranced over to nibble on the girl’s bootlaces and put her small clawed forefeet on Mella’s knees. Mella bent down and picked her up, warm in her hands, impossibly light, her scales smooth as water. Fire and air and serpent, Mella thought. Dragon.

  The chick nuzzled Mella beneath the chin and hummed with pleasure. Mella didn’t want to put her do
wn, even when she squirmed and flapped her wings restlessly. But she did, and the young dragon scampered back toward the queen, who tucked her safely under one wing.

  “She is young,” the queen said tolerantly. “But she will come to know how two human children saved her.”

  Was there something like sympathy in those wide, dark eyes? Could the queen know how Mella felt, how much she missed the weight and the warmth of the Egg in her hands and the knowledge that she was its keeper?

  It was hard to tell, looking up at that smooth, scaly face. All the queen said was “Alyas will take you home.”

  Foolishness, Mella told herself fiercely, blinking hard. She’d brought the Egg here safely. She kept her promise. And now her own herd, as well as her family, were waiting for her back at the Inn. She still had a keeper’s job to do, the job Gran had given her.

  Gran had known so much, Mella thought. More than Mella would ever learn. But Gran had never known what it was like to talk to a true dragon face-to-face. She’d never flown on dragonback. She’d never heard a dragon sing.

  Maybe Mella would never be the keeper Gran had been. But that did not mean she could not learn to be the keeper she was meant to be herself.

  “Not too close to the army,” the queen told Alyas. “Keep your distance. And quickly now. We want to show the humans our goodwill.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  On Alyas’s back as he perched on the edge of the valley, Mella tucked the two dragontooth pendants carefully inside the neck of her dress. Then she threw herself forward, hugging Alyas’s neck as the dragon toppled forward, squeezing her eyes shut so that she didn’t have to watch the cliff face hurtling by.

  But when their flight steadied, she settled back and sat up once more. She could feel the muscles of the dragon’s back working beneath her legs and hands. The rush of cold air stung her eyes, but she kept them open as she leaned over to see the spread of the land below.

  There was the army of Roger’s father, rows of horses and wagons and columns of marching men, the light catching on their spears and helmets, banners and pennants flashing red and yellow as they marched away from the mountain. Only one tent was left in the grassy plain beside the waterfall—the biggest, with its colorful stripes glowing bright in the sun.

  Mella spotted Gwyn’s village, the stone crofts and pens blending into the mountainside. She even thought she could glimpse Dragonsford, a dark smudge on the horizon, and a faint gray, wavering line across the distant sky she imagined might be the smoke from the Inn’s chimneys.

  Then Alyas angled toward a high hill near the plain where the army had camped. It had a bare, rocky outcropping on top where he could land, tucking his wings in neatly to keep from snagging them on the tree branches. Stiff and chilled from the wind, Mella slid awkwardly down.

  “I cannot linger,” Alyas said, bringing his face close to Mella’s. He breathed out a steamy, sulfur-smelling breath and touched Mella’s cheek briefly with his hot tongue.

  Mella’s throat hurt as she put her hands for a moment to either side of Alyas’s face. Her last true dragon. Oh, there was her own herd, waiting at home for her. But for the first time—and she felt a guilty flicker at the disloyal thought—the common farm dragons did not seem quite enough.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered to Alyas. “I hope your song is famous.”

  “It should be.” Alyas gave a low chuckle that blew Mella’s hair back from her face. “With two such heroes, indeed, it should be sung for thousands of years.”

  Alyas’s leap carried him as high as the treetops, and his pale wings beat furiously. Clearly launching from the ground was not as easy as diving from a height. Mella held her breath until the white dragon began to gain altitude. The frantic wing beats slowed to a steady pace, and he swooped up into the sky just as Roger burst through the trees.

  “You’re all right?” he panted. “I mean, I knew you would be. I saw Alyas flying. I’m sorry it took so long. I had to explain and explain. He couldn’t even decide if he was angry—”

  A furious bellow came rising up behind him. “My prince!”

  Somebody was certainly angry, Mella thought, as a small crowd of people clambered out of the trees and after Roger.

  “My prince!” the foremost of these repeated. “You must not run ahead like that, and near a dragon, of all things! Are you mad?”

  “Wiltain,” Roger said patiently, “I only wanted to see if Mella was all right. There was no danger.”

  “There was a dragon!” Wiltain wheezed. A portly man, dressed in a long wine-colored velvet coat over his linen shirt, he didn’t look as if scrambling through a rocky wood was something he was accustomed to.

