Dragon's Milk

by Susan Fletcher

  A bolt of pain ripped through her head.

  〈Don’t tempt me.〉 Fiora narrowed her long, green eyes. 〈I will find you and make you pay.〉

  chapter 6

  I send this boy, my aide; for there is a traitor among the brethren, I know not who. Tell the boy nothing; he is innocent of this. Send him back when he is fed and well-rested. When I can, I will dispatch another to help. Wait and be wary. Keep the girl close.

  —Letter to Granmyr,

  Landerath

  She’s here!”

  Mirym unbent and ran to Kaeldra. “Did you get it?”

  Kaeldra stepped inside, breathing in the familiar home smells: wood smoke, herbs, damp feathers, a lingering of soup. Granmyr and Ryfenn, hunched over something near the fire, looked up.

  Kaeldra nodded.

  “Oh, Kael!” Mirym grabbed Kaeldra’s hand, dragged her toward Granmyr and Ryfenn and a rounded form covered by blankets. A sudden, choking feeling gripped her. “Am I too late? Is she—?”

  Granmyr bolted up and fumbled through Kaeldra’s blanket roll. Firelight flared across the form as Ryfenn took it in her lap. It was Lyf. She lay stiller than Kaeldra had ever seen her, so still she could not see her breathe. “Is she—?” Kaeldra said again.

  Granmyr funneled the milk into a waterskin and knelt by Lyf. Gently, she squeezed the skin. A little milk squirted out in a blue thread, quivered on Lyf’s lips, trickled down her cheek.

  Granmyr struck her knee with a clenched fist, made a harsh sound in her throat. Ryfenn sobbed.

  One drop still trembled on Lyf’s mouth, glistened blue in the firelight. Lyf’s lips moved slightly. Kaeldra thought at first that she had imagined it. Yet the drop slid in.

  “Look,” Kaeldra breathed.

  Lyf stirred. She licked her lips.

  Granmyr squeezed the skin, and Kaeldra saw the swallowing in Lyf’s throat. Shadows flickered across her cheeks as they hollowed and filled, hollowed and filled. A great happiness surged through Kaeldra. Granmyr, turning to Kaeldra, her voice hoarse, said, “It’s taking.”

  “It’s taking! It’s taking!” Mirym sang.

  Lyf drank, drank until the waterskin was half-empty. Then she slowed; her mouth slackened. Granmyr put down the skin. Lyf’s chest rose and fell. A smile touched the corners of her mouth.

  Lyf slept.

  Ryfenn laid the child in the straw, and then Granmyr was taking Kaeldra’s blanket roll, and Mirym was taking her cloak. Ryfenn went to the stew pot and came back with a steaming bowl of soup. Mirym set a stool by the fire and motioned Kaeldra to sit.

  “Tell me what happened, Kael,” Mirym said, unlacing one of Kaeldra’s boots. “Did the medicine woman give it to you or did you have to steal it?”

  “What med—?”

  Granmyr cleared her throat.

  Kaeldra looked up quickly and met Granmyr’s glance. She gulped a spoonful of soup, burning her mouth. “Oh, the medicine woman,” Kaeldra said. “She, uh, gave it to me.”

  “What is it? It looks like milk, only it’s blue.”

  “It—it is milk, only—”

  “She must have put a spell on it,” Granmyr said.

  “Yes. Yes, she did. She—put a spell on it and turned it blue,” Kaeldra said. She scooted back from the fire a bit, feeling suddenly warm, too warm.

  Ryfenn, stirring the soup, pursed her lips.

  “Oh,” Mirym said. “I can’t wait to tell Wynn.” Mirym pulled off one boot and started unlacing the other. “So she gave it to you? That’s all? Granmyr said she’s tricky.”

  “Uh, well.” Kaeldra swallowed again. She wished Mirym would stop asking questions. She didn’t know what Granmyr wanted her to say. Then she remembered something, something she’d have to explain. “My amulet. I gave her my amulet.”

