The Summer Dragon

I shook myself awake, alarmed that I’d spoken out loud.

  I couldn’t afford to sleep. I pulled my knapsack out from under the bed, went to the door and listened. The manor was quiet, but I hesitated at the threshold. In my gut I knew there was an answer in all of this, one that didn’t rely on Father or Darian or anyone else.

  The Summer Dragon’s eyes kept calling me back.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I closed my eyes and tried to reason out a plan.

  I stumbled down the scree slope and into the forest. I found the spot where the dragon dam’s corpse lay. It would be intact still but for the skull and leg bone we had left in the ruins.

  “The High One Himself showed us the rest of the answer when he led Maia to the dead dragon,” Bellua had said. “It is the one sign in all these portents that is hers alone.”

  Mine alone.

  It couldn’t have been very old—perhaps two or three years in age, old enough to wear a saddle. Old enough to—

  My eyes snapped open.

  I understood. A dragon dam can die and leave a brood behind. This was the answer. Suddenly I knew where I was going and what I had to do. I wouldn’t sit and wait any longer for Mabir, or Bellua, or even Father to set things right.

  I changed clothes quickly—my stout leathers, a warm shirt and jacket. I pulled the spare clothes out of my knapsack and stuffed a blanket in, then crept out to the corridor.

  The manor was dark and silent. Brood Day generally ended in exhaustion for everyone, and this had been no ordinary Brood Day. I made my way to the kitchens. After considering a moment, I took all the venison, including a large haunch. I might need it all. I wrapped it in bread and cabbage leaves and then some of the kitchen towels to contain the juices.

  Then I gathered new apples, raw potatoes, and some carrots. I folded it all up in the blanket and pushed it into the pack.

  We kept most of the hunting gear in the main hall. I took a waterskin, a small bag containing flint and steel, and stuck a hunting knife in my belt. A coil of rope went into my pack. Our compound bows hung on the wall. I had some skill with the weapon but decided instead on the light crossbow Kaisi used to take raccoons out of the trees. I was a fair shot with a crossbow. I slung it over my shoulder, along with a quiver of bolts. I closed the door carefully, quietly, on my way out.

  The round face of the moon cast its blue light from the southern sky. A thin line of orange lantern light peeked under the doors of the winter stable, where Darian spent his first night with his new charge. Gentle voices keened quietly inside—our dragon dams mourning the loss of yet another brood. But I had a different path now.

  First I needed to create a false trail. I took the bridge to the compound, stepping as lightly as possible, then crossed to the gantry. I set the pack and weapons down, then released the hoisting platform—the “basket.” The locks opened with a loud clank that I was sure would wake the entire village. I set the brake again quickly and waited.

  When my heart had slowed again, I released the brake and let the empty basket fall. In the darkness, it was soon out of sight below me. It was risky but needed to be done. When everyone realized I was missing in the morning, I hoped this clue would lead in the wrong direction, into the village and onto the plains beyond, on the assumption that I was following the ministry train or simply running away. I needed as much of a head start as I could manufacture.

  When the basket landed at the bottom, the pulley stopped turning. Creaks and squeaks gave way to the murmuring breeze. I crossed the bridge again, crept through the yard and into the trees. I paused once to look back at the compound, bright where the moonlight touched it, black in the shadows.

  Bellua would haul me off to Avigal—and only the Avar knew what other fate. Without another qit, Father was forced to accept Bellua’s terms and I became expendable. Worse, I was the leverage that Bellua used to wrap the story of Getig in Temple garb.

  There was another way to interpret all the signs. Bellua had said it himself: The one sign that belonged to me alone was the dead dragon in the forest, an adult female cruelly trapped and killed at the height of breeding season.

  Somewhere on those far cliffs where Getig had appeared to me last, on the cliffs where wilding dragons raised their broods, was there a baby dragon without a mother? I had to know.

  The aeries of Riat needed another qit, and it had to be mine. Without another backward glance I headed into the forest.

