by Lucinda Hare
She began to calm herself, to do as she had so many times in her head or on the wooden dragon.
One ...
The dragon rolled forty-five degrees to the left so that his leathery wing talon was kicking up swirls of dust in the oval arena.
Two ...
Then the dragon was there, the tip of his snout almost level with her, his large green eyes fixed on the arena wall ahead, leaving her to make the leap unhindered.
Three ...
The wing was at its lowest point in the arc, the end talon almost touching the ground.
Four ...
She willed herself to jump, to run the four steps up the ridge of the leathery wing that took her to the saddle just like she had in her daydream.
'Mount!' someone cried. 'Mount, or you'll miss your step!'
She lifted her foot, already hearing the applause in her mind, thinking of the tale she could tell her father at dinner that night. 'Papa, I—'
Then feelings of guilt stopped her abruptly. What was she thinking of? The air whispered as the dragon flew past and his wing began to rise again. In a moment it was too late. The dragon was already ten strides above the ground.
Quenelda was aghast. How could she even think of doing this? Hadn't she seen dragons being mistreated? Was she not angry when she saw careless cruelty and neglect? If she jumped up onto the Viper's wing, the damage might be permanent and the old battledragon might never be able to fly again.
She stopped in her tracks and turned anguished eyes to Tangnost. No longer concentrating properly, she was caught by the battledragon's tail and knocked off her feet.
'Ouff!' The air was punched out of her lungs as she landed heavily on her back.
Laughter rattled around the arena.
They were laughing at her! She could see them nodding their heads. Hear their self-satisfied words.
'I told you ...'
'She's far too young ...'
Furiously, fists clenched at her sides, she sprang to her feet and rounded on them. A hand fell on her shoulder and squeezed, just enough to make her pause.
'Steady, lass!' Tangnost warned in her ear. 'You're all right, aren't you? No harm done, is there?'
'No,' Quenelda answered sullenly. But then she saw his face. He was looking at her with keen approval and nodding.
She was still confused, not quite understanding what was happening.
'Well then,' he said quietly. 'Call him back, and let's take a look at that wing, shall we?'
So he knew! It had been a test!
Relief flooded through Quenelda, knowing now that she hadn't let Tangnost down, followed swiftly by shame that for a moment she nearly had, and for selfish glory.
'One of you lads fetch the dragonsmith,' Tangnost ordered. 'Who else noticed that he was carrying an injury? Can anyone tell me what's wrong?'
Careful not to provoke the old battledragon, the esquires gathered round while Quenelda replaced his hood. Tangnost waited while they examined his wings, belly and talons, then tail and snout.
'Anyone?' he prompted.
'Um ...'
'Quenelda, why don't you tell them?'
He left her to explain. Soon the youths were looking at the Earl's daughter with surprised respect.
'I would never have spotted that.' An esquire shook his head as he looked at the slight swelling around the joint of the wing. 'Even with a close-up inspection I think I would have missed it. How could you tell?'
As Quenelda elaborated, Tangnost nodded to himself. She had not let him down. He had had no doubts about her ability to perform the manoeuvre – he'd seen her practise on the wooden dragon. But anyone who did not care for their dragon first had no place in the SDS. She had also tasted failure, frustration and prejudice. It was a start. She had passed a crucial test: her ambition did not outweigh her care for the dragons. And perhaps – he looked at Root sitting alone and miserable on the benches with his horn – just perhaps Quenelda might become more tolerant of the fears and failures of others; of those who, like herself, struggled against the odds. Well, these things took time, but it was a good beginning.
He sighed.
Getting Root back on his feet might take a lot longer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Imagine ...
That night after supper, following Tangnost's gentle but insistent urging, Root agreed to join the other esquires who often gathered in the dragonmaster's chambers to hear magical stories of great battles fought by the Bonecracker commandos, the SDS, and the Earl Rufus and his father before him.
'You're an esquire now,' he told the miserable gnome, 'and we are your family. Come and join us. This is no time for you to be on your own.'
