by J. C. Staudt
Marsh bent and grabbed Ristocule round the thighs with a rough hand and flipped him onto his back. Ristocule flapped wildly, panic humming through him.
“Settle down, settle down.” Marsh jammed the hood over Ristocule’s beak and pulled the straps tight.
All was darkness. Ristocule felt the boy trying to untangle his feet, yanking at the loops of cord and wrenching the bird’s toes aside as if they were no more delicate than the prongs on a pitchfork. When the task was done, Marsh fastened leather jesses around Ristocule’s ankles, then squeezed him by the thighs again and jerked him upright. Ristocule felt himself lifted. His feet touched down on rawhide.
“Carry the snare,” Marsh ordered.
Bosco lifted the cage. The voles scurried.
Ristocule was so hungry he could smell them.
“Why’d you have to put so many rocks in this thing?” Bosco complained.
“You didn’t want the bird flying off with it, did you?”
The little men started off home. Marsh yelled in surprise when Ristocule launched himself into the air and beat his wings for freedom. The leash fastened round Marsh’s waist quickly reached its limit and pulled taut, throwing the blind animal into a clumsy downward arc.
Marsh gave a wheezing laugh. “Stupid bird. He won’t try that again soon, will he?”
Fingers closed around Ristocule’s legs and returned him to his perch. Having no other choice, he gripped the rawhide glove and stood fast.
“What’ll we name him?” Bosco asked.
“I hadn’t thought of naming it,” Marsh said. “What did you have in mind?”
“How about Featherbreast?”
“That’s the daftest name I ever heard. I tell you what, though, I just thinked up a good one. Master Whitefeather.”
“That’s got feather in it, just like mine did,” Bosco said.
“Well I don’t like yours. And it’s my bird besides.”
Bosco grunted and walked on in silence. After a time, he said, “Gods, but this thing is heavy. Can I hold the bird and you carry the trap for a while?”
“No,” Marsh snapped. “If I know you, you’ll forget to tie the leash and we’ll be chasing the bird halfway to Laerlocke. Anyway, we’re nearly there, you lazy bones.”
They weren’t nearly there. It was a long way yet through the overgrown fields to where the little men lived, but Ristocule knew they were getting close when he smelled the tantalizing smoke of cooked rabbit. Distant voices came near, as did the sounds of wood being chopped, metal being hammered, and fires being stoked. Somewhere close by, children were playing. Dogs barked at the sunrise. A shallow stream trickled over smooth stones; fish nibbled at raindrops on the water.
All the while, in the bird’s mind, man and animal shifted forward and back, each vying for dominance before ceding to the other.
A door opened and closed. The wind died on Ristocule’s feathers, and every sound echoed close. He was inside a small structure now, warm with the crackling of a morning hearth. Voices erupted so loud and sudden it made him tremble in panic and give a screech. The straps loosened, and the hood was pulled away.
Ristocule found himself inside a tiny hut of mud and stone with a low thatched roof, standing on the rawhide glove over Marsh’s outstretched arm. Half a dozen little people crowded the room, all talking at the same time. A wide-bellied man with a shiny bald head sat squeezed into a chair at one end of a long table set neatly with wooden dinnerware, while a plump woman in an apron and bonnet bustled between the hearth and a small side stand. Along one side of the breakfast table sat two young girls and a baby boy in a tall chair.
“Quiet everyone. Quiet,” Marsh said. “You must be calm, or you’ll scare the hawk.”
“You really getted one?” asked the smaller of the two girls.
“It’s so big,” said the other.
“I did,” said Marsh, “and its name is Master Whitefeather.”
“I helped,” said Bosco. “With the catching, and with the naming.”
Marsh scowled. “He maked a right lot of noise and carried on the whole way home about how heavy the snare was. That’s about all he did.”
“Go easy on him, Marsh,” said the woman by the hearth.
“I hope you wasn’t planning to roost that creature in my rafters,” said the fat man in the chair, eyes narrowing in his plump face.
“Well of course I was,” Marsh said. “I can’t keep him outside. Someone will steal him.”
