But couldn’t I say the same about my father? Maybe we could help each other, I thought, before I tripped on some of the patches of scree, and had to hop to right myself.
Okay Char, never mind Torvald. Think about what you have to do! I scolded myself, making my way down the track that wound through the edges of the forests and the gullies, until I rounded the last rise to Hammal Lake.
Ah. Just seeing it lifted my spirits. In this regard, I was never lying to Sigrid or Torvald when I made the excuse that I had ‘mysterious mountain things’ to do out here in the wilds. It was true that I really did appreciate being under the skies and in the free and open, with the sound of the kites and eagles for company, and the fresh air in my face. The wilds made me feel free, and myself again.
“Char sounds like a dragon,” Paxala said, and I heard a splash from the far corner of the lake. Is that where she was? Was she fishing?
“Paxala?” I called, my feet crunching over the stones of the beach, heading for the river and the waterfall. “Pax, I brought dinner!” I enticed her.
“What use has Pax of old pig?” Again, the voice flashed in my mind like a fish in the depths of the lake. I laughed – she was teasing me.
“Well, I’ll just take it away then…” I laughed, turning back up the beach. Just then, with a mighty plume of water, the Crimson Red burst from the lake itself, pounced onto the beach, and, with a bound, was in the air over my head. I cheered in excitement, watching as she soared low over the trees and between pillars of rocks. She didn’t roar or even chirrup, moving silently as she arced back towards me.
She’s learning, I thought, feeling giddy. She’s showing me that she can fly quietly, and that no other dragon has to know that she’s here. That she must be ready to hunt.
I ran up the beach, daring her to chase me as she descended on a killing sweep.
“Char! Down!” a voice called just before something hit me broadside, and all of a sudden, I was tumbling head over heels, spraying stones and pebbles everywhere. Pain seared up my knees and forearms, and I could barely breath under the weight of the body lying across me.
A boy.
“Torvald?” I said in stupefied anger. “What are you doing here?”
“Down! It’s a dragon,” he hissed, looking up into the sky frantically, but Paxala had seemingly vanished.
Good. Maybe I can pretend that this is a wild dragon… I thought, when we were both flattened to the ground by a sudden beat of wind as a dark shape rushed us.
WHOOOSH! Paxala landed behind us with a sudden flaring of wings.
“Caught you!” The youthful dragon sounded delighted, but I groaned. There was no way to explain this to Torvald, other than the truth.
Chapter 18
Neill’s Way with Dragons
“Get back!” I shouted and, having nothing but the pebbles and rocks at my feet, I hefted the biggest one I could reach and threw it at the terrifying monster.
I had been following Char, fully expecting her to take her sack of meats and scraps to the dragon crater, to attract the Messenger dragons perhaps, but instead I was surprised when she suddenly veered from the path, along a narrow scrap of a trail over the ridge and down the other side to the largest of the cold mountain lakes.
Where a dragon that should not exist started to chase her. If I hadn’t pushed her out of the way, it would have seized her in its vicious claws, and torn her limb from limb. What was even more horrifying about the Crimson Red, was that it didn’t make a sound. It wasn’t like the other dragons, always croaking, hissing, twittering, or roaring at each other. No. This one was deadly silent.
We’re both going to die, I thought. If only my father could see me now. The thoughts flashed through my mind in quick succession, as we were stuck in a frozen tableau – me standing over the body of the hunted Char, and the giant red creature standing tense and ready in front of me. It dwarfed both of us, was almost as large as the stable block itself (not big at all by dragon standards, but big enough to make a meal of two teenagers).
It was young, I thought, but did that make it more dangerous, or less? And its scales varied from red as wasteland poppies, to the scarlet of freshest blood, to the deep purple-reds of rich textiles. She had a long snout with long teeth, and thin but very sharp tines around her head and down her spine.
Now or never... I raised the heavy rock, knowing that it would just bounce harmlessly off of the things scaled hide, but maybe it would give Char enough time to run and get aid…
“Torvald, no!” To my surprise, Char’s hands closed around my arm, yanking it down easily and making me drop the stone as the prince’s daughter threw her cloak over my head and wrestled me to the ground.