It was no surprise for Root to find that Quenelda was sitting on the bench closest to the fire, her eyes closed and her scowl absent as she was drawn into the stories.
'What tale would you like to hear tonight?' Tangnost smiled, already guessing the answer as he cut a generous slice of black pudding and filled a pewter mug with ale from a keg.
'The Dragon Whisperer!' they chorused, huddling together as the wind whistled sharply outside and the moons rode the shredded clouds like galleons.
'The Dragon Whisperer?' Tangnost teased. 'But you heard that tale only two moons ago. Surely you want to hear another story ... ?'
The fire was low. Taking an iron, the dwarf poked the hearth vigorously, sending sparks up the chimney. 'Right, lad, hand me a log or two.'
Root struggled to lift one. Tangnost took it effortlessly in a huge hand, then added a second. The heady smell of pine resin filled the air. Closing the pot-bellied stove door, he left the flue open so that the fire roared and threw back the shadows and the cold. The wet wood sang and hissed as it burned. Soon the stove glowed cherry-red, its flickering light reflected off the ring of faces and the undersides of the low beams above. The dwarf lit his pipe with a twig and drew on it, filling the air with the heavy sweet scent of tobacco.
'Imagine ...' he began.
Quenelda closed her eyes as his hushed voice took on the soft hypnotic tones of a storyteller. The wind outside howled and hail rattled at the shutters, but it was cosy and companionable inside the dragonmaster's quarters.
'The First Hobgoblin War had dragged on for untold centuries,' Tangnost told them. 'Swarming in ever-increasing numbers, the hobgoblins had long since overwhelmed isolated settlements along the coastline. Then they moved inland along the banks of rivers and sea lochs to pillage and plunder. It was a dark time.'
Root anxiously fingered the carved amulets on leather strings around his neck. The flickering shadows suddenly seemed darker and the storm louder. He edged closer to Tangnost.
'It was a time of short days and long nights,' the dwarf continued, eye glinting in the firelight. 'Sometimes it seemed that the sun never shone at all, that all the land was bound beneath endless night.'
His audience shuddered deliciously as he pulled on his pipe. He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper, making them draw closer.
'Every spring they swarmed onto the lowlands, killing anything that moved, stripping them of all life save those creatures that could fly, leaving the valleys and moors desolate with bleaching bones. Crops were destroyed. Cattle eaten. Merchant galleons pirated. Soon all the races and tribes of the lowlands took refuge in the great fortresses of the Sorcerer Lords, who alone of all the peoples of the Old Kingdoms, held out against the hobgoblin banners.
'Only in winter, when the hobgoblins returned to the sea to hibernate, were they safe from attack. But for those who survived, winter brought only famine and hardship. Then, come springtime, the hobgoblin tribes hurled themselves against the fortresses that still held out against them.
Finally, late in the Year of the Dancing Stoat, the Stone Citadel, the sorcerers' last great refuge, fell.
'As the citadel crumbled about them, the royal court and its citizens fled northwards, abandoning the lowlands forever. Lords and ladies, merchants and artisans, soldiers and servants; they all fled
from the ravenous hobgoblins, taking only what they could carry. Ahead reared the forbidding peaks of the Storm Spike Mountains, and beyond them the uncharted frozen wastes of the highlands.
'The old and the young were the first to die. Those who survived fled north, away from the devastation, protecting the King, his young Queen and their infant son with their lives. But the endless cold sapped their strength, and with it their magic.'
The fire sparked and popped, making everyone jump and Root squeak. Quenelda sighed loudly and rolled her eyes in exasperation; the gnome's face burned with embarrassment. There was nervous laughter, then shuffling – the other youths were grateful it had not been them.
Tangnost resumed his story. 'That winter was bitter. Blizzards raged across the moorlands, As they stumbled, lost, through the featureless snow, thousands died of frostbite or starvation, but worse was to come. With no sun or moons to guide them, they unknowingly turned south, circling back the way they had come. In what has since been called the Weeping Glen they were trapped by the hobgoblin banners.
