Babulya’s story flashed in her mind. The tsar killed them. He used his bogatyri to do it.
“Anya?”
She looked up. Håkon peered around the house’s corner, head cocked. She didn’t realize she had stopped following him. “Huh?”
“Are you coming?”
“Yes,” she said, then shook her head. “Well, I want to. I should change first, but then go back to the village.”
Some of the light left Håkon’s eyes. “Oh.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow.” Anya trotted to him, holding the tunic tight around herself. “I just want to make sure they all know I’m not dead.”
“Oh,” Håkon said again, but sounded less sad. “Of course. Yes! I’d want to know you weren’t dead, for sure. I’ll wait for you here, then. Tomorrow.”
Anya smiled, excited to come back and learn more about her new friend. But as he turned away, her smile dropped, and she followed him with a guilty heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Her dress was barely damp, but even that small amount of wetness chilled Anya as she jogged along the dimming river path back toward the village. Her mind whirled as she ran.
First, she took account of things she knew for certain. Dragons were real, and still alive. Well, at least two were still alive. One was named Håkon, and he had a father named Jernhånd. She hadn’t met Jernhånd, so she couldn’t speak to his temperament, but Håkon was absolutely kind. He had saved her and Ivan from drowning and had bandaged Anya’s arm when she was bleeding. She owed Håkon her life.
Something else she knew for certain: The tsar had done something to the rest of the dragons in Kievan Rus’. Babulya said he killed them, but Anya didn’t know that was what had actually happened. She did know that if the tsar got his hands on either of the dragons in Zmeyreka, she’d never see them again.
She knew Yedsha and Dobrynya worked for the tsar, and they were hunting the dragons in Zmeyreka. They thought there was only one dragon.
Sigurd was also hunting only one dragon in Zmeyreka, but for what purpose, Anya didn’t know.
That was what she knew for certain. She couldn’t make any decisions based on that information, though. There were too many unknowns. Would Dobrynya and Yedsha still take Håkon and Jernhånd to the tsar if they knew Håkon wasn’t dangerous? Was Babulya right about what the tsar did to dragons? What was Sigurd’s plan? What would happen to Anya’s family if they had to leave Zmeyreka? What would Papa do if he were here?
This last thought made her slow until she stopped. She breathed heavy, panting in the shade as she imagined her father’s face, his smile, his voice.
“What should I do?” Anya whispered.
What would he say? Do what you know is right, Annushka.
Nothing was right, though. If she protected Håkon, she wouldn’t ever get the money she needed, and her family would be homeless. Mama would go to prison.
But if she turned the dragons over to Yedsha and Dobrynya, she could be sending them to their death. She’d get money to save her farm, sure, but it would be blood money. She’d never feel clean again.
She thought on what Babulya had said when they had read the Torah together, about destroying one life and destroying the entire world. Did that logic extend to dragons?
She had to find out what happened to the dragons when they went to Kiev. If Dobrynya didn’t know, then no one would.
Over the sound of her own rushing breath, Anya heard a distant voice echoing through the forest: “Anya!”
The voice belonged to a boy, and only one boy would be foolish enough to call her name in the same woods that held a dragon and a murderous Varangian.
The echoing bounced the voice around trees and rocks, and there was no way for Anya to tell where it had come from.
“Anya!” There Ivan was again. She followed her best guess at the direction of his voice.
She saw Ivan before he saw her, and as she was about to call to him, she heard a voice from behind her: “There you are!”
Anya whirled, terrified that Sigurd was back, but the man behind her was smiling wide. Yedsha grabbed Anya in a hug and called, “Vosya! Dobrynya! Here she is!”
Yedsha’s hug was suffocating, and when he released Anya, she gasped for air.
Ivan and Dobrynya ran out of the trees. Somehow, Ivan made more noise than Dobrynya did. Ivan patted her shoulders. “I was so worried! After Sigurd chased us . . .”
His tone carried with it a heavy dose of suggestion, and she realized he hadn’t told either of the adults the actual story of what had happened.
