Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

  "And we can't go in that forest," princess Alice says, her pretty face pale with horror. "We can't. I've read stories about what lives in there. It teems with dark magic. All my nursemaids said so."

  Neven catches one of her hands in his with more confidence than he'd shown since he'd met her. She stills under his touch, but her green eyes are still wide and fearful. "It's fine. We won't go through the forest. Bon - Boone had the better idea."

  Bonnie narrows her eye. She just knows she won’t like where this is going. “I did?”

  “Yes,” Neven says, his eyes still on the dragon. “We fly.”

  Chapter 8

  Perched on the dragon’s back, where his head meets his neck, she feels like a flea on a giant. The dragon hadn’t protested their climbing up here, but it had rumbled questioningly at the rope Neven had wrapped around its neck so they could hold on better. An extra hour had been spent using pieces from the bone pile to create the scabbard that straps diagonally across her back from shoulder to hip. The sword sits in it perfectly. For all his faults, Neven’s brain is something to be admired.

  Still, she’s not so sure about this latest idea.

  “Come on dragon, fly!” Neven calls out from behind her, the princess clinging to his back. For all his wariness of the beast, he’s caught in an idea. And she knows from experience that ideas can make him fearless, something that doesn’t always end well.

  The dragon twists his massive neck around to look at them, then exhales a puff of smoke into their faces. They choke, Bonnie leaning forward to try and find fresh air to clear the burning from her throat. The ridge of tough bone and tougher scale runs from base of skull to tip of tail, a darker red than the rest of him. It provides them with a seat of sorts, and the thicker scales covering the ridge hold none of the smoothness on other parts of his body. The roughness under her fingers gives her something to grip.

  “Maybe a different command?” Bonnie says between coughs. She turns around to catch the princess’s eyes. The girl’s commands had worked well enough before.

  The princess ducks her head behind Neven’s shoulder, but eventually she speaks. “Please Sir Dragon, we have need of your wings. Will you please fly us over the forest and to my father’s palace?”

  The dragon lowers his giant head, making that grumbling noise again. He exhales a stream of dark smoke over the ground.

  “Maybe this was a bad idea,” Neven says grudgingly. “This is never going to woooooooorkkkkkkkkk.”

  The dragon launches himself into the air like a stone flung from a catapult. Bonnie grips the rope and flattens herself onto the dragon’s body in order to stay on. Her stomach seems to fling itself right down to her toes, searching for the ground. She glances down and wishes she hadn’t. The ground is so far below, the hollow tree is nothing more than a dot. She can see the castle from here with its fallen tower. She can even see one of the great stone pillars that marks the edge of the circle, emerging a little way out to sea.

  Neven groans behind her, sounding like he might throw up. Air sick as well as sea sick. She hopes he doesn’t throw up as much as he did on the boat. She can’t imagine the dragon would like that much.

  The dragon flaps his wings, and they soar higher over the forest. From this high the Dark Forest doesn’t look as frightening as she’d thought from the tales people whisper, and the ones Jack sometimes tells through his puppets. Monsters are supposed to live in there, with witches, dark spirits, demons, and all kinds of products of dark magic. There is good magic; the kind trained druids carry out for the King and other rich lords and ladies, and there is bad magic carried out by the untrained and cruel hearted. Those found using dark magic are either killed or flee to the Dark Forest that covers the land almost from the bottom of the circle to the very top. Miles and miles of forest that would take many weeks to travel on horseback.

  Only, from this far up it doesn’t look like it’s teeming with dark magic. It just looks like a forest. A large forest certainly, the trees as far as she can see, and beautiful. Definitely beautiful, but a forest. Nothing more than that.

  The dragon makes that groaning sound again. Only, now he sounds like he might throw up. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Absentmindedly she pats the dragon’s neck, although she doubts he can feel her through the rough ridge. “You’re fine. It’s going to be alright.” She catches herself mid-pat. What is she doing? The dragon is supposed to be her enemy. Instead she almost feels sorry for it.