'There was a great battle that raged for many days. Before it was over, the King and many of his lords had died of their wounds. The women and children took refuge in the caves of the Five Wizards, but the hobgoblins found them. The Queen fled into the storm. After the battle they found her frozen body on the slopes, but the babe ...'
Quenelda's skin tingled as she waited breathlessly.
'The babe was gone. All they found ...' Tangnost waited for his audience to ask the familiar question.
'What did they find?' a wide-eyed esquire obliged.
'Dragon tracks, lad.' The dwarf nodded, resting his pipe on his knee. 'All they found were dragon tracks, and soon even they were gone, covered by drifting snow. They searched and searched the frozen wastes of the north from the Weeping Glen to the Midge Ridden Moors. No trace of the babe was ever found. Grieving, they abandoned the search.'
Tangnost took a deep draught of ale and burped with loud satisfaction. He wiped the froth from his moustache with his jerkin sleeve and prepared to resume his tale.
'So they had no King? No Queen to lead them?' a young esquire next to Root piped up, his eyes wide. 'What did they do?'
Tangnost nodded. 'Bringing together the greatest of their scholars and their warlords, those remaining formed the Sorcerers Guild to rule in their King's stead until they could choose another to lead them. Then, with the hobgoblins in close pursuit, they continued their great trek north, where they were welcomed by my cousins, the mountain dwarfs. As the Century of the Stalking Wild Cat dawned, those who survived reached the glacial ice of the Sorcerers Glen.
'Thus it was here that the first great alliance between dwarfs and men was forged. Foreseeing the dark times to come, they built their greatest fortress: the Ice Citadel. The dwarf masters carved it out of the ice and milky stone, and the Sorcerer Lords bound it with High Magic. Only one part of that citadel remains standing to this day ...'
'Dragonsdome's keep,' Quenelda finished for him.
Root sat up in wide-eyed surprise. The great milky-hued tower that reached up to the stars, so high that the observatory poked above the clouds, had always seemed other-worldly to him.
'It took nigh on a century to complete the great citadel. As it grew, so all the tribes and peoples of the Seven Sea Kingdoms sought sanctuary behind its growing ramparts from the marauding hobgoblins. But ever the ice retreated north. As the rivers and glaciers melted, so the hobgoblins advanced.
'Then, as the ice failed, a loch began to form in the deeps of this glen. Soon, all that remained was a black rocky island, the citadel's frozen ramparts rearing out of the cold waters. The ice that had once been their guardian now betrayed them. The hobgoblins came.
'All remaining peoples of the Sea Kingdoms gathered to face their foe one final time. Young and old, soldier and artisan, anyone who could lift a sword took their place on the ramparts of the Ice Citadel. And high, high above them, on the upper battlements of the great keep, stood the greatest Battle Mages amongst them, wielding their High Magic.
'A deep yellow haar shrouded the glen. The defenders could hear a great slithering sound and the deeper beat of dragonskull drums. All day the sound grew louder and louder till it broke against the ramparts like a wave, and the haar seemed alive.
'As the red sunset leached out behind dark clouds, seven black dragons were seen circling the keep. Alarmed and afraid, the sentries drew their bows and spears and called out to the Sorcerer Lords, who raised their staffs and stood ready to fight the great creatures.
'As the defenders gathered fearfully, the largest of the dragons landed on a high tower. His six companions settled on the ramparts about him. Smoke curled from their nostrils but they made no hostile move. Instead the great dragon moved towards them. In the darkness his scales shimmered brightly. His outline became fluid. The light was so intense that all were forced to shade their eyes or be blinded. As the light died away, a youth sheathed in the same black armour as the dragons stood before them, half man, half dragon. And this is the story he told them ...'
The esquires grinned at each other. This was their favourite part. Quenelda too was gripped by the magical tale as Tangnost's voice changed and he became the first Dragon Whisperer, explaining how he came to belong to the races of both dragons and men ...
