“Reef the sail!” Spens shouted.
The boat slowly righted. Lyf took up a pot and bailed.
But now, through the rush of wind and wave, she heard the thin, shrill sound of the pipes. Lyf looked up to see soldiers on the cliff directly above. The dragon seemed to stall in the air. Slowly, she began to sink. Her fierce, slotted eyes glazed over. Her massive talons went limp. Wind fluttered in the slack, glittering folds of her wings.
A volley of bolts arced over the water, narrowly missing the dragon’s tail.
“Beat the pots!” Lyf yelled. “Scream!” The children roused as if they had been tranced, and started up the din again.
Another volley of bolts. One struck the glittery stuff of the dragon’s wing. A roar: the dragon lashed her tail, seemed to gather into herself, then soared up over the cliff, spewing flame. The soldiers scattered; the ropes were loosed; the cliff-hanging figures plummeted into the sea.
The dragon wafted just above the cave mouth. Air shimmered in the heat of her breath. Lyf could sense a summoning, a deep, compelling thrum. Though others kept up with the din, Lyf ceased with it and simply stared.
Something streaked out of the cave and came to drift in the air near the dragon. A dracling! Then another streaked out, and another, and another.
The mother dragon skimmed above the water toward the boat. Tatters of wingstuff fluttered where the bolt had gone through. Her draclings followed, glided in teetery arcs about her. Birds had gathered, Lyf saw. The sky was thick with clouds of wheeling seabirds.
The dragon, hovering, looked squarely down into their boat. Lyf shrank from the fierce heat of her gaze. The dragon sculled the air with her wings; wind gusted in Lyf’s ears. She was summoning again—Lyf could feel it. Once more, Lyf tried to touch the dragon mind. Once more, she recoiled.
Bright.
Too bright and hot to touch.
All around her, audible above the din only by the rumbling in Lyf’s bones, the draclings began to thrum.
Gently, Lyf reached into the carrier, cupped the hatchling’s bony body in her hands, and held it up for the big green dragon to see. The dragon snorted out a twist of blue smoke and floated down so near that Lyf could taste the scorched, sulfury stench of her breath, so near that she could see herself mirrored in the curve of the dragon’s huge eyes. Lyf held still, still, as talons long as daggers clutched round the little hatchling. A whuff of hot wind; the dragon slowly rose.
The hatchling was crying. Lyf could scarcely hear it through the din, but she felt the shrill, keening cry, and it twisted inside her. She blinked back tears, minding what Lunedweth had said: This wee one thinks you’re its mam.
But I’m not, she thought. I couldn’t raise it. No one could—save for another dragon.
You’ve a real mother now, little one.
Movement on the bluff. Some of the soldiers were returning.
Kindle leapt onto her shoulder; Lyf could feel the talons piercing her skin.
She looked at Skorch.
Skorch turned to gaze at the hovering dragon. And now it came stronger, the summoning—came deep and warm and compelling.
“Tell them to go—and quickly!” Spens yelled in Lyf’s ear. He was pointing at something; she turned to look.
A boat. Its sail was down, but the men within plied oars. It was closing in fast.
The dracling didn’t budge.
They’ll never go, Lyf thought. They’ll never leave me. They’ll all be killed
Skorch turned, then, looked long into Lyf’s eyes.
A bolt arced down from the bluff, splashed into the water near the boat.
The dragon, still clutching the hatchling, began to circle up into the sky. The draclings fluttered behind. They were out of reach of arrows now—all but Kindle.
The boat tipped. Lyf saw that they were boarding, the men from the oared boat. There was a flash of knives; they were wresting the pots from the children. They were coming for her—for Kindle.
“Make her go!” Spens shouted.
A man was grappling with Spens, and Spens could not hold him off. They would kill Kindle if they caught her-—that was sure.
Lyf could think of but one thing to do.
She looked up and fastened her gaze on a single, circling gull. She sent her mind up into it, felt Kindle release. The sea dropped away below and she was swimming on the wind with Kindle beside her, with draclings all around. Birds wheeled through liquid streams of air, the sharp high sounds of their cries mingling with the roar of dragon breath and the faraway squallings of men. Smells welled up, engulfed her: dragon feather salt fish water earth man. Far, far away, at the edges of the sea curve, something called to her. There was a lightness in her body. There was laughter in her bones.
Joy pulsed through her blood, swallowing up her words, swallowing up her thoughts, swallowing up her knowing of Lyf.
Harper’s Tale
So. Lyf. You want me to tell of Lyf.
I will do so. Only …
Unless you’ve been living in a cave these many years past, you’ve heard before now that she sailed up the coast in a boatful of children and draclings, pursued by many hunters.
I won’t weary you by telling of that.
You surely know as well of the soldiers and their tone pipes. Of how the children blocked the pipes’ trancing of the dragons by beating on pots and pans. Of how the draclings flew across the sky with the last of the mother dragons.
