The Blood of a Dragon loe-4

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  But how could he get past the watch-dragon?

  And looking at the situation in the light of day, how would he get two squirming hatchlings out through the fence, and down the mountain?

  And what if one of the hatchlings turned out to be a fire-breather?

  It was a good thing that Kensher didn’t raise flyers or fire-breathers, even as watch-dragons. If the watch-dragon had been a fire-breather, Dumery realized, he might have been dead by now, a charred corpse lying on the stone, instead of alive and well. If the watch-dragon could fly it might have pursued him past the fence-and he hadn’t gone very far, had he? Around that boulder and across maybe fifty feet of open ground lay the fence; surely, the dragon could have tracked him that far.

  He was glad that Kensher hadn’t thought to let the dragon out, hadn’t come after him with it.

  That assumed, of course, that dragons could track, like dogs or cats, and really, Dumery didn’t know for certain that they could. And Kensher probably had good reasons for not letting the watch-dragon out; could he control the beast outside the fence?

  Maybe the fence was there to keep the watch-dragon in, more than anything else.

  Whether dragons could track people or not, witches surely could; why hadn’t Teneria found him yet?

  And while all this speculation was very interesting, it wasn’t getting him any closer to setting up his own dragon-breeding operation.

  He sat and thought, uncomfortably aware that Teneria might appear at any moment.

  He devised scheme after scheme for stealing a pair of hatchlings, but they all fell apart upon close inspection. He could think of no practical way to deal with the watch-dragon, or with Kensher and his family if he tried to sneak in when the dragon wasn’t on duty. He had no way of killing a dragon that size.

  Besides, killing it seemed a bit extreme. It was Kensher’s dragon.

  It hadn’t been that hard to talk himself into stealing a couple of hatchlings; after all, Kensher had lots of them, and most of them were destined to be slaughtered in a year or so anyway. The watch-dragon, though, was fifteen or twenty feet long, and must be three or four years old, at least. Kensher had clearly put considerable effort into training it, judging by the way it had behaved-and Dumery was grateful for that training, because without it the monster might have gone ahead and eaten him.

  He was also grateful to Kensher and the rest of the family for taking him in, when he turned up on their doorstep. Yes, it was just normal hospitality to take him in and give him a meal, but even that much wasn’t something everybody would bother with, and they had gone further than that, giving him days to regain his strength, feeding him generously, and giving him clothes and supplies for the journey home.

  He began to be ashamed of himself for plotting to rob the people who had saved his life. Was he that low a person? Was he that desperate to get hold of a couple of dragons?

  He shook his head. It wasn’t right. He had let his obsessions get the better of him. He had done Kensher quite enough harm already. He had repaid kindness and succor with threats, attempted blackmail, burglary, and a broken fence. He would do no more harm in return for good.

  It was time to get away from Kensher and his farm.

  It was time to go home.

  For one thing, he didn’t really want to get caught.

  Ostensibly, all he had to do was loop back around the way he had come, and head on down the trail to the river.

  There was a problem with that, however. A problem named Teneria.

  He was sure that she would know what he had done. She would know that he had tried to steal those hatchlings. If she went home with him she would probably tell someone, like his parents. And even if she didn’t, she would certainly be keeping a close eye on him every step of the way home.

  He didn’t think he could face that.

  And for that matter, did he really know anything about her? Had his parents sent her? It didn’t seem like them. After all, they knew he was all right; they’d talked to him in that silly dream Thetheran had sent.

  Maybe someone else had sent her, or she had come on her own. Maybe the magicians, including the witches, were all out to get him.

  Was she really a witch, though? He hadn’t seen her work any magic. She had found him, somehow, which was impressive, and she seemed to be able to tell lies from truth with phenomenal accuracy, but neither one proved she was actually the witch she said she was. He hadn’t seen her fly or anything.

  But even if she were exactly what she claimed to be, he really didn’t want to go home with her, having her there gloating over him the whole time.

