Dragon Talker

by Anderson, Steve

  “What!?” Stone couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “An old woman is the toughest man in your village?” Stone’s eyes narrowed, “You’re fooling with me, aren’t you?”

  “No, Stone, I am not. How about I tell you a story about Selma, and then see if you think she is as tough as I say she is?”

  Stone had risen to practically a standing position in his disbelief at Selma being the toughest person in the village. Now, he settled back down. “Okay, but I don’t know. I think you might come from a really weak village.”

  “Well, let’s just see if I can’t set you straight on that belief. This happened, what, about five springs ago. Samora, our dragon, had just come for the spring visit, and Sandeen, that was our old dragon talker,” Yuri touched his first two fingers to his forehead and then his heart, “came back from the field.” Yuri paused. “All right, there’s some before the sunrise information you probably need first. Let me think for a second.” Yuri moved his hand back and forth, pointing his finger at imagined parts of the story. Stone looked at Bernard, nodded towards Yuri, and crossed his eyes, making Bernard laugh.

  “Okay, I got it. So, Selma is one of the village’s goat herders. Sandeen, he’s the dragon talker.” Yuri touched his fingers to forehead and heart, but faster than the first time. “Every talker gets a gift from the dragon, sometimes a couple, and Sandeen had the hearing of an owl. Better than an owl,” Yuri corrected. “That made him extra unpopular.”

  “Why? Who cares?” Stone asked.

  “Well,” Yuri thought how best to explain.

  Samantha turned her head, looking back at the boys, “Do you ever get mad at someone and say things, mean things, under your breath? So they can’t hear you?”

  Bernard nodded, thinking of all the things he’d said under his breath when his brother was teasing him. Stone answered out loud for both of them, “Yeah.”

  She continued, “Ever have any secrets?”

  Stone and Bernard looked at each other, but didn’t say anything.

  Yuri saw where Samantha was going and wondered if she had brothers or sisters of her own. She was better at explaining things than Yuri was. “There are no secrets around someone who can hear everything. At least, that’s how a lot of people felt.”

  “Anyway, Sandeen comes back and says he has to talk to the village elders. Nobody likes that. The last time he said that, everyone had to fill in their root cellars and make above ground storage for their food. That was a lot of work. A lot of grumbling, and I’m sure Sandeen heard it all, and I bet some people were happy to have an excuse to bad-mouth him.”

  Stone interrupted, “I thought this was about Selma?”

  “It is. Just hold your water. I need to set up the…” Yuri stopped midsentence when a man on a horse appeared on the trail behind them, just cresting the top of the hill.

  He asked Samantha, “Did a guy on a horse just appear out of nowhere on the top of the hill behind us?”

  Everyone looked back, but the top of the hill was clear. Stone crossed his eyes again for Bernard’s benefit, causing him to laugh. Samantha said, “I don’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

  Yuri frowned, “I would have sworn I saw someone.”

  “I don’t think there is anything to worry about, but we’ll keep our eyes open, just in case. Right boys?”

  Bernard and Stone both shouted, “Yes ma’am!”

  “See,” she said, “nothing to worry about.” Samantha looked at Yuri and put her hand on the sheath of the knife on her belt. The boys couldn’t see this, but Yuri did and knew what she had said was for the boys’ benefit. There was something to worry about. They would both keep their eyes open for a man on a horse behind them.

  “Well,” Stone prodded, “are you going to tell us about your big, strong old woman?”

  Before Yuri could answer, Bernard asked, quietly, “Why are you wood?”

  Yuri only caught the last part. “What was that, Bernard?”

  “I said,” Bernard’s voice got louder, “Why are you wood? Are you a tree man?”

  Yuri looked to Stone, hoping for an explanation, but Stone only stared back at him, also waiting for an answer.

  “Bernard, I don’t know what you mean. I am not wood, and I don’t know what a tree man is.”

  “Then why are you so hard?” Bernard pointed at his chest. “Your chest is like a tree. I felt it while you were carrying me.”