  There were other people around now, some as finely dressed as Wiltain, others in the plain leather and linen of soldiers, and all of them talking at once.

  “My prince, you really must—”

  “Impossible to guard you if—”

  “Reckless and foolish—”

  “They’re from my father’s court,” Roger said in Mella’s ear. “Wiltain’s the minister of taxation, he really shouldn’t have come along on a military campaign at all, but you can’t keep him out of anything. That’s Owen, he’s the captain of my father’s guard, and the rest of them, well, they just came along. People do. You are all right, aren’t you, Mella? I wanted—”

  “My prince,” the man named Owen interrupted. The soldiers around him, Mella noticed, had bolts readied on their crossbows and were looking nervously at the sky, where Alyas was now a creamy dot against the blue.

  “You must not leave your guards,” Owen continued reproachfully. “And you must come back with us now. Your father is waiting.”

  Roger had his chin up and was looking dignified again. “I told you, Owen, there is no danger.”

  “Nevertheless.” Owen stood firm. “You’ll return with us now.”

  The soldiers made a ring around Mella and Roger and Wiltain and the few others whose clothes marked them as nobles, and hurried them back down through the trees and toward the plain. As they climbed over rocks and ducked under branches, Roger kept up a quick stream of commentary, low enough that only Mella could hear.

  “He’d arrested Alain and Gwyn, can you believe it? Alain because Gwyn said he’d tried to kidnap us, and Gwyn because he wouldn’t say where we’d gone, or what he knew, or anything. He’s let him go now, of course. I think he might make him a knight. Damien’s there too. The healer said he shouldn’t ride, but he wouldn’t stay behind. I think he’s angry, I’m not sure, it’s hard to tell sometimes. And now—”

  They were at the bottom of the hill, pushing between the last trees and out into the plain beside the waterfall. The flattened grass and trampled mud showed where the army had been. Now there was nothing left of them but what had been dropped or abandoned in the hasty retreat—a tent peg, a scrap of frayed rope, half a loaf of bread ground into the mud, a thrown horseshoe, a stray glove. The soldiers hurried them toward the red and yellow tent, its stripes bright and brave in the sun.

  All the other tents Mella had seen from her perch on the mountainside had been plain and white. This one was special. It must belong to someone important.

  “Your father is waiting,” Owen had said.

  “Is that—” she whispered to Roger. “Is that your—I mean—is the king in there?”

  Roger gave her a look that said, Of course.

  Mella’s hands reached up to pat at her hair, wild and wildblown from her flight on dragonback. Couldn’t Roger have said something earlier? Couldn’t they have given her two minutes to herself, so she didn’t have to face the king—the king!—with her hair practically standing on end? There wasn’t much she could have done about the dress she’d worn waking and sleeping for days together. Mella even had a fleeting, foolish moment of feeling glad she’d fallen in that murderous pool below the waterfall; at least it had been something like a wash….

  Then she was ducking inside the king’s tent.

  It wasn’t really li
ke a tent, she thought. More like a room with walls of red and yellow silk. There was even a carpet underfoot, and a bed in one corner, and chairs gathered around a table, with two men sitting in them. A number of other people were in the room as well, some soldiers, some nobles, and one who was neither. Gwyn was standing so still in a corner that Mella thought most people had probably forgotten he was there. The shepherd had one arm in a linen sling and he met Mella’s eyes with a quiet smile and dipped his head to her, as if he were acknowledging a job well done.

  One of the men sitting at the table rose; the other started to do so and was waved back into his chair by the first. She knew the sitting man; it was Damien. He looked worn and tired, a white bandage standing out sharply against his black hair; one leg, stretched out before him, was splinted and heavily bandaged.

  She knew the standing man, too. He’d grown a beard since she had seen him pass by the Inn years ago, and his short brown hair was touched with threads of gray. It was so curly it almost hid the simple gold circlet on his head.

  Mella glanced around nervously. Should she kneel? But everyone else, including Roger, simply bowed slightly, so Mella just bent her knee and ducked her head.

  “So this is the young dragonkeeper?”

  Mella changed her mind as the king’s voice, not loud but strong, silenced everyone else in the tent. She dropped to her knees and stared fixedly at the king’s boots, polished leather laced up over his knees, and bit her lip. Was he angry? At Roger, at her? She’d already faced one angry ruler this day. It didn’t seem fair that she should have to deal with a second.

  The feet came a little closer, and then a hand came into Mella’s view. It touched her chin gently and tipped her head back so that she looked into the king’s face.

  He’s kind, she thought in amazement as he smiled. There was gentleness in his face, though it was stern about the mouth and worn by worry around the eyes.