  He would find his own way home-overland, not by the river. And south, where the witch wouldn’t dare follow, if she was really a witch.

  And if she hadn’t lied about the Warlock Stone.

  He didn’t really think she had. He set out down the slope, to the southeast.

  As he walked, he considered.

  True, he didn’t want to rob Kensher, and he couldn’t think of any way to do it in any case, but did that really mean he had to just give up and go home?

  He still wanted to do something about his thwarted ambitions. He couldn’t be a wizard, he had established that. And he couldn’t seem to find an apprenticeship in any other branch of magic, either.

  Controlling a supply of dragon’s blood would let him lord it over the wizards.

  He couldn’t wangle an apprenticeship in the dragon-farming business, that was clear, and he couldn’t see any way to get hold of any of Kensher’s livestock to set up his own farm-but were those the only possibilities?

  All he needed was a pair of dragons, and while Kensher might have the only dragon farm in the World, he didn’t have all the dragons in the World, by any means. There were plenty of dragons out there.

  Wild dragons.

  Dragon-hunting as a career didn’t sound very promising, though. He remembered the sight of that gaping, tooth-lined maw when the watch-dragon had roared at him, and Kensher had said that the farm dragons were nowhere near as big as dragons could get. Presumably there were wild dragons that were much bigger and fiercer.

  But what if he were to find and capture a pair of baby dragons? Or better yet, find unhatched eggs? It happened; he had seen dragons in the Arena that had been hatched in captivity.

  That would be perfect.

  But how could he hope to find them? He looked out over the edge of the cliff he was skirting, and saw forest stretching to the hilly southern horizon.

  That was a lot of countryside, and dragons might be anywhere-or nowhere-in it.

  He could look, though, couldn’t he?

  If he did, he might search forever without finding anything. Or he might starve to death, or get killed by a wild dragon, or by wolves or bandits or something.

  On the other hand, who knew what he might find?

  Wolves, pitfalls, bandits-or a dragon’s lair.

  Wolves, pitfalls, and bandits were probably far more likely, and if he did find a dragon’s lair it might well have a mother dragon at home, guarding her young.

  That was a good way to get killed, finding an occupied lair.

  No, the thing to do was to go home, to his own home, back in Ethshar, and then see if he could somehow buy a pair of dragon eggs.

  A thought struck him. If he demanded that as his patrimony, would his father cooperate?

  He should, Dumery thought. After all, Doran hadn’t come through with the promised apprenticeship to a wizard. Millenium-old tradition said that every child was entitled, between his or her twelfth and thirteenth birthdays, to demand that his or her parents provide some way to establish a future career-arrange a profitable marriage or an apprenticeship, guarantee an inheritance, something. Demanding a pair of dragon eggs was unusual, but it ought to qualify.

  That, then, was what he would do. He would go home and demand a pair of eggs.

  All he had to do was find the way.

  He knew he was somewhere in Aldagmor, in the Baronie
s of Sardiron. That meant that he was far to the north of Ethshar of the Spices. And he was east of the Great River, since he had gone ashore on the eastern bank, while all the cities of Ethshar were more or less to the west of the river’s mouth.

  Ethshar of the Spices was actually south or maybe southeast of the river’s mouth, because of the way the river and the coastline wiggled about, but it was effectively on the western side all the same.

  If he headed west he would eventually come to the Great River, but that would mean cutting directly across all those ridges, and then finding transportation downstream, and Teneria might well catch up to him-there was nothing she feared in the west. On the other hand, if he headed due south he would eventually reach either the Great River-much farther downstream-or the Gulf of the East, or if worst came to worst, the southern edge of the World. And he would be passing too close to the Warlock Stone for Teneria.

  He certainly hoped he wouldn’t have to go anything like as far as the edge of the World. It seemed unlikely that he would.

  If he arrived at the river he could follow it downstream, either on foot or by boat, and once he reached Azrad’s Bridge he would have no trouble finding his way home.

