In the Arms of the Dragon Princes

by Jessica Miller

  A scream, a human scream, rang out into the night before the huntresses could convene. From the opposite side of the village a figure ran towards them. Both of them instinctively drew their weapons and aimed, looking for the prey that chased what appeared to be a young, teenage girl. As she reached the moonlit clearing she stopped and looked up before screaming again.

  The huntresses looked up just as a great shadow streaked across the sky and plunged towards them. Geneva turned to run back into the shelter of the houses. Winda ran towards the girl.

  As Geneva turned back to look for her friend, she saw the fire erupt.

  *****

  Crows cawed as they flew above the treetops headed south. Below them, Geneva was headed in the same direction, continuing her trek filled with all of her silent, determined rage. Inside, she wanted to scream and make a ruckus in the empty forest, but she was intent on her quarry and if the dragon was close she did not want to willingly let him know of her presence. So it was that Geneva continued to travel with near silence, save for her boots softly brushing against the ground where her feet met the earth.

  Gradually, the smells of the forest began to change as she climbed higher and higher into the foothills. The air became less sweet and the musk of the earth became bitter. As the trees thinned out to give into the rockier terrain, the air began to take on a metallic scent.

  To the west, the early evening light reflected off of a boulder and caught Geneva’s eye. She changed direction slightly so that she could investigate this. The rocks did not have paths like the forest, but they were still relatively easy to navigate.

  When Geneva approached the large boulder that had caught her attention, she found that it was covered in a patch of dark blood that shined as if it had been infused with silver. No common creature had blood like this, none that she had ever come across. It had to be the trail of the dragon.

  She looked around her and saw that the trail continued to the south. The mountains loomed in front of her and she glared back at them. She idly thought of how nice the mountainside would look painted with the silver blood of the dragon.

  The rocks proved to be a little bit of a challenge at times. They weren’t as quiet, as disturbing a pebble would send it scattering, bouncing and echoing off of the other rocks. At one point she slipped on a patch of blood and scraped her forearm. Another time she tore the front of the pants leg on the jutting edge of a boulder and the cut above her knee bled enough to leave a sizeable stain, but this did little to slow her down.

  Pressing on, Geneva noticed the blood trail was leading to the opening of a cave up in the distance. Glancing to the west, towards the setting sun, she determined that either this cave would have a dragon within, or it would be her place to camp for the night.

  As she neared the edge of the cave, Geneva notched an arrow on her bow, prepared to let it fly if the beast were aware of her and ready to attack. She crouched low as she looked around the edge of the cave to see inside. The dying light of the sun was just enough to illuminate a shape within. She stepped closer and noticed that the shape was human. With a quick glance around the cave, Geneva determined that no monster was immediately present. She dropped her guard and ran over to investigate the wounded person.

  It was a man lying naked and face down. He was bleeding badly from his shoulder. The wound was claw marks, far too large to be even a bear. He must have been a victim of the dragon. Perhaps the beast had captured him and brought him back here to be a meal for later.

  Geneva knelt down next to him, slung her pack off of her shoulder and dug through it to find some of the linen she had packed. Folding a piece, she applied pressure to his shoulder and turned the man up onto his side. He let out a soft groan and she lightly slapped his face with her free hand.

  “Hey, wake up. Come on, please, wake up.” She didn’t know how much blood he had lost, but she couldn’t stand the idea of one more person being killed by this monstrous dragon.

  He began to stir, his eyes fluttering open and shut as he moaned in pain. She fumbled with her water as she tried to un-stopper the goatskin with her teeth. She held the water up to his lips and he began to cough and sputter as the liquid hit his throat and he tried to drink.

  Removing the water from his lips she asked, “What’s your name? What happened to you?”

  “Cadmus,” he spoke hoarsely before moaning again in pain.

  “Cadmus,” she felt a small bit of relief spark inside of her as she realized he could be saved. “Cadmus, that’s good. I’m Geneva. I’m going to take care of you. You look like you got hurt pretty badly.”

  The man continued to moan as he regained consciousness and the pain returned to its’ full intensity. Geneva shimmied out of her jacket and balled it up for Cadmus to rest his head on. She gently laid him back down on his front so she could inspect his wound. The light was dying, and she couldn’t drag him to the mouth of the cave to get any more of it. She would have to do the best she could with what she had.

  She quickly went through her pack and found the small store of dried herbs and medicines she had packed in case she had gotten hurt. Within she found white willow bark that she gave him to help with the pain. His moans began to lessen as the medicine took effect.

  Geneva washed the wound as best as she could, hoping that the bleeding wouldn’t worsen. She bandaged his shoulder and by the time she finished she could barely see his outline in the dark.

  “Cadmus?”

  There was no response. Geneva placed her hand in the middle of his back and quelled the momentary panic that had flared up inside of her. He was breathing, calm and regularly. She pressed her ear to his back and heard a strong, steady heartbeat. Letting out a sigh of relief she stood briefly to stretch her legs after kneeling down next to him for so long.

  Looking back at the mouth of the cave she saw the last light of the day disappearing. Geneva looked back at Cadmus where he rested on the cold stone. She could make out his outline, his wide shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist. Then her eyes fell on his buttocks and she remembered that he was naked.