  Yuri felt self-conscious of the scales and hadn’t wanted to talk about them, but Bernard was not giving him any more time. “Okay. I am not a tree man.” The boys looked at him skeptically. “But,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt, “I do have hard scales.”

  Bernard poked Stone in the arm, “I told you.”

  Stone asked, “What are those? Are you a snake?”

  Yuri smiled, “No, not a snake. Look, I am just like you, but I’m a dragon talker, and my dragon gave me these scales to protect me. I don’t think my dragon trusts me to protect myself.”

  Stone moved closer to Yuri, reached out, and touched one of the scales. “It’s cold.”

  “To me, it feels normal, but I remembered it being cold at first. Do you want to touch them, Bernard?”

  “Don’t need to,” he said curtly.

  “They’re hard, too,” Stone added.

  “You’re right.” Yuri buttoned up his shirt. “They are pretty tough, but you don’t have to worry about them, or me.”

  Bernard wasn’t convinced, “Why do you have them?”

  “My dragon gave them to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,” Yuri suddenly felt embarrassed in front of Samantha, “another dragon talker just about killed me.”

  Both boys’ eyes got a little bigger at that. “Really?” Bernard asked. Stone shook his head, deciding Yuri was a weak person from a weak village.

  Yuri rubbed the scales on his neck. “Oh yes. I don’t like to think about it much, but when I headed out from my village, I wanted to meet other dragon talkers, to learn from them.” Yuri felt the fear of the attack wash over him. He was still sitting in the wagon, but he felt like the other dragon talker was standing over him, swinging an ax. “He just attacked me. Almost killed me…” Yuri was talking to himself at this point. The boys just stared at his face, which had lost much of its color.

  Samantha was looking forward, but she was paying close attention. Without taking her eyes of the trail in front of them, she reached out and patted his leg. “You’ll get used to those feelings, Yuri, and you’ll learn how to keep moving, even when all you want to do is roll up and quit.”

  The words sounded odd, like hearing them through a wall, but Yuri heard them. They helped him refocus on the present. When he looked at the boys, he could tell they were worried. He smiled weakly, “So, I guess my dragon knew somehow and gave me these scales to protect me. And that is why I have scales on my chest.”

  Bernard asked, “Why do you hide them?”

  “Okay, I’m going to start limiting how many questions you can ask in a day,” Yuri responded, smiling. He looked at Samantha, “This guy is a great questioner.” He looked back at Bernard. “I’ll answer this last one, than I get to ask some questions. Deal?”

  Bernard nodded in agreement.

  “For starters, my little brother is going to go squirrel when he finds out.”

  The two boys looked at each other and back to Yuri with a what-are-you-talking-about look.

  “I am not kidding. Hental is a tester. He tests everything, and hardly believes a thing until he has. When he finds out that I have these, I am in serious trouble.” Yuri was smiling as he said it. “If I’m not careful, I could find him putting an arrow in my chest.”

  Both boys’ eyes got round as they tried to imagine his little brother shooting an arrow at him.

  Samantha couldn’t help but tease, “I like him already.”

  “You would,” Yuri replied, “he’s a free-spirit like yourself, with a devious mind. Like yourself.”
>
  “Boys,” Samantha said over her shoulder, “I think I have been insulted. Do you think I have a devious mind?”

  “No!” they both shouted.

  Bernard whispered to Stone, “What’s devious mean?”

  Stone shrugged his shoulders, not knowing, either.

  “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. I’m on my own, am I?” Yuri didn’t wait for a reply. “I can handle it.”

  Yuri suddenly turned serious. The boys tensed at his changed demeanor. In a calm and stern voice, Yuri said, “Boys, turn around and tell me if you see the man on horse on the top of that hill?”

  The boys looked up the hill they had just come down, but saw nothing. Stone was the first to reply, “I don’t see anything.”

  “Me neither,” Bernard added.

  Samantha stopped the wagon and turned around, looking. “I don’t see anything. Where are you looking?”

  “There,” Yuri said, pointing, “right next to the tree stump we passed.”

  “That was two hilltops ago.” Samantha was confused, “What are you talking about, do you see someone on the hill behind hill?”

