Dragon's Keep

by Janet Lee Carey

  I nodded.

  She shivered. “A shadow wraith . . . stuffed down your throat?”

  A loud crack came from somewhere down the hill, and fearing Lord Faul’s discovery, I pushed Kit from our little cave, grabbed her hand, and ran.

  We raced through the waving grass. Rain soaked our backs as we clambered down the cliff rocks to the sandy beach. Kit had tied her small sailing vessel to a thick branch at the mouth of the Ashath River. I marveled that she could have made it to Dragon’s Keep in such a small ship but had little time to wonder at it. Kit untied the rope, leaped inside, and held out her hand. “Hurry, Rosie!”

  I stepped back. Sir Magnus was not yet king.

  Leave Dragon’s Keep now and Lord Faul would find us sure. He’d feast on Kit. Then speeding to Wilde Island, he’d swallow man and maid alike, his hunger whetted by my deceit. There was no reason to risk Kit’s life when I could escape in my boat later and alone.

  I gripped the stern and pushed her skiff away. She rowed back to me, shouting, “Get in, Rosie!”

  Away I pushed her boat again, this time harder, and running fast I reached the cliff.

  “Rosie! What’s happened to you?” screamed Kit across the wind and waves. “My mother rots inside her cell!” she screamed through the wall of rain. “Won’t you come save her?”

  I kept climbing.

  “Don’t you love me anymore?” she screamed. “Do you love only dragons now?”

  Halfway up the cliff I hung, her words wounding me so deep, I could not move. I clenched my jaw and screamed into my teeth.

  “Rosie!” cried Kit. “I come back for you!”

  And turning round, I saw her rowing toward the shore. Would nothing turn this girl away? I scrambled down the cliff and threw a stone at her. Kit held her oar above the waves and stared, mouth agape, at me across the water. The next stone struck her shoulder and she screamed, gazing on me now as if I were cursed. Another stone flew past her face and another until Kit turned her small craft round.

  Rain pounded the water, waves crashed, and mist blew gray between us. “Live, sweet Kit,” I whispered. “Live till you are old and your hair is the white of dandelions.” Curling the last stone tight inside my fingers, I watched Kit row away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Takings of the Storm

  THE PATH ALONG THE RIVER was brown and swollen with rain. Shedding the dragon skin I’d wrapped about my hand, I fought my way through the gusting wind, climbing over one downed tree after another. So many trees had fallen. Such a storm I’d never seen on Dragon’s Keep. The pool at the base of the waterfall had risen higher in the past few hours. Muddy water lapped against the entrance of the dragons’ lair, wetting my feet to the ankle as I went in.

  “Where have you been?” Faul growled, lifting his great head.

  “Walking,” I said in DragonTongue.

  “In this rain?” He scratched himself. “Only fools walk on such a day.”

  There was a bit of care in his saying that, but he was quick to cover it. “The pips thirst for thistle milk. You are server here, or have you forgotten?”

  I prepared the milk and poured the brew into the pips’ drinking shells. As the pips lapped their drink, I drew up to the fire. Wind and weather warred outside. I wondered now, if in trying to save Kit, I’d condemned her to death.

  The logs sent sparks to the ceiling, and I thought on how Mother used to sit with me beside the fire in my solar and sing “Lady Come Ye Over” as she wove a purple ribbon in my hair. Now she was gone, lying dead beside Father, and I blamed her dream for it. It was the dream that had demanded my father’s life in service to Empress Matilda. The dream that drove Mother to cover my flaw. The dream that twisted her to murder. Sir Magnus may have helped her dose herself with poppy potion, but the dream was Mother’s poison.

  I wrapped my arms about my legs and rocked. None bothered over me, the pips to their drink and Lord Faul curled up nose to tail. All were used to my tears; it was as much my task to weep on Dragon’s Keep as it was to gather thistles.

  A loud crash outside gave me such a fright that I leaped up and raced to the mouth of the cave. A fallen pine spanned the river at the far edge of the pool. The water swelled about the tree as a mud slide rolled down, burying the roots.

  “A tree’s gone over,” I said with a shiver.

