Dragon Rescue

by Don Callander

  “How exciting!” cried Beatrix, who had followed them out into the bailey, trailed by the Ffallmar children and Rosemary with little Princess Amelia. “A stranger Dragon from goodness knows where! Can Furbetrance stop him? Is he planning to attack?”

  “Trust old Furbetrance, Stepmother,” Manda told her. “But just in case, maybe we’d better take the children back indoors.”

  Between them, the ladies herded the wildly excited young ones back into Great Hall. Young Eddie of Ffallmar insisted on peering up through the narrow clerestory windows, hoping to catch glimpses of the airborne Dragons.

  “Maybe they’ll fight!” he shouted, pressing his nose against the glass. “Oh, no! Look, Aunt Manda! Mama! They’re circling each other almost overhead!”

  “This is Hoarling,” called Murdan to Furbetrance. “You may have heard of him.”

  “Both good and not so good,” replied Furbetrance Constable with some distaste. “My brother bespoke him some time back about keeping an eye on the Rellings, didn’t he?”

  “Not the Rellings, actually,” said the silver-and-blue Dragon, eyeing the Constable Dragon warily as the two circled each other slowly, high over Overhall Castle. “He asked me to watch this exiled lordling Gantrell in case he tried to sneak back into your precious country. He never did, and I fulfilled my commission.”

  “Huh!” snorted Furbetrance with disgust. “It never occurred to you we’d like to know about the Rellings’ attack?”

  “Well, actually,” admitted Hoarling, looking rather sheepish, “I was still in summer sleep when they made their move. I did send word to Lexor, you know. The King was on vacation but the message went to someone named...Chamberlain, I think it was. When I went to see where Gantrell was, I found him—and the sour little Accountant and the Historian, too—on an iceberg.”

  “That much is true,” agreed Murdan. “He warned Lexor and rescued us, all three, from certain death by freezing or drowning.”

  “Come along, then,” said Furbetrance, relenting. “Better let me go first, however. There may be some itchy bowstring fingers on Overhall’s walls.”

  When pleased greetings and shouts of surprise had subsided, explanations and exchanges of experiences were demanded by all sides.

  Tom, Manda, and the Queen congratulated the Historian on his narrow escape. Furbetrance was given the floor—so to speak, as his body remained outside Great Hall—to report on the siege of Lexor.

  “But first,” insisted Graham, who had immediately taken Peter Gantrell and Plume into custody with a platoon of archers, “what’s to be done with these fine so-called gentlemen? By royal law, Peter Gantrell must be held for reentering the kingdom without the King’s permission. And I imagine Lord Murdan has some questions to ask the Accountant.”

  Murdan waved a hand and said, “No time for that now. Put ‘em up...in Aftertower...but not with the Relling officers. I promised Lord Peter I’d speak for him, when his case came before the King.”

  “I accept imprisonment willingly,” Peter said quickly. “It’ll be so nice to be warm and dry once again, I’d agree to almost anything.”

  “Put them to Aftertower, yes,” said Beatrix. “Keep them close, Captain Graham! I deem it’s a matter for the King to decide when he returns from battle.”

  “Grand Blizzardmaker double-crossed Peter,” Murdan explained to Tom and the rest as the exiles were being led away. “It seems to have changed his attitude, somewhat.”

  “I don’t trust him, nevertheless,” snapped the Queen. “We’ll be wise to hold him and his nasty little flunky close until we can sort this out properly.”

  “Now, about Lexor?” reminded Furbetrance, mildly.

  “Yes, yes! Speak of the King and Ffallmar,” commanded Beatrix, dismissing Peter from her thoughts at once.

  “His Majesty and I found your husband, Lady Rosemary, at the head of seven thousand troops of levees, marching on Lexor. The Relling host was drawn up about the walls of the capital, evidently preparing to storm the city. All is well! I was able to give Ffallmar some badly needed intelligence after flying over the Relling lines to spot their weak and strong points.

  “Early yesterday, Eduard and Ffallmar attacked them from the southwest and west. Walden saw us coming and sent a sortie in force from within the city. I helped as best I could—much fierce roaring and fire-belching smoke and flame—and the Relling allies to the south of the city withdrew after only a brief fight.”