“Yes,” she said. “He chased us. I got turned around and lost. I was scared.”
“You’re safe now,” Dobrynya said, smiling down at her. “Let’s get you home, huh?”
He turned down the path, and Anya and Ivan followed. They had gone only a few steps before Anya blurted, “Why did the tsar kill all the dragons?”
Yedsha and Dobrynya exchanged a quick look, and then Dobrynya said, “Oh, little girls shouldn’t worry about that kind of thing.”
“But there must be a reason,” Anya pressed. “Right? Someone doesn’t kill off an entire species for no reason.”
Dobrynya slowed and tucked his chin, thinking. He looked down at Anya. “It’s a scary and sad story.”
“That’s okay,” Anya said.
“Hmm.” Dobrynya glanced at Yedsha, then back at Anya. “Many years ago, the tsar got married, and not long after that, the tsarina was expecting twins. She was out for a walk one day, and a dragon attacked her. She lived, but one of her babies didn’t. Isn’t that sad?”
“Yes,” Anya said quietly, and Ivan nodded to himself.
“After that, the tsar was very angry at dragons,” Dobrynya said. “He didn’t want anyone else in the kingdom to suffer as he had. So he ordered the destruction of all dragons.”
Anya pressed her lips together. The tsar’s vengeance made sense emotionally, but it wasn’t logical. Some people were murderers, like Sigurd, but that didn’t mean all people should be judged as such. “But what about dragons that wouldn’t attack someone? Do they get destroyed too?”
“They’re wild creatures,” Yedsha said. “They don’t think and feel, like people do. They’re like dogs. Any dog could bite, and any dragon could kill.”
Anya absently picked at her fingernail, trying to hide her ire. There was no way Håkon would ever hurt anyone. “So the tsar killed all the dragons because one of them did something terrible?”
“He didn’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else,” Dobrynya repeated.
Anya didn’t say anything. She wanted to ask why the tsar sent men to fight, then, if he was so concerned with people dying. Maybe he was concerned only with babies dying. It didn’t seem right that Håkon should have to suffer for the actions of another creature.
“What if the dragon in our woods is a nice dragon?” Anya asked.
“A nice dragon?” Dobrynya asked.
Anya nodded. “It hasn’t attacked anyone here, right?”
“Not yet,” Yedsha said.
“Maybe not ever,” Anya argued. “One dragon hurt the tsarina, but what have dragons done otherwise? Who else did they hurt?”
Dobrynya chuckled, a sound that made Anya grit her teeth with anger. The chuckle said what he didn’t: She was just a little girl who didn’t understand the world or the creatures in it. She couldn’t possibly know how bad dragons were.
Anya braced herself, then asked the question she needed answered most. The question that, depending on its answer, would decide Håkon’s fate. “What does the tsar do with the dragons?”
Dobrynya and Yedsha didn’t look at her for a long time. When Dobrynya finally did, his mouth twitched and his eyes looked past her, through her, like he was seeing something far away.
“That’s not something little girls need to trouble themselves with,” he said. “Just know this, Anya. The tsar protects us. He keeps us safe. And he does the hard things others can’t.”
With that, Dobrynya looked back at the path, and he didn’t say anything else until they reached Anya’s farm.
* * *
Anya sat at the table, poking at her stew with a spoon but not eating any. Babulya sipped her soup quietly. Anya watched her grandmother carefully. She was sure Babulya hadn’t mentioned the dragon to Mama, because Mama hadn’t said a word about it since Dobrynya had dropped Anya off. She knew what Ivan had told everyone: that they had been playing in the woods, and Sigurd had come stomping at them, and Anya had gotten lost in the woods running away from him. Mama had spied the gash on Anya’s arm, but Anya said she had tripped and hurt herself on a rock. Everyone was quiet, except Dyedka.
“We’ve got a bogatyr and an imperial fool in this village,” he hooted, “and it took them hours to find my granddaughter being chased by a maniac in the woods!”
Mama’s lip trembled. “Borya, can we just be glad they found her?”