  Blushing and chiding herself for her indecency, Geneva unrolled her blanket from her pack and spread it over her patient. Then she walked to the other side of the cave and settled down to sleep, her pack being a sufficient lump of a pillow.

  *****

  Geneva found it nearly impossible to sleep that night. It wasn’t because the cave floor was cold and hard, but because every time she closed her eyes and tried to sleep she would see the horrors of the dragon’s wrath. The soft calls of screech owls and coyotes turned into the wails and screams of her people being burned alive and torn apart.

  After far too long, Geneva finally began to doze off. Everything fell away into blackness for a short moment. Then she heard Winda calling to her, their familiar birdcalls. Her laugh rang out and echoed in her dream. Geneva looked for her friend.

  Winda’s face appeared suddenly before her. Her neck was broken and a piece of vertebrae was sticking out the side. Parts of her beautiful black hair had been ripped from her skull, her left eye was clawed out, and all of her skin was covered in burns, parts of it so badly it had begun to peel. The misshapen face of her friend opened its’ mouth and the shriek of the dragon filled her ears shocking Geneva awake from the restless slumber.

  Shaking with grief and fear, Geneva stared up into the darkness of the cave ceiling, unable to clear the mangled image of Winda from her mind. In her right hand she was clenching a rock that she had picked up from the cave floor in her sleep. The cold hard stone was somehow reassuring to her. It was solid. It was real.

  Geneva lay there for hours. Eventually the morning light began to illuminate the cave and she could make out the designs on the stones around her. She began to trace veins of minerals across the ceiling, following the winding paths down the wall she laid next to. Then she followed them back the other way, up to the ceiling and down the other side to where Cadmus lay.

  In her numbed state of mind she
had forgotten about him. She stared for a minute. His face in the morning light showed her what she hadn’t been able to see last night. He was actually rather handsome, with long locks of silvery blonde hair falling over his eyes. His straight nose jutted out sharply before falling back into softly curving lips. His square jaw was a strong hard line against the curve of his muscular shoulder. She followed the line around the tight curve of his pectoral muscle and then the smooth ripple of his abdomen and down-

  Geneva turned away sharply as she snapped out of her trance-like state of mind. She’d forgotten about his nudity, and in his sleep he had turned over onto his back, giving her a full view that she had not had the time to appreciate the night before when she was tending his wound.

  His wound. She knew she needed to check on it, especially now that she had enough light to see the extent of the damage. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a naked man, but she felt embarrassed for having ogled him while he was asleep.

  Across the space, she heard Cadmus shift and groan as he began to wake. Geneva took a deep breath and told herself that she had to check on him, there was nothing inappropriate going on.

  She rolled back over and sat up. Cadmus was lying on his side, injured shoulder up, head resting on his good arm, with his eyes open and looking at her. His uncovered naked body was facing her.

  Geneva approached and knelt down next to him keeping her eyes purposely averted. Reaching behind him, she pulled the blanket over his exposed body.

  “Thank you,” his dry voice cracked as he spoke.

  “Good morning,” Geneva smiled as she brushed his hair aside and placed her hand to his forehead to check for a fever. He was warm, but not alarmingly so. She reached out for the skin of water she had left near him last night.

  Cadmus propped himself up on his good arm, trying to sit up, a solid gold band set with amethysts chinked against the stone. Geneva helped him sit the rest of the way up before handing him the water. He mumbled his thanks again and asked, “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Geneva. I’m from Haven. I was tracking a dragon that attacked my town when I found you here,” she explained while she began to unwind his bandages to check on his wound.

  “I see,” Cadmus said as he took a drink of the water.

  “Were you attacked by the dragon?” Geneva asked as she removed the rest of the bandage. The bleeding hadn’t been too bad, she decided as she noted how deep the wounds were.

  “No.” The word was hollow and hung in the air for a moment.

  Geneva wasn’t sure what he meant at first. Then the morning light caught a glimmer of something in the bandage. She looked at the bloody linen. It was infused with silver. This wasn’t human blood.

  Slowly she stood. This was the dragon. His shoulder wound, the claw marks, must have been where he’d dug out the arrows, her arrows. He had attacked her village. He had killed Winda and she had bandaged his wounds.

  *****

  “I’m sorry.” Cadmus’s words echoed off the stone walls of the cave.

  Geneva was backing away slowly to the other side of the space where her pack and her weapons lay. People had known of dragons, but not that they could turn into a human form. She had been tricked into helping the devilish serpent. She had tended to the very wounds she had inflicted.

  Cadmus stood just as Geneva reached down to pick up her bow. Thinking better of the short space between them, she reached for the long knife hanging on the side of her pack as well.

  Notching an arrow, she drew back and aimed at the dragon. “Why did you attack Haven?”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “I had to.”

  “You’re a dragon,” she spat at him. “No one can force you to do anything.”

  Cadmus turned to face her. His face looked hollow, a pain that she did not think came from his shoulder. Geneva was caught between her own savage anger and her numb feelings for this angelic face of agony.

  “You’d be surprised how little freedom I have,” he said.