  Lord Faul came up beside me. Just then a second pine crashed down the steep hill. It splashed into the river near the first, and a great wall of mud came tumbling after. The muscles on the dragon’s back tensed. “We have to move them,” he said, “or soon our cave will be underwater.”

  Lord Faul was large, strong backed, and strong legged, but the pines were as tall as citadels and broader round than his great neck. I hadn’t faith that we could move them.

  “Pips,” said Faul. “Come quick.”

  The pips gathered behind their father.

  “Together we will move those trees damming the river,” said Faul.

  “I won’t go in,” said Kadmi.

  “You will!” roared Faul. “We must dig the roots out of the mud, then roll the trees aside so the water can get through.”

  “It’s that or lose our cave,” I said to Kadmi. And so we ventured out.

  In the freezing water I dug beside the dragons, feeling small and useless as a beetle. Still, I’d seen many a sexton beetle do a great deal of digging in the walled garden when it was pleased to bury a dead mouse, so I worked as best I could in the muddy river.

  Faul’s great claws dug and tossed out heaps of mud. Rain pelted his strong back as he worked on the left side of the trees where the water was deepest. The rest of us dug to the right of the fallen pines.

  Kadmi and Chawl hurled their mud hard and fast. More than once the mud landed square on Eetha’s back and once straight in my face. Fearing the flinging mud would knock Eetha into the river, I called, “Toss another way!” but they could not hear me over the rushing water and the howling wind.

  Eetha and I moved closer to the tree where Ore was at work freeing a tangle of roots. Ore was still half the size of the other pips, and being no larger than I was, she had to delve close to the river’s edge. Eetha bent to help her wee sister with the roots. “We’ll never dig these out!” said Eetha in DragonTongue. “There’s too much danger here, Briar. We should get out now. Our cave is already lost.”

  “Not lost yet,” I said. Ah, but I should have listened to Eetha, who had the keenest mind of all the pips and too she had the sight. Time after time she’d proven her powers. But I turned away from Eetha’s warning, licked my lips, spat mud in the river, and dug all the harder.

  Would that we had stopped and backed away. The loss of the cave was nothing to the loss our staying on would bring. I worked another hour beside Eetha and Ore as the storm shouted thunder in my ears. When the sky went green with lightning, my lips quivered with prayer to Saint Scholastica, who has power over storms. Trees thrashed in the wind, bowing low as brooms to sweep the hill as Kadmi climbed over the log to dig beside his father.

  I was groaning with the weight of mud, wet to the bone, and praying for Kit, when I heard the roaring from the hill above. The sound was like a mountain ripping in two. With it came another fallen tree and a wall of mud rushing down at us. Before we could escape, the sliding hill threw us all into the water.

  I fought against the heavy mud in the freezing river, then choking and flailing, I came up and sputtered for air. Chawl, Eetha, and Ore struggled at my side. We grabbed the roots and pulled ourselves out of the tumbling water. But to the other side of the tree, Faul and Kadmi were still buried. Faul to his knees, Kadmi to his neck. The pine had rolled over Kadmi, and the river was rising!

  “Help him!” shouted Faul. We rushed to Kadmi’s side. “We’ll dig you out!” I screamed. Then each of us about his neck thrust claws and hands into the water. Faul dug himself out, and joined us, clawing mud all about the tree to free his pip.

  All of us were ringed about Kadmi, thrusting
arms into the mud as if in some frantic dance. We scooped and shouted, flinging mud all which way. How we tried to free him, but even in the cold river, I felt the heat of fear burning in my veins as the water swirled near Kadmi’s mouth.

  “Sing your favorite rhyme,” ordered Faul. He hated the English rhyme, but even Faul would shed DragonTongue to help us drive away our fears. Kadmi raised his jaws, so close to the water’s edge by now, he had to spit before he chanted.

  “Bright fire. Dragon’s fire. Broken sword. One black talon ends the war.” The rest of us joined in as we worked to unearth him.

  “Turn them into mincemeat. Bake them in the flame. Cut them up! Spit them out! Start the war again!”

  As we chanted and dug to free Kadmi, I spotted Kit high on the hill. She’d made her way back to shore! Drenched and clinging to a tree above us, I saw her take us in, the buried pip, our frenzied digging. Faul’s back to her, she could have turned then and slipped away unnoticed, but seeing me at work beside the dragon’s claws, and hearing the quaver in my voice as I tried to comfort Kadmi with the silly chant, Kit rushed down the hill and splashed into the churning river.