  Mirym sat back on her heels and stared, round eyed. Granmyr’s head jerked up. Ryfenn dropped the ladle into the soup.

  “I had to,” Kaeldra said. “That was the only way she’d give me the milk.”

  “But now you can never—” Mirym looked horrified. Then she was hugging her. “Oh, Kael,” Mirym said. “You’re so good. Oh, Kael.”

  Ryfenn walked to Lyf, looked down at the sleeping child. She turned to Kaeldra. “Thank you,” Ryfenn whispered.

  The warmth of the soup and the warmth of the fire flowed into Kaeldra, made her feel good, better than she could remember ever feeling. Thank you. Ryfenn said thank you.

  Kaeldra’s spoon scraped the bottom of her bowl and Ryfenn was there, taking it from her. Steam twined, merged with the fire smoke as Ryfenn ladled more soup into her bowl. Ryfenn serving her. Ryfenn acting as if she were someone special.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Kaeldra jumped. Ryfenn stopped the ladle halfway between pot and bowl; soup dripped, steaming, onto the rushes.

  “I’ll get it,” Mirym said.

  “No,” Granmyr said. “I will.”

  It was a youth. He could not have been much older than Kaeldra, yet he was taller than anyone she knew; the top of his head grazed the lintel.

  The young man reached inside his cloak and handed something to Granmyr. She looked up sharply. Kaeldra heard the murmur of their voices as Granmyr fingered the thing he had given her. A bird fluttered on his wrist: a gyrfalcon, hooded. He stroked it gently with a massive hand; the bird quieted.

  Granmyr returned the thing she had held. The youth ducked and stepped into the room. As he moved out of the shadows into the firelight, Kaeldra caught her breath. His hair was the color of her hair; his eyes, incredibly, were blue.

  “This is Jeorg Sigrad,” Granmyr said, taking his cloak, which draped in folds of vibrant scarlet—unheard of in Elythia. “He is a friend of a friend and will sup with us tonight.”

  Granmyr introduced the family; the young man nodded, pushing back a lock of yellow hair that had fallen into his eyes. And it came to Kaeldra with a sudden shock how she must appear to the others. This youth was clearly farin, and he looked like her. He was tall, even taller than she, and except for the green of her eyes, their coloring was the same.

  “Ryfenn,” Granmyr said, “the soup?”

  “But he is a Krag!” Ryfenn whispered. “You promised—”

  “He is hungry. He is a friend of a friend.”

  Ryfenn, her mouth tight with disapproval, moved the ladle. Soup poured from it; steam swirled in the firelight. Ryfenn held out the bowl to the stranger: Kaeldra’s bowl, the bowl she had been filling for Kaeldra.

  “Would you care for some soup?” Ryfenn asked.

  * * *

  “More soup, Master Jeorg?” Mirym smiled and picked up the stranger’s bowl.

  “Oh, no, miss, I couldn’t,” he said, but his eyes strayed longingly toward the pot.

  “Nonsense! There is plenty,” Granmyr said. “We insist.”

  Mirym scurried to replenish his soup. He must have been hungry, Kaeldra thought. Already he had consumed three bowls of soup and two loaves of bread. Between mouthfuls he answered Granmyr’s queries about the trading in Regalch, the Krags’ disastrous foray into Vittongal. His courtesy never flagged, and yet there seemed to Kaeldra to be something guarded, something careful about this Kragish youth. He sat too carefully erect. His voice was too carefully deep.

  Now Granmyr descended into the cellar and returned with a wine flask. As she poured wine into the Krag’s goblet she said, “So, Master Jeorg. Landerath sent no letter.”

  The young man reached for his goblet and lifted it nearly to his lips before he seemed to remember himself and checked his arm.

  “To the vine,” Granmyr said, as a signal for all to raise their goblets.