The man rubbed his shiny bald crown. “Someone must’ve stoled your wits if you think I’ll have that bloody thing laying shites on me ‘ead whilst I sleep.”
“Gamms,” the woman scolded. “You mustn’t speak that way in front of the children.”
Gamms ignored her, keeping his gaze on his son. “Outside, I said. That’s the last I’ll hear of it, or I’ll set the bloody creature loose myself.”
“But Da—”
“I won’t say it again,” Gamms shouted. “Do you truly expect you’ll train that wild thing to hunt game for my table?”
“Since there’s a lack of much else on your table,” Marsh said, “I don’t see the harm in trying.”
The fat man’s face reddened. He stared down at his meager bowl of porridge, still steaming from the kettle. “It may not be much, but you’ll see little of it so long as you keep running your mouth like that, you ungrateful whelp.”
“When I train my hawk, you’ll be the one running your mouth,” Marsh shouted. “To beg for the meat from its kills.”
Gamms inhaled and sighed, nostrils flaring. “You’re a simpleton if you think I’ll let you off your chores so you can caper about with a wild animal the day long. Do you know the first thing about what’s involved in training raptors? That bloody thing isn’t even a hawk. It’s a falcon.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll train it all the same.”
Gamms rolled his eyes. “Gods help me. Get it out of here. We’re sitting to breakfast, and—” he jutted a finger at Ristocule, “—that thing is not invited.”
Marsh tightened his jaw so hard his teeth cracked. He blinked away tears. “I’ll do all my chores every day before I start training it. I promise. Just please… please let me keep it inside until I can build it a shelter. It’ll catch its death in the rain tonight. I’ll tether it to the corner so it don’t go nowhere and keep it hooded until it’s out of doors.”
Gamms pointed a warning finger at his son. “Mark me, now. First thing tomorrow, first thing you do after your chores is start work on a hutch for it. No training until it’s done. If you’re not finished in three days, the bird goes outside. No excuses, no exceptions. I’ll hold you to your word. I swear it.”
Marsh shook with excitement, causing Ristocule to adjust his footing on the young man’s arm. Bosco jumped up and down. The little girls clapped their hands. The baby cooed, shedding a silken line of dribble from his bottom lip.
“I will, Da. I will,” Marsh promised, hooding Ristocule and tying him to the rafter in the corner.
Blinded by his hood, Ristocule could only listen as the family ate, smelling the sweet tang of herbs and meat and roasted vegetables. When they were done, the dishes were cleared away with much clinking and bickering, and the smells became less pleasant. Gamms and his wife summoned the children to bed, and the scent of burning candles let Ristocule know it was nighttime.
While the family took to their beds, Bosco dragged a chair across the floor and stepped up to stroke Ristocule’s breast. “Goodnight, Master Whitefeather. Sleep well.”
“Don’t touch it,” Marsh shouted. “It’s my bird, not yours.”
“Leave your brother be, Marsh. He can touch the bird if he wants to.”
A brief argument ensued. Gamms once again threatened to banish the bird and be done with it, to which Marsh promised to let Bosco touch it if he wanted to. Ristocule shifted on his perch, hoping only for the little people to cease their arguing and remember that he himself had not yet eaten in all the time since they’d
caught him. The family settled in for the night, rustling for comfort on straw mattresses beneath thin woolen blankets. The children whispered to one another until Gamms shushed them, and all fell silent. Snores commenced and deepened.
Still Ristocule waited for food.
No one fed him.
In the night, Sir Jalleth came to the front of the bird’s mind. His first thought was, The scroll! What have I done with the scroll? Then he remembered.
After retrieving Stoya’s bag from the woodland clearing, Eldrek had run until he felt the mage-song closing in around him. He had taken the scroll in hand and discarded the bag, knowing it would be the only thing he could carry once he became a bird. More importantly, it was the only thing that would turn him back into a man.