All know of this. No need to dwell on the gaudy flash-and-glitter parts of a tale, as other harpers do.
So: back to Lyf.
She was gone, my lords and ladies.
She swooned when the last dracling left, and could not be roused.
They tried to bring her back—first Spens and Owyn and the other children in the boat, and then later Kaeldra and the harper and the fisherman in the cave. Lyf did not rouse even to smelling bitters. Didn’t so much as blink.
Not dead, she was—not quite. She breathed, though shal-lowty. But gone she was, as surely as if she had been dead.
What of the soldiers, you ask? And the hunters?
You surprise me, lady, to break in on my telling of Lyf! You were so impatient to hear of her before.
But, since you ask …
When the deer are gone from the wood, my lords and ladies, the poachers take up their bows and go home.
To put it straightly:The prize was gone—the dragons. The queen’s cause was lost, and the soldiers well knew it. Most skulked on back to Kragrom and pledged themselves to her cousin, the king (long may he live). Though some, charmed by the green hills of Elythia, stayed on, producing that widespread commingling of Elythian and Kragish blood that we see about us today. There were rumors that some soldiers had eaten of the hearts of draclings, and that metal could not bite their flesh. But when the k
ing later put it to the test in a raid on Vittongal, many of them died. Perhaps the warding wore off. Perhaps it was but a fable.
The queen went into hiding. Some say she yet lives— though I know nothing of that.
The hunters? They were practical men, my lords. With none to pay a bounty, they hied themselves home to their wives.
Of Nysien, none have heard word. Some say he too went with the soldiers and joined up with the king, though I count that unlikely. The life of a common soldier would not have suited him. In time he was given up for dead, and Mirym married another.
But back again to Lyf.
She slept, my lords and ladies.
She slept all the way to Merdoc in the fishing boat.
It was not a common sleep, but deeper. So deep you could not see her dreams flickering beneath her eyelids. So deep you could barely feel her pulse.
She did not eat. But when Kaeldra dripped water or gruel upon her lips, she sometimes swallowed.
They met up with Jeorg in Merdoc; his head was sore, but he was elsewise none the worse.
The children, once home, felt the weight of their parents’ disapproval on their hind sides, and that was deemed penance enough. After, they were the centers of much wonderment as folk clamored to hear of their exploit.
Then the boy named Spens led them—Kaeldra, Jeorg, Owyn, the harper, and Lyf, (still sleeping)—to a healer he knew in the marshes north of Tyneth.
Lunedweth—enchanting creature! No sooner had the harper shared a cup of plum wine with her than he fell crown over boots in love. They’ve been wed these thirty years past, and she grows more beautiful day by day. (Though in truth, her cooking leaves something to be desired.) For I was that harper—now it can be told.
You knew it all along, my lass? Ah, but you’re the clever one!
Yet even Lunedweth, with all her art, could not bring Lyf back.
I traveled on with the band of friends to the inn at Tyneth. All was somber there. The innkeeper’s sister had been drowned not a septnight since. He was sick with grieving and would take no lodgers, would serve no meals. When Owyn heard of the drowning he began to weep, and neither his mama nor his da could comfort him.
And so at last we returned to the cottage in the hills of Elythia. Lyf’s mother wept over her. Granmyr plied Lyf with herbs and chants and potions. Kaeldra, thinking to reach Lyf by means of a sorcery she performed with a potting wheel, spun clay until her hands were cracked and raw. But there was no magic in it.
And still Lyf slept. The moon turned and turned again, then turned two times more. And still she slept.
She grew thin, my lords and ladies. Wasting thin.
We feared she would never wake.
Fetch me another brew, lass, and bring me a stool. My feet are aching sore, and I can’t bear to tell the next part standing.
CHAPTER 19
Deep Dream
In the deep, deep dream where she was living, she soared over the wrinkled waters to a cave thick with warm white mists. The Ancient Ones thronged within, filling the air with wing-stir and smolder-breath, filling her blood with thrum-mings. Their names eddied in and out of her knowing, like smoke.
Smoak. That was one of them. Other names crackled and hissed: Kindle. Skorch. Some names rumbled in her bones: Embyr. Byrn. There was a hatchling, ever near, and one who was always hungry.
What was his name?
It ebbed away from her. Came drifting back.
Pyro.
Yet something tugged at her, something she must remember, another life that floated beyond the dream. Sometimes she caught glimpses of it, echoes. A song. A face. A name. They wafted by. She couldn’t catch them.
Remember.
In time, the tug of that other life thinned and melted away, like mist in the afternoon sun.
But now the earth was shifting in its sleep, was heeling over onto its side. Its breath grew chill. Birds poured past— calling, draining out of the sky.
Her own wings itched to fly.
Back across the waters. Wind-swimming: joy.
As land crept over the curved sea below, the tugging pulled at her again.
Remember. Try to remember.
And now she could taste it on the wind: the scent of a place she once knew.