  “What’s going on?” Neven yells, leaning close to stop his words from being swept away by the wind.

  “I think he’s sick.” Bonnie leans sideways as far as she dares with the rope in one hand and her legs firmly gripped over the dragon’s ridge. She catches only a glimpse of his face, far into the distance, but it’s enough. “His eyes are closed. I don’t think he likes heights.”

  “You’re kidding me? He’s a dragon! How can he be afraid of heights?”

  Bonnie has no clue. She racks her memory for some kind of explanation but comes up empty. The last time she’d seen him he’d been a lot smaller, and hadn’t been flying yet. There was a moment when -

  No. She doesn’t want to think about that. It makes her heart ache in ways she doesn’t know how to deal with. One day soon she’s going to use her father’s sword to kill him. She doesn’t need an aching heart for that, she needs a fierce one.

  Her stomach lurches. She grips the rope tighter, looking for the cause. Either side of her the dragon’s giant wings have stopped their steady flapping. They’re frozen like the crooked sails of some giant ship.

  Her insides feel like they’re trying to rise up above her. A sudden rush of blood thumps around her head, making her skull seem like it’s about to burst. It’s when her legs rise off the dragon’s back, and she has to grip the rope to stay seated that she understands.

  They’re falling.

  The forest turns from an indistinct mass of greens to giant trees close enough to count their branches. Bonnie can’t see, but she knows the dragon still has his eyes closed. He’s scared, and they’re going to crash. “Dragon open your eyes!” She shouts as loud as she can, hoping some of it reaches his ears over the wind. “Dragon! Gelert! Open your eyes!”

  He must do, because all at once his wings start to flap again, but it’s too little too late. Bonnie presses herself against Gelert’s back, gripping rope and scale as tight as she can. The first tree they hit cracks so loud she thinks her ears might burst. Then they hit the second, third and fourth all at once and the sound of the first seems a whisper in comparison.

  She lurches forward, slamming her head hard against the dragon’s rough scales. Her hands grip the rope so tight that she can’t feel her fingers. The dragon skids along the forest floor, knocking down trees left and right, and churning up a wave of dirt and grass that flies just short of her feet. It’s a relief when she feels Neven’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She thought she might have lost them for a minute.

  It seems an age before the dragon finally skids to a stop. He raises his head from where it’s half covered in dirt and shakes it blearily.

  Bonnie twists around to take in her companions. The princess clings to Neven like a very young child, her eyes squeezed shut. Neven sits, his brown eyes dazed, and his tanned skin an unhealthy grey.

  “My Da was right,” he says, the words shaking. “Flying. It’s not natural.” He leans over and throws the contents of his stomach up over the dragon’s side.

  ***

  “I don’t want to stay here,” princess Alice says for the hundredth time. “I want to go back to the island.”

  Apparently flowery language only lasts when she’s not terrified. Bonnie doesn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed about that. On the one hand all that stooping was getting on her nerves. It’s strange being the man in the situation and having someone scared to look you in the eye or offend you. It’s nice that three years with only a dragon for company gave her confidence enough to express an opinion to two me
n she doesn’t know. On the other hand, it’s an annoying opinion, and it doesn’t get any less annoying every time she repeats it.

  “Great idea,” Bonnie says throwing her arms in the air. “Just show us the way. I’m sure we’ll be there in no time.”

  Princess Alice hunches her shoulders and drops her gaze to the ground.

  “Leave her alone,” Neven says, moving faster to walk by the princess’s side. “It’s not her fault we’re lost.”

  “As opposed to you, you mean?” There’s an ache of regret the moment the words leave her mouth, but its pain is tempered by another feeling. Satisfaction. Her tongue may have been more free with Neven than other boys, but she’s always been aware that he would grow into a man. A woman insulting a man is as unnatural as a dragon playing tea parties. A man insulting a man however, that’s as commonplace as that same dragon eating its tea party companions, china cups and all.