“Ugh. What are you… It’ll kill us!” I muffled through the black cloth, coughing and spluttering to tear myself away from the confinement, to see—
Char was standing directly under the beast’s long neck and head, easily within striking distance. “It is not wise to make an enemy of a dragon, Torvald,” she said, reaching up to pat at the beast. “There, there Pax. He didn’t mean it, he’s just a boy.”
I watched as the dragon curled its swan-like neck and her head swung down to bump the girl affectionately, the way a horse might do, on the girl’s head.
“Wait… You know this dragon?” I pointed between them. I felt like I had just walked into a dream, but I couldn’t tell yet if this was a good one or a nightmare.
“Hatchling and dragonet,” the girl said proudly. “I was with her when she first learned to fly, and when she first discovered her taste for fish.”
There was a feeling then, like a pressure in my ears, as I was sure that something passed between them.
“Yes, well – I’m glad you like them too,” Char replied, although I wasn’t sure who she was talking to. The prince’s daughter turned to look at me, and for a moment they both, dragon and girl, cocked their heads to one side in the way that birds do, at exactly the same time. “Hmm. You could, but it would be messy.” Char shrugged.
“Who – who are you talking to?” I asked her, still unsure why the dragon hadn’t eaten her yet.
“Paxala, of course,” Char said.
“And, uh, do I want to know just who Paxala is?” I said nervously.
“That depends,” the girl said and narrowed her eyes, “on whether we can trust a warlord’s boy from the Middle Kingdom or not.”
Oh great. Shock and fear spiked through me. Is this some Northern Kingdom trick? Does Prince Lander have dragons too? Is Char really the advance guard of an invading army?
“Uh…” I opened and closed my mouth. What was I to say? No? That she couldn’t trust me because I was actually here on orders to unearth the secrets of the Draconis Order for my clan?
“You’re lucky,” Char informed me, starting to walk up the beach as the Crimson Red – Paxala – sat on her rear haunches and inspected me. “Pax likes you.”
“Oh.” I didn’t feel very lucky. “What would she do if she didn’t like me?”
Char shrugged, scraping out a hollow in the beach and already collecting twigs and branches and starting to stack them in a pile. The sun was fading and we could clearly see the stars starting to come out over the opposite horizon. “She would probably have eaten you.” She started to strike her flint and steel together, and, using some dried moss and leaves from the woods had managed to start a fire. There was a sudden hissing snort from Paxala, which I didn’t know was agreement or not, but for some reason it made me think that the dragon was laughing at me.
“Great,” I said, moving to stand up.
“Grrrrr.” The dragon growled at my sudden movements. I stopped them.
“Come on, you might as well let the boy get some food, Pax. No, he’s not going to hurt me again.” Char was sighing, unpacking the hessian sack and carefully placing some of the larger scraps and joints on the outer branches of the fire, where they started to smoke and sizzle as they released their fats.
“You’ve decided t
o trust me then I take it?” I moved very, very slowly towards the fire, keeping my eyes fixed on the dangerous beast all the while and my hands in the air, and clearly visible.
“Grrrr.” The dragon growled once more, but this time not as loud or as fiercely as the first time.
“No. But there’s nothing I can do about it. The cat, or dragon in our case, is out of the bag.” Char prodded and poked at the fire, before looking over at me seriously. “But really, if you do tell the others, or the Draconis Order or the Abbot or Greer or anyone, I’ll throw you into the dragon crater myself.”
“Sure. Got it. And I won’t,” I said, and meant it. “I have no intention of helping the Draconis Order when they’ve been so horrible to me ever since my first day here.” If Char heard this, she didn’t indicate it.
“And besides, I think that Paxala would be in danger if the other dragons found her,” Char said, a little quieter. “And you don’t seem like a cruel man, Neill Torvald.”
“I don’t?” I asked, surprised.