  “Turn them into mincemeat! Bake them in the flame!” she chanted right beside me, thrusting her hands into the mud and tossing it behind. Lord Faul’s eyes hardened as she dug near him, but he could not spare the time to question her.

  We toiled against the rising water, while Kadmi struggled to free himself from the weight of the pine tree. Digging hard, back bent, hands flailing, I saw all in a moment how Kit’s eyes grew wide at the sight of my naked hand. The blue-green scales of my dragon’s claw were shining in the water, and my long black talon was blotched with river mud.

  “Dig!” screamed Eetha, and we went to work again. Kit did not speak a word of condemnation but dug all the harder beside me. How I loved her for that.

  Working as one, Kit and I nearly freed Kadmi’s foreleg. Kadmi raised his snout, trying hard to lift his head higher, but now the water was in his mouth. He blew out. Heaved in a choking breath. Blew out again.

  “Faster!” shouted Faul. And in his haste to free Kadmi, he knocked Ore into the water. Over the logs she washed.

  “Ah, God!” I cried. “The wee one cannot swim!”

  Swift, Kit dived in the water after Ore. She gave no more thought for herself than she had the day she’d leaped into the moat to save the robin. And together they tumbled down the rushing river. “Kit!” I screamed. “Ore!” But I could not go after them. My hands were deep in mud, clawing like a dog to save Kadmi. Now his head was underwater, but life was in his eyes.

  I was still digging beside Kadmi’s golden chest when I saw him die. Faul lifted his head and screamed, “Kadmi!”

  Yellow flames hissed in the rain, and above us, gray steam rose. I screamed beside the dragons, my throat burning as theirs did, though no fire came.

  In our haste to find Ore and Kit we left Kadmi’s body in the water and sped along the riverbank. Drenched in muck I ran mile on mile, my heart pounding, my breath coming in gulps.

  Racing with the dragons, my eyes were fixed upon the river, which was now a stranger to me. The storm had turned the glassy water of our sweet Ashath into a brown and heaving thing filled with swirling branches, dead rabbits, squirrels, and in one place, a drowned fawn.

  Farther down the Ashath Faul shouted, “There!” and I saw Ore caught against a row of rocks in the tumbling water. We could not see if she was dead. Faul and I waded in, Chawl and Eetha behind. Lord Faul stooped and gathered Ore to himself. Gashed and bloody, she moaned, her head rolling back against her father’s shoulder.

  “Alive!” I screamed to the others. Ah, but there was loss here. In the place where Ore had lain, I saw what had kept her from drowning. Not river stones or branches wedged beneath but Kit.

  Her death came over me in a roaring silence. All sound was the river, all movement the water. Faul took up Kit and laid her on the ground. I was still in the river. Anon, it was Chawl brought me to shore and set me beside her. There was a myrtle leaf in Kit’s hair. Rain poured over us and the wind howled all around. I kissed her stone-cold cheek and took her in my arms.

  The sky was clear the next day, but the wind still blew strong with the smell of storm on it. Gusts swept across our backs as we dug two graves on the high hill. A large hole at the very top, and farther down, a smaller one.

  Faul laid Kadmi in the deep pit. Stepping back, he lit him with his fire. Chawl, Eetha, and Ore joined in till Kadmi was ablaze in yellow flames.

  Long did he burn, and long did Faul and the pips send more fire on him, their grief being more like burning rage than sorrow since for their lives they could not cry. Standing beside the pips, I added to the roar, screaming high and piercing like a kestrel to its kill. Wind drove the flames higher. And the smoke tumbled in waves above our heads.

  When Kadmi was full-burned we covered him with soil, the heat of his bones making the very earth hiss and steam. Then the dragons turned and followed me to the smaller grave. I stood over Kit, who lay sweet as sleep in the ground. Even the grave could not dim Kit’s brightness, her damp hair lacing over her cheek, her face pale against the brown earth. She looked like a summer bloom fallen from its stem yet with all the petals kept.

