by LeRoy Clary
As they ate, various members of the family introduced themselves. Robin, the washerwoman who had lived with Myron’s son, Pylori, took a seat beside Shell. Later he met Brix, the spinner’s boy, the only other non-Dragon Clan members to live with them. Shell had heard their stories many times.
But while there were several young girls present, he didn’t see a one that matched the description of Camilla. Shell wouldn’t ask about her, at least not yet. Her name would certainly come up. He would meet her when the time was right when he didn’t seem like a dolt chasing after a girl he’d never met. She might be hunting or even be one of the watchers who had kept track of him and Quester.
The talk during the meal was kept to generalities, funny stories, and the like. After all were finished, Shell and Quester were shown to a small hut set aside for visitors, and a fire started at the base of the rock stage where the council would convene.
As they gathered, Myron reintroduced them and warned them that the meeting might continue well into the night so cloaks, blankets, or other warm clothing might be needed. Then, he said simply, “Shell, we will hear from you, first.”
Shell had expected to answer questions, not make a speech. He stood and faced the others across the orange flames of the fire. “I have herded sheep and goats my whole life. In a few years, I’ll be thirty and have done little besides care for my animals. I decided to leave my home, at least for a while, and help defend us against Breslau.”
He started to sit, but Robin barked, “Is that all?”
“All?” he stumbled, standing tall again. “What else is there?”
“Are you wed?”
Gentle laughter floated on the night air. Shell shook his head, too embarrassed to speak.
Robin said, “There are young women here who are already whispering about you, so I’m assuming you may have to run away from this village to escape without a good wife.”
The chuckles turned to gales of laughter, from men and women, old and young, and Shell felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He attempted to sit again, but Trace called over the laughter, “Tell us about the red dragon.”
Shell squared his shoulders and remained upright, glad for the change of subject. He gave them a short, accurate account of the incident.
A woman asked, “Then it was not a true bonding?”
Shell turned to her, a woman a few years older than him, with a child asleep on a blanket near her feet, and an infant held bundled in her arms. “No, at least not what I know of bonding. There was no mind touch, just the normal feelings on my back when a dragon is nearby.” He didn’t mention the night whispers.
“You say it was small?” A new voice shouted from the rear.
He held his hand up to indicate the height of the red dragon. A few chuckled at the idea of a miniature dragon, but most remained respectful.
“But you believe it was an adult?” the same voice called.
Shell drew a breath. “It was only the second dragon I’ve ever seen, and the only one close up. But it was missing a claw. The wound looked like a battle scar but healed. There were other scars, all healed. I’d think it would take years to gather that many wounds and let them heal, but again, it was the only dragon I’ve ever been close to.”
The same man asked, “Trace, what did you see?”
“An old dragon the size of Shell. A Red. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but I what I witnessed is the same as Shell’s story.”
“It licked and sniffed you?” a boy sitting near the fire asked.
When Shell nodded, the boy said, “Did it scare you?”
Shell said, “I think so, but not really if that makes sense.” He started to sit again, angry at the small dragon somehow diminishing his stature in the Clan, and the idea that it may not have bonded because of the wolf interfering. His mood had turned foul, and he didn’t want to talk about a diminutive dragon. A great Red would have placed him in the same category as Raymer.
Before he could sit, Trace said in a voice that crackled with authority, “You have not told us about the she-wolf.”
CHAPTER TEN
Trace’s question about the wolf took Shell by as much surprise as it did the rest of the Dragon Clan. No word of it had been uttered by him or Quester, so no one should know of the wolf. Shell had hoped to sit and let Quester answer most of the questions for the remainder of the council. Don’t lie. Speaking at a council meeting entailed a trust that could not be broken. If the subject of the wolf had not come up, he would be guilty of omission, a serious offense, but for a good reason. He didn’t know what was happening with him and the animal, so didn’t know how to explain it. But the subject had been raised, and he had no option other than to speak, fully and truthfully.
How did Trace know about the wolf? “The wolf? Yes, I do need to talk about it, but hoped to do it in private with Myron and get his opinion on what I should say in public because there is so much I don’t know. However, this is what I do know. A large wolf has followed us for days. I can ‘feel’ her in my mind, and I know she is right over there.” He pointed to a stand of nearby trees. “She has protected me twice, and I think she obeyed me when I told her to cross the road to the other side, but she may have done that anyhow. In short, I don’t know hardly anything.”
“Can you see through her eyes? Hear what she does?” A tall woman asked, in a not unfriendly tone, but not friendly by any means.
“No. At least I don’t think so.”
“Has she communicated with you?” A young warrior sitting with another, asked.
“She killed a deer and left a haunch for us to butcher and smoke when we were hungry. I’m not sure if that is communication or not. She warned me of highwaymen about to attack us.”
A woman at the edge of the crowd jammed a thumb over her shoulder. “You say she’s right behind me in those trees? Right now?”
Shell nodded and smiled as the woman shifted her chair to one side. Trace said, “Why were you going to be silent about the wolf?”
