Dragon's Milk

by Susan Fletcher

  Warm. It was warm inside, much warmer than it ought to have been, even in the shelter of a cave. She smelled smoke and damp and a whiff of something else: a strange, scorched scent she could not identify.

  One knee suddenly buckled; Kaeldra slipped. Gravel clattered down the slope, echoed against the cave walls.

  When she had pulled herself to her feet, it was quiet.

  The rumble had stopped.

  Deep inside the cave, something shifted. Something was coming, coming her way. Kaeldra shot a panicked glance back at the cave mouth. It looked small and far away. She threw herself behind a boulder and sensed a nudge at her mind, as if someone were feeling around inside her, questing, probing.

  She heard it coming, or thought she heard, through the bloodbeat in her ears, a dragging sound, a scraping of something on sand. She curled herself into a tight ball.

  The scorched smell thickened, filled her lungs. Sweat trickled down her forehead into her eyes. A hot wind stirred her hair.

  As if drawn by some force outside herself, Kaeldra looked up.

  Into an eye. It was as long as her forearm. It glowed green, corner to corner, but for a single black slit at its center.

  〈Give me your name.〉

  Kaeldra cried out as pain drove like a shaft through her skull.

  The pain ebbed. Kaeldra, stunned, held her head in her hands. The words throbbed in her mind as if seared there. Then the pain again:

  〈Give me your—〉

  “Kaeldra!”

  She felt her name being drawn from her, turned over and over, as a woman handles a pot she would buy. She raised her head, and the cavern was full of scales, glinting green in the murk. Her eyes found the shape of the dragon, taller than a cottage, trailing off down the cave’s curving passage.

  〈Why come you here? I know of no Kaeldra.〉

  Kaeldra held her head, waited for the throbbing to subside.

  “For—” Kaeldra’s throat felt dry. She swallowed. “For milk. I need dragon’s milk.”

  〈Milk!〉 Blue flame roared past Kaeldra’s cheek; the heat blast crested over her. 〈You came here—for my milk?〉

  Kaeldra, choking on the rising smoke, scrambled backward to take refuge behind a pile of boulders. She’s the mother, she thought.

  “My sister needs it, my second-sister, Lyf. She is taken with vermilion fever. She will die if she doesn’t get it. Here.” Kaeldra fumbled with the ties on her blanket roll. She shook out its contents on the track. Three small rye cakes Ryfenn had made yesterday. A length of woolen cloth. Five leather pouches of herbs and medicines. A wedge of cheese. A carved wooden box Granmyr had given her when she was a child.

  The dragon’s massive head swiveled round. She trained her eyes on the offerings. Kaeldra smelled her smoky breath, saw the throb of pulse beneath her jaw.

  The dragon spat out a lick of fire; Kaeldra’s things burst into flame like tinder.

  〈Rubbish.〉

  Kaeldra worked her way back through the smoke to another stand of rocks. Desperate, she slipped her amulet’s leather thong over her head. “Here,” she said, holding it out. “It’s the most precious thing I own. My granmyr gave it to me when I was little, it is copper wrought, it—”

  The dragon moved her head to it, not a foot’s breadth from Kaeldra’s trembling hand. Kaeldra dared not breathe.

  The dragon snorted, spraying her with sparks.

  Kaeldra’s hand jerked back; the amulet clattered down through a chink between the rocks.

  〈Not enough!〉

  “Then what—” Kaeldra’s voice came out in a croak. Her mouth felt parched; she licked her lips. “What would you like?” she whispered.

  The dragon snorted again; sparks streaked through the cavern. 〈Nothing you could give. Although I might have let you go, had you brought a lamb. I need meat, but cannot hunt. I dare not leave them alone.〉 The dragon turned toward the cave opening, and Kaeldra felt a yearning waft, like a were-wind, through her mind.

  The dragon cocked an eye at her. 〈So you will have to do.〉

  The dragon’s chest began to swell. She arched her neck and sucked in through her nostrils. Sand swirled toward the dragon; Kaeldra’s cloak flapped in the rush of air.

  She’s going to flame, Kaeldra realized. She’s going to flame at me.

  Kaeldra ran. She ran toward the dragon, into the dark, for she knew she could not escape by running the other way. There was a roar behind her; a blistering blast of heat. She ran past the dragon’s huge claws, beside her ridged tail. She ran deep into the cave. The tail, endlessly long, began to slither backward through the passage.

