by J.A. Clement
The Last Dragon
From “Song of the Ice Lord”
J.A. CLEMENT
Published by Weasel Green Press
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE LAST DRAGON
Copyright © J A Clement 2014
Cover design by LFD Designs for Authors
Editors: Julia Lee Dean and Mike Rose-Steel
Interior Text Design by Tricia Kristufek
ISBN- 978-1-908212-36-8
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Requests for permission should be addressed to [email protected]
First Edition:
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Table of Contents
Note
The Last Dragon
Before You Go
About the Author
Other Titles Available from Weasel Green Press
please note:
The three short stories The Scarred Artisan, The Last Dragon, and The Widow’s Son are taken from the full-length novel Song of the Ice Lord, where they are told in the great meeting hall by bards of the three races who have escaped to the Skral Isles.
If you have read Song of the Ice Lord, you have already read these stories!
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The Last Dragon
From “Song of the Ice Lord”
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In the long ago and far away there was a Dragon called Jorr. He was not a very nice Dragon, nor a particularly intelligent one, but he was very big and powerful. Even freshly hatched, he was much bigger than all the other little wyverns his age, and he quickly learnt to bully them until he got what he wanted.
At first the older Dragons thought that he would grow out of it but though he certainly did grow, his behaviour did not get any better, and his name became a byword throughout the Colony for bad behaviour. Eventually the Dragons called a Council, and all the Dragons in the colony gathered together in the great meeting place on top of the mountains to decide what should be done about this troublesome beast. It must have been a most tremendous sight. Every Dragon had his or her own favourite perch, and they basked in the thin sun on the top of the mountain. They flew in singly or in families; enormous old Dragons, shimmering younger Dragons in the prime of their youth, clumsy wyverns, growing faster than they realised – even the little darting hatchlings were invited, for they suffered from Jorr’s bullying as much as anyone.
Eventually everyone was there, and the meeting was called to order. Jorr’s mother paced into the clearing in the middle of the great rocky bowl where the Council was held.
“The Council recognises Marr, mother of Jorr,” one of the grayscales intoned.
Marr nodded respectfully at him. “Thank you. My friends, I have called Council today because of my son Jorr. When he was a hatchling, he was disobedient. Many hatchlings are, so I did not think much of it. When he was a wyvern, he was unruly, but when I remonstrated with him, he paid no heed. Now he is the size of an adult dragon and his behaviour makes trouble for the Colony. I come to you today to ask the Council’s advice. What should I do with this son of mine?”
The Dragons hummed and swayed their heads from side to side as Dragons do when thinking deeply, but against all courtesy and tradition, Jorr barged forward, muscling his mother out of the way. “Ha! What makes you think you can tell me what to do?” He did not even wait to be acknowledged before speaking, and the Dragons’ humming took on a slightly offended tone. “You can sit in your Council till the mountain crumbles beneath you! I do what I want to do.”
“And what it is that you want to do, Jorr?” The oldest Dragon, Ghed, heaved himself to his feet. He rarely spoke to anyone, so Jorr was taken aback. “What is it that you hope to achieve by all this bullying and rudeness?”
“I want...” Jorr had not really thought about this before, but he was not going to give the old beast the satisfaction of knowing it. “I want everyone to stop telling me what to do, or not to do. People are always saying ‘Stop this, do that, it is not good for the Colony.’ I don’t care about the Colony! I do what pleases me, not anyone else!”
“And what makes you think you can do as you like?”
“I am bigger than them. They can’t make me do anything.”
“Perhaps not, but the fact that they cannot compel you to do a thing does not relieve you of the responsibility of doing it.” Ghed leaned against a rocky outcropping. “You were asked to be moderate in your hunting. There are only a certain number of deer on the mountain and the herd stays at a sustainable size if we are judicious in our hunting. We take the old and infirm and leave the young to mate and keep the herd going – and yet you consistently hunt the fawns. For three years now there have been no youngsters left at the end of the season, but the old still die and the herd is getting too small. It cannot go on.”
“The fawns are young and tender.” Jorr snorted his defiance. “They are small, and so I eat more. How are you going to make me eat only the older deer?”
“The Colony all drink from the streams that fall from the heights to the pools around the base of the Mountain,” Ghed went on. “There are any number of pools that you could bathe in but always you go to the source of the spring, and foul it so that all the water that flows downstream is dirty.”
“The water is colder in the pool by the spring, and the bubbles tickle my scales. It is by far the best place to bathe.” Jorr was unrepentant.
“Why do you bully the wyverns?”
“They have things that I want, or they are in my way, or simply they annoy me!”
“Why are you discourteous to the other adult dragons?”
“They try to tell me what to do. They are weak and puny – most of them are smaller than I am already, and I have scarcely started to grow.” Jorr’s dismissive snort turned into a yawn. “They will not be able to tell me what to do when I am the largest Dragon in the world, and I am nearly there already!” Jorr yawned again. For some reason he was feeling sleepy, and the flames that flickered in Ghed’s eyes were almost hypnotic in their dance.
Ghed turned to Jorr’s mother Marr, touching the end of his muzzle to hers in a gesture of affection and sadness rarely seen. “I am sorry, my child.”
“Do what you must,” she whispered.
The humming of the Colony became louder, and slowly every Dragon but two faded from Jorr’s sight, but he was in too dreamlike a state to wonder at it.
Marr looked at her son sadly. “Time and time again you have shamed me, and time and time again I have hoped that you would learn better. Now you endanger the Colony and I cannot help you. Go, and make a better Dragon of yourself than you have done so far.” And she turned her back on him and walked away, fading into nothing as the others had. Jorr, wrapped in the humming of the Colony, was left alone with Ghed.
The humming suddenly stopped, jolting Jorr into full wakefulness.
“You have stated your intentions. Now hear mine.” Ghed’s tone was mild, but he was one of the few that were bigger than Jorr. The old Dragon was dappled grey as granite, nearly all his colour gone, but he seemed large as a mountain and his teeth were sharp. For the first time since he was very small, Jorr was gripped by concern. “The Colony cannot support you any longer. You are too dangerous to the young ones, to the food supplies and to the water. We cannot let you stay to destroy what we have built. You must leave this place and never come back.” As he spoke, Ghed also bega
n to fade, until his last words hung in the empty air. “If you do return you will find neither food, nor water, nor the Colony.”
Jorr blinked and looked around. Where was he? He had thought he was in the Colony’s Gathering place, but now, looking around, he did not recognise any of it. He took to his wings and flew high into the sky, trying to get his bearings. But the further he flew, the more unfamiliar it looked. Finally he realised that what Ghed had told him was true, and that as he would not leave the Colony, it had left him, somehow.
“I don’t care!” Jorr roared to the empty mountainside. “I don’t need you anyway!” He flew around the mountains and down into the valleys. He still didn’t recognise where he was – it must be some glamour they had cast upon him – but beasts lived in the valleys and he would find food and water there.
But the more he searched, the hungrier he became, and still he could find no sign of the herd animals. There were no springs or rivers that he could see – there must be some because all the vegetation was lush and green, but the glamour prevented him from finding food or water in this vicinity.
After some hours, Jorr found himself a shady ledge on the mountainside, overlooking the whole valley. The adults might have foxed him, but the wyverns and hatchlings were not so clever and sooner or later he would see one passing. He would pounce upon it and make it lead him to the water,