As the story unfolded, Quenelda pictured the tall young man with jet-black hair and the bright golden eyes of a dragon, clothed like the Elders in a living skin of dragonarmour. She imagined white-skinned Frost dragons flying through the raging blizzard, tracking hobgoblin war bands and hearing the cry of a babe. Turning back, they found him sheltered beneath his mother's frozen body. Understanding that the boy needed warmth and milk if he was to live, the dragons sought out the nearest roost amongst their fire-breathing kindred.
'The babe was taken deep into the dragoncombs, where an Imperial Black nursed her brood in the warm heart of the stone,' Tangnost went on. 'She took the babe and fostered him along with her own six hatchlings.
'As the child grew, dragon magic flowed in his blood and built his bones. His heartbeat slowed and became two, and his lifespan lengthened to that of the Elders. His golden eyes glowed in the dark like his six brothers', and his senses grew keener than those of mere men. Small scales formed on his skin and membranes between his fingers. He spoke the dragon's language and knew the ways of the Elders who had walked the One Earth long before men or hobgoblins existed.
'When the boy came of age, he shed his soft juvenile skin for scales harder than diamonds. He shrugged off mortal form and became a dragon, with fire in his belly and hatred in his hearts for the hobgoblins, and the Elders named him Son of the Morning Star.
'For the next hundred years the Elders and the peoples of the Seven Sea Kingdoms fought for their very survival against the rising menace of the hobgoblins, but none could stop them. During that time Son of the Morning Star earned great battle honours amongst his adopted people, for he had the strength and memories of two races in his veins, but it was not enough. As a second century drew to a close the dragons of the oceans and their landlocked brothers were almost extinct. Only those who could fly escaped the reach of the hobgoblin swarms, and they were injured and exhausted.
'From high on their mountain eyries to deep in their dragoncombs, the Elders of all dragonkind gathered together and decided to return their brother to his own people, to forge a bond between all the races who fought the hated hobgoblins, so that together they might defeat them.
'And so it was that on the eve of the Final Battle their young prince was returned to the peoples of the Sea Kingdoms to offer them an alliance with the Elders. Knowing him to be their true King, they bowed before him and pledged their allegiance. In return the young King promised to summon the dragons in their defence. Turning once more into a mighty Imperial Black dragon, he disappeared into the night, escorted by his six brothers.
'Then the hobgoblins in their bone armour rose up out of the sea loch. The citadel w
as surrounded by a heaving, crawling mass. With blood-curdling cries and wild drumbeats, the hobgoblin banners whipped themselves up into a frenzy, then threw themselves into the battle, filled with blood lust.
'From the battlements great oak catapults lobbed chunks of ice that splintered into deadly shards, killing scores of hobgoblins on the black rock skirts of the island. The sorcerers cast hexes and detonations, spheres and pulses into their massed ranks. Arrows fell like a black rain, skewering their soft bodies to the sheets of ice that floated on the sea.'
Tangnost reached for his mug and took a gulp, then continued his tale.
'For two more days and two nights the Final Battle raged. After the first day there was no sunrise. Dark clouds spat lightning. Thunder boomed and echoed, and great hailstones rattled against the ice. By the dawn of the second day the hobgoblin banners had taken the outer moats and ramparts, and in an orgy of destruction slaughtered every living thing. Magic lay thick—'
Quenelda jerked violently, kicking Root. Images flickered through her mind – terrifying images, brilliant in their clarity. Tangnost's voice was not so much cut off as drowned beneath the sudden and terrifying clash of arms and the screams of the dying.
Weapons rose and fell, the sound of steel on bone making her flinch. The hobgoblins' ululating war cries were almost human, but the way in which they pierced her ears to explode white-hot behind her eyes was not. Their putrefying stench choked her throat. Explosions lit the suffocating darkness around her, revealing great battlements and spiralling towers of blue-hued ice ... Spells broke overhead and spewed across the battlefield in blinding dandelions of colour. The loch below was hidden by the rising mist of spent magic that crept up the citadel walls.
Lightning cracked in the darkness as the heaving mass of hobgoblins crawled over the broken blood-streaked ramparts like maggots on a dying carcass. Pale hands reached up towards her; their clinging, sucking fingers made her skin crawl ...
She cried out in revulsion.