  The dragon was turning around.

  Kaeldra ran.

  Darkness thickened around her, and soon she could not see. The ground felt smooth and sandy beneath her boots; she stumbled on, feeling her way along the cave’s rough walls.

  Behind her, Kaeldra heard breathing and the hiss of scale on sand. She felt, rather than saw, a narrowing of the passage around her. Perhaps it would become too narrow for the dragon to follow. Perhaps there was another way out.

  But the wall turned abruptly and a faint gray light illuminated a second cavern, nearly as large as the first. Snowflakes, stirred by a draft of cold air, sifted down through an opening in the cave roof. Kaeldra ran toward the hole, hoping to find some way out. Her foot thunked into something soft and she fell, sprawled out on the ground. The cave walls lit up blue. She heard a roar, and beneath it, something else, something squeaking.

  The dragon stood over her. Her eyes, beneath fierce ridges, glared green.

  Something soft nudged Kaeldra’s cheek. Another something crept onto her back. There were soft leathery things all over her, nestling, clinging.

  And suddenly Kaeldra knew what they were.

  Dragons. Baby dragons.

  chapter 5

  Bargain not with a dragon.

  —Dragonslayer’s Guyde

  Get away from my draclings.〉

  The words spilled inside Kaeldra’s head like scalding water. Nostrils flaring, the dragon spewed out sparks.

  Kaeldra scooted backward, her head throbbing, the stench of dragon breath burning her lungs. The dragon wouldn’t flame now, not with the draclings so near, clinging to her. They were her protection.

  〈Get away from my draclings!〉

  I need milk, Kaeldra tried to say, but the words stuck in her throat; no sound came out.

  The dragon flamed in rage above her. The cavern lit up blue, then dimmed to smoky gray. A gnarled claw, its talons long as daggers, lifted off the ground and hovered over Kaeldra. She pressed her body into the cold sand. There was a ripping of cloth, and a smooth shaft slid across her skin. Her tunic tightened around her chest. The ground dropped. She was hanging in midair.

  “Watch the babies!” she cried. They were slipping away. Her protection was slipping away.

  She felt them peel off her, one by one, heard the soft thuds as they hit the sand. Then she was hurtling through the air, slamming into the ground. She pulled herself to her hands and knees, gasping, spitting out sand, struggling to collect the strands of an idea.

  Watch the babies.

  What was it the dragon had said? I need meat, but cannot hunt. I dare not leave them alone.

  “I could watch your babies,” Kaeldra said.

  The dragon advanced, swiveling her head to fix Kaeldra with glowering green eyes. Kaeldra crawled backward toward the deep shadows at the rear of the cavern, not daring to turn away from those eyes. Perhaps there was a passage, another way out.

  “You could hunt. I would watch them. I’m good with babies. I take care of my second-sister, Lyf, all the time. She’s the one who needs the milk, my second-sister, Lyf.”

  Kaeldra’s foot hit a rock. She scrambled back around it. The dragon followed, all scales and claws and teeth. Kaeldra glimpsed an indentation in the cave wall, back and to the right. A passage?

  “You could stay out all night—I don’t mind. I’ll keep them safe.
I know how to scare away wolves and holt cats. I care for our sheep.”

  The dragon glared, her green eyes luminescent in the gloom. She was so close, Kaeldra could have touched her, so close her breath scorched Kaeldra’s skin.

  It’s no use, Kaeldra thought. Her idea hadn’t worked.

  She lunged for the passage. The dragon flamed. Fire licked against the darkness; Kaeldra screamed and slammed against the cavern wall. Not a passage. A dead end. She crouched, staring up at the dragon, waiting for the heat blast she knew would come.

  The eyes blinked and looked away.

  The yearning again. It blew into her mind as the dragon turned toward the cave mouth. Then the dragon whipped her head back toward Kaeldra.

  〈If harm befalls them, I will know it. I will find you and make you pay.〉

  “It won’t. I promise. I’ll care for them as if they were mine.”