And now she could hear it in the spaces between her bloodbeats: the murmur of voices beloved.
And now she could see it before her: the fold in the green-gold hills.
These hills.
This fold.
Here.
She must go here.
Harper’s Tale
Autumn comes glorious to the hills of Elythia, my lords and ladies—crisp and tart and golden as a new-picked apple. The wild pansies bloom, and a brisk, teasing wind scrapes the mist from the face of the sky.
Alas, all too soon the season bares its bitter edge. The skies go gray and sullen; the wind turns cruel and bites. It rips great clumps of thatch from cottage and byre. It rages in the blackthorns, spitting out leaves and twigs and branches, strewing the wreckage of blasted gardens all about the graze.
Birds thread across the sky in long processions, heading south.
It was on such a morning that Kaeldra found herself alone in Granmyr’s cottage. Alone … save for Lyf, who lay yet unmoving on her pallet. Owyn was helping his da mend the byre thatch; Lyska and Aryanna were with Granmyr and Lyf’s mother, scavenging the last of the herbs from the wind-razed kitchen garden.
Kaeldra was grown large with child and could not well lift or climb or stoop to toilsome work. Others must do that for her. But weaving—that she could do. And keep watch on Lyf.
She had just stood to stretch the kinks out of her back, when there came a loud thump at the shutters.
(I do not hatch this tale from fancy, my ladies. I tell it to you just as Kaeldra told it to me.)
“Who’s there?” she asked, thinking it strange that someone would knock. Why didn’t they enter? The door was closed, but not latched.
No reply.
Kaeldra moved to the shutters, opened them a crack, peered out.
Nothing.
That was odd, she thought.
She closed the shutters and had just turned back to the loom when the sound came again:
Thump!
And then thump!
And thump! yet again.
A prickling chill crept up her spine, lifted the hair on her scalp. She moved swiftly to the shutters, flung them wide. Something streaked through the window, into the room.
A gull.
It circled once, circled twice, circled three times round-like so, my lords and ladies.
It lit down upon Lyf’s chest.
It stared straight into her sleeping face and cocked its head to one side.
Kaeldra froze. Watched. Did not dare to breathe.
The gull shook itself, let out a startled cry. And then it was flying out the window; it was gone.
Kaeldra turned to gaze after. She watched until it shrank to a small, pale speck, until it vanished in the sky. She was filled with a sudden sharp sorrow, though she didn’t know quite why, or for what she had hoped.
The voice took her by surprise. Lyf’s voice.
“Kaeldra? Is it you?”
And so my tale is done, my lords and ladies. If it has pleased you, would you be so kind as to toss a coin or two into this hat for a poor old harper? Copper is fine, but silver is better. (And a slab of venison would not go amiss.) Generosity, my lords, is as much a virtue as patience. Nay, more! And—
What say you, my lord? What happened next?
Why, nothing—out of the common way of things. Lyf woke—that’s all you need to know The details of contented lives make but meager grist for tales, my lord.
Did Lyf get well, you ask, my lady?
In time. All came to her in time.
What? Marriage, you ask?
My lady! My tale is done! Must every tale treat with love and marriage? Ah, but if it will loose the coins from that purse of yours, I will tell
you this:Spens of Merdoc took her for his bride. In time.
She has led a common life, my lords and ladies. She no longer kens with birds—she cannot. That’s gone, along with the Ancient Ones. Gone for good. All the old magic is gone … save for in her dreams.
She yet has wondrous dreams.
Pronounciation Guide
Since so many people have asked me how to pronounce the proper names in Dragon’s Milk and Flight of the Dragon Kyn, I thought I’d show how I pronounce the names in this book. However, you have my permission to say them any way that feels comfortable to you!
—Susan Fletcher
Lyf’s Family
Aryanna (ä’re-ä’n)
Granmyr (grn’mîr)
Jeorg (j’rg)
Kaeldra (kl’dr)
Lyf (Iîf)
Lyska(Iis’k)
Mirym (mîr’ym)
Nysien(ns’yn)
Owyn (’wîn)
Other Characters
Alys(ä’lz)
Aura(ôr’)
Brita(brît’)
Brynn(brîn)
Cletus (Kl’ts)
Donal(dn’l)
Dwynn(dwih)
Galum (g’lm)
Gar (gar)
Kymo(ki’m)
Lunedweth (ln ’d-wth’)
Spens (spnz)
Turi (tr’)
Una(n’)
Yanil(yän’l)
Dragons and Draclings (drk’ lngs)
Byrn(brn)
Embyr (m’br)
Kindle (kînd’I)
Pyro(pi’r)
Skorch (skôrch)
Smoak (smk)
Places
Elythia (l-îth’ -’)
Kragrom (krg’räm)
Merdoc (mâr ’däk)
Tyneth (tin’th)
Vtttongal (vît ’tôn-gäl’)
Wyrmward (wrm ’wôrd)
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