  If he reached the Gulf he could follow the coast west to the river’s mouth, then up to Azrad’s Bridge. If the gods were nasty and he reached the edge of the World, he could head west to the sea, and then take ship home, or follow the coast around to the river’s mouth.

  So he would head south, and when due south wasn’t practical he would veer to the west, and sooner or later he would reach civilization, or the Great River, or something else helpful.

  Accordingly, he looked up at the sun, which was almost directly overhead now, and then around at the mountains, and estimated which direction must be south.

  This was turning out to be far more of an adventure than he had expected when he went up to Westgate Market to seek inspiration. He stepped out boldly, stumbled over an exposed root, fell, picked himself up, and marched on, sighing.

  While Dumery made his decision, Teneria had finally gotten everything straightened out. The chaos of the farm family’s efforts to round up the escaped hatchlings and get everything back to normal had confused and delayed her, and she had not worried at first about exactly what had occurred, but only about straightening out the current mess. She had offered to help, but had been turned down-apparently these people did not entirely trust her.

  That was not really surprising, under the circumstances. Her unexpected appearance the day before did look as if it might be connected with the night’s disruptions.

  And the nature of those disruptions was pretty clear; the reports of the various family members, combined with what her own senses and witchcraft told her, made it all plain.

  Dumery had slipped out in the middle of the night, had circled around to the back of the farm, and had then broken into a cage of hatchling dragons.

  Kensher assumed that the boy had intended to steal a breeding pair, so as to start his own dragon-farm, and Teneria had to admit that it was a very convincing theory.

  However, the watch-dragon, which Dumery hadn’t known about, had caught him and ruined his plans.

  When Teneria first heard that she was afraid that the dragon had eaten Dumery, which would not only have been regrettable in itself, but would mean that she had failed in her task of keeping him safe. Fortunately, Kinner the Younger was able to reassure her-the watch-dragon hadn’t eaten anybody. There was no blood anywhere.

  Besides, when Teneria stopped and concentrated, she could sense that Dumery was still alive.

  After the farmers had rounded up all the dragons they could find and had taken inventory they concluded that only one of the hatchlings was missing, not a breeding pair, and it was entirely possible that that one, a rather feisty black one, had slipped away by itself in the confusion, rather than having been carted off. Spotting a black dragon in the dark would not be easy.

  She considered offering to track it down for Kensher, but she was unsure she would be able to deliver. Dragons, especially young dragons, didn’t seem to leave much in the way of psychic traces.

  Besides, the dragons weren’t her problem-Dumery was. She was not particularly enamored of the ungrateful little would-be thief, but she was supposed to see him safely home.

  Once the eleven hatchlings had been rounded up and secured, and once she had used a little witchcraft to convince Pancha that she was not Dumery’s co-conspirator and that it was safe to let her out of her room and out of the house, Teneria set out on the business of tracking Dumery down.

  She followed his trail around the mountain, across the pastures and through the dragon pens, and back out to the flat, stony area behind the boulder.

  There she stopped.

  The damned fool of a boy hadn’t gone back to the trail. Instead he had set out due south, into the wilderness. She looked down the slope after him, peering into the gloom of the forest, her supernatural senses extended.

  Something muttered blackly in the back of her mind, something harsh and alien and almost seductive, something that had drawn Adar away forever.

  The Calling.

  That wasit, she told herself. That was the pebble that sank the barge. To Hell with Dumery of Shiphaven. To Hell with Sella, if she dared to criticize Teneria for her failure.

  She had followed the boy halfway across the World, up the Great River and across most of Aldagmor, but she was not going to walk out into the uncharted wilderness, where escaped dragons roamed free and something apparently ate warlocks alive, something that seemed to intend to eat her alive, as well.

  She had had quite enough. She was going home. She was going home by the same route she had come, though without the aerial detour from the Blasted Pine.