“No. I saw you trying to break up the fight between Lila and Terrence, even though Terrence has never been nice to you either,” Char said. “And I see how kind you are to your terrible pony in the stable.”
I shrugged. “Why should we all get into trouble and risk sparking a diplomatic incident for the sake of a stupid, spoiled brat and a hot temper?”
Char laughed but there was a crunch from behind us, and I turned quickly, alarmed, to see the dragon creeping around the fire, behind Char, to sit with her paws underneath her in the way that a cat would do. The firelight flared across her scales, making them dazzle. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, even after seeing Zaxx and the other truly gigantic dragons, I had never seen one this big so close before, and she appeared content to sit and watch the fire, and me.
Her eyes were a deep golden green, and they caught me in the way that a fish hook spears a fish. She wasn’t looking at me in the way that an animal might do out of fear of rebuke or hope for ward – she was looking straight into my soul.
“She’s beautiful,” I said in awe.
“Yes, she is.” Char was grinning. “I found her out here in the wilds, just hatched and mewling for her mother. I couldn’t leave her, and I knew that something terrible had happened, so I brought her here to this lake and cave, always meaning to re-introduce her to the others, but…” As she talked, Char reached over to prod a piece of the meat from her fire like a spit, and chuck it in the air to the dragon. As fast as a striking snake, the dragon caught the flesh in the air and swallowed it whole, licking her lips with her forked tongue.
“But you said that she was in danger?” I asked.
“Yes. You remember what that Monk Olan said about the Crimson Reds? That the others had died?” Char looked worried, as she threw me one of the scrap steaks, which I juggled between my hands as I waited for it to cool down.
“They must have been Paxala’s mother?” I hazarded a guess.
“Yeah. I think it was Zaxx,” Char said, whispering the name as if just talking about the Golden would bring him roaring over the ridge, breathing fire and ruin upon us all. I shivered in the night; for all that we knew, it might.
“I thought Olan said it was a sickness?”
“Yeah, he did. But since when have the monks been honest? And Paxala remembers fragments…” she clamped her mouth shut and I saw how worried Char was. I had been right in my estimation of her in the stables. She was good with animals. “It’s okay, Char, Paxala.” I nodded my head towards the young Red as well, “Your secrets are safe with me,” I said, feeling oddly touched to be so trusted.
Not even my own family trusted me with their secrets, I thought, a touch sadly.
“And yours are with me, Neill of Torvald,” Char said formally. I had forgotten that she was a prince’s daughter for a second, as I wondered just what I had got myself into here. You have to be careful what oaths you swear to anyone, but especially so to prince’s daughters. The Princes of the Three Kingdoms were still royalty – even if my own father didn’t have much truck with our Prince Vincent. They had power and influence that spread across the lands – and besides all of that, there was nothing worse to us Torvalds than to be an oath-breaker.
It was what my father said Prince Vincent was, I remembered. That Prince Vincent had sworn an oath to protect the people of the Middle Kingdom, and he wasn’t doing it. He was having expensive parties in his palaces, and he was lavishing gifts on his favored lords and captains while the everyday people suffered.
If you were an oath breaker, then you had no honor. I nodded to myself, repeating the words passed down from Torvald to Torvald ever since we had begun. How could anyone trust the words or deeds of an oath breaker? And, I just realized: how could we ever expect to be ruled over by one?
We ate companionably for a little while, as these thoughts swirled around my head, and Char told me about Pax’s upbringing, and I asking questions about the Crimson Red for as long as they could bear to answer them. I was fascinated by her in a way that I had never been intrigued by anything as much before, and it had nothing (for once) to do with my mission here at the monastery.
“Has she always been able to fly?” No. She learned a few months after hatching.
“Is she born with scales?” Of course, but she sheds old ones every now and again.
“How high can she fly?” Who knows? We have to hide from the other dragons.
“Do dragons have their own language?” Yes. Sort of.
“How strong is she?” Stronger than a bull!
“Can she breathe fire?” No, or at least not yet.