  Neven’s mouth drops open, before he closes it, gathering himself. “Well if someone didn’t decide out of the blue that slaying a dragon was a great way to spend a sunny morning…”

  Red hot anger boils through her. Anger at him, anger at herself, anger at the dragon. Before she knows it the words are out. “And if you weren’t so scared of everything, your father would’ve sent you off to war and we wouldn’t be here!”

  It’s unfair. She knows it as soon as the words are out. Neven can’t help who he is, just as she can’t help who she is. She opens her mouth to take the words back, but can’t think how.

  “We should stop for the night,” Neven says, his voice ice cold. “I’ll gather wood and you can start a fire.”

  She nods. There’s nothing else to do. Hopefully a fire will keep the worst of the dark magic away.

  By the time they find a clearing , Neven’s arms are full of sticks of all sizes. They build the fire in silence, Bonnie’s experience working together with Neven’s instinctive knowledge of where the bits should go. The princess crouches down beside them, her arms crossed over her chest for warmth. She’s shaking. Her dress is made for beauty, not for warmth. The shining blue material would be fine in a summer’s day, but does little to keep the cold of the night out. Here in the forest, the thick barrier of trees should protect them from the worst of the cold, but somehow it seems colder here than it should.

  The dragon follows them, trees creaking sideways as he pushes past, sometimes cracking in two or wrenching up out of the soil. He shuffles around the clearing a few times, making it bigger with every step, then curls up like a cat opposite their fire. It’s a stark reminder of how large the dragon is; him lying in his self-made clearing while they huddle together in the tiny space they have left between his belly and feet.

  Heat radiates off his stomach where the scales are not quite as thick. If they were to huddle in close there, they might not even need a fire. Bonnie glances up from the flint she’s striking to look at Neven and Alice’s faces. They’d have to be pretty desperate to consider that. She doesn’t even know why SHE’S considering it.

  “When we were falling,” the princess says shivering, her nose and cheeks a raw red in the dim light. “You called the dragon Gelert. Why did you do that?”

  Bonnie drops the flint onto the pile of underbrush she’s trying to light. For a moment she can’t breath. Gelert. How long has it been since she’s said that name aloud? Wooden boxes, red scales, and blood the same shade all fill her mind before she shakes her head, makes herself pick up the flint. “It’s got to be a better name than Sir Dragon.”

  "I read about him," Princess Alice says. "Gelert the hound. He was a loyal hound, until one day his master found his infant son gone from the cradle, and when he went to look for him he found Gelert with his muzzle covered in blood. Enraged the man killed the hound."

  Neven glances uneasily at the half asleep dragon. "I don't think that's the smartest thing to name him. If he turns, he's going to be a lot harder to stop than one hound."

  Bonnie shakes her head, picking up where Alice left off. "After killing the hound, the man went to look for his son's body. What he found was a wolf dead and the baby unharmed. Gelert had killed the animal and protected the boy. So he was faithful to the end. Some say he was the most faithful hound that's ever lived."

  “It’s so very cold,” the princess says. “Will we have a fire soon?”

  “Soon,” Bonnie says, striking the flint again. A spark rises but fails to spread to the underbrush. She remembers enough from father’s lessons to know how it should work, but it doesn’t seem to work the same way in her small hands as it did in his large ones. She takes a sharp breath, trying to force down the urge to throw the stones into the darkness pressing in on them.

  “Here. Let me,” Neven says, taking the stones from her without waiting for an answer. “Look in our packs and see if there’s something warmer for the princess to wear.”

  She steps away from the fire and sits down heavily next to the princess. Cold leeches up from the ground like it’s something alive, wriggling its freezing fingers up through her veins to warm itself over her heart. She ignores it, digging through the bags. The dress she’d changed out of sits at the very bottom. She’d forgotten she had it. She tosses it into the girl's lap.

