Dragons of Summer Tide (The Dragons of Hwandor)

by Robert Barton

  Shira looked at him and then at the little dragon with the bandaged leg. “His eyes look a lot like your eyes too.”

  Veer looked at the girl for a moment and then looked around the camp at the baby dragons and said. “I’ll tell you one thing. Those little creatures heal really fast. Those two with bandages won’t need them anymore after tonight. And that little one that the others are taking care of shouldn’t be alive. I saw it get crushed under a wolf. It was barely breathing. But it’s already starting to move around.”

  “I don’t know,” said Shira. “We will see tomorrow. I need to think about all of this tonight. But I do know that I have been sleeping for days and I’m not tired. And I bet that you have not slept for more than a short nap at a time for days. I’m not sleepy so you go to sleep and I’ll take first watch and wake you up later.”

  “Alright, thanks,” Veer answered and then as he started to unroll his bedroll he continued. “Those little dragons can hunt for themselves and they are taking care of the injured ones. So tomorrow, I say we take the little one and the two with wolf bites back to that cave. And we see if we can find one of those horses wandering around here, get your saddle and then we can go after those foreigners.”

  Shira said nothing and just looked thoughtfully at the young man as he slid into his blankets. As Veer drifted off to sleep, Shira continued to think about his words. In fact, she thought about them all through her watch and through the next watch. She quietly woke Veer to take his watch just two hours before dawn and as she drifted off to sleep herself she imagined tracking those men down – those men who had killed her father and her friend.

  Five

  Shira awoke just after dawn to find that Veer had been very busy. She saw that he had built up the fire really large and that he had retrieved the rest of the new deer kill from the day before. The bandages were already off of the injured dragons which were milling around as Veer tossed them bits of meat that he was cutting. Shira seeing what Veer intended to do headed out into the bush for her morning relief then went down to the stream to clean up and get started. Once she was clean she started cutting long thin limbs from the willows and hazel trees and making a pile of withies on a bare space near the fire. Then she cut some forked sticks and stuck them into the ground to hold the withies which would become meat drying racks.

  Shira then joined Veer to cut strips of venison and hang them on the withies and placed them on the supports to build a drying rack a couple of feet above the ground. Before long the rack and baby dragons were full and the fire had burnt down to coals which Veer then spread under the rack. The heat of the coals would dry the meat in a few hours so that they would have meat to take along with them so that they could travel quickly with no need to hunt for food. The two young people discussed their plans as they worked very efficiently together.

  Once the meat was set to dry Veer went down to the stream and gathered some of the reeds and grasses there in order to make the same kind of Hillfolk gather basket that Shira had made. He sat down to watch the meat dry while he made the basket. The baby dragons had dragged the deer bones to the edge of the brush and were busy gnawing at them like dogs would. Shira picked up her own bow and headed out into the forest. As the girl disappeared into the forest Veer noticed Green Eyes flying about in the tree tops moving in the same direction as Shira as though she were following the girl. The dragon which had safe guarded Shira during her poison sleep sat for a moment watching the direction in which the girl had gone and then looked up into the trees at her sister. Then the little dragon started off in the same direction as the girl moving along fairly quickly despite recent injuries.

  Veer spent the next two hours packing up everything in camp and once the meat was dry he packed it all in one of the large pouches which could be carried by the horse. Then he set to foraging the area to fill his basket with tubers and edibles. He kept himself busy by preparing to travel.