  He waited for a rumble of approval and applause to die down.

  “The main Relling force was in the northeastern quadrant, however, and they resisted for a few hours longer, but surprise and the unseasonably warm weather proved too much for them.

  “When I left Lexor early this morning the Carolnan army, which had been billeted inside Lexor, and our levees, too, were preparing to chase the Northmen, molting their furs all the way, toward Frontier. If they aren’t rallied, they’ll be forced to flee into the cold wastelands over the border. They won’t be able to mount a counterattack before spring, if then!”

  He paused while his listeners cheered and applauded even more.

  “And Grand Blizzardmaker?” asked Tom when the hubbub had subsided.

  “Nowhere to be seen,” Furbetrance admitted dolefully, reaching for a hogshead of ale to wet his throat. “He must be in at the after guard, somewhere.”

  Said Murdan, “This Blizzard-faker, or whatever they call him, was War Chief of the invaders, promising his men and allies all sorts of looting and pillage and...well, you know what that sort wants.”

  “I wouldn’t be too quick to trust Uncle Peter,” warned Manda. “He had a hand deep in this from the very beginning, I’m positive.”

  “The King and Ffallmar will see to it the Rellings and their friends are kept headed north,” promised Furbetrance. “As instructed, I has-tened back because of the other matter.”

  “Indeed! My poor child!” cried Beatrix.

  Tom took Manda by the hand and beckoned to Murdan, who was talking to Mistress Grumble, the Overhall housekeeper, about supper.

  “Nothing frozen or even chilled, dear lady,” he was saying. “I want hot! Hot! Pepper soup! Spicy wine! Steamship round of beef, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Grumble. “Puffy-crisp cinnamon pudding and dilly carrots?”

  Murdan sent her off to begin supper and followed the Librarian and his Princess to where Furbetrance’s great head was resting on a rug just inside the door.

  Manda said, “We must leave for the south at once.”

  “After supper!” begged Furbetrance and Murdan in unison.

  “We’ve had several very long days of short commons, you know,”

  the Historian added.

  “If you insist,” said Tom, grinning broadly. “We missed you, Master!”

  “Ah, the rescue of the little Princeling,” cried Murdan to hide his pleasure at the Librarian’s sincere words. “You say it’s certain old Arbitrance is at the bottom of it all? I scarce can believe it!”

  “Not at the bottom, certainly, but used as a tool, likely unwillingly enchanted,” said Tom. “Arcolas maintains if anyone can break such a spell, it’ll be Arbitrance’s own Companion—you, Murdan. Do you feel up to flying on to Sinking Marsh tonight? You’ve had a rough journey.”

  “I’d come at once,” agreed the Historian, “but a night of sleep might make all the difference in the world, too. What to do?”

  “Tom and I can go ahead, as Retruance will be anxious for news and also need our help at watching Arbitrance’s redoubt,” Manda suggested. “You get your rest, Uncle, and come tomorrow morning. You really look worn out.”

  “How will I come, though? Furbetrance will carry you...but I have no Dragon of my own handy.”

  “How about yon Ice Dragon?” asked Tom.

  Hoarling had not joined the party within Great Hall, preferring to take a reviving bath in ice-cold Gugglerun, much to the delight of the castle children.

  “Will he do it?” Manda asked.
<
br />   “Leave him to me,” cried Furbetrance, who had been listening all the while. “Dragons have certain obligations, no matter if they are Ice Dragons or not.”

  “I’ll just have a bite to eat and a short nap and join you in the morning, then,” suggested Murdan. “Be off with you, youngsters!”

  He yawned vastly, and when Furbetrance and the Librarian left Great Hall to speak to Hoarling he was already nodding over his roast beef. In a few moments Rosemary and two servants were struggling to strip off his dirty, wet clothing and wrap him in warm blankets.

  rs

  “Ho!” called Furbetrance as he and Tom trod out to the drawbridge over Gugglerun. “A word with you, Ice Dragon, if you please!”

  Hoarling, who had surprised himself by enjoying the applause and calls of the castle children who were watching him swim, turned on his broad back, spread his wings from bank to bank to hold himself in place, and blew a jet of frozen crystalline mist high in the air.

