by LeRoy Clary
A careful move to prevent alerting the dragon let him watch the magnificent creature. It circled the peaks and was returning; a large fish clutched in a hind claw. It landed on the cliff directly below, and Seth leaned out to see where. “It’s a dragon nest,” he told Sunset.
Woven of large branches and small trees, the nest clung to the side of the cliff in a natural cavity where the rock split directly below. The nest was so close he heard the crunching of the fish as the dragon tore it apart and swallowed. He smelled the rotten meat of past meals and the cliff below the nest coated with dragon excrement, a thin splatter that hit the rocks and oozed down before hardening. The white on the black rocks stood out as a warning to anyone, or anything. The stench warned anything possessing a nose to stay away.
Seth couldn’t tear his eyes away. After eating the meal, the dragon lifted her head and belched, almost looking at him. But she didn’t notice the boy clinging to the rocks as he leaned out to watch her every move. Her head darted in all directions, and then she leaped out into space, opening her wings at the same time. The wings caught the air as she fell almost out of sight, then ballooned as they filled with air and she flapped her wings to regain the altitude she’d lost. She flew higher.
She spotted Seth.
With a shriek of anger, loud enough to warn the entire island, she powered higher and circled, her head always turning to keep him pinned on the side of the cliff. She flew directly at him, her head stretched ahead on the long neck, her tooth-filled mouth open.
He snatched the broken blade of the knife from his purse and held it up. Her first pass missed him by a distance so small, he could almost reach out and touch her snout. She spun in the air and came from the other direction. He tried to make himself small and put the knife away. He might need two hands to climb away on hands and knees. He looked up at the protective jumble of boulders above, but they now looked as far away as the mainland. He looked for a route down the cliff, to either side or up. Nothing seemed possible. He was exposed with no safety in sight.
She flew right at him this time. Seth threw his arms up instinctively—and in letting go of his handholds, slid down the cliff a dozen steps, barely recovering enough to catch himself on an outcrop of rock. But the slide saved him. She had missed, and now she circled again, her red eyes tracking his every move.
He couldn’t climb higher, even if she hadn’t been there. The rock wall above was almost straight up. There were no other outcrops in reach. She was returning.
Below him, he spotted a small ridge, wide enough to stand on. It led off to his left. To reach it, he’d have to jump the height of three men standing on each other’s shoulders, but the distance was not too great when compared to an attacking dragon. He could probably do it. The problem was jumping and missing the ridge. If he missed or slipped with the leap, he saw nothing below until reaching the trees of the valley floor.
Her wings beat closer. She shrieked at Seth in fury, snapping her mouth closed as if practicing eating him. A single glance told him that in his exposed location she wouldn’t miss this time. He leaped.
Sand and small rocks coated the ridge, and both of his feet skidded when they touched. He grabbed at air but managed to catch his balance. The dragon screamed in frustration, but this time, it was answered. Another dragon must have heard her calls and flew over the water to the island. He feared it would join in the attack.
“Now there’s two of them,” he talked to Sunset, hoping for inspiration. Resigned to his fate, he said, “I’m coming to join you real soon.”
But the mother dragon spun away from him and screamed even louder, if possible. She changed direction and headed to intercept the other dragon. The skin of the second dragon reflected a tinge of green, while the original was pure black. They approached each other at impossibly fast speeds, both with talons extended, teeth bared.
They crashed together in midair, each grabbing the other with sharp talons and ripping the skin and flesh. They fell apart and lined up to attack again.
Seth pulled his eyes from their fight and returned to his situation. He stood on a ledge that offered no escape, and only one direction to go. He ran away from the fight, down the ridge until it came to an abrupt end directly above the dragon’s nest.
The nest contained an egg, larger than a melon. Excrement coated the cliff below the nest, and he saw no way down, but one glance over his shoulder told him the black dragon, the mother of the egg, was winning the fight and would soon return to him.