  “To the vine,” the youth repeated. He sipped, and then answered carefully, “No. Only what I’ve told you, and his brooch. That was all.”

  “He says not to fear, you say. That you will put an end to the menace.”

  The Krag nodded gravely. “Yes. I will do it.”

  “Ah,” Granmyr said, also nodding. Then she leaned
forward abruptly. “And what menace is that?”

  “Well, you know.” Reddening, he glanced around the table, at a loss. “The dragons, of course.”

  Kaeldra choked on her wine. Through the beating of her heart, she heard Ryfenn’s suppressed shriek. The Krag drew himself up, and his voice, when he spoke, seemed deeper than before. “I am a dragonslayer,” he said, “with the Sentinels, on Rog.”

  “How odd,” Granmyr said. “I thought the Rogish dragonslayers all wore copper armbands.”

  “Oh, armbands, yes, well. You see—” He swallowed and pushed back a truant lock of hair. “I’m almost a dragonslayer. Officially, that is. I was going to be initiated this summer, but this was more important. The ceremony is just a formality. I’m fully trained of course, but—”

  “Praise the stars you’re here!” Ryfenn burst out. “I’ve been so worried, I can hardly sleep nights. Oh, when will you slay them? When will we know peace?”

  “Ah, it shouldn’t be long. Especially if you show me the place where they lair.”

  “Where they lair?” Ryfenn’s voice came out a squeak. “But how would we know? You’re the one to discover that.”

  “But Landerath said—” His eyes flicked toward Kaeldra. “I thought—”

  “Who sent you?” Granmyr’s voice was quiet, too quiet. “Why are you here?”

  “I—I told you,” the youth said, “because Landerath—” He swiped at his hair, his face now bright pink. Kaeldra, surprised at herself, almost felt sorry for him. For a long moment he and Granmyr locked eyes. The gyrfalcon, hooded and tethered to a stool, rustled its wings.

  “Tell him, Granmyr!” Mirym burst out. “The storm! The portent in the clay!”

  “A portent?” the Krag asked. His blue eyes broke free from Granmyr’s gaze, moved to look past Mirym, past Ryfenn, at Kaeldra.

  “Know you of these dragons, miss? Anything at all?”

  Kaeldra heard the softening, the plea in his voice. She caught Granmyr’s warning glance and was filled with confusion. She longed to tell him, at least give him a clue. If he killed Fiora—then she wouldn’t have to keep her promise. She’d never have to go back to that awful place again.

  Involuntarily she recalled the feel of the baby dragons: how light they were, how their sides rose and fell in sleep breathing.

  “Kaeldra, the young man asked you a question.” Ryfenn looked up at him from where she knelt by Lyf. “I don’t know what comes over her. I try to teach her manners but,” she smiled, “you know how it is. With some, it just doesn’t take.”

  He had eaten her soup. Ryfenn had been about to give her more soup, and he had taken it. Kaeldra looked into his eyes. Blue eyes. He had blue eyes, not brown eyes like everybody else except Kaeldra. And he was tall, too, but Ryfenn didn’t care. He was farin, but she had smiled at him, had taken his side against Kaeldra.

  “Know you aught of this?” the Kragish youth asked again.

  “No,” Kaeldra said. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  chapter 7

  If you would seek out dragons, seek first for a green-eyed girl.

  —Dragonslayer’s Guyde

  Dragons,” said the dragonslayer, “are the sneakiest creatures on Hort’s green earth.”

  “Truly?” Mirym asked.

  “Oh, yes.” The youth reached for another seedcake. Steam from his tea twined upward, mingled with dust motes in a shaft of morning light. Lyf sat on Kaeldra’s lap, drowsed against her.

  “They have to be,” he continued, “because they’re so vulnerable.”