  THIRTEEN

  NIGHT TRANSFORMED THE STATUE of the High Ones. Dahak, made of some dark stone, disappeared into shadow. But white Menog hovered above like a ghost pinned on a shaft of moonlight. The breeze was its eerie voice. Windblown shadows gave a semblance of life to the perfectly sculpted wings. Beneath was the block of marble that had been an altar in my dream, where the skull and leg bone of the female dragon gleamed white in a puddle of moonlight. I might have been looking at the spirit of the dead dragon rising above its bier.

  Thoughts of omens and signs filled my head. The skeleton had been the linchpin of Bellua’s arguments. I couldn’t leave it sundered. That would only add credence to his position. My sense of propriety and my dream together seemed to demand that I reunite the scattered pieces with the rest of the skeleton before I set out on my mission. I shivered, but set to the task.

  Her skull would be difficult to move. I’d barely managed to hang on to it yesterday, while strapped onto Audax’s saddle. It was half as long as I was tall, and easily weighed three stone. How odd that in my dream it had been light as a feather. I pulled the rope from my knapsack and considered my options, then laced the rope through the eye sockets and around her teeth, making loops I could stick my arms through. It would hang on my back, cushioned by the knapsack. I removed the wire noose from her leg bone, coiled it and stuck it in my pack. When I had the skull arranged on my back, I laid the leg bone across my shoulders too and started up the hill.

  By the time I reached the ridge my legs and shoulders burned. I knelt on the outcropping, glad to take some weight off my neck and shoulders for a moment. Two days ago I’d looked for Getig while standing here, the earth and forest alive below me. Now all was silent and deep in shadow, with the bright face of a full moon floating above the far cliffs. Behind me, dawn outlined the trees. The sun would be up soon.

  I took a long draught from my waterskin, then started cautiously down the slope, grateful that the moon illuminated the treacherous footing. Even so, the skull was awkward and heavy. Before I reached the bottom I had to remove it from my back and use the rope sling to lower it one step at a time before me, following as strength returned to my arms and legs.

  The last of the moon vanished as I entered the dark forest. It was cooler in the trees, and the smell of damp earth mingled with the sharp spice of pine. Dew made the moss slippery, so I dragged the skull behind me rather than carry it. My eyes picked out a narrow track through the forest in the pre-dawn gloom, but it was slow going. Finally, when fingers of pale morning light filtered through the trees, I found my way to the table of stone where the dragon’s bones lay.

  I untied the skull, lowered it into its proper position with care, then laid the leg bone where it belonged.

  I felt a need to make some sort of invocation, some small prayer for her departed spirit, but I didn’t know what to say. Every approach sounded childish in my mind. The act of restoring her bones to their proper places would have to speak for me. I bent down and kissed the top of her skull, petted the smooth nose once, then left the clearing behind me.

  The forest that had seemed so inviting two days ago was an obstacle now. I couldn’t see the far cliffs that were my ultimate goal. There were no clear paths, only jumbled piles of boulders, tangled deadfall, and thorny undergrowth. My knife wasn’t well suited to hacking through foliage, and I chided myself for not thinking to bring a machete. But I had to reach those far cliffs, and do it before Father and the rest divined my plan and came
looking for me.

  Wilding dragons built their nests in those crags; that’s where Getig had perched the last time I saw him. If there was a baby, that’s where I would find it.

  As the morning wore on, I stumbled upon a game trail that wound to the west. Relieved, I settled into a better pace, and even started to trot, with the knapsack bouncing on my back.

  At noon I fished an apple and some carrots out of my pack to munch on as I went. I wasn’t hungry enough to eat an uncooked potato, and I was saving the meat; when I found my baby, I would need to feed it. Though the trail climbed up and down over large blocks of stone that had tumbled off the mountain face, I felt that I was making excellent progress. The canopy had thinned, however, so I kept a constant eye on the sky for Father and the others. Ideally, I’d have scouted my route before I ever climbed down from our own ridge. But it was dark then, and I’d been determined to restore the skeleton of the dragon dam. That detour had probably added several hours to my journey.

  As the sun passed its zenith, I came to a rise where the trees had failed to clothe the granite foundation of the mountain. A round outcropping of stone capped the hill, offering an excellent vantage. After scouting above for riders, I clambered up a skree slope and hopped up the knobs to the dome.

