The Summer Dragon

by Todd Lockwood

  Baby responded from the cave with another unhappy wail, but it was growing faint, and I realized that the Harodhi were taking it deeper into the cave. When it ended, silence enveloped the forest.

  Malik started up the slope again, grunting each time he planted his right forefoot. Suddenly he paused, raised his head, and looked back in my direction.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I was sure I hadn’t made a sound, but I glanced around for a defensible position, just in case.

  He made a sharp whuffing noise—a warning threat, prelude to attack. My head snapped in his direction, and he charged.

  Fear shot through my limbs. I turned and dashed for the trees.

  Crashes and heavy footfalls behind me drew nearer. He roared, now fully engaged in the chase.

  I screamed, leapt a log, landed badly. I bounced to my feet and darted around a tree. Ahead of me, a dense stand of fir trees surrounded a jumble of boulders. I would have to cross thirty feet of open space to reach it. I glanced back over my shoulder.

  Malik rounded some large trees into the open space, closing fast. He roared again, trampled a sapling, then tucked his wings close, ready to pounce.

  I sprinted across the gap, leapt between two trees and onto the nearest boulder. A crash resounded at my heels and splinters of wood flew past me. I vaulted a branch, stumbled, felt something swipe at my hair, fell past another trunk into the deep crack between two boulders. I landed on my back, looking up, the wind knocked out of me.

  Malik tried to crawl between the trees surrounding the boulders, but the arrows in his side snagged against the trunks. He bellowed angrily and withdrew, stalked around to my left and swiped into my enclosure with a giant forepaw. I scrabbled backward as far as I could, gasping for breath, as he tested the strength of the tree with teeth and claws. It shook but did not give. He growled again in frustration and prowled around behind me, where a single slender tree protected my small redoubt. He pushed against it once, twice, three times. Needles and twigs and cones showered down. Roots groaned and snapped, and the tree fell inward.

  I covered my face with my arm, but the boulders and the surrounding trees caught the falling timber by its branches. It settled at an angle like a roof across my crevice, still held by its toes to the earth. Malik bit and scratched at broken roots. He could do no more than shake it, but now he could step onto the boulders that shielded me. A set of talons quested between tree and rock. I scrambled back. He tried the other side, but arrows in his chest and legs snagged on the stout branches. Finally he backed off the rock, to circle and study my defenses.

  I fell back, gasping deeply, tears streaming down my face. “Go away,” I whispered hoarsely. “Sweet Avar. Avar Avar Avar . . .”

  Suddenly he roared in fury and leapt up onto the rocks again. He clawed frantically at the boughs of the fallen tree. Branches cracked and splintered. The trunk groaned as he stood on it and bounced. Shards of wood pattered all around me.

  “Go away go away go away . . .”

  Again he backed off, then raised his head and roared in utter frustration, shaking the trees and rocks with the thunder of his outrage. I heard his footfalls circling my enclosure, accompanied by low snarling. The undergrowth and trees diffused sound, and I couldn’t tell exactly where he was. I pushed myself to a sitting position, brushed hair out of my eyes, removing twigs and leaves with shaking hands. Thankfully, the meat in my knapsack had cushioned my backward fall, but knees, elbows, and palms were scraped and bleeding.

  The footsteps moved away and the snarling ceased, but I heard him panting and whuffing aggressively. Twice more he tried to breech the upright trees around my fortress but fell back with painful cries. Long minutes passed in which only his labored breathing disturbed the deep night stillness. Still trembling, I stood up, my head between branches of the fallen tree.

  Malik stood in the clearing, head down, panting. He saw me and growled, a deep menacing rumble that I’d never heard in the aeries, not even when Audax was testing Shuja’s seniority. This was feral and certain in its intent; he wanted to kill me.

  I was trapped there, for as long as I concerned him.

  I dropped out of sight again, heart pounding. I needed to convince him that I was not a threat. But how could I do that? He was a wilding—intelligent, but a creature of instinct and emotion nonetheless. He was unfamiliar with any of the commands or dialect that our aerie-born dragons spoke. All I had to work with was my knowledge of dragons, my crossbow, and a backpack full of food.