“Absolutely not!” Dyedka yelled. “What are they good for, if not helping the people? We’re the people! Anya is the people!”
“I know,” Mama said. “But they went out as soon as little Ivan came and told them. They did what they could.”
“I could have gone!” Dyedka hollered.
“Your cart is no good in the woods,” Mama said. “And I looked all afternoon. I didn’t find her either. Can we just be grateful she’s back?”
Babulya kicked Anya under the table and then stood up. “I’m going to bed.”
Dyedka waved his hand at her and continued talking to Mama. “Did they even use their magic to find her? I thought that Dobrynya was supposed to be the cleverest man alive!”
Babulya made her way to the sleeping room, and Anya got up after her. “I’m tired too. I’m going to bed.”
“Good night, Annushka,” Mama said. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Anya shuffled to the sleeping room and slipped inside. Babulya was in bed, but she wasn’t snoring.
“Annushka, come here.”
Anya obeyed. She perched on the edge of Babulya’s bed. Babulya picked up Anya’s injured arm and patted it with tender fingers. She had applied a salve and rewrapped it, and now she inspected the dressing’s condition.
“I didn’t tell your mama about the dragon,” Babulya said as she felt Anya’s wound. “Or what you’re doing with those fools.”
“I figured,” Anya said. “Thank you.”
Babulya nodded. The two of them were quiet until Anya said, “If I killed the dragon, would it be murder?”
Babulya said softly, “That’s a difficult question. To answer it, we have to answer another question. Is a dragon an animal?”
“No,” Anya answered quickly. No matter what Dobrynya said, there was no way Håkon was on the same level as a dog, or one of the goats, or a fish.
“So a dragon is a person?”
Slower, Anya said, “No.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know,” Anya said. “Something different altogether. But not a regular animal.”
“Do you believe dragons are intelligent?” Babulya asked.
“Yes, but so are some animals,” Anya said. “Zvezda is intelligent.”
Babulya laughed. “He is, isn’t he? Well, how about this, then: Can dragons understand death?”
Anya pictured Håkon in her mind. He had saved her from death. Twice. He understood it enough to pull another back from it.
“Yes,” Anya said.
“Well.” Babulya pulled her blankets up to her chin and snuggled her head against her pillow. “If you kill something that understands death, do you believe you have murdered?”
Anya didn’t answer. Soon, Babulya’s snores wound up from her bed, and Anya plopped onto her own as the snores got louder. She dreamed of death and dragons.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Anya woke up when Dyedka shut the bedroom door too hard. The scant dawn glowed through the tiny window. Anya rolled over and reached under her mattress, where she had stashed the dragon scale. She couldn’t turn Håkon in for money, she’d decided last night, so she needed to do something else.
She started wondering how much dragon body parts could sell for.
Body parts, of course, that would grow back. Nothing that would hurt him too much to remove. She figured he lost scales all the time, and if she could sell them for a decent amount of money, she’d be able to pay the taxes. If she stayed on as Yedsha’s assistant dragon hunter, she could take them to places far away from Håkon, and then they wouldn’t find him. She’d still earn ten rubles per day as she “helped,” and if she could drag that out long enough, she could make enough money to save her farm.
She was feeling awfully smart when she grasped the scale and sat up, but she stopped when she saw her mother.
Mama was on her bed, curled into a ball on her side, clutching a piece of cloth to her chest. Anya didn’t need to get a good look at the cloth to know what it was: one of Papa’s shirts. In sleep, Mama’s face was peaceful. Anya didn’t see that side of her mother anymore. She stayed longer than she should have, then crept out when Babulya started to stir.
Anya opened the kitchen door and stopped short. All the chickens sat in front of the door, and all of them had their faces turned up to Anya.
“Uh,” she mumbled. “Are you hungry?”
One chicken clucked, which got them all to clucking. They turned around and waddled back to the barn.
“Strange,” Anya mumbled. She thought about following them but didn’t want to get sidetracked. She trotted to the road with the scale a gentle weight in her pocket, heading toward the village. Kin knew Sigurd, so he probably knew about dragons, too, and maybe he’d have a use for a dragon scale.