“Are you two close? Does she understand what we’re saying?” Yes, and yes.
For her part, Paxala the Crimson Red seemed just as interested in me as I was in her. As the stars started to rise and true dark settled around the bowl of the lake, the dragon settled on her side, and extended her long neck to delicately snuff at my hair, and then my clothes, before pulling back sharply.
“Ha. She thinks you smell.” Char laughed. “I was too polite to say anything.”
The stables. “Ah. Sorry,” I said, laughing. “I do stink.”
There was a wittering noise, like that of a bird, but not a call, more like a muted whistle from Paxala as she half-closed her green eyes.
“Is she laughing at us?” I said, amazed.
“Well, she might be laughing at you,” Char said again, throwing another hunk of meat for Paxala to catch. “Beast,” she added affectionately, earning a heavy thump from the tip of the dragon’s tail. “Ow!”
“Never insult a dragon during dinner,” I joked, spearing the next bit of meat to throw it high in the air.
Snap. Paxala caught it just as I was sure that she would.
“Well,” Char yawned. “I think that we should probably be going back.”
Another tail thump from Paxala, like an insistent child, I realized. Probably because she is young, in dragon terms. I watched as Char made a fuss of scratching Pax’s ears, causing a pleased twittering sort of purr to rattle through her chest.
“I have to go, Pax,” the prince’s daughter said softly. “I wish that I could stay, but you know that I can’t.”
Again, there was that feeling like something passing between the girl and the dragon, a pressure behind my eyes, or like hearing muffled sound from a few rooms away. Both Char and Paxala were looking at me seriously.
“What?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable.
“Paxala wants to ask you something,” Char said with a frown. “But I don’t know if this is even going to work. Can you, I don’t know—clear your mind like with the Abbot’s magic exercises?”
“Sure, I can do that. But what does she want to ask me?” I said, feeling foolish.
That was when it happened. I heard something in my mind, and felt that same feeling again, like a pressure in the air between Char and Paxala. It was muffled, and I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew that it was not coming from Char, as I didn�
�t see her lips move. It sounded like a distant twittering, as of hearing a birdcall far away.
“I hear—no, I feel something?” I said cautiously, seeing Char frown.
“Hmm. I wonder what that means,” Char muttered to herself, before looking up at me. “But you cannot hear her?” Char said, a look of amazement and concern on her face.
“Hear, her?” I gestured to the Crimson Red dragon, who I could see blinking at me. “I hear her breathing and wittering in that snout of hers, if that is who you mean…?”
“Who else, numbskull?” Char sighed, before muttering to herself. “I guess that it is only me then.” She coughed, straightened up to stare at me. “Neill. Char. Paxala. Friends? That is what Paxala said to you, exactly. I think that she is asking if you will be our friend, and ours, yours.”
I opened and closed my mouth several times in wonder, turning to look at the Crimson Red as she blinked her eyes at me in all seriousness. The dragon was trying to talk to me. That was how Char knew her name, and that was how they were so close. Everything that Char had told me was true – the dragons do have their own language, and they do understand what you are saying. Even though I couldn’t hear her, I knew that she could hear me.
I looked at the dragon direct in her eyes, and nodded. “Yes, I would be honored to be your friend, Paxala.”
After we had put out the fire and seen the Crimson Red to her hidden cave behind the waterfall, Char and I walked up over the ridge in the starlight, and skirted around the dragon crater on the other side. We could hear the nighttime, occasional whoots and mumblings of the dragons as they dozed fitfully in their ancient home.
“I wonder how long they’ve lived here.” I broke the silence, my head full of wonder and stories. I was a friend to dragons. It was like one of those old fairy tales. I was a dragon-friend, me, Neill of Torvald!
“I don’t know, but I think it’s a long, long time,” Char said quietly beside me. She, too, had seemed lost in thought on most of our walk back. “Torvald?” she asked me, pausing before we began the final leg of our journey down to the torch-lit walls of the Dragon Monastery below.
Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1) Page 15