  Kaeldra sensed a turmoil behind the dragon eyes, a stirring and pitching of alien emotions. Then, slowly, the dragon turned away. Scratching at the sand, she uncovered a pile of large, smooth stones and flamed at them; they glowed as if struck by blue lightning. The dragon covered the stones with sand. She nudged her babies near the warm place, flicking at them with her long forked tongue, making whiffling noises with her nose.

  〈I will return at dawn,〉 the dragon said. 〈See that you are here. Keep them warm, and do not allow them outside.〉 She hesitated. 〈If there is trouble, call for me. Call Fiora, and I will come.〉

  And she passed out of the cavern, a glittering procession of neck and back and tail, awesome in its immensity, surprising in its grace.

  Kaeldra crouched on the sand, taking deep gulps of smoky air. Better go now. Better run. Better run away, run home and never come back.

  But she would find me. See that you are here, she had said. I will find you and make you pay.

  And I understood her, Kaeldra thought. I am a dragon-sayer. But she took little comfort from the fact, for she knew how near she had come to death.

  Kaeldra breathed long and deep until her mind began to settle. It settled around the thought of Lyf, Lyf drinking the milk, Lyf opening her eyes and seeing, really seeing.

  And Kaeldra knew she had to stay.

  It was growing dark. Only a thin, gray light trickled down from the opening in the roof.

  The draclings were huddled together in a lumpy pile, which expanded and collapsed as they breathed.

  Were they asleep?

  Kaeldra hoped so. It was true, as she had told Fiora, that she was good with children. She was good with lambs, too, and piglets, and kids.

  But these—these were dragons.

  Kaeldra tiptoed to where they lay. Wary, she knelt beside them. In the dim light she could see that there were three of them, each the size of a large puppy or a byre cat full grown. Two of the draclings’ heads were hidden beneath a leg or a tail, so Kaeldra could not tell for certain whether they were asleep. The third one’s eyes were squeezed shut.

  Kaeldra reached out to touch it. The dracling squeaked, jerked up its head, and stared at her through the bluish film that covered its eyes.

  Kaeldra froze. Would it bite her? Would it flame?

  The dracling let out a tiny snort, then squirmed deeper into the pile.

  Kaeldra watched for a moment. They seemed to be sleeping. Tentatively, she brushed a finger across one of the draclings’ sides. Its yellow-tan skin was wrinkled and loose. It felt powdery, like butterfly wings.

  She stroked the dracling’s sides, fingered the leathery ridge that ran down its neck and back. Its skin looked translucent, like her own wrists where the veins showed through. It was hard to see clearly in the dim light, but this one—the largest—seemed to have a reddish cast; the others were tinged with green.

  Kaeldra’s hand slid over the largest dracling’s side and felt something hard, like the horn buds on a goat kid’s head. Horns? Growing out of its sides? She tried to picture Fiora’s sides. Scales and scales and—something else, something fluttery. Wings. These were wing buds.

  The dracling exhaled and whistled softly, an oddly contented sound. Kaeldra felt a rush of tenderness. They were babies, only babies, after all.

  Darkness pressed in close. There was a candle in her blanket roll, and flint and iron. They were still in the outer cavern, if they had not been burned. Kaeldra checked the draclings—still sleeping—then groped back the way she had come along the hard, bumpy walls of the passage. At last the passage widened, and far away, she saw stars in a deep night sky. The snow had stopped.

  After much searching, she found her blanket roll. The candle had melted a little, but since it had lain on its side, it was not too misshapen to use. Kaeldra struck a spark and blew until it caught. She lit the candle and examined the earthenware jar she had brought for the milk. It was unbroken. Then Kaeldra remembered something else.

  Her amulet. She had to find her amulet.

  She retraced her way along the track until her candlelight spilled across the charred place in the sand. Nearby were the rocks between which her amulet had fallen. Kaeldra pulled at them. They were big, impossible to move. She moved her candle over the rocks. Even in the light, the spaces between them were black. Kaeldra jammed her hand into chink after chink until it was scratched and bloody. At last, she was forced to give up.

  Her amulet was gone.

  Lose your amulet ’fore granted,

  Future husband you’ve recanted.

  The old wives’ warning rang through her mind. Instinctively, Kaeldra clutched at the place where her amulet had always been.

  What difference does it make? she thought. No one would have me anyway. Especially now. Ryfenn was right: I don’t belong. I am a dragon-sayer and therefore doubly farin.

  Slowly, she walked back to the inner cavern.

