The Blood of a Dragon

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He poked Wuller with a toe. “Wake up,” he said.

  Wuller blinked and woke up. “Good morning,” he said. Then he yawned and stretched.

  “Is the girl still in there?” Wulran demanded.

  Wuller looked at the door, still closed and barred, and then up at his father. “I think so,” he said. “She was last I saw.”

  “And she'll be there when we come to get her for the sacrifice?”

  Wuller yawned again. “You can't sacrifice her,” he said. “I already fed the dragon this morning, just before first light. It's probably dead by now.”

  “What's probably dead by now, a sheep? You fed it a sheep?”

  Wuller nodded. “Yes, I fed it a sheep, and of course the sheep is dead, but what I meant was, the dragon is probably dead.”

  His father stared at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  Wuller got to his feet.

  “I said, the dragon is probably dead by now.”

  “Have you gone mad, too, now?” Wulran asked. “I didn't know it was catching.”

  “I'm not mad,” Wuller said. He didn't like his father's tone, though, and he suddenly decided not to say any more.

  “Step aside, boy,” Wulran demanded. “I want to be sure she's in there.”

  Wuller stepped aside.

  He said nothing as his father unbarred the door and found Seldis peacefully asleep in Illuré's bed.

  He said nothing at all for the rest of the morning, not even when the men came later and found Seldis still sleeping, and picked her up and carried her off to the flat stone where the dragon took its meals.

  19

  Seldis awoke the moment they laid hands on her, but she didn't scream or struggle. She put up no resistance as the party carried her to the flat, bloodstained stone outcropping where the dragon accepted its tribute.

  There she was lowered gently to the ground. One end of a rope was tied around her ankles, the other to the tall scorched stump beside the stone where, prior to this, only sheep had been tethered. Her hands, too, were tied.

  Then she was placed on the stone, and the others stepped back, leaving her there.

  She looked up at the villagers and addressed Wuller directly.

  “You better be right about those mushrooms,” she said.

  He looked up at the mountainside above them, and smiled. “See for yourself,” he said, pointing.

  She looked where Wuller pointed, and saw the tip of the dragon's tail, hanging down from a ledge like an immense bloated vine. No one else had noticed; they had been paying attention to their captive.

  The tail was utterly limp.

  “See?” Wuller said. “It's dead, just as you said it would be.”

  The villagers looked, and then stared in open-mouthed astonishment.

  “We'd better go make sure,” Seldis said. “I'm not familiar with those mushrooms. If it's just sick, we'd better go finish it off while it's still weak.”

  “Right,” Wuller said. He knelt beside her and drew his knife, then began sawing at the ropes.

  Wulran tore his gaze from that dangling, lifeless tail and looked down at the bound young woman. “What did you do?" he asked.

  “We killed the dragon, Wuller and I,” she said. “I told you I knew how.” Her wrists were free, and she sat up.

  “But how?" Wulran asked.

  “It was easy. Wuller let me out last night, and we went out in the woods and gathered mushrooms, two baskets full—those thin ones with the white stems and the little cups at the bottom. You don't have wolfsbane or nightshade around here, but you had to have something poisonous, and Wuller told me about the mushrooms.”

  “But how...” someone began.

  Seldis ignored him and kept right on speaking.

  “We ground up the mushrooms and stuffed them into those sausage casings, and then we stuffed those down the throat of a sheep Wuller brought, and then we tied the sheep here—oh, look, some of its blood got on my skirt! Didn't you people see it was still wet?”

  Wuller grinned at her as the rope around her ankles parted.

  “Anyway,” Seldis continued, “we tied it out, and the dragon ate it, and that was that.”

  “Poison mushrooms?” someone asked. “That's all it took?”

  “Of course that's all!” Seldis said, plainly offended. “Do you think I'm an amateur? I know how to kill dragons, I told you!”

  “You're sure it's dead?” Wulran asked. “I mean, I know those mushrooms are deadly, but that's a dragon...”

  Seldis shrugged. “A dragon's just a beast. A very special beast, a magical beast perhaps, but a beast, of mortal flesh and blood. Poison will kill it, sure as it will kill anything.”

  20

  We need to check,” Wulran said gruffly. “We can't just take your word for it that it's dead.”

  “You're right,” Seldis said. “If I got the dose wrong it might just be sick for a few days. We need to go see, and if it's still alive we need to finish it off while it's weak.”

  The villagers looked at one another.

  “You don't all have to go,” Seldis said. “Wuller and I will check.”

  “I'll come, too,” Wulran said.

  “If you like. There's one thing, though—could someone fetch me a wineskin, the biggest you can find?”

  The villagers were puzzled, but none of them were inclined to argue with her any further.

  Several minutes later, the three of them, Wulran, Wuller, and Seldis, set out up the mountainside to the ledge where the dragon's tail was draped. Seldis carried an immense empty wineskin, the sort that would be hung up on the village commons during Festival, and still no one had had the nerve to ask her why.

  They crept up onto the ledge, past the thick tail, and down into the stony crevice where most of the dragon lay, motionless and silent.

  “It looks dead,” Wuller whispered as they came even with the great belly.

  Seldis nodded. “Looks can be deceiving, though.” She took out her long knife and crept forward, toward the head.

  “What are you...” Wuller began.

  “Stay back!” she hissed. “I'm going to make sure it's dead.”

  Wulran reached out and grabbed Wuller's arm, and pulled him back to the edge of the ledge, where they could both slide down out of sight in a hurry if the need arose.