* * *
The smithy was barely warming up when Anya got there. She crept in the front door and peered over the counter. Kin moved in the ember-lit dimness in the back of the forge area.
“Kin?” she called, and he stopped shuffling about.
“Eh?” he said. “Who’s there?”
“Anya,” she said. “I have something to sell you.”
He laughed. “More moldy horseshoes?”
“No. Better than that.”
Kin groaned as he walked around the forge to her and leaned over the tall counter, a condescending smile on his face. “Yes?”
Anya pulled the scale from her dress pocket and said, “Do you want to buy this?”
Kin’s smile remained as he looked at the scale, before he really took in what it was. Then his smile dropped from his face and he limped around the counter. He shut the door and locked it, then rounded on Anya and demanded, “Where on God’s earth did ye find that thing?”
She suddenly wasn’t sure coming to Kin had been a good idea. She stammered, “Well, I . . . I found it in my barn. Um . . . I was looking for things to sell, and I found it, and—”
“Do ye know what that is?” Kin hissed.
Anya found herself afraid to admit that she did, so she said, “A jewel or something?”
“It’s a dragon scale,” Kin said. He held his hand out, palm up, and Anya realized he wanted her to give it to him. She hesitated, and Kin heaved a sigh and said, “I’m not gonna steal it.”
With trepidation, Anya set the scale onto Kin’s palm. He pulled it toward his face, squinting as he examined it. With a frown, he said, “This was in yer barn, ye say?”
Anya nodded. “Maybe Dyedka had it from before, when there were dragons, back when I was a baby. He talks about them sometimes.”
“Maybe.” Kin didn’t sound convinced.
Anya said, “So do you want to buy it?”
Kin redirected his scrutiny from the scale to Anya. “Buy it?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Her hopes of saving her family drained away. “Well, do you know anyone who would?”
Kin shook his head. “This is a very dangerous item to have.” He held the scale out to Anya.
She slid it into her dress pock
et while she swallowed hard. “Dangerous? Will the dragon come back for it?”
“No,” Kin said. “But if certain people find out ye have it, they’ll wanna know how ye came across it. How yer dyedushka came across it. It could attract the wrong kind of attention to this place.”
Her heart sank with every word he spoke. “So you don’t know anyone I could sell this to?”
Kin shook his head. “Yer best option is to throw that thing in the river and pretend ye never saw it.”
* * *
On the road back to Anya’s barn, she kicked every little stone she saw. Her genius plan to get money wasn’t so genius after all. Of course she wouldn’t be able to sell the scale in Kievan Rus’. Dragons were outlawed here, and if she sold too many scales, people would begin to wonder where she was getting them.
The tsar would find out.
The idea of Håkon being hurt made Anya’s skin prickle with cold. She wasn’t sure how much good she’d do against the tsar and his bogatyri, or Sigurd, or whoever else came for Håkon, but she was sure she’d do her best to protect him.
“Anya!” The voice from behind her was becoming more and more familiar. Ivan trotted up the road, waving a hand. “Hey, wait!”
She did. As he came abreast of her, she started walking again.
A few steps of silence passed, and then Ivan said, “Nice day, right?”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about the dragon?” Anya asked.
Ivan’s eyes darted around. “How do you know I didn’t?”
“Your papa didn’t mention the dragon at all,” Anya said. “And I think that’s something he would have asked me about.”
“True.” Ivan scratched the back of his head. “I dunno. I guess . . . I mean, I was going to. Completely. But then I got to the road and I realized you weren’t behind me. So I went back some, and you weren’t there. And then I started wondering why the dragon had saved us in the first place.” He sighed. “Then you showed up and you weren’t hurt. I thought maybe I shouldn’t talk about the dragon just yet. I wanted to know what happened.”
They reached the drive to Anya’s house, and they walked down it together. “What if he’s nice?” Anya challenged. “What are you going to do?”
Anya and the Dragon Page 13