  And maybe, when she got back home to Ethshar, she could contact some of the local warlocks and see if something couldn’t be done about the Calling.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  At least, Dumery told himself, it was warmer once he got down off the mountain. And the forest could be very beautiful-the sunlight spilling down through the trees, the branches stirring in the breeze with a whisper like the waves of a distant sea, the squirrels and chipmunks darting about in the treetops and underbrush every so often, like little flickers of fur.

  The ground was rougher than he had expected, though. He hadn’t realized just how much difference having a trail, any trail, underfoot actually made. He was sure that he wasn’t making very good time at all.

  He had the horrible suspicion, the first night, that he hadn’t gotten more than a league or so from the dragon farm. He wrapped himself tightly in the one thick woolen blanket Pancha had given him, which he had surreptitiously stuffed in his pack, and huddled against a tree, hoping that there were no night-prowling predators in the area. Dragons, he was fairly certain, were basically diurnal, but didn’t wolves hunt at night? He wasn’t sure. And of course, nightwalkers were all of necessity nocturnal, but he had never heard of any of them in the north; they were found in the Small Kingdoms, according to the tales his mother had told him.

  Of course, he didn’t know how far they might roam, or even how far he was from the northernmost of the Small Kingdoms.

  Something, probably a bird, shrieked weirdly in the distance, and Dumery tried to make himself smaller. He was a city boy; this sort of thing was not his idea of a good time. Going north he had at least been on trails, and usually within a mile or less of some sort of human habitation, but here, for all he knew, there wasn’t another human being for a league or more in every direction.

  He lay curled up in a ball, one hand on the hilt of his belt-knife, while he eyed the surrounding trees suspiciously, trying to see by the feeble light of the cloud-smudged moons until exhaustion got the better of him and he fell asleep.

  The second day of the journey he was stiff and sore from sleeping all tensed as he had, and that made walking even worse. He took frequent rest stops, telling himself there was no real hurry. He
didn’t need to catch up to anybody now; he was just going home, and he could take his time. He still had months before his thirteenth birthday, months in which to make his demand for a pair of dragon eggs.

  On the other hand, his trail rations were already running low, and traveling cross-country meant that he wouldn’t pass any inns. When this fact sank in, after lunch, he tried to pick up his pace a little.

  When he settled for the night this time he tried to find a sheltered spot where he could stretch out, to prevent the sort of cramping he had suffered that morning. He found what seemed like a good spot, but when he lay down he found that a knob of pine root dug into the small of his back. After shifting about in unsuccessful attempts to dodge it he finally gave up and moved to a nearby corner that looked much more crowded, but which in fact proved to be quite comfortable.

  He was sleeping soundly and peacefully when the dream came.

  He was home, in the front hall of his parents’ house, and Thetheran the Mage was standing there before him.

  “Hello,” Thetheran said. “This is another magic dream. Your parents haven’t heard from you in quite some time, and they’re worried. They even sent someone after you, an apprentice witch, but we haven’t heard from her, and I take it she hasn’t found you. Are you all right, Dumery?”

  “I’m fine,” he answered, a little defensively. It was somewhat reassuring to know that Teneria hadn’t reported in. “I’m on my way home. The apprenticeship didn’t work out. I have another plan, though, one that I think they’ll be happier with.”

  “What sort of a plan?” Thetheran asked.

  “That’s none of your business, wizard!” Dumery noticed that he was bolder in these dreams than he was when he was awake, and wondered if it was some side-effect of the spell.

  “All right, then,” Thetheran said. “There’s no need to be rude. I’m just asking on behalf of your parents-I’m sure they’d want to know. When do you expect to be home?”

  That was an awkward question, but reasonable enough. Dumery hesitated, and then said, “I’m not sure. I’m traveling overland from Aldagmor, and I don’t know how long a journey it is.” He was annoyed at his own inability to give a clear answer, and he turned that irritation on his questioner. “You tell them that I’m safe and on my way,” he shouted. “That’s enough!” He waved angrily, and to his surprise a wind swept Thetheran off his feet and blew him back down the hallway into the kitchen and out of sight.