  “Yeah, don’t you see it?”

  “Ah, no. Are you fooling with us?”

  “No,” now Yuri was confused. “Are you fooling with me?”

  “The hill behind the hill? Okay, dragon talker. Something isn’t normal.” Samantha thought for a moment. “I got it.” She set the brake on the wagon and jumped in back, heading straight to one of her trunks. Opening it, she went into a little sewing supply kit and pulled out a button, closing her hand around it so Yuri couldn’t see.

  She jumped off the wagon and ran down the trail a hundred feet. She thought about it for a moment and then ran another hundred feet. “Yuri,” she shouted, “close your eyes for moment. Boys, can you see what I’m holding in my hand? Can you tell what it is?”

  “No,” Stone shouted back, “but I know it’s small.”

  “Okay, Yuri, open your eyes.”

  Yuri did, saying immediately, “You’ve got a button.”

  Samantha knew he might get a lucky guess, just because there are only so many small things a person has. “And how many holes are in it?”

  Yuri could see the button in her hand as if it were right next to him. “Three, and there’s a chip on the top, by your finger.”

  Samantha looked at the chip. “Well,” she said to herself, “that solves that,” and walked back to the wagon. Yuri gave her a hand back up.

  He looked sheepish and he felt stupid, not realizing that his vision had improved so greatly. “I have better vision, don’t I?”

  “Yes you do.” As interesting as that was, it wasn’t pressing to Samantha, who has spent her life constantly on guard. “And we have a person on horseback following us?”

  “Absolutely.” Yuri felt relieved to know that he wasn’t seeing things.

  “We’re not going to outrun him in this wagon,” she stated, “so do we let him follow us, try to hide, or stop and wait for him?”

  “I don’t like inviting him in.” Yuri thought about his disastrous meeting with his fellow dragon talker. “I haven’t had a lot of luck meeting people this trip.”

  “Well, are we insulted, boys?”

  Stone shouted, “Insulted!”

  Bernard added, “To the bone!”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Yuri said, realizing that is exactly what he implied. “I meant men, no luck meeting men. Remember, being attacked, dragon scales for protection?”

  “Take it easy, Yuri, we’re just fooling, right boys?”

  Bernard said, “Yes.”

  Stone said, “No.”

  Samantha smiled at Yuri, “Two out of three isn’t bad. So what do we do? Hide, wait…”

  Stone answered, “Attack.”

  “That’s an option,” she agreed, “but dangerous. We don’t know who it is or what he is capable of. If he’s a simple robber, I don’t doubt that we could take care of him, but what if he is a mage? Then it depends on how skilled he is. He could have all of us working as his servants by the end of the day if we aren’t careful.”

  “Or worse,” added Yuri.

  “Definitely and worse, but I think the boys have had enough of ‘or worse’ in their lives. We don’t need to add to it.” Samantha said the last part quietly, almost to herself.

  Yuri had an idea, “What if we compromise?”

  Stone asked, “Does that mean stone him?”

  “No, it doesn’t. What if we waited for a spot where the trail narrows. We block the path with the cart; you take the horse, some supplies, and the boys; and you get a safe distance away while I meet up with our stranger and see what he wants?”

  Samantha thought about it, “I’m not crazy about it, but it sounds like our best plan so far.”

  Stone looked disappointed. Stoning the stranger seemed like a pretty good idea to him. He was unable to protect his village, and the helplessness he was feeling now made him angry. “What about your dragon? Can’t you get it to eat him?”

  Samantha thought about the scales on Yuri’s chest. “It has helped you, before, but can we trust it? I don’t know about you boys, but I don’t know if I want to meet this dragon of Yuri’s.”

  “Already did,” Stone quickly answered.

  “It was blue,” Bernard finished by opening his mouth as wide across as he could, and made half-growl half-hissing noise.

  “I could try. I have no idea if it will work, though.” Even as he said it, Yuri had the suspicion that it would. Something inside him, though, warned him against it. He was already half covered in scales, his vision was beyond what he could have imagined, and who knew what other changes were in store for Yuri if their relationship became closer. Yuri worried he might lose himself, becoming something he and his family wouldn’t recognize.