There might be a place to hide under the nest until he could climb the rest of the way down. He started to climb using the few handholds on the smooth rock face, and he slipped.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Seth felt the rock crumble in his hand, but he had nowhere else to grab. He twisted, desperate for something to reach for, a crack, plant, rock, or anything else. He fell backward, off balance. A last desperate twist and another missed handhold flashed past, and he fell out away from the side of the cliff into the cold air.
Nothing saved him from falling. His feet left the ridge of the cliff last, as his head and shoulders passed the level of his knees. He tumbled, his feet going over his head before they rotated under him again. Seth had a mental picture of himself tumbling all the way to the ground and dying while dizzy.
But his feet struck and slowed him. The speed of the fall drove him to his knees and forward to his face. Lifting his head, Seth looked around at the tangle of sticks and branches. He lay in the bottom of the nest with a dragon egg.
He spun around, ignoring the bleeding from his hands and face, finding an ooze covering him from the egg he’d struck with his feet. The egg rolled and leaned on him as it leaked fluid from the split on one side of the shell, while a small head emerged from the top, looking almost as bewildered as Seth.
Then the two tiny red eyes on the head spotted him. The chick tore and ripped the shell open and emerged wet. Seth started crawling away from it, intending to climb over the edge of the nest to get away. Being chased by a second dragon didn’t bode well. But the tiny dragon moved faster. It leaped free of the shell and raced to Seth, running into him and knocking him down. It jumped onto his chest, stretched its neck out, and placed its snout and needle-sharp teeth in front of Seth’s mouth.
It sniffed.
The animal stood no larger than a chicken. Blood ran down one side of its breast. Seth’s fall had injured the dragon, opening a rip in its skin from the neck to the foreleg. The animal leaned closer, sniffed his breath again, and rubbed against Seth, smearing its blood over him.
Seth pushed it aside and started to crawl to the edge of the nest again, terror driving him forward. The little dragon reached it first again. It threw its head back and screeched, a sound softer than a cat’s meow. A single look in his direction and it charged his face again, pulling to a stop near Seth’s shoulder and neck.
It sniffed him again, from head to foot, and rushed to Seth’s blood staining the floor of the nest. It licked the blood, tasting and sniffing.
It ran back, snuggled up next to Seth, making softer growls and calls.
A dark shadow drifted between Seth and the sun. He looked up. The mother black dragon was flying closer, obviously intent on landing in her nest. She flew in too fast, almost falling, and she hit the nest so hard it shook. A few of the woven tree branches sprang free. Several pieces of the nest fell, and if Seth had been on his feet, the jar would have thrown him down.
One foreleg of the mother dragon sat at an odd angle. Two separate, but parallel slashes leaked blood near the broken foreleg. Blood spurted out of another gash, the result of claws raking it during the fight. One talon on a hind leg bled and appeared missing. It had probably been the one that defeated the green dragon.
She was obviously badly hurt. Her eyes glazed over, and she took no notice of Seth or the dragon chick at first. Her head hung so low that her chin rested on the nest. Suddenly, her eyes focused, and she found the chick and Seth. Her head drew back, and she snorted
, her eyes locked on Seth.
Her lips curled and exposed the rows of teeth sharp teeth. But the dragon chick leaped in front of Seth, spread its small wings and shook them in a weak rattle, and it hissed at her.
It defended Seth and had issued a challenge to the other. The mother dragon drew back in confusion. Then, she slowly lowered her snout to Seth and sniffed him, much as the chick had. The contents of the egg still covered him, and as she sniffed, she must have recognized the familiar scent. Instead of attacking, she closed glazed eyes and went to sleep.
The tiny dragon hopped around the nest, exploring everything, and probably hunted for food. It watched his every move. It darted to his side and sniffed his breath repeatedly as if searching for something.
Seth managed to crawl to the edge of the nest and peer over. The nest was built higher than the tallest treetops. The rock face of the cliff below was not only sheer, but there were no handholds as far as he could see.