  “Oh, High Ones,” I muttered.

  I studied my narrow haven quickly. Two large boulders defined it, capped by a third on one end. There was a skinny gap like a short, constricted hallway between that third boulder and the one to my right. A natural entrance. Malik’s tail was visible beyond it.

  I breathed deeply in hopes of calming myself. I shook so violently that it took several tries to cock my bow and load an arrow. I set it down and removed the knapsack. There were some choice cuts of meat remaining, plus the entire haunch and a few large potatoes.

  This was no time for half-measures. I pulled out the haunch and laid the knapsack behind me. Then I picked up the crossbow and crept to the threshold of the crack. Malik was tugging at one of the arrows in his chest with his teeth. He groaned as it drew the flesh around it outward, the barbs on the arrowhead clutching at the plate it had pierced. When it ripped free, he snarled, bit it in three, spat out the remnants as he roared in pain, then licked at the freely bleeding wound.

  I took a deep breath and tiptoed slowly out into the clearing. As I was laying the haunch of venison down, Malik spotted me and charged.

  But I was prepared. I darted back into the crack between the boulders. He swiped into it with his long arm, but I was out of range, and the arrows still in his chest and legs shortened his reach. He growled furiously, pacing back and forth across the entrance but then stopped to glare in at me balefully.

  As much as I wanted—needed—to make a connection with him, Father had warned us many times that a wild dragon will see eye contact as a threat or challenge. I averted my gaze and showed him the crossbow, then laid it down and raised my empty hands. Whether that would mean anything to him or not I didn’t know.

  He returned to licking his wound until the bleeding had slowed, though he looked up to check on me several times. Many long, excruciating minutes later he sniffed at the air, turned, and found the haunch of venison.

  He stepped on it and removed half with a single bite. The remainder disappeared with scarcely more caution, though he worried the bone a little bit before crunching it into shards and swallowing it all.

  “Damn.” I’d hoped it would last a bit longer. I dug into the knapsack and pulled out two large potatoes. I showed them to him, then lobbed them gently out through the opening.

  He sniffed at them, then swallowed them whole.

  “High ones . . . you must be starving!” I tried to keep my voice low and calm.

  He snarled at me, rumbling low in his chest. But the timbre had changed slightly, and it wasn’t all threat now. It made me think of our dragons when they came across something new and foreign. I retreated into the crevice a little further before I caught myself. I’m certain he could smell my terror, but I didn’t want to show fear, even though I was trembling and pouring sweat.

  “Please leave me alone. I don’t want to be your food.” Trying to calm him. Trying to calm myself. I recalled Father two days ago telling Darian it doesn’t matter what you say. Tell him a story. Describe the weather. Babble like a lunatic. Tone was far more important than content. I took a deep breath.

  “Avar, but you are terrifying. I mean gorgeous. What a handsome sire you are.” He stood panting, studying me. “Normally, a dragon sire is keeping the perimeter, ensuring a food supply for momma and her babies. But here you are, alone, stalking the men who stole your baby. Was that your mate I found? Or
is she”—I swallowed—“in the cave?”

  He stared at me inscrutably.

  Despite myself, I snatched glimpses of his eyes: silver, like the stripes in his markings. He was beautiful, and it pained me to see the arrows in his flesh, the black rivulets of blood beneath them. Despite my fear and sadness and hurt, I found a well of empathy for this noble, wilding sire. I purred for him as best I could with dry lips and parched tongue. He tilted his head briefly. Encouraged, I tried to imitate the guttural rumble of contentment that our dragons made as they tucked into a meal. He tilted his head again.

  “I want to save your baby too. Will you let me help? Look . . .” I fished a piece of meat out of the pack and showed it to him. Then I looked pointedly up the hill and mimicked the mewling bark that qits make when they’re hungry, what we called mowping. “This is for your baby.” Then I put the meat away.

  He studied me, not moving.