  Yuri looked from Samantha to Bernard and Stone. Samantha, he felt, could take care of herself. Stone and Bernard, though, were his charge. He couldn’t risk their lives for fear of his own. “All right. I’ll do it.” Wrapped up in his own thoughts, he missed the worried look that came over Samantha’s face.

  “This ought to prove interesting,” she said, as she wondered if it was time to ditch her traveling companions.

  Chapter 44

  Perante walked to the roof of the main hall. In addition to the typical chimneys and hoists, found on any building that had construction in process, there was a homing pigeon coop on the roof. To get there, thanks to the destruction Xeron caused the building, he had to cross planks crossing large gaps in the roof. Over the temporary bridges and inside the coop, Perante was surrounded as around 50 pigeons fluttered about, waiting for a chance to fly. Perante walked through it to another coop behind it, hidden both from view and by magic. In it, he kept his special birds: Blue Jays, red Cardinals, green Artic Warblers, white McKay’s Buntings, and Black Phoebes.

  These breeds were each associated with a dragon, and Perante derived pleasure from turning them into his own special messengers. It was also excellent cover when he wanted to send messages into hostile territory. No one in a village ruled by a green dragon would think for a second about seeing an Artic Warbler or harming one. He congratulated himself, like he always did when he entered the coop, on his cleverness.

  He thought about where Winderall should be by now and picked up an Artic Warbler. The birds were magically induced to trust him and follow his basic commands. Each had a copper band on one of its legs. The bands were blank, but copper was an excellent container for magic, and fair size messages could be imbued in them. This time, though, Perante kept it short: report. He repeated this three times with three birds, sending each of them to a different region along Winderall’s path.

  After sending the birds off, Perante reentered the pigeon coop and looked at the birds flying around him. The connection between the birds and dragons made sense. The birds associated with a dragon were protected, so they stayed near. What the dragon got, no one, not even the talker/mage who w
rote the books Perante prized so much, knew. It doesn’t matter, he thought, and how sweet to use something so familiar to dragons against them. He wondered how much smarter he could really get.

  ***

  Winderall patted the horse he had named Badger on the side of the neck and looked down at the dog that had been following them since Drendon. It had put on a few pounds, but he could still see the dog’s ribcage was protruding through its rough coat. All three were looking off the path into a chaos of broken trees. It was as if a giant boulder had flown through the trees, snapping them off like they were toothpicks. Badger neighed.

  “We have to check that out,” Winderall said, excitement of the unknown in his voice. He pushed his heels into Badger’s side, but the horse only stepped sideways. “Aw, you little chicken,” he scolded.

  He snapped the reigns, but Badger just took another step to the side. “I’ve named you half-right: you are stubborn. You know badgers are fierce, right? And I could make you go, you know?”

  Badger turned his head to the side, looking at Winderall.

  “It’s not worth the effort,” he said as he dismounted. He wobbled a little when he got both feet on the ground. “No wonder I don’t have a horse,” he said to himself. He took a few short steps as his legs started to feel normal again.

  “Stay here,” he commanded as he started walking towards all the destruction. “What about you?” The dog sat down, deciding to stay with the horse. Winderall shook his head, “How did I end up with such timid creatures? I guess I don’t have to worry about you two leading me into any trouble.”

  He turned and focused his attention on the woods. The basics of what happened were obvious by where and how the trees fell. Something very large came in from the sky and either crashed or landed hard. Based on the size the damage, a dragon was the only creature large enough to be the source of such destruction.

  The wood was dry and the tracks were being reclaimed by the forest, which made him think it had been a few weeks since it happened. Soon, he was at the dragon’s final landing place. The claw marks in the dirt let Winderall know the dragon was large and also acting strange. It looked as if the dragon dragged its feet into the landing. Dragons don’t drag their feet, and unless they are attacking, dragons do not go crashing through random trees, and he couldn’t imagine there being anything out here worth attacking.