  Princess Alice pulls it on over her blue gown. It looks odd, worn woollen material over shining silk. Blue stands out bright on the arms and hem where Alice's extra head of height makes the dress sit shorter on her than it did Bonnie. She's lucky it had always been such a poor fit on Bonnie, like wearing a turnip sack instead of a dress, otherwise it would never have fit over Alice's waist and chest, let alone the frilly gown.

  No sooner has Alice pulled the dress on, than the fire springs into life. The princess leans into the heat, watching as Neven piles on twigs, then some of the larger pieces of wood. "Gelert is a good name," she says. "But we should still be careful. My father said that after my true love came, none of the spells would last. I grew fond of the dragon, but I know his true nature is not the one he carries now."

  Bonnie clenches her teeth together and looks at the dragon. He's giant now, where before he would barely have reached his own ankle. But the more she watches him, the more it seems the height is the only thing that's changed. His eyes are the same dark pools, his scales as bright a red as ever. The way he looks at her sometimes; like he knows who she is. It sets her heart on edge.

  "So you agree with Neven?" Bonnie asks her. "You think I should kill him before the spell breaks?"

  Alice flushes red. She ducks her eyes, as if only now remembering her station as a woman. "I would not presume to tell you what to do, and I'm sure your skill with a sword is unparalleled."

  "But?" Bonnie prompts, deciding once and for all that she prefers the girl when she forgets herself. She's roughly of age with herself, but holds herself to expectations others had of her before she left for the tower when she was little more than a child. Sometimes she even forgets those expectations.

  "But if you don't kill him soon," the princess continues quietly. "I worry that he'll never give you the chance to."

  Chapter 9

  It's the cold that wakes her as much as it is Neven's hand shaking her shoulder. She sits up groggy, cold burning her lungs when she breathes in. When she breathes out it shows by the light of the fire as a white mist.

  "It's the princess," he whispers. "She's gone."

  Bonnie blinks, looking about her. Sleep clings, making the meaning of the words trickle down into her consciousness slowly. For a moment she expects to see the paved yard at the back of her large stone house, where her father used to teach her swordsmanship. 'Remember,' he'd say to her at the end of each lesson. 'Don't tell your mother.'

  Instead all she sees is darkness in every direction. The only spot of light is the fire, burning low. A few feet around it the shadows swallow the glow. Far away she can hear the dragon's steady breathing.

  "Maybe she has business to attend to?"

  Neven flushes red at the suggestion his true love has bo
dily functions like everyone else. "I told her to wake me if she had to - you know."

  Bonnie's almost tempted to say she doesn't and have him explain it, just to see how red he can go. What is it with the two of them and blushing? Part of her wonders if that is how your true love is found, whether they blush and shy from confrontation as much as the other does.

  "Have you tried shouting for her?"

  "I don't want to wake your Gelert," Neven whispers. "And I waited ten minutes before I woke you. If she's nearby she would've come back, and she'd definitely hear that -" He points at the dragon. He doesn't snore, but he is very big. Every one of his exhales sounds like a gale of wind strong enough to blow down every roundhouse in their village.

  "How do you mean to find her without shouting?" It's now that Bonnie realises that without knowing it she's been whispering too. But it's not because of the dragon. It's the feeling on the back of her neck, like she's being watched. It's in the question of why it's cold enough to see her breath and freeze her fingers on a summer's night next to a fire.

  There's something out there in the forest, and she doesn't think it likes her.

  Neven raises one of the longer sticks from the fire. The end stays burning bright.

  She shrugs off the stupid superstitious thoughts. Magic is real, and so is black magic, but that doesn't mean that every childish whim is real too. Neven's more into that kind of thing than her, praying to the ancestors every day and giving offerings to the other world. If he's not mentioning it, then she won't.

  "Prepare me a stick too," she says. "We'll walk the perimeter and see if we can see her."

  They walk through the black with only the torches in their hands, the dot of fire, and the sound of the sleeping dragon to tell them they haven't wandered off too. They meet behind the dragon's back with nothing to show for it.