  As Shira walked along to retrieve her saddle and other things that she had left hidden she caught sight of Green Eyes in the trees. Then she heard a movement on the pathway behind her and as she spun drawing her fighting knife she saw that it was the little dragon which had been her constant companion while sick. Shira noticed that the dragon on the trail behind her was not as small as some of the others and seemed to have grown almost over night. Actually the dragonets seemed to all be growing at different speeds and were getting to be different sizes. Green eyes and some of them were very small almost like birds. But her dragon seemed to be getting a bit bigger and was calf high. ‘My dragon.’ She thought to herself and snickered out loud. She isn’t my dragon, people don’t have dragons she’s just a dragon. Then she thought about the dragon that was starting to have eyes like Veer. That one was really getting a lot bigger than the others and was already almost knee high. Occasionally Green eyes would get close in her fluttering and if Shira looked at the little dragon she would hiss. When the green eyed dragonet got too close the other dragon would spread her wings and screech a warning that would send Green Eyes back into the tree tops.

  After a little more than half an hour Shira had easily covered the two miles of trail to get to the place where she had hidden her saddle and her extra packs all hanging in the trees away from animals. She quickly untied the end of the twine and lowered everything to the ground and checked to insure that everything was fine. She tossed the packs over her shoulder and picked up her saddle and started to walk back up the trail for the return to camp and she thought to herself how nice it would be to find those horses Veer had spoken of. Then she saw her dragon spread its wings and lumber into the air. So she can fly Shira thought to herself. And though the dragonet was not as nimble as Green Eyes she was managing to not smack into any trees. Shira watched as the dragon rose above the surrounding trees and made a large circle around the area and then made a few smaller circles a little distance away to the east. Then the dragon returned to start spiralling down toward the place where Shira was standing. As the dragon glided in for a landing on the trail, Shira could already see that it was not going to be a pretty landing. At the last moment the dragon backwinged to slow herself down but it didn’t go at all well. As her feet touched the ground she pitched forward onto the wounds that were not completely healed on her chest and she let out a cry of pain.

  Shira gasped for breath and realized that she had been driven to her knees by a white hot searing pain in her own chest. She could still hear her own cry of pain mingled with the bellow of the dragon as both sounds echoed off of surrounding ridges. The pain had been blinding as though several arrows had hit her at once. As sight returned she looked down at her chest and there was no wound, not a single mark. Then she looked at the baby dragon that also seemed to be recovering from the pain. It seemed like days of pain but it was only really moments. Shira tried to recall every legend and tale that she had ever heard about dragons and people who bonded with them. Everything that she had heard in the old legends said that bonding with a dragon was an evil thing that had brought great harm to people. Shira was torn from her reverie by the sounds of Green Eyes in the tree tops shrieking in rage. As Shira looked up at the nasty little beast she could hear the dragon beside her call a warning to the reptilian fury fluttering in the branches above. Green Eyes then just hissed at them both as they were still kneeling on the ground from the pain.

  As Shira slowly stood back up she looked again into the eyes of her dragon. She was sure now, she just knew, this is her dragon. As the two of them stood there looking at one another Shira thought that she faintly heard the sound of a horse in the distance to the east. She wasn’t sure of the sound and if she had heard a horse it was certainly a good distance away. Unwilling to delay her trip back for a sound that she isn’t even sure that she had heard Shira once again started up the trail toward camp. But her dragon left the trail and started to walk east where it had circled. Shira called after the baby dragon that it was going the wrong way. Then reminding herself that dragons don’t speak she shook
her head and turned back to the trail. After a few steps a growing nagging sensation filed her mind, she shook her head again and started to follow the baby dragon toward the east.

  After about a quarter of an hour of walking east and negotiating a low ridge Shira noticed that the dragonet had stopped moving and was standing in the thicker brush that always edges a meadow or clearing. She put down her burdens and quietly strung her bow and then edged forward to see what was in the meadow ahead. As she got to the edge of the clearing beside the dragonet she looked and there she saw horses, three of them. The horses were just out in the meadow eating grass without a care in the world. ‘These must be the three horses that Veer was telling me about’ she thought to herself. The horses had found themselves a nice grass covered beaver meadow. When old beaver families die and leave their dam unattended, the dam eventually breaks and the beaver pond drains leaving behind a little meadow with a stream flowing through it. Just the perfect kind of place for horses.