  “You’re looking for me, brother Dragon?” he gurgled. “Ah! You must be the young Tom Librarian Murdan spoke about, eh? Nice, ice-cold moat Murdan has here! Ice cold and fresh running, direct from the high mountains!”

  “Hoarling,” Furbetrance began. “Hoarling...”

  He crouched on the edge of the drawbridge looking down at the chilled water and the chilly Dragon.

  “You were about to say?” Hoarling chuckled, grinning up at them from the water.

  “Hoarling...I don’t think you’re as nasty as you’d like people to think.”

  “I can be pretty nasty,” said the other Dragon, snorting, shaking frozen drops from his wings.

  “But you saved Murdan and the others. And carried them to Murtal’s Old Place. A long way to go on a begrudging favor, I’d say.”

  “Ah, but perhaps Murdan forgot to mention that I extracted my price!” crowed the Ice Dragon. “My pick of jewels and gold coins and spare diadems for my secret hoard. That’s why I agreed to make the trip, old Furbetrance! No other reason!”

  He swam off around the edge of the castle, puffing steam with each stroke of his powerful legs until the whole castle was surrounded by a slowly settling ring of dense, cold mist catching the rays of the setting sun.

  “Wait!” Furbetrance said quietly to the Librarian.

  The two settled down on the drawbridge and watched the sun strike gold and crimson and purple from the low clouds overhead.

  Hoarling returned around the castle wall, no longer steaming or puffing but slowly stroking, breasting toward the drawbridge in a more thoughtful mood, it seemed to Tom.

  “I really should be getting home,” he announced when he reached the drawbridge and stopped, treading water with all four feet. “I really can’t abide this tropical climate at all! Give me ice and snow any day.”

  “Understandable,” said the Constable Dragon, nodding graciously.

  “Well, if that’s what you need and want, old icicle. We’ll understand.”

  Hoarling heaved his enormous bulk out of Gugglerun onto a narrow stone jetty used by the moat cleaners to moor their scrub boats.

  He streamed icy water and sloughed thin sheets of clear ice, which had formed on his back and tail.

  “I know you Constable people!” he barked. “A smooth answer and a trick up your sleeve! Say what you’re thinking, old Furbie! But know that I’m going home as quickly as pinions can carry me!”

  “It’s your right,” began the other Dragon.

  “Of course, my right!” snarled the Ice Dragon, shaking his head fiercely. “We’ve said it all there. I’m about to leave!”

  “And we’re not all that sorry to see you depart,” admitted Furbetrance solemnly. “It sadly confirms a growing opinion my brother and I have been forming of your sort for some years, old snowball!”

  Hoarling stopped in the middle of turning away and stared over his shoulder at Furbetrance, scowling.

  “I don’t need your damned approval, Constable! You live your way—I intend to live mine!”

  “Of course, ice creature!” said Furbetrance calmly. “No real civilized Dragon expects splinters like you Ice Dragons to be otherwise.”

  “Otherwise! Otherwise? I just wish you’d explain that base ca-nard, Constable!"

  He whipped around to face Furbetrance and Tom on the narrow draw span.

  “I’m my own creature. I owe nothing to you or any other simple-minded hot-gutted Dragon, let alone any Elf or Human! I come and go where I wish! I am Hoarling the Frigid, the Awesome Ice Fog, the—”

  “The fool!” snorted the other Dragon. “You confirm our opinion of such northern trash! Go! No matter that the honor of all Dragons is concerned with the reputation, maybe the very life, of one poor Dragon, sorely enchanted and helplessly bound in magic toils. Who needs you!

  Certainly not Dragonhood at large. Certainly not me or my brother or my poor, gentle papa! Or my own five kits!”

  Hoarling opened his mouth to roar a retort, but Furbetrance’s final shot had told, at last.

  “I...I...didn’t know you were a father yourself, old cinderhead! Five?

  Five kits! I’d not heard of a Dragonkind birthing in centuries. This is great news! Congratulations, Furbetrance!”

  Furbetrance solemnly bowed his head.

  “Thank you for your courtesy, Ice Dragon. I had hoped to take you to our Obsidia Isle nest after this is all over and decided. My kits would be all agog to meet a real live Ice Dragon. Why, my son just recently asked me if Ice Dragons were truly real. ‘As real as rocks!’ I told him, but I couldn’t prove it. Young ones believe what their fathers have to say, at least until they grow old enough to doubt his words.”