  I could see back the way I’d come, and forward to the cliffs where the Summer Dragon had perched the last time I saw him. Getig had crossed the valley in a few scant minutes’ time, but I was barely a third of the way there. I let out a groan—it would take me until nightfall to get even halfway there. If I had to, I would march through the night, but I needed to reconsider my approach. Perhaps the straight route through the forest wasn’t the best path after all.

  To the south lay an endless carpet of trees that ran all the way down to the sea. Due west stood the cliffs in afternoon haze. I couldn’t climb those steep escarpments. To the north, the mountain stepped up toward a high ridge. The trees were thin on that slope, but I could see a number of game trails even from here. At least two of them slanted up toward the cliffs where they thrust out from the mountain itself. There was less cover than I liked, but was the most accessible path to the cliffs where Getig had perched, to the nest I hoped to find.

  Suddenly the silhouette of a dragon appeared above the cliffs. I scrambled backward down the escarpment to the cover of the trees. Was that Shuja? Rannu? With foliage in the way it was hard to be sure, but dragons have excellent eyesight, and I couldn’t risk being spotted. My heart pounding, I backed into the deeper shadows under the canopy to wait. There was a flat, moss-carpeted boulder under the tree, so I sat down.

  Whenever Darian and I had flown over the forest with Father or Tauman, all we saw were endless trees below and mountains above. But this was personal, intimate. I could touch the stone, breathe in the scent of bark and moss, and taste the clean, pungent air. I was struck by how square all the boulders were, and how flat this little hollow under the canopy was. The boulder across from me was almost cup-shaped. I stopped chewing, surprised. It was cup shaped, and full of mulch, with saplings growing in it. The stone was pitted and crumbling, and moss hid details, but the artifice was clear: it was once a fountain. Perched on the edge was a frog carved of the same stone, a cap of moss on his head, his lips pursed as if he should be spouting water into a pool. The boulders were the fallen walls of a long-ago building. I could see now that several trees stood within a ring of upended pavers, like jagged teeth. This had been a courtyard, and a forest had erupted through it. Now attuned, I looked further into the forest and saw straight ridges of wall surrounded by cracked blocks, all in mossy cloaks. Here a toppled pillar rested with its fluting still visible through a coat of green. There a tree had fallen, exposing a stairway of marble under its roots.

  Cinvat. It was the city that our ruined temple had served, long, long ago. Father brought it up every time he attempted to teach us some history, and Mabir spoke of it in his sermons. What little we knew about Cinvat had been gleaned from the explorations of the dhallas from our local Temple. Father and Tauman had probably poked around in it. Perhaps Jhem had joined them a time or two. But the hard, time-consuming life of raising dragons for the Ministry had kept anyone from studying it deeply. It was far older than even our aeries, that much I remembered. Cinvat was part of the deep background of our lives. It even lurked in the subtext of the games Darian and I played when we were younger. We had spoken once of someday taking our very own dragons into the valley to look for it.

  But here it was, all around me. Up the hill to the north where the sun fell bright on the mountainside, broken stairs and the stumps of columns peeked out from between sparser trees. Off the trail behind me, so obvious I don’t know how I missed it, sat the outline of a building above a bowl so perfect it must have been an amphitheater. On the trail ahead was a round boulder with a human profile, the giant bust of a head sinking into the loam. Some king or ancient deity?

  Once again, as in the minutes just before the Summer Dragon had rustled the leaves above our heads, I felt a chill ripple down my spine. I was overwhelmed with a sense of history and the presence of people long gone. This forest had ghosts in it. I tried to imagine how it had looked when it was new, when the courtyard bustled with human activity and the buildings stood tall in the sunlight. What did the people of Cinvat look like? How did they dress? What had happened to them? Mabir never said exactly what destroyed this beautiful city. Now I wished I’d pressed for answers. Seeing had made it real. What were the stories the people of Cinvat told each other about their distant past? Had my own ancestors lived in this city?

  Nearby, a fallen tree had begun to decay. All along its spine grew saplings of future trees, some with roots that stretched eagerly down to the earth below. The ruins were like that log, but on a far grander time-scale. The ribs of an ancient city disappeared little by little into the natural landscape.