  “Oh, sweet Avar, but you are a mess! I wish I could help you, too.” His liquid eyes met mine, and his pupils dilated. Before I could avert my traitorous gaze he growled in rage and leapt atop the fallen tree again.

  He ripped it in a frenzy, snapping limbs, pulling upward on the trunk, biting at the smaller boughs. The main beam of the tree groaned and shivered. Bark rained down on me.

  I screamed, but then, almost without thought and using all the power in my lungs, tapping all the sadness I felt for this courageous wilding and the full depths of my terror, I did my best to mimic Grus’s sad keening. I sustained it at full volume for as long as I could, and finished each wail with a dragon’s mournful chuffing.

  Malik paused, stared at me, panting heavily. His head tilted sideways.

  Baby called back from the Harodhi camp—a long and desolate cry, barely audible.

  Malik snarled at me again, then paced back and forth from boulder to boulder above. When he stopped, he threw his head back and called, keirr! keirr!

  Baby answered again.

  He stuck his big head as far as he could between tree trunk and boulder, and roared at the top of his lungs. His warm, stinking breath washed over me, and I cowered in it.

  Then he was gone.

  I waited for what might have been an hour, but Malik didn’t return. Once I’d stopped shaking, I stuck my head out between the fallen tree and the boulder. I hurt all over. My hands and knees throbbed. My side ached. I should have been exhausted, but fear still shook me.

  I couldn’t see Malik. I crept out into the clearing and scanned the forest as far as I could see. The sky was turning turquoise, but the valley was still in dawn’s shadow. The air was cool and damp, redolent of moss and dew. A bird warmed up for his morning aria, and busy shade-tails scampered down out of the canopy. The pastoral serenity made the previous night’s events feel like a fever dream. But the shattered trees, the ragged turf, and the trails of blood told the truth. My bow was still loaded and cocked. I left it that way and started out after Malik.

  His track was easy enough to follow, heading uphill, toward the Harodhi poachers’ cave. I spied another potential sanctuary ahead and made certain I was alone before I hurried to it. Then I caught my breath and looked for the next sanctuary. I leap-frogged up the slope this way for half an hour, with the dawn burgeoning in the sky above, before I spotted Malik again. He moved slowly but purposefully, one hundred or more yards ahead, using the trees to the right of the cart trail as cover. I followed his example, though I made a concentrated effort to keep at least one tree in the line of sight between us. He crawled up to the level of the cave and finally curled up behind an outcropping of granite within a screen of cedars. I sensed that he was waiting, considering his situation.

  I struggled up the slope, clinging to the trees with my bleeding hands. Soon I was laboring to catch my breath, legs burning, but I managed to close within a few dozen yards of Malik. He had already spotted me and stared with long, hard menace. But he did not move or make a sound. For several minutes we watched each other. Sweat crawled down my back. Whatever happened, for as long as Malik’s strength remained, he was going to be a part of this journey. My stomach twisted at the thought of contending with him again. It twisted a bit tighter when I realized that Malik was the closest I had to an ally. An ally who might bite me in two to be rid of me.

  There was sudden commotion at the mouth of the cave. The sounds of shouts and tramping feet drifted down on the brisk air. Flashes of sky on metal revealed a mass of Harodhi warriors heading away from me through the pre-dawn gloom and onto the plateau. The Harodhi leader launched his dappled brown dragon into the sky above them, wings cracking. Behind them came the black silhouette of the Horror-beast, with its rough armor and darkly shrouded rider. Something had drawn them out. I peered out between two boles to see what it was, and my heart knotted into a fist.

  From out of the crack where our tunnel was concealed, at the top of the rocky stair, a column of thick, gray smoke billowed up to catch the first ruddy light of day. Darian must have set the ancient dragon’s nest on fire.

  Dare, you idiot. He’d been certain that Father would come, and insisted that waiting was the right ploy. But he’d also been frightened that the Harodhi would hunt us down, possibly even in the dead hours—yet he had gone ahead with his first plan. For me. He’d made the distraction I needed.

  I was responsible. He wouldn’t be here but for me. I uttered a silent prayer to Getig that Darian was already far away from the source of that smoke.

