by Sam Ferguson
Gorliad caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his right eye. His head twitched just in time to see a furry tail disappear into the brush. The burgundy hatchling ran off, bounding down form the stone platform without any regard for the yelling dwarf behind him.
He tore through a patch of ferns, skirted around a blackberry bush, and dashed through the trees chasing after the gray, bushy tail that somehow managed to stay meters ahead of him no matter how fast he ran. Gorliad crashed through a large bush, tearing off branches and flinging little red berries before him. The gray little animal scurried up a nearby oak tree and began chattering quickly at him. Gorliad watched the thing climb high out of reach, circling around branches and disappearing into a knothole about twenty meters above the ground.
Gorliad turned his head and noticed a pair of young dragons standing on the far side of a pool. A larger green dragon lay in the grass next to them. All three of them watched him. Gorliad moved to the water’s edge and looked into the serene, blue liquid. He startled when he saw a burgundy face looking back at him from the surface. He moved to the right. The face moved with him. He moved left. So did the face. He smiled and snorted. So did the face in the water.
Bubbles broke the surface a couple meters beyond the water’s edge and then an ivory head broke the surface, sending ripples through the reflection and disrupting Gorliad’s attention. The young hatchling looked to see a young dragon floating in the water. It turned and began swimming toward the far edge where the others stood.
The young hatchling knew he couldn’t fly, but the ivory dragon hardly appeared to be using any energy to coast through the water. He leapt headlong into the cool liquid, splashing loudly and sinking below the surface like a stone. Reflexively, he almost breathed in, but as the water crept into his nostrils he stopped. He clawed frantically at the water, trying to pull himself above the surface again. It wasn’t working. He sank farther into the depths. The light, crisp blue waters around him grew dark and thick, pushing in on his ear holes.
Something clamped around his neck. It was sharp, but it didn’t pierce his skin. It pulled him up out from the water and plopped him upon the dry land near where he had jumped in.
“Why would you let him jump in?” Algearon shouted.
Gorliad shook the water from his stinging eyes and saw that the large green dragon had pulled him out of the water. The dwarf was busy berating the large dragon, but Gorliad wasn’t about to let that stand. He moved in between the two and offered a short roar. Algearon stopped yelling long enough to allow the green dragon to speak.
“Master Algearon, the young prince jumped into the waters while I was on the other side of the pool. I am teaching these dragons how to swim. I assure you, he was in no real danger. I was upon him in less than a second.”
Gorliad roared and nodded his head as he spouted a weak, blue flame.
Algearon sighed. “Come with me,” he said. Gorliad offered a thankful glance back to the green dragon and then moved to follow Algearon out from the clearing. The two walked through the trees and bushes. Gorliad listened quietly as Algearon fumed and blustered. “What would you have done if Sorin wasn’t there? Dwarves can’t swim you know, and even if I could I wouldn’t be able to pull you out of a hole like that.” He mumbled and grumbled a few more sentences, but Gorliad could only gather that it was something about tradition.
Gorliad stopped when he realized that Algearon was taking him directly back into the mountain. The burgundy hatchling turned and looked to the valley.
“Don’t even think about it,” Algearon said. “We can come back outside tomorrow. Maybe now you will understand that you shouldn’t run away from your instructor. Come, back to your room. I will lay out your schedule for you, and then when night falls you can have your supper.”
Gorliad cocked his head to the side and squawked in protest.
Algearon would have none of it. He folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Studies and training come first, then you can feed your body. Your muscles and power will do you little good in the wilds if you have neither brains nor experience to use them.”
Gorliad looked to the mountain and then he felt a rumble in his stomach. Now that they were on the subject, he was keenly aware of how hungry he had already become. He wasn’t sure he could make do with only one meal a day. While in the upper nursery with his mother, the food had been available all day long. Even if he could control his ravenous appetite, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to.