  “What! Surely, Master Jeorg, you don’t mean to tell us those dreadful creatures are vulnerable,” Ryfenn said, pushing a crock of corberry sweetpulp in his direction. Last night after supper Ryfenn had bustled about, taking hay and blankets for him into the clayhouse. That poor boy is going to slay those dragons for us, she had said. We can’t send him out again on a night like this.

  This farin youth had won Ryfenn over in a few short hours, Kaeldra thought, and she had been trying for years.

  Now he slathered his seedcake with sweetpulp and spoke between bites. “It is not widely known—except among those of us who have studied them, of course. But a dragon’s underbelly is as soft as”—he looked round for an object of comparison—“as this loaf of bread. One swift jab, thusly”—he plunged his knife into the loaf—“and pfft. It’s ended.” Kaeldra winced, recalling the softness of the draclings’ bellies.

  “Indeed,” the dragonslayer continued, “they’ve been known to kill themselves by accidentally dragging over a sharp rock.”

  “That can’t be!” Mirym cried. “Otherwise we wouldn’t need dragonslayers at all, we’d just—”

  “Oh, well,” he said, breaking the bread and spreading it with sweetpulp, “I didn’t say it was easy. The problem is getting close enough for that one jab. Somehow you’ve got to keep them from roasting you with their breath or raking you with their claws. Their teeth are no pot of clams, either. And, as I said, they’re sneaky.”

  “So what do you do?” Mirym asked. “It sounds hopeless.”

  Ryfenn poured more tea into the dragonslayer’s mug. It was strange, almost amusing, Kaeldra thought, how the young man became easy of tongue before the admiring attentions of Mirym and Ryfenn. Before Granmyr had left, he had been more quiet, as if testing the impact of each word.

  Strange, too, was the way Kaeldra felt drawn to him one moment and fearful the next. But, “I trust not this Master Jeorg,” Granmyr had told Kaeldra late last night, “and neither should you.”

  “There’s an art to it,” he was saying now. “You have to study the lore, plan your strategy. Well, take Porphy, for example. A dragon was laying waste to the countryside near his town, oh, this was hundreds of years ago, but the story is clearly transcribed in our archives. Porphy had read all the writings on dragons, and he knew that their bellies are their most vulnerable parts. He knew also of these.” The youth drew from his tunic a tiny silvery cylinder. “A single, high-pitched note will entrance them. Here, let me show you.” He blew on the pipe; a shrill note pierced the air. He put away the pipe, then continued.

  “Trouble is, the trance lasts only until you run out of breath. When you sound the pipe again, the dragon is alerted and will not be tranced a second time. Anyhow, Porphy found the path between the dragon’s lair and its water supply, and he dug a pit. . . .”

  Lyf stirred, looked up and smiled a sleepy smile. She had a clean smell to her, Kaeldra thought, a milky smell, like a newborn baby. Kaeldra closed her eyes, still weary from her journey. The Krag’s voice droned on and on like a bee on a summer’s day. The things he spoke of had nothing to do with Kaeldra; had no more substance than steam or light.

  Between Kaeldra’s arms, Lyf’s body stretched with breath; under Kaeldra’s hand her heartthrob pulsed.

  “. . . incredibly light,” he was saying. “Young dragons actually float in their sleep.”

  “No, they don’t,” Kaeldra said.

  “What?” the youth asked, taken aback.

  “Oh, I—” Kaeldra looked down. Why had she said that? She was supposed to be on her guard. “Nothing,” she said.

  Silence filled the room, thick as smoke. Kaeldra concentrated hard on Lyf’s hair, smoothing it with her fingers. And then he was speaking again, of heroes and of dragons, of bravery and of guile.

  Granmyr had been silent, too, last night, when Kaeldra had told her privately of the dragons. Later, Granmyr had spoken of eyes. “It is the green in your eyes,” she had said, and it seemed to Kaeldra that her voice held something new, a kind of respect, mixed with sadness. “You must go back. You must not break a promise to a dragon.”

  But now, groping back in her mind, Kaeldra could not quite