  A patter of stone came from my right; Malik crept along the deer track toward the cave. He saw the advantage in the diversion and was making his move, but I was frozen with indecision. I needed to follow him, though my breath was short and my knees shook. But I needed to know if my brother was safe.

  The Harodhi dragons landed near the crevice where our tunnel was hidden, but for reasons unknown waited for the foot soldiers to join them. Then another movement caught my attention in the floor of the valley far below.

  It was Darian, dashing for the trees. He disappeared into their shadows, and I gasped with relief. Surely he had heard Malik’s roars in the night. For all he knew, I’d become the last meal of a doomed wilding. Yet alone and frightened beyond reason, he’d decided in the black hours of the morning to arrange my distraction anyway. Perhaps it would cover his flight for home, and at the same time send Father a clear signal, even if it meant attracting the poachers and their horrible beast. He had set his blaze, then left before it became visible, to follow my path down the scree stair.

  I was flooded with relief and fear. He was safer in the trees, though not out of peril. But he had forced me to immediate action. If Father arrived now, my quest would end in failure.

  “Thank you, Darian,” I whispered.

  Malik crouched low, stalking slowly forward. Soon he would round the last abutment that defined the Harodhi cave opening. I considered all my options, none of them good. I was not prepared for this. I was in completely untraveled skies.

  Then a hoarse, feral cry over the valley broke my concentration. The leader on his brown dragon and the black Horror had left the site of Darian’s smoke signal and swept to the east, down toward the forest. Had they spotted Darian?

  I groaned, horrified. Though there was nothing I could do for Darian, Malik had presented me with an opportunity, however tenuous. It remained my only hope.

  From the cave, voices shouted in alarm, crossbows sang, and Malik roared.

  Sweet Avar. Darian, High Ones—forgive me.

  I vaulted up the last torturous ramparts of the slope to the mouth of the cave and stumbled after Malik, my crossbow readied.

  EIGHTEEN

  MALIK SLAMMED FURIOUSLY into the Harodhi defenders. Over a dozen bowmen scrambled to avoid his attack or position themselves for a telling strike. One scrambled between the wheels of the cart that bore the stained and blackened kegs, only to be dragged out by his legs and flung the width of the cave. Another
tripped in his panic to escape and was crushed into the stone by a heavy forefoot.

  Those remaining surrounded Malik. Every time he turned to face one group, others circled to attack from behind. Some of their arrows bounced ineffectually off his natural armor, but others bit deep, and Malik roared in pain. When he charged, the bowmen fell back and circled, keeping him from committing to one target. They stayed in disciplined pairs, and as one loosed, the other reloaded.

  My fury mounted with each bolt that struck him. I raised my crossbow, sighted down the length of it, but found the flurry of activity confusing. When a target came into range, the face of my first kill flashed into my mind, and I hesitated. That fly crawling on an unblinking eye would haunt me forever.

  Angry, confused, frightened beyond belief, I waited for another opportunity, but when it came I again hesitated too long.

  Tears threatened to obscure my vision. Is this how you act on your commitment? I chided myself. What if Darian dies but you fail to save the baby? It would all have been for nothing.

  The combat turned, and another Harodhi paused to sight his weapon. I pulled the trigger. My bolt smacked into his back as Malik turned on him. The man fell with a cry. I gasped in conflicting relief and sympathetic agony. The men next to him fled Malik’s talons without any notice of me. As he whirled, Malik planted a rear foot on him, as if to finalize the kill. I knelt down to cock my crossbow. My arms shook so badly I could barely manage to position the next quarrel in the groove. My stomach churned, but there was nothing to throw up. I shouldn’t have helped Malik; I might have been spotted. I should have used his gigantic distraction to slip into the cave.

  Malik managed to pin two warriors against the far wall, only to take arrows in his haunches and rear legs. He launched himself at the men behind and they scattered.

  I saw an opportunity; as the action flowed to the right, I dashed to the left. To reassess my position, I paused behind the upright scaffolding hung with the corpse of a young dragon.