Chapter 10
Gorliad woke early the next morning. He looked to the boar carcass he had cleaned the night before. He silently crept to it, sniffing and turning the bones over to look for any remaining scraps. There were none to be found. He looked to Algearon. The dwarf sat sleeping in his rocker. A smoldering pipe in his left hand and a pewter mug standing upon the small square table next to him.
It would be some time before Algearon would wake yet, he knew. If he was quick, perhaps he could score a bite to eat before the morning instruction would begin. As quietly as a mouse he skittered across the floor and out into the hall. He retraced his steps from the previous morning, though this time going much faster since he knew exactly where he wanted to go.
In no time at all he was stalking up to the chamber’s opening. No one in the soup prep chamber had seen him, and there were no dwarves in the hall. He snaked his head around the corner of the entrance and looked inside. The same busy dwarves hustled about the tables. Cutting and slicing and chopping up meat. Again, as there had been the day before, several strips of juicy, heavily marbled meat hung off the edge of the closest table. Like before, he waited for all of the dwarves to be fully occupied or walking away before he made his move.
The burgundy dragon hunkered down low to the ground, his shoulder blades pulsing up and down as he situated himself. Then, the moment came. Everyone was near the back of the chamber. Gorliad sprinted in, grabbed a mouthful of meat and turned away to escape. He barely noticed the two strips that slapped onto the stone floor as he scrambled out.
“Hey!” someone shouted from inside the chamber.
Gorliad smiled and ran up the hallway with a smile on his face and the sweet, juicy strips in his mouth. He found a small nook near the junction with the main hall and stopped to wolf down his extra meal. This time he had managed to snatch four pieces, but he still gobbled them down using only a couple of bites. He knew he had to be fast.
Fortune was on his side. When he returned to the upper nursery, Algearon was still asleep. Gorliad crept in, back to the place where he slept, and laid down with his back facing the dwarf. He smiled to himself and waited for the dwarf to wake on his own.
It took some time, how much exactly the dragon didn’t know, for Algearon to finally rise from his sleep. He tapped the bowl of his pipe on the table and cleared his throat. Gorliad turned his head around and blinked lazily, as if waking from slumber himself.
“No sneaking off today,” Algearon said. “I have my eye on you.”
Gorliad stretched his arms out and feigned a yawn to conceal the smile that spread over his leathery lips. The surly dwarf had no idea.
Algearon rose to his feet, setting his pipe down upon the table and cracking his knuckles before walking over to Gorliad. “Today, you learn about hierarchy.”
Gorliad rose to his feet and looked down expectantly at the dwarf.
Algearon wrinkled his nose and then arched his right brow. “Can you say hierarchy?” he asked.
Gorliad opened his mouth and tried to form the sounds of the spoken tongue. “Hhhsarkhy,” he spat out with a bit of flame.
Algearon chuckled and offered a slight nod. “That will do for now, I suppose.” He moved back to open the chest at the edge of his bed. He produced a large, black box and turned to set it on the table next to his pipe. He pulled a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles out from a pouch in his red velvet vest and then motioned for Gorliad to come closer. “The lesson will be over here,” he said.
The b
urgundy hatchling moved over to the table and watched as Algearon pulled several things out of the black box. He pulled little cylindrical pieces made of wood and placed them at the edge of the table closest to him. Next, he pulled a few triangular wood pieces out and placed them near the cylindrical pieces. “The round ones are common dwarves. These are your workers.” He picked one of the pieces up and held it in front of Gorliad. “This one piece, for example, represents all of the hunters that gather food from the forest. Understand?”
Gorliad nodded. “Y-y-ess.”
Algearon smirked. He set the wooden piece down. “These other cylindrical pieces are your tanners, your smiths, your jewelers, your bakers, your engineers, and so on for each category of worker. Understand?”
Again, Gorliad nodded.