Speak honestly. “Pride. Because I am Dragon Clan. I hope to someday bond with a dragon, like all of you, but instead, a wolf got in the way.”
“What? You don’t like wolves?” someone shouted.
Several people laughed. Shell started to explain. “It’s not that. I like wolves, I guess, but I like dragons better.”
“Even tiny ones?” an unknown voice shouted.
Everyone laughed, and Shell finally sat, too embarrassed and tongue-tied to go on. This time nobody prevented him, and Quester stood. As the laughter died out, Quester turned to Shell and said, “First, I knew nothing of the wolf except that it was following us.” He waited for a laugh that didn’t happen and cast an angry glance at Shell as if it was his fault.
The silence grew as if everyone knew something unusual was about to be said. Quester cleared his throat and continued, “Let me start with my earliest memories.”
He went on to reveal a short history of himself, his family and relevant information about a part of the Dragon Clan nobody present knew existed, as well as telling of the Blue Mountains to the east, and cities and kingdoms beyond them. Myron finally stood and held up his hands for Quester to stop speaking.
Myron said, “There is obviously a lot more of your story, but half of us are already asleep, and I should be in my bed. We will reconvene after our morning meal and chores, for more questions and information. But before we dismiss, I will ask that messengers prepare for departure tomorrow, late. The other families need to know this information as soon as possible, so please be in attendance tomorrow and pay attention. It may provide a means for some of our people to escape to safety if the Breslau invasion is successful.”
Shell stood and gave what he hoped was a confident and friendly look to Quester, then motioned to the stone hut. Once inside, Shell said, “I’m sorry about not telling you about the wolf, but didn’t know what was happening. I still don’t.”
“It brought us food and saved us from the highwaymen. How can I be upset?”
The tone was bland, neither angry or accepting.
Shell spread his bedroll onto a sleeping mat, avoiding Quester’s eyes in the dimness of the hut. Only a small shaft of moonlight lighted the inside, but it revealed Quester’s awkward movements. While his voice sounded friendly, his actions were not.
Shell said softly, “I wanted to bond with a dragon. A fierce fighter that can defend the Dragon Clan.”
“Instead, you found a stunted dragon not much larger than you. Or your wolf. The three of you make quite a trio.”
There was no mistaking the sting in the tone Quester used. Shell lay awake, thinking. Sleep did not come quickly as expected. Nobody had mentioned Camilla, and he had been as much as accused of withholding information at a council meeting, for which he was guilty. His only friend was upset with him. There would be hard questions and answers in the morning. He didn’t look forward to it.
As he closed his eyes, a mental touch from the wolf soothed him. She had found a soft place under a spruce tree to spend the night. Without words, she filled his mind with remembrances of a wolf cub lying in the warm spring sunlight with three brother and sister pups after an exhausting afternoon of playing chase and follow-me.
The memory filled him with love and caring. Somehow, it also said that the wolf now considered him as she did the other wolf pups. More than pack. Family.
Shell fell asleep.
In the morning, he found sunlight streaming in the small window, Quester was gone, and as he opened the door of the hut, everyone else was busy performing their morning chores. He stepped outside and stretched, allowing his mind to wake gently. The wolf was back under the same spruce, tearing apart a small rabbit.
Quester was nowhere to be seen, but Myron sipped from a mug on a bench positioned to face the morning sun. Three children played nearby, and Myron spoke to one who played too rough. A young girl of ten or eleven caught his eye and pointed to a pot suspended over a fire. Small bowls were stacked upside down besides carved wooden spoons.
“For me?”
She nodded and raced off, her legs churning and long hair flying behind. Shell filled a bowl with a stew like that his mother made, but with fewer vegetables and more meat. The first taste told him it also contained unknown spices and some of them were hot.
“Better grab a biscuit,” Myron said.
“Good stew,” Shell said, taking a second taste.
Myron said, “Sit with me and tell me about this wolf of yours.”
“She’s under a spruce tree behind us, eating a rabbit.”
“You know this, how?”
“She touched my mind when I woke and told me.”
“The wolf knows our language?”
Shell paused. It was a good question, one he had to think about. “No, not exactly. She put the image of a spruce tree in my mind, I guess. More than an image, because I could smell it, too. And the rabbit, I could see a rabbit, but not through her eyes. Just a picture of a rabbit half-eaten, like looking at a scene from a distance.”
“Could you smell the rabbit too? The blood?”
Thinking back, Shell nodded. “I think so. No, I guess not.”
Myron turned to him. “But you don’t know?”
“This whole thing only happened a day ago. I don’t know what’s real or in my head, or how any of it works. I feel like there are two of us inside my head.”
“The messengers will carry word of your experience to all the families, and they will ask if it has ever happened before with anything other than a dragon. Maybe that will provide you with some answers.”
Shell finished eating his stew in silence and then used the biscuit to cut the sting of the spices. He wished for a glass of cold, winter milk, but waited for Myron to tell him more. When the old man said nothing, Shell asked, “Is what I described the same as it is to bond with a dragon?”