  Cycles of death and rebirth. Cycles within cycles.

  Next summer, Darian and I will bring our dragons here to explore . . . Goosebumps pebbled my arms. I packed my knapsack quickly and scanned the sky—no sign of the dragon. I started out again, heading north to find one of the game trails leading west along the mountain’s toes.

  The bottom of the slope proved to be a jumble of boulders ejected by the mountain and the trees they had knocked out of the ground. There was virtually no cover. I spent far longer than I’d hoped negotiating tangles of deadfall and gaps between boulders too wide to jump across. Twice I misjudged and took a tumble. Luckily, I broke no bones.

  Finally, I reached the first of the game trails and the sparse cover of trees. My waterskin was getting low. Another mistake. I should have refilled it while I was in the forest, where there were streams and pools. I drank half and resolved to keep an eye out for a rivulet. The sun sat now on the brow of the cliffs, casting the valley I’d left behind into blue shadow. I was exhausted, dirty, scratched, and bruised. But I needed to cover ground. Twilight should provide me enough light until the moon rose, in about an hour. I would go as far as I could by moonlight, now that I had an actual path to follow.

  My feet ate up the trail. Day passed, and night unfurled with a strange magic. As the moon emerged and then stole into the starry vault, shadows changed from purple to turquoise. Smells were less earthy and dank, more crisp and sweet. The owl-hoots and fox-howls of the early dark gave way to vague noises: distant snufflings, grunts, and screeches that I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t see more than shapes against the stars, so I had no way to tell how much terrain I’d covered. As the moon began to dip, I watched for places to hole up. I was sore. My eyes were dry and itchy. My tongue tasted like dirt. I needed to rest.

  At last I came to a boulder field. Several large crags leaned together to make a sort of room that the trail passed through, with a dusty floor and a skinny window of stars for a roof. I shrugged out of my knapsack and leaned back against it, freed my knife and laid it beside me, then loaded and spanned Ka
isi’s little crossbow. It was bad to leave a crossbow cocked and under stress for a long period of time, but I wanted it ready if I needed it.

  The night was cold. I pulled the blanket out of my knapsack. It was only a little damp in one spot from sitting atop the venison. I wrapped it around myself before I lay down.

  I was almost at the cliffs. I should reach them early in the day tomorrow. An animal far away made a strange call, like the cry of a deep-throated hawk. Other animals screamed or croaked with voices almost human. How clever was I to consider sleep in the wilderness home of dragons, with a knapsack full of meat for my pillow? I should have planned better. It would be just my fate to run into some big wilding sire. No sleep. I’d catch a rest, then continue before dawn.

  FOURTEEN

  SUNLIGHT STUNG MY EYES. I sat up abruptly in a daze. Rock walls and a dirt bed. Why? Remembrance flooded, and I rubbed my bleary eyes. I was still sore, but a little refreshed. I stretched, scratched an insect bite on my neck, ran my fingers through my hair. The morning was just underway—I might have had four hours’ sleep. I chose a nook between two boulders to relieve my bladder, then folded up my blanket, drew down the crossbow, and stuck my knife back in my belt. I pulled an apple and a carrot out of my knapsack, looked dubiously at them, but resisted the temptation to tear off a hunk of venison. It would be a sparse breakfast, with not nearly enough water to wash it down. Though the apple was mushy, the juice was still sweet, and soon I was spitting out the last of the seeds.

  I stopped chewing when I realized what I’d been staring at in sleepy disregard: a fire pit not eight feet away from me, a circle of blackened stones around a gray pile of ashes. I looked around, suddenly feeling the eyes of those who had made it. All was quiet and I was alone. I went to investigate.

  The pit was cold and a bit windblown, so the fire in it hadn’t been recent but it still smelled of smoke. Now I saw ominous stains on the rock wall behind it, brown streaks that ran down into dark, dry circles in the dirt. A tripod of blackened branches taller than me leaned against the wall, bound at the top with a coil of leather. There were discarded bits of rope scattered about, and the butt end of a broken arrow. A stack of firewood. And there were bones. Most were small, but there were some I recognized. Only the wings of a dragon contained long, slender, hollow bones like the broken few scattered on the hard-packed ground.