After changing shape, he’d clutched the scroll in his talons as tenderly as could be managed and flown north over the woods, scanning the world below for signs of Stoya and Draithon. Even with his sharp eyes, he’d found no such sign. When the rain had started and Ristocule had begun to hunger, he’d lodged the scroll in the fork of a high branch on a great cabrous tree and continued north toward the Dailfeld, where the hunting was easier. Now, with the littlefolk holding him hostage, he knew there was only one thing to do. He needed to make them believe they were training him, and escape at the first chance he got.
Chapter 13
The dragon’s hot breath spurted through its nostrils in columns of green smoke that drifted toward the cavern ceiling. The creature moved as it spoke, craning its neck this way and that to study Alynor from every angle. “Long have I watched you,” Shandashkaleth said in a voice so slow and deep it thrummed in Alynor’s chest. “Long have I waited.”
“W-why?” Alynor stammered. “For what?”
“A weakness in your vile sorcery.”
“I don’t understand.”
The dragon bellowed, blasting her with its smoky breath. “Do not think to deceive me. I know your mind. I know your ways.”
Draithon, who had grown quiet with fear, now burst into sobs again.
Alynor comforted him, but the boy would not be calmed. “I wish I could say this made any sense to me. Truly, I do.”
“You once bore the periapt for which I have searched these long ages. Then you hid it from me. Now, I have tasted it on the wind once more. I know you have it. Tell me where it is.”
“What’s a… periapt?”
“You are a fool to think I would believe your lies.”
Alynor was stunned. What could she say to convince the dragon she was telling the truth? She rocked Draithon, unsure how to respond. When she looked into her son’s frightened eyes, her fear flashed to indignation. “I believe you must think me someone else.”
The dragon bared its teeth in a sneer, unveiling fangs as long as swords. “I know who you are. When you came to the village you call home, you were in possession of the periapt. I smell its essence upon you now, just as I smelled it while you were yet leagues away. Give it to me and I shall let you go.”
“Give you what? I don’t know of any periapt. I’ve hidden nothing from you. I didn’t even know you existed until a few moments ago.” Alynor’s anxious tone made Draithon whimper and sob.
“Then tell me… if you are not the bearer of the periapt, who is?”
“Have you heard nothing I’ve said? If I had any inkling of what you meant, perhaps I could tell you. But since—”
“The child,” Shandashkaleth interrupted. “Is he yours?”
“Mine and my husband’s.”
“Will you now cross a dragon at the expense of his life?”
“If your quarrel is with me, it needn’t involve my son.”
The dragon licked the air with a slender forked tongue. “I tire of your games. Tell me where it is, or I’ll make a meal of him.”
Alynor grasped for words. “What sort of object is this periapt? What does it look like? How big is it?”
“If I knew that, would I have summoned you here to tell me?”
“You… don’t know?”
“You are very stupid for an elf.”
“I’m not an elf.”
“Then you are very stupid for whatever you are, elf-thing. I know the periapt by emanation only, and you stink of it.”
“And that’s why you… summoned me?”
“Goblins are good for very little,” Shandashkaleth said. “As servants, they offer the advantage of being easily frightened into satisfactory behavior. To find and capture a woman and her child as they fled through the Wildwood was a task I predicted too ambitious for them. As it turns out, Deg and his folk are quite capable… when provided with the proper motivation.”
“You allowed them to deliver me in place of a live sacrifice of their own kind,” Alynor said. “Deg told me.”
The dragon gave a deep nasal laugh. “Deg. Too clever by half. What else did he tell you about me?”
“He says there is none wiser or mightier.”
“He is not wrong. What else?”
“He claims you have chosen his people to be your allies for the dark times to come.”
“Ah, yes. The dark times. But then, you would know more about those than I… wouldn’t you?”
“Again, I have no knowledge of this. Surely you mistake me for someone else. Please explain what it is you want.”
“That light over your head. How did you make it?”
“With magic,” Alynor said, glancing up at it. The light was fading now as the spell wore off.
“And where did you come by the knowledge of this magic?”
“I was taught. By someone who knew the spell already.”