He found a piece of fish the size of his fist that the mother dragon had missed during her meal earlier. Seth raised it to his mouth, anticipating something to finally eat. However, it disappeared from his hand. The baby dragon had snatched away and ate it in an instant. The creature wailed for more food. Me too.
Seth spent most of the afternoon cursing Sunset, talking to him as if he lay in the nest next to him, and making promises to three Gods he couldn’t keep. He avoided the dragon chick as much as possible. The little dragon followed him everywhere, and if Seth paused, the chick curled up next to him and went to sleep.
Seth avoided the mother dragon. When she woke, he expected to die. But after examining everything in the nest, under it, and along the wall of the cliff, he came to the conclusion there was no escape. The small dragon meowed and stretched its neck out, mouth open.
By now the mother would have delivered food. Instead, she lay panting for breath as her blood seeped from her wounds, far more slowly than when she landed. Even if she healed enough to gather food, Seth couldn’t remain, and he couldn’t escape. The nest would be cold, exposed to the elements, and snow would fall within days. The mother would normally warm the chicks with her body, but Seth couldn’t stand the cold, especially while she went on hunting trips, not even if she went for food.
He needed water and heat. His piece of flint sat in the cave, but he couldn’t make a fire in the nest anyhow, so it didn’t matter. He cried and cursed Sunset. If not for the old man he wouldn’t be in the nest. When the sun lowered, and it grew dark, he snuck to the mother dragon’s side where her hind leg joined her body and found a measure of warmth. He placed his back to her stomach and the small dragon leaped to cuddle his stomach. They lay together, three of a kind.
He woke tired, stiff, cold, and scared. The sun had not risen, but he shivered and moved closer to the mother dragon. It didn’t help. The tiny dragon had more heat than the larger one. Seth placed a hand on the side of the dragon and couldn’t feel her breathing.
Seth moved to her snout and touched her nostrils. The dragon was dead.
“That’s just great!” he cried, looking up into the darkness and picturing the face of Sunset, his white hair, and wrinkled skin. “You did this. You brought me here to live in a nest with a rotting dragon.”
Sunset didn’t answer. Not even a sly chuckle. Seth stamped his feet for warmth, and the action woke and brought the small dragon racing to his side, its mouth again wide open as it begged for food. When he didn’t provide any, the dragon rubbed against his leg and cooed.
He climbed to the edge of the nest again and looked down into the darkness. The drop was too much and the rock too smooth for handholds. Staying in the nest meant being there when animals discovered the dead dragon, maybe even other dragons. But birds for sure. They might even attack him.
He had to find a way down. Only a rope would do. His eyes drifted back to the mother dragon as he recalled his plans for tanning leather. An image of Sunset teaching him to weave a sleeping mat and braiding strips of grass for strength formed.
Seth’s hand touched the broken iron blade at his waist. Dull, rusty, and snapped in half, he could sharpen it on the rocks of the cliff and use it to cut. Maybe.
He almost dived to the side of the dead dragon and ran the blade along her skin. The blade tore more than cut, but it was enough to tell him the plan would work. Seth went to the edge of the nest against the rock wall and found a small outcrop. He gently slid one edge of the blade along it, feeling the drag as the rough places on the blade moved over the rock. He repeated the motion a dozen times and touched the edge with his thumb. Sharper, but not enough. He turned the blade over and started on the other side.
The next cut on the skin of the dragon went straight and clean. He made a cut from the top of her neck to her tail, then another close beside it. The knife needed a few more scrapes on the rock to keep the edge sharp. He cut the narrow strip and used the knife to cut away the underside as he gently pulled it away from the body. Finished, he held a piece of animal hide as long as the animal. Looking at her head and allowing his eyes to follow down to her tail, he could slice dozens of similar long strips.