“These are the bottom, or the base, of our society. The next level up are your team captains.” Algearon picked up a triangular piece for Gorliad to see. “Each worker category is divided into groups. Each group has a team captain. The team captain in responsible for the team’s performance. Understand?” This time Algearon put the piece down without noting Gorliad’s response. He reached in and pulled flat-bottomed black marbles and set them with the worker pieces. “These black stones are the drones. These are dragons that are smaller than drakes. They are roughly one to two meters in length from tip of snout to the end of the tail. They assist worker dwarves, under the direction of team captains.” He then pulled out golden flat-bottomed marbles. “These are drakes. Drakes work alongside some categories of workers, such as hunters and some of the soldiers.” He put a couple of the marbles next to two of the other pieces on the table.
Algearon then took the rest and set them along the left side of the table, but still close to him. “The complexity of the mountain is that two societies exist together. There is a dragon hierarchy, which exercises dominion over all, and there is the dwarf society, which is more limited in scope.”
Gorliad nodded and watched the remaining gold marbles as Algearon placed them on the table.
“The drakes are the lowest of the dragon society. They comprise the base. They can control drones if necessary, but usually that menial task is left to the dwarves since drones have no wings and are not widely considered to be of the same royal heritage as other dragons. Understand?”
Gorliad nodded, but he was growing tired of the constant condescension. It wasn’t that hard of a concept to grasp.
Algearon pulled out wooden pieces shaped like stars. “These are dwarf officers. They oversee the team captains and report to the steward.” Algearon pulled a star piece out of the box that was painted gold. “This is the steward. He or she is over all dwarves, and reports directly to the king.” Algearon pointed to the plain stars. “All of these report to the steward.” Then, he pulled a couple of silver stars out of the box. “These are special officers. They can report to the steward, but most often report to the king directly. They also have very special responsibilities. For instance, I am a silver star, if you will. I am the royal hatcher. I have responsibility for you. I report only to the king.” Algearon sighed before adding, “And sometimes to the high queen.” He then pulled out a few metal cubes. “I also direct the dragons that will train and instruct you. So, the brass cubes represent these dragons. They report to me, which is a unique position for a dwarf.” Algearon looked at the table and shook his head.
Gorliad snorted impatiently.
Algearon pulled out another gold painted wooden star and set it on the table. “The steward,” he said pointing to the first star “is responsible for all civil offices. He or she oversees the treasurer, the Nursery Master, though the nursery master also reports directly to the king, and the master engineer. The master engineer in turn oversees the Quartermaster, who is in charge of residential tunnels, the Jewelmaster, who is in charge of the precious ore and gem mines, the Harvestmaster, who is in charge of our aquafers and agricultural tunnels, and the Trademaster, who is in charge of industrial, commercial, and educational tunneling. Understand?”
Without waiting, Algearon pointed to the second golden painted wooden star. “This is the general. He oversees all combat offices, such as the expeditionary forces, the mountain guards, the hunters, and the mountain spears. They each have their own rank system, as well, but we will save that for another time.”
Algearon pulled many more cubes out of the black box. “The hematite cubes are lesser dragons. These are your regular, basic dragon. They are large though, despite their name. Whereas a drone is one to two meters in length and a drake can range from three to five meters in length and stand between one and three and a half meters tall, a lesser dragon can grow up to ten meters in length and stand four to seven meters tall. They are powerful indeed, and form the backbone of the mountain’s inner defenses.”
The dwarf then pointed to the brass cubes. “These are the intermediate, or normal, dragons. They stand six to fourteen meters tall and reach between fifteen and twenty meters in length. These dragons are usually called upon to be team captains over the lesser dragons and the drakes that do not work directly with the dwarves.”
Next he pulled a set of silver cubes from the box. “These are the greater dragons. They grow between twenty-five to thirty meters in length and can reach twenty-one meters tall.”