  They waited for what seemed hours to Wuller, but watching the sun he realized it was only a few minutes.

  “It's all right,” Seldis called at last. “It's dead!”

  Wuller ran back down the crevice after her, calling, “How can you be sure?”

  Then he saw what she had done. She had rammed her long knife up to the hilt into one of the dragon's eyes.

  If there had been any life in it at all, it would surely have reacted to that!

  After that, she had swung her wineskin into position and cut open a vein, allowing the dragon's blood to spill into the waiting receptacle. Wuller stared at the trickle of purplish ichor.

  “This will cover my expenses,” she said, almost apologizing. “Wizards can always use more dragon's blood.”

  “It's really dead,” Wuller said. “We did it! Seldis, we all owe you more than we could ever pay you, and particularly after the treatment you got. I'm sure that everyone in the village will agree with me on that.”

  Wulran came up behind him and said, “If they don't at first, I'll make them agree, young lady.”

  Seldis shrugged. “It's nothing. This one was easy. Hell, you people should have thought of it yourselves! You knew about the mushrooms, and you saw it eat a sheep every day—why didn't you try anything?"

  Wulran shrugged. “We had that prophecy, that oracle—that you would come save us.” He smiled crookedly.

  Seldis stared at him.

  “So you were going to sacrifice me?” she asked. “You thought that would save you?”

  Wulran opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it again.

  “Did it occur to any of you that if sacrific
ing me was not what the oracle had meant, that you'd be killing the one person who you'd been told could save you?”

  Wulran merely blinked at that; he didn't even try to respond.

  Wuller said, “I wouldn't have let them.”

  “Ha! I didn't see you doing much to stop them this morning!”

  “But we'd already poisoned the dragon by then!”

  “And what if the poison hadn't worked?”

  Wuller's mouth opened, like his father's, but nothing came out.

  Seldis looked at him for a long moment, then at the dragon. The stream of blood had stopped; she capped the wineskin and hung it over one shoulder. Then she shoved her way past both the son and the father and marched on out of the crevice.

  Wulran and Wuller watched her go. Wulran threw his son an apologetic glance, but Wuller was in no mood to accept it. He ran after her.

  When he caught up with her he could think of nothing to say, and so the two of them walked silently back down to the village side by side.

  When they reached the village, Seldis announced, “I'm tired, Wuller; we were up all night. I'm going to get some sleep.”

  He nodded. “Good idea,” he said.

  After she had gone into Illuré's bedroom—leaving the door open and unbarred, this time—he headed for his own bed.

  Wuller awoke that afternoon to find her up and dressed and checking her pack. The wineskin of dragon's blood was at her feet.

  “I'll be going now,” she said, without looking at him.

  Wuller blinked at her from the doorway of his bedroom. He looked around at the familiar house—his mother's painted tiles on the walls, the iron skillets hung by the kitchen, the broad stone hearth. His parents and his aunt Illuré were somewhere nearby. Around the house stood his village, all the world he had known until a few days ago, home to his entire extended family and everyone he had ever known.

  All of it was safe now, with the dragon dead, and Seldis was no longer needed. She would be going back to her own home, in distant Aldagmor, out there in the hostile and unfamiliar world beyond the village, the world where Wuller knew no one and had nothing.

  “Wait for me,” he said, snatching up his clothes.

  To his surprise, she did.

  Notes on

  Pronunciation:

  It's come to my attention that some readers, thrown by the central cluster of consonants, have had difficulty pronouncing the name “Ethshar.”

  It isn't really that hard. It's a compound word. “Eth” rhymes with “Beth” and is Ethsharitic for “good” or “safe,” while “shar” rhymes with “car” and is Ethsharitic for “harbor” or “port.”

  Ethsharitic names are generally pronounced more or less as if they were English. If there's any doubt, I hope the following rules will help:

  Ethsharitic is a stress-accented language, like English. The accent is on the first syllable unless the vowel is marked (as in Adréan or Zarréa), or unless there is a double consonant, in which case the syllable ending in the double consonant is accented (such as “Falissa,” accented on the second syllable, or “Karanissa,” accented on the third). A marked accent takes precedence over a double consonant, so Zarréa is accented on the second syllable.

  There are no silent letters, not even the K in “Ksinallion,” except for silent E following a double consonant at the end of feminine names, as in “Amanelle,” or indicating a long vowel, as in “Haldane.”

  A is always as in “father,” never as in “cat.”

  AI is always as in “hai!” never as in “rain.”

  C is always as in “cat,” never as in “Cynthia.”

  CH is always as in “church,” never as in “Achtung!” or “champagne” or any of the other possibilities.

  É is pronounced as in “Renée.”

  G is always as in “get,” never as in “gem.”

  I is always as in “kit,” never as in “kite.”

  J is always as in “jet,” never as in “Bjorn” or “je ne sais quois” or “Jose.” (It's also fairly rare.)

  LL is always as in “frill,” never as in “La Jolla.”

  OO is always as in “pool,” never as in “book.”

  TH is always as in “thin,” never as in “the.”

  U is always as in “rune,” never as in “run.”

  Y is always as in “any,” never as in “try.”

  And if in doubt, just say it however is easiest!

  About the Author

  Lawrence Watt-Evans is the author of more than two dozen novels, and more than a hundred short stories. Further information can be found on his webpage at http://www.watt-evans.com/.