Wrapping the slimy, bloody piece he held around each palm, he pulled, gently at first, then harder. It held. Seth wrapped one end around his foot and used two hands to lift. It finally snapped, but he was satisfied. A single strand wouldn’t hold his weight, but three of them woven together would.
Then he considered cutting wider strips and tying them end to end to make a rope instead of all the work to braid one, but the rope only had to tear in one place, and he would fall. Weaving thinner ones together meant if one strand broke, the other two might hold him.
He doubled a thin strip and could not break it. “Sunset, your weaving lesson may have given me a way to escape. At least, you give me hope.”
He sharpened the blade again, bringing it to an edge his father would reject, but better than before. He wrapped coils of the strip he’d cut around the end to protect his hand and went to work. The little dragon moaned and cried for food. Seth shrugged to himself and cut a slice of the dead dragon and tossed it to the little one. It disappeared instantly.
Guiltily, he cut several more, trying to hide his actions. When full, the tiny dragon curled up and slept. Seth believed he could see it smile before he went back to work. By mid-morning when the air started to warm he was covered in blood and whatever else he cut. Flies appeared and swarmed until the parts of the dragon where he’d removed the skin turned black with them. His every move sent them flying in masses until they found places to land, many of them landing on his arms, legs, back, and head. He breathed in so many that instead of spitting them out he swallowed.
Insects coated the pile of thin strips he’d cut, but he knew of nothing he could do to rid them. If he spent time chasing away flies he wouldn’t get more strips cut. The pile grew to knee high.
But as the pile grew, the day grew warmer, and the stench from the dead animal increased. Vultures landed first. Then meat-eating seabirds of several kinds. A large bird, he hadn’t seen before, jumped down to his pile of strips and gobbled part of one. Seth leaped down from the dragon and entered a tug of war for his strip of leather. The bird won as it leaped from the nest and flew off with the skin trailing.
The meat didn’t last long unless smoked or salted. From the slightly greenish hue of the surface of the meat, it already started turning. The strips he cut would do the same, but he didn’t know how long it would take. What he did know was that if they rotted and weakened, he would have a fall he wouldn’t survive. If more birds arrived, which he expected, keeping them from his pile of strips would be impossible.
“This better be enough,” he shouted to Sunset, who he believed watched from somewhere in the clouds. For good measure, he shook a fist skyward before sitting.
The strips had tangled as he tossed them into the pile, but they remained soft, slippery, and came free quickly. Tossing the ends of three over the side of the nest, he knotted the other end an
d wove the three strips. In less time than he expected, he finished. He let it hang over the side to dry. It wouldn’t be so slippery while he started another.
His attention focused on his work. Grabbing his knife to cut more, he paused. Hundreds of birds were on the dragon, many with pointed beaks that ripped and tore at the skin to reach the meat below. The dragon had torn holes in her body from the size of his finger to his head. Long single strips were no longer possible. In cutting more strips he’d have to fight the insects, birds, and what few strips he recovered would likely be short, and possibly weak from their gorging.
As if it heard him thinking about food, the tiny dragon raced to his side and rubbed his knee with its body. The head tossed back and mouth open. Seth went to the rear leg and cleared a space of insects to cut several chunks. The meat was softer, rotting, and the skin felt also felt softer, more pliable. It was also rotting. He fed the dragon while thinking of his options.
The sun was setting, but remaining in the nest another cold night wouldn’t help. He needed water and food for himself. He didn’t know if he would survive another cold night, but if he did, he would be weaker and maybe unable to climb down.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The decision was not so much made by Seth as made for him. He had ten lengths of braided rope drying. He looped one end over a branch larger around than his leg and tied it well. Looking over the side to pull the other end up, he found it barely hung down as far as his body might reach.
Disappointed, he pulled the end up and tied it to another. He repeated the process until all were tied and hanging over the side. In the twilight, he couldn’t see the end. Earlier, it had looked like the rope would reach the bottom and he expected to feel it when it did, or maybe see it. Instead, it was in shadow and getting dark.