  “The little boy-kit should see proof for himself, I say!” cried Hoarling. “I...”

  “But maybe you’ll allow us to visit your snow lair and frozen hills one day?” asked Furbetrance. “Say, in a century or so? The climate is much too harsh for young kits up there, their mother’d insist.”

  “Nonsense! Any Dragon worth his scales can withstand the very worst the arctic sends his way.”

  Hoarling suddenly lay down in the middle of the draw span and turned to gaze north, to where the peaks of the Snows were blazing with the last of the sunset.

  “I ask myself,” he said softly, after a long silence, “which is worse?

  To suffer the terrible heat of your southlands? Or be alone and miss the joys of dandling a kit or two or three on your tail and hear them cackle and chortle.”

  Tom and the Constable Dragon stood unanswering.

  “And you’re right in one thing, at least,” continued Hoarling. “If I run away from Arbitrance, I’ll always be remembered for that deed, among all Dragons, including the very young.”

  “Probably true, although my family will never repeat the tale, I assure you,” said Furbetrance.

  The Ice Dragon nodded slowly.

  “No, I do believe you people would never blame me for stopping short of the common goal. I’d feel better about it if you would rant and rage and curse my bones!”

  He laughed then, a deep, rough rumble that reminded Tom of distant ice in a river fracturing and beginning to slide of its own weight out to sea.

  “Well, you’re right, of course! I was being mightily selfish—part of my lonely nature, I guess. I suppose I should see this adventure to its end. I will see it to its ending! Count on me, Dragon and Librarian! I may be sour and sound bitter and cold, but I’m not at all insensitive.

  And I’m not a fool, either!”

  “Nobody ever said a word to that effect, at least in my hearing,”

  said Tom. “We’re more than just pleased to have you come with us to rescue the child. His mother and father will be overjoyed! And we welcome you as a friend, not just a passing acquaintance, Ice Dragon!”

  “Thank you, Tom Librarian! And I don’t even ask for more fee than already agreed to, to show my bona fides, or whatever it is the scribes and lawyers call it. Well...now that’s settled, I think I’ll cool off with
another swim around this delightful moat. Be some time before I am that cool again, I’m afraid.”

  He rolled over and crashed flat into Gugglerun, soaking the watch-ers on the draw to the skin.

  “Ah, well, he’ll always be the same sassy old Hoarling, I suppose,”

  said Tom, laughing. “I’m going to go rub down with a hot towel before I catch a bad cold!”

  And he left Furbetrance watching the Ice Dragon making designs in thin, crystal-clear ice on the surface of Gugglerun below the drawbridge.

  rs

  Mist shrouded Sinking Marsh as Furbetrance glided silently over Findles’s hummock the next morning just after dawn. Lightning lit the black-and-gray western horizon, but above, the sky was clear and intensely blue. So far the autumn storm had held off.

  Retruance’s deep booming voice rose from the dark trees below.

  “All quiet!”

  He showed a bit of clear red flame to guide his brother to a safe landing between two huge oaks heavily festooned with moss, hung to hide the scholar’s camp from the eyes on the redoubt island across the way.

  “The herons say Papa and the boy went to bed at sunset after a long game of hide-and-seek,” the older Constable told them once they were safely aground.

  “Oh, my! How does one play hide-and-seek when one is a fifty-foot fire-lizard,” asked Manda with a giggle despite the seriousness of the situation.

  Findles of Aquanelle bobbed bashfully to Manda and welcomed Tom back to the marsh with a firm handshake.

  “Anything’s possible to a four-year-old boy, I guess,” said the Librarian. “Murdan will be here in the morning aboard your old friend Hoarling the Ice Dragon, Retruance. Perhaps then we can do some serious rescuing.”

  “Hoarling! Not one of my favorite Dragons,” said the older Constable brother, growling. “Still, I suppose...”

  “He’s been very helpful, if rather snide and sarcastic about it,”

  Manda admitted. “I think he may be the kind who groans and growls so nobody will know he has a good heart within. A bit like Uncle Murdan, you know?”

  “That,” grumbled Furbetrance, “remains to be seen. Is that breakfast I smell?”