Myron had his face turned upward to the weak morning sun to catch the warmth. He said, “I have only known one who bonded. Raymer. He was not too talkative about it, and I don’t think he wanted to bond in the first place. But what he told me was an entirely different thing.”
“He touched the mind of the dragon.”
“Yes, but not the same as you, I believe. Raymer and the dragon bonded fully, their minds combined, melded together. Raymer could enter the mind of the dragon, see and hear what it did, and he could make the dragon do his bidding. If the task was simple to understand, or instructions given in small steps.”
Shell shook his head. “He couldn’t make the dragon do what it didn’t want. That’s what I heard.”
“Not the total truth. Dragons are not very smart, and Raymer could outsmart it. Still, can. For instance, the dragon might not want to fly today. Raymer could tell it, that if it didn’t, a rat would bite its tail. Then the dragon would take off.”
“Can the dragon enter Raymer’s mind and see what he sees?” Shell leaned forward to hear the answer better.
“Raymer said it could do that but did not like to. He said the information confuses the dragon, so it stays out of his head most of the time. There are times when it does look through Raymer’s eyes, especially if Raymer is in danger.”
“I don’t know if the wolf can enter my mind, but this morning she found me like saying good morning from far away. I did not search for her. But she came to me.”
Myron turned to look at him from the corner of his eye. “Quester is not happy with you, but he will figure out that none of this is your doing and he will come around. He came to speak with me early.”
“He’s angry because I didn’t tell him all I knew, but I didn’t know he was Dragon Clan so told him nothing.”
“We discussed that. I think he understands, but he was offended and can’t help that.”
Shell had been holding back a question he wanted to be answered, and after a quick glance around, said, “Where’s Camilla?”
“Ah, you too? I think you are the number five young man to come in search of her this year, but she has gone to Breslau, or at least in that direction.”
“Oh,” Shell said, frustrated that four others, like his mother, warned him about, had already been here.
Myron cleared his throat and continued, “She rebuffed the first four, then left to provide what help she might to the cause.”
“I see.”
Myron allowed a slight smile as he turned his face to the sun again. “On the positive side, she only left two days ago. Traveling west carefully and slowly to avoid capture by the King’s men. A determined young man protected by a wolf traveling in front of him could move far faster, and he’d catch up in a few days and perhaps make her travels safer.”
Shell was on his feet.
Myron said, “Whoa, we have a council meeting to finish this morning. If Quester agreed to remain with us for a few more days, I would take it as a personal favor if you depart soon, and try to catch up with my grand-daughter. Offer her your protection.”
“I can do that.”
Myron smiled again. “You can only if you do not phrase it that way. She is an independent sort of young lady, and if you offer to protect her, she might slit your throat.”
“Really?”
“No, but I will tell you this as one member of our family to another. You will have a difficult time if you do not treat her as an equal.”
Shell went in search of Quester with Myron’s advice hanging in the air. He found Quester facing a boy of ten, each of them holding a practice staff. The whack-whack-whack of the two staffs striking against each other bounced off the granite walls of the canyon. Quester moved stiffly and awkwardly, holding his staff too low to protect his upper body, and his defense was sluggish. The boy gleefully danced around him, striking the staffs together in a regular patterned beat as he demonstrated how to use a staff properly.
“Couldn’t find a sword?” Shell asked as he approached.
“Swords are for soldiers and losers,” Quester said with a grin, trying to advance on the boy, finding that whatever he trie
d was met with a lost effort. “This kid is killing me.”
The boy smiled wider, hardly straining to attack, yet providing all Quester could manage. Quester finally stepped back. “I need a break. Take over, will you?”
The intent obvious, Shell accepted the staff, and although lighter and shorter than his, he nodded to the boy. After a few tentative strikes to determine Shell’s skill, the boy attacked in earnest. He was fast and quick, which are not the same thing, but his blows lacked power. Shell parried everything the boy had without advancing at all. Sweat beaded the boy’s forehead as he intensified his attack.
Suddenly the boy allowed his staff to fall to the ground and he bowed slightly. “You’re good.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. You’re fast but need to learn to feint one way while attacking from the other.”
“They call me Bark and my brother Will tells me the same thing. Can you show me a move to surprise him?”
Shell nodded. “It’ll take practice, but if you go high like this . . .” he demonstrated and showed how to pretend one end of the staff was knocked high by the opponent, while the lower end became an unseen weapon. “Make sure your eyes raise to follow the upward tip of your staff to convince him, making his attention go high with your eyes.”
“While I strike his shin.”
“Strike an enemy between his legs, but not your brother.”
Bark repeated the moves, and as his staff turned and one end flew high, the bottom kicked out to attack. He moved to the trunk of a tree and repeated the moves again and again. Quester had silently watched the entire lesson. Now he stood and copied the boy’s moves.
Turning to Shell, he said, “This one move will take down any soldier.”
“Myron said you’re upset with me.”
Quester repeated the sequence of moves before answering. “He explained that you didn’t know I was Dragon Clan, and I accept that. But there is more. Between you and me there is a wall I cannot explain. Maybe it’s that I lived too long by myself and am not ready to accept choices another makes.”