  I wished I could scream for Kit as I’d done for Kadmi. But the sorrow that impaled my heart could never be undone with screaming. Chawl started a blue flare but I held up my hand. I need only give my say and all would spill their fire on her. But I couldn’t say farewell with fire. It would have killed me sure to watch Kit burn, so against those gathered there, I went on with the service.

  With Father’s golden cross held high above Kit’s grave I sang, “His Banner Is Love,” and said the releasing prayer, which ends with “and to bright Heaven I’ll follow Thee.”

  From my threadbare cloak I unclasped Kit’s silver brooch and saying, “Omnia vincit amor,” I placed it on her sodden chest.

  “What is the meaning?” asked Eetha. Chawl flicked her with his tail for asking so.

  I answered, “Love conquers all.”

  Lord Faul shivered with the words, his scales rattling above the grave like dried leaves in the wind.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lord Faul

  THE RAIN CEASED and the river fell. When the water came down and was thigh deep just past the fallen trees, we set to work digging out the pines. This we did in silence, having no heart for the task. All dug together, careful to step around the place where Kadmi died, and when we cleared the fallen pines, the water rushed past in a great sigh.

  Next we cleaned out the den. The flood had filled it to the very top, leaving ring on ring of mud across the stones. We shivered with the damp as we scraped away the rings with sticks, and swept the thick mud from the floor with cypress brooms.

  At day’s end, cold and tired, we burned our brooms. Chawl lit a fire, and seeing his father worn from work, left the cave to hunt. Some time after, he returned with trout and tossed each of us a fish. All ate but Faul, who turned away to sleep.

  The river’s cold had marked us, every one. We’d spent too many hours clearing the trees from the water, and it took a roaring fire to touch the chill. I lay shivering, listening to Lord Faul as he slept. The rattle of his breathing was like the clacking bones our jester waved on All Hallows’ Eve to frighten off the dead.

  I’d not heard him breathe this way before and it troubled me, so I lay half awake while the others slept. Eyes closed, I saw the golden fire through my eyelids and in the glow the very image of Kit. In her bright company at last, I fell asleep.

  Near dawn Eetha shook me awake. “We must go to your thistle hill,” she said. “Father’s breath is rough. He needs bitter milk.”

  I sat up, hearing for myself that his breathing had worsened. Little Magda’s breathing had been that rough when she’d suffered from the croup. Marn had treated her with a mustard plaster. Wild mustard grew on the hill; I would garner some.

  A soft red light gowned the
woods outside where I climbed on Eetha’s back. Unused to my weight, she pumped her wings hard as she skimmed above the treetops, dipping too low now and again. We reached the hill and she skidded down and landed with a thud, which sent me headlong into the thistle.

  “Oof!” I cried. But Eetha stood up and shook herself. “Pluck,” she said. “And swift!”

  The thistle stalks were still green, and the milkweed was in purple bloom. I knew the dragons liked it better later in the season when the plants were drier, but I gathered what I could in the rising sun, ignoring that the thistles scratched and cut my palms. Eetha pulled alongside me in a patch where I’d never known another’s help.

  When the piles of milkweed and thistle were both waist high, I climbed the hill to harvest mustard.

  “No time for flowers,” called Eetha with contempt.

  “Wild mustard holds a cure for chest ailment.”

  Eetha fluttered her wings. “Hurry, then, Briar.”

  I pulled great handfuls of the mustard plants. I would cure Lord Faul. I was Rose and Briar. Princess and dragon’s child. I’d lost one father. I would not lose another. Then Eetha took our morning’s harvest in her claws, and we flew back over the green hills.

  I could hear Lord Faul’s rough breathing as we entered the cave. Behind his enormous back Chawl and Ore were digging.

  “Bring another stone from the fire!” called Chawl. Eetha dropped her bundles and brought Chawl a burningstone. Digging a small hole, he placed it behind Faul’s back.

  I’d not seen burningstones placed in a half circle like that since Faul and I tended the pips’ nest before their hatching day.

  “Nothing warms him,” said Chawl. “His front is to the fire and we’ve pitted hot stones behind him as he told us to, but feel his scales.”

  Eetha ran the soft upper part of her claw over her father’s shoulder. “Briar will heal him with fresh bitter milk,” she said, a mix of hope and fear in her eyes.