“So you admit you are a seasoned caster. And yet you deny all knowledge of the periapt I seek.”
Alynor sighed. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you tell me why it is that this periapt is so important to you, and how it came to be? Once I have a frame of reference, perhaps I can be more helpful.”
“You will indeed be helpful. You will bring it to me.”
“I can’t bring it to you if I don’t know a thing about it. If you want it so badly, why don’t you go retrieve it yourself?”
“You misconstrue my words, elf-thing. Look at me. My wings are tattered. My claws are brittle. My scales wither and molt. Yet I will exist in this cave for a thousand years after your death. The moment I leave this sanctum—the moment my shadow falls over a village, or word of my presence reaches a brave young knight of the borderlands—I become a monster, hunted and feared. I have cowered here in this hole, waiting as the ages pass. Now you dangle the object of my desire before me like dry bones before a dog. I shall wait no longer.”
“You are a very old dragon, then.”
“You’ve no hope of comprehending my age. Should you live to see the deaths of your grandchildren’s grandchildren, you may then approach a single grain of sand in the hourglass of my life. Since the dawning of the realms have I longed for the periapt. Where is it?”
“Help me understand,” Alynor begged. “I need you to tell me more. Do you need the periapt to regain your strength? Is that it?”
“Mine is the strength of armies.”
“And yet you claim a single young knight could slay you.”
“Not so long as I remain here, where I am invisible to the eyes of the world.”
“You believe lying around in the dark, feeding on goblin meat, to be a better use of your days than seeking out this object you crave so badly?”
Shandashkaleth lifted her head to tower over Alynor and the sobbing boy, angling as if to snap them up in her jaws. When she spoke, Alynor could swear the force of her breath made the ground shiver beneath her. “Meat? Is that the limit of your vision? Could you truly believe it is crude, tangible flesh which has sustained me through the ages? Oh simple, mortal elf-thing. You belie your insight. No. Like the gods of old, I am made of finer stuff.”
She equates herself to the gods. Something’s gone wrong in the mind of this dragon. “Are you not made of the same stuff a
s any other creature? I don’t have your periapt. My son and I have only the robes on our backs. We’ve neither a coin between us nor a purse to put it in.”
“Yet there is no doubt you’ve been near it.”
“There is no doubt your mind has come unhinged, dragon. You’re nothing but a rotting sack of skin, gray and addled. Did your wits take their leave of you as your body fell apart, or before? It isn’t your cunning that prevents you from answering my questions. You don’t answer my questions because you don’t know the answers. You can’t remember. Yet you insist I know something I don’t. Your obsession has clouded your senses. You’ve forgotten why this thing was so important to you in the first place, haven’t you? Perhaps you’ve even forgotten what it contains.”
“A soul,” the dragon blared. “The periapt contains a soul. The soul of another ancient being in whom I carry a great interest. A being more powerful than any I’ve devoured before, or am likely to hereafter.”
“You devour… souls.”
The dragon’s lips curled, the closest approximation of a smile Alynor supposed it was capable of. “A learned skill. If you do not believe me, come to the edge and see for yourself.”
Alynor believed the dragon, though she still wanted to see. She stood, shifting Draithon onto her hip as she approached the precipice. The dragon’s domain stretched out below, wreathed in darkness.
The cavern rumbled as Shandashkaleth turned about on her massive legs. With a deep inhalation, she lit a green spark in her breast. Alynor could see the glow in the beast’s nostrils, feel the waves of heat escaping through the gaps between its razor-sharp teeth.
When the dragon exhaled, a gout of green liquid gushed from its jaws to douse the cavern wall. The substance oozed down the stone in a glowing cascade, smoking and bubbling. The light from that corrosive shower revealed the outline of a glistening mound as tall as a castle tower and wider than an archery range. The mound appeared at first to be composed of dirt or excrement, but as the dragon’s disgorgement puddled around it, Alynor caught glimpses of its true composition: a flaccid, maze-like tangle of discarded bodies. Suddenly the cavern’s stench made perfect sense. She gasped and shielded Draithon’s eyes.