  The light caught the bracelet around his wrist and Geneva was distracted for a moment as she noticed that the amethysts had darkened in color and were almost black now. In this moment, Cadmus crossed the space towards her. The bow was useless and her arrow ricocheted off of the stone and clattered on the floor of the cave as Cadmus pushed her roughly against the stone wall, knocking the wind out of her.

  In her mind, Geneva knew she was going to die. Furthermore, she would die a fool who had aided her own enemy. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to surrender herself to her fate.

  Cadmus’s good forearm was pressing her up against the wall. She wondered briefly if he was going to kill her in his human form or if he was going to turn into the dragon. Which way would be faster? Which way would be less painful?

  Geneva felt his whole body press against her and his hot breath whispered in her ear. “I don’t want to do this.”

  She opened her eyes and found herself staring into his. They were as blue as the clear summer skies, and they pleaded silently with her. She didn’t know what to do and remained silently stunned.

  “He’s been watching you,” Cadmus said cryptically before Geneva remembered and her hand gripped the long knife she’d tucked into her waistband. She thrust the knife forward, not sure where it would connect.

  Cadmus let out a sharp yell of pain and released Geneva. The knife was sticking out of his side as he stumbled backwards and fell down. Geneva felt a smug sense of satisfaction as he lay there gasping, but at the same time a twinge of guilty curiosity nagged in the back of her mind. She walked out to the mouth of the cave.

  He had made it seem like his actions were not his own. She wondered if he was telling the truth. It hadn’t come off as the desperate lie of a man, or rather dragon, who didn’t want to die.

  In her mind, Geneva heard Winda’s rational voice telling her about the dark magicians who appeared in noble bloodlines and would take control of rulers. Perhaps dragons, being noble creatures of magic themselves, were not immune to dark spells. There was rumored to be a good magician who lived in the Citadel, but that was a week long journey at least.

  Still, if she took him there and he was not under a spell, all of the people of the land would probably enjoy the public execution of a dragon. It was probably a bad idea, but she had nothing to lose, except for Cadmus.

  Begrudgingly she gathered up some sparse sticks and some dry grass from the rocky mountainside and returned to the cave. She threw the pile down in front of Cadmus’s writhing body and set it up as a proper structure for a fire. Rummaging in her pack, she found her flint stone.

  “What…what are you doing?” Cadmus gasped as he tried to sit up, holding the knife in place in his side to minimize the flow of blood.

  The sparks caught on the tinder and Geneva blew on it, encouraging it into a small flame. Looking back at Cadmus she responded, “Not killing you yet.”

  He gasped and let out a small sarcastic laugh. “So stabbing me is not killing me.”

  “Of course not,” she said as she grabbed the linen bandages she had removed from his shoulder. She wadded them up and placed them along with his hand atop the wound. “Not a mighty dragon like yourself.”

  She yanked hard to remove the knife while pressing his hand down to stop the flow of blood that spurted forth. She laid the knife in the growing flames and waited for it to heat.

  “Why?” Cadmus’s breathing was becoming labored and irregular.

  “Because I’m taking you to the Citadel. They’ll sort out whether you’re innocent or not.”

  “They’ll execute me just for being a dragon,” he said.

  “That’s not my problem,” she said as she pulled the knife out of the fire. Cadmus’s eyes widened and his jaw set as she placed her free hand over his and he prepared for the cauterizing.

  He let out a yell as the knife pressed against his skin and sealed the wound closed. Geneva pressed hard until no heat remained glowing in the knife and Cadmus passed out.
>
  Throwing the knife across the cave, she let out her own scream of frustration.

  *****

  Geneva was washing the blood off of Cadmus with her hands when he awoke.

  “Can we not do this again?”

  “Not do what?” she looked up at him as she applied pressure to the fresh scar on his side.

  His sharp intake of breath did not stop her hard scrubbing. “Can you stop trying to kill me and then changing your mind and saving me? I know you just want an excuse to have your hands all over me, but you can just ask.”

  “Next time I really will kill you.” Geneva stood and tossed the blanket at him. “Here, you can cover yourself with that, unless you enjoy walking around naked.”

  “Can’t have you distracted now can we,” he said as he stood and fumbled, trying to tie the blanket around his waist in an acceptable fashion. At least his injured arm was working a little now.

  Geneva packed up her things and slung the pack across her back, ready to head out. Looking back at Cadmus she saw him standing there awkwardly holding the blanket around his waist, lest it fall down.

  “Well at least we know how bright you are,” she grumbled as she walked over to repair the situation. Her disgust was as much with Cadmus as it was with her own decision to let him live and take him to the Citadel.

  She grabbed the end of the blanket that he was holding roughly from him.

  “What, now you want me naked?”

  Geneva hissed a sigh of frustration. “No, I do want you to be able to move though. I’m not carrying you down the mountainside.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to just go willingly with you?” he asked as she tied two ends of the blanket over his shoulder.

  “Where else do you have to go? I have medicine in my pack and you’re injured, quite badly.” She tied the other two ends of the blanket together where they reached just far enough to have him somewhat modestly covered. “Big, strong dragon or not, I doubt you could get anywhere on your own.”