  In the light-circle hollowed out by her candle, she could see that the draclings were still sleeping. She bent down and stroked one. It stirred, then stumbled over its siblings like a newborn puppy, making little smacking sounds with its mouth.

  Kaeldra dug the end of her candle into the sand and leaned against a boulder. She unstoppered her waterskin and soaked a corner of her gown, then held the dripping cloth over her lap. The dracling clambered onto her, snuffling, until it found the cloth. It began to suck. Its breath whistled softly. It kneaded Kaeldra’s legs with its talons.

  Kaeldra ran her hand along the dracling’s side. Her eyelids felt heavy, and a peacefulness came over her. The stone heat seeped into her bones.

  * * *

  She didn’t know what woke her.

  Sunshine poured in through the roof hole. Kaeldra shivered. A cold draft played about her hair. Something, some things were heaped in her lap.

  Draclings.

  Still sleeping, they felt surprisingly light. Kaeldra laughed softly, stroked them one by one.

  A twinge of pain stung her head. Kaeldra looked up. Her heart lurched.

  Fiora, the mother dragon, was staring down at her.

  〈Go now.〉

  Kaeldra lifted a sleeping dracling off her lap. She started to remove another one, then hesitated, remembering. “What about the milk?” she asked.

  〈What about it?〉

  “You promised. That was our bargain. I would watch your babies, and you would give me milk.”

  〈I promised no milk.〉

  Kaeldra stared at the dragon. Yes, she had! She had said she’d give her milk! Or—had she? Kaeldra thought back to the night before, tried to remember Fiora’s words.

  If harm befalls them, I will know it. I will return at dawn. See that you are here.

  Fiora had never promised milk. She hadn’t promised anything. Kaeldra only thought she had.

  She had failed. She had tried to bargain with a dragon and she had failed. Kaeldra bit her lip; tears sprang to her eyes.

  〈Oh, very well. Take your milk.〉 Fiora lowered herself to the ground and lay on her side. The length of her—body, neck and tail—encircled the cavern.

>   Astonished, Kaeldra nudged the two remaining draclings from her lap. She rushed to get the jar from her blanket roll before Fiora could change her mind. But Fiora lay still, looking sleepy and sated. Kaeldra fumbled with her blanket, feeling vaguely unsettled. That was easy. Too easy.

  The little ones stirred. One by one they opened their eyes and began to squeak. The reddish one tottered toward its mother; there was a sudden rush of draclings for teats. Kaeldra hastened to claim one. She uncorked her jar and set it down, unsure how to begin.

  The dragon had two rows of teats along her belly, which was soft and yellow hued, like tanned leather. Kaeldra chose a teat and positioned her jar in the sand beneath it. At that moment, one of the draclings lunged, knocking down the jar.

  Kaeldra gave the dracling a gentle shove; it slithered away, squeaking. She glanced up at Fiora, hoping she hadn’t seen. The dragon, eyes hooded, regarded her mockingly.

  Kaeldra set up her jar again and soon jets of blue milk were splashing into it in a regular rhythm. It wasn’t much different from milking a cow or a goat. The hardest part, she found, was fending off the draclings. In an orgy of feeding, they guzzled at teat after teat, often leaping at Kaeldra’s stream of milk. She hunched over her jar to keep them away.

  Suddenly, one of the draclings was hurtling between Kaeldra’s arms. It landed in front of her, toppling the jar. Blue milk seeped into the sand. Kaeldra grabbed for the jar, but too late.

  The milk was gone.

  〈There goes your milk.〉 The dragon cocked an eye at Kaeldra. Did she plan this? Kaeldra wondered.

  “But—but Lyf. But I need—”

  〈More? Indeed you do. But how will you pay for it?〉

  “Pay for it? I don’t know, I—”

  〈Take your milk. But you owe me. In a half-moon I will expect payment. You will return and care for my draclings, as you did this past night.〉

  “But I can’t—”

  〈Very well, then. Good-bye.〉 The dragon shut her eyes.

  “But—”

  Fiora’s eyes flew open. She cocked her head and glared down at Kaeldra. It’s not fair, Kaeldra thought. She tricked me. How will I get away again? Just let me get home, get the milk to Lyf, make her better. Maybe the dragon will forget. She can’t make me come back.