Algearon smiled and pulled a golden cube out from the box. “Then there are the kings and queens.” He set the cube in the center of the table, above all of the other pieces. “A king can grow to be as long as fifty meters, and stand thirty-five meters tall.” He admired the gold cube and then nodded as he pulled out additional gold cubes that were slightly smaller. “Queens rarely get that large, but they usually range between the size of a king and that of a greater dragon. Remember there are many queens, with one of them serving as the high queen. There is ever only one king. However, unlike some animal systems in the wild, the dragon queens are free to come and go if they choose to abandon their king.” Algearon raised a warning finger. “Though they should only do this with the utmost care. Queens must be able to present themselves to a new king, and have him accept them, or else they will find themselves alone, without the protection of a king or his kingdom.”
Gorliad nodded and spied a few copper triangles in the bottom of the box. He grunted to show his interest in them, since he could not form a question with his mouth.
Algearon shrugged and frowned sourly. “These are not worth talking about.” He pulled out one of the pyramids and placed it at the bottom of a table. “If a dragon is maimed and becomes lame, or hatches with a defect, then it becomes a servant. So, if something happened to you, and say you lost your tail in a fight, or lost your eyes, Aurorean forbid, then you would lose your standing as a prince, and would become a servant. Unlike the drones, these servants only work for dragons. Most of them serve the king or one of the queens. Though in reality they are eventually sent out to the fields in the wilds, and used to gather food. Once outside the mountain, they rarely survive more than a summer or two before some predator takes them down. Which is all the better I suppose because they are useless, and only add to the mountain’s burden of work rather than serve any significant purpose.”
Gorliad frowned.
“Don’t look at me like that. There aren’t any dragons like this in our mountain. Besides, it is tradition and law that dictates how maim dragons are to be classified. I did not write the book of dragon law.”
Algearon continued on, talking at length about each and every office that a dwarf or dragon might hold. Gorliad lost interest in it fairly quickly. He grasped the basic concept. That was enough for him. Every dragon and dwarf had a role. That role was assigned to benefit the whole mountain. He didn’t need to hear how often the Treasurer counted the diamonds or checked on the Jewelmaster’s progress.
He would rather be outside. His thought turned to the idea of flying upon the winds, and roaring into the clouds. Why learn about officers and jobs when one could be out mastering flight anyway?
“Y
ou listening?” Algearon asked.
Gorliad snorted. A puff of smoke covered the table and all of the pieces on it. His stomach grumbled. He was hungry. Again. Algearon sighed.
At that moment a slender, wheat-colored dragon entered the chamber. “I am here for the prince.”
Algearon looked back to the table with his cubes and pyramids and then he nodded. “He’s yours.” He looked back to Gorliad. “This is Ceadryl, your hunting instructor.”
Ceadryl turned back around and walked down the hall. Gorliad bounded after him. Only once he was in the hall did the hatchling notice that Ceadryl was only wheat-colored on the underside. His top was grass green. Gorliad marveled that the large dragon made absolutely no sound as he stepped on the stone. Once they were outside, Ceadryl leapt down to the grass below the stone platform. Gorliad watched as the sneaky dragon lowered himself down to the grass and held motionless. Soon it was hard to see where the dragon was, despite having seen him leap down in the first place.
Gorliad jumped down into the grass, eager to try to hide like his tutor.
“You are red,” Ceadryl said in a soft, yet deep voice. “You will not blend in with the green grass.”
Gorliad frowned.
“Come, we will go into the forest. I will show you how to move silently, so that no prey ever senses your approach.”
Ceadryl led him through the trees and past the pool where Gorliad had plunged in. The hatchling looked to the water and felt a strange pull at his soul. He started to turn off the path and head toward the pool.
A great green leg stomped down on the ground in front of him. “I admire your resilience, young prince, but swimming is not for you today.”
Gorliad looked up and saw the same dragon that had pulled him from the water.
Ceadryl turned back around with his head. “Come, Gorliad. We have much work to do before the sun drops behind the horizon.” Gorliad resigned himself to his tutor and followed as he again led him through the forest. They walked for hours, Ceadryl not making a sound as he slithered in and out of the trees. Gorliad followed in his tutor’s footsteps, quick to pick up the skills of walking silently through the forest.