  Since Shira would not need her bow she unstrung it to relieve the tension and then pulled some lengths of heavy twine out of her packs for leads and started into the clearing after the horses. The horses saw her exit the brush line and head toward them but being tame horses they just watched her approach. Then this airborne streak passed low over Shira as it let out a loud shriek and headed straight at the horses. The horses panicked and Shira knew that the streak was Green Eyes trying to scare off the horses. Then another larger but slower streak passed over Shira also bellowing a warning. Shira was overwhelmed by a sense of rage, like her own anger at Green Eyes but mixed with more anger than she thought she could feel. As the horses turned to run Green Eyes slammed into the back of one horse and dug her claws in. The horse stood and kicked the air and shook its head in order to try and dislodge the attacker, but Green Eyes bit the horse in the back of the neck. The horse whinnied loudly and continued to kick and thrash about for a few moments and then stood still. As the horse stood it started swaying in place and the second slower dragon slammed into Green Eyes and as both dragons become entangled and rolled off of the back of the horse, the pain of the impact drove Shira to her knees again. As she gasped for breath and her sight cleared she looked up to see that the bitten horse had fallen to the ground and that the dragons had finished fighting and Green Eyes was once again in the air while the larger baby dragon screeched at the back of her fleeing sibling. Shira watched Green Eyes disappear into the distance in the direction of camp.

  Shira thought to herself, ‘this was perfect, one horse poisoned and the other two will most likely run for miles.’ Shira had never hated anything as much as she hated that little green eyed beast right now. She didn’t even feel this much anger and hatred when she thought about the men who had killed her father. As she reached the place where the horse was lying she could see that it was well and truly dead. Shira was so angry that she was shaking with rage and she noticed that the baby dragon was standing there also shaking with the same feelings. Shira sat on the ground and began to breathe deeply to try and calm herself because her father had taught her that anger was a poor leader.

  She remembered the words of her father. “Look at that girl. You broke your bow. That was your first bow and you broke it. The bow isn’t to blame for you missing those targets. When your first arrow went wide your anger made sure that the next nine followed it. You’re eight years old and throwing a tantrum like a baby. So now you have no bow, and no supper tonight. Sit over there on that bare patch with a stick and scratch the number 50 into the ground and take a deep breath then blow it out as you erase the number then you do all your numbers that way till you get back to nought. See if that don’t calm your mind. Then tonight when I’m havin’ my supper you can start carving another bow from one of them yew staves.” Just like it was yesterday Shira could hear his voice. She had always had a problem with her temper but he had shown her how to quell the fires of her anger and focus her mind. So why was she feeling so enraged right now? She felt as angry as the dragon looked as it stood there and fluttered its wings and clawed at the ground in frustration.

  Then she realized that she was feeling what the dragon was feeling the same way she felt the injuries. She looked at the dragon and spoke, “you’re a baby throwing a tantrum.” Shira began her deep breathing again and started to count backwards but this time she tried to concentrate on calming not just her mind but the mind of the dragonet. As she did this she saw that the dragon was calming down and she was herself feeling less anger coming from the dragon. As she reached the end of her counting she knew that she was calm and focused and even more importantly the little dragon was calm and focused.

  Shira thought to herself that now she would most likely spend the rest of the day looking for the horses that had fled. She looked around and saw that actually they had only run to the other side of the meadow and were just standing there together nervously. After a few minutes she had both animals calmed down and on leads and was headed back to the trail with the two horses and with her packs already loaded on them. After another quarter hour she reached the trail and climbed onto the horse that she had already saddled and started riding up the trail back toward camp. The dragon followed along and the horses seemed to not be afraid of it as if they too were subject to the magic of the dragon and thought that it was just a dog.

  As it started to get toward late morning Veer had long since finished his basket and with the meat packed away and everything else ready to travel he had foraged for food around the area and had filled the basket with edibles. This way once they started moving they would not have to spend time foraging or hunting and could make very good time on the trail. He had seen green eyes return to the camp and noticed that she sat high up in a tree looking a bit upset. A little more than half an hour after Green Eyes returned Veer heard the sound of hooves walking on the nearby trail. The hooves left the trail and Veer could hear someone breaking noisily through the brush. Veer strung his bow just to be sure and checked that his sword and knife were both loose and ready to be drawn if needed.

  Veer stood calm but ready as whoever it was neared the camp until he could see Shira through the trees. He called to her. “You found two of the horses. Good, now we won’t have to spend any time looking for them. So we can get going.”

  “Nope, found all three horses. Or the dragon found them really. Then that little green eyed beast killed one of the horses. So we’ve got two more; that’s three, we can both ride and one can carry packs.”

  “That must be why she came back in such a hurry,” said Veer

  “Yes, I think that she would have killed all three but my dragon fought her off.”

  “She did look kind of beaten up and ruffled when she got back.” Veer said and then he gave Shira a quizzical look. “Your dragon?”

  “You know what I mean.” She glared at him. “You can’t tell me that you don’t feel that that biggest dragon isn’t yours’. You feel it when it’s hurt. Why do you think that you felt it when the wolf bit the dragon?”

  “What do you mean?” Veer asked.

  “It’s like the old stories tell. Somehow when those dragons saved us from dying of the poison they bonded to us, just like in the legends.”

  “That’s silly, people don’t really bond with dragons. It’s just tales and stories. Besides all the stories say that only really evil people bonded dragons in ancient times,” said Veer. “I’ll be glad when we leave them all back at their cave and go. Then no more dragons or anything strange like that.”

  “Well, it’s almost midday so let’s just load everything onto the horses and get going I want to find these strangers. Shira said as she climbed down and started to load more packs and the two baskets onto the pack horse while Veer saddled his horse and prepared to move.

  When all was ready Veer went over and gently picked up the now awake smaller injured dragon and said. “I’ll carry this one to the cave and you can lead the horses. Then we can leave the dragons there and get going.” Then he started wa
lking in the direction of the cave. Shira gathered the horses and followed.

  The way back to the cave was short and by midday Veer and Shira had returned all of the young dragons to their nest. Veer gently placed the small injured dragonet on the ground and the two other baby dragons which had been caring for her took up their positions to help her. Shira looked around the shallow cave and saw all of the egg shells broken and scattered about and said. “What do we have, ten baby dragons? Nine here and Green Eyes out there somewhere.”

  “Yeah, so?” Veer responded.

  “So, look at all of the shells. That has got to be more that ten dragon eggs worth of broken shells there. I don’t know how many eggs a dragon lays in a clutch but from the looks of it there have to be more baby dragons around here somewhere.”

  Veer looked appalled. “Maybe there are. Maybe there are lots of them out there all looking like puppies or squirrels or birds and ponies. I just hope that they stay far away from us. Let’s get going while we still have half a day.”

  Both young people went outside to where they had left the horses and they mounted and started to ride across the stream with Veer leading the pack horse. As they crossed the stream Veer pointed into the trees and said. “They went through there after the fight. There will be no tracks but I know of a trail that is just through there and I know that it leads deeper into the hills and then mountains.”

  They started to ride forward again and they heard a fluttering sound behind them and turned to look back and saw six dragons crossing the stream following them. Two of which were a little larger than the others and who had human eyes and four more following along behind. Veer responded to this with. “Damn, just what we need. Go back!” He shouted as he urged his horse toward the dragons in a threatening manner. Then one of the dragons bristled and spread its wings and the horse stopped and refused to go any nearer as though the horse had just figured out that this wasn’t a puppy in front of it. He wheeled the horse around, rode back to where he had dropped the lead for the pack horse and set off at a gallop with the pack horse following and Shira right behind on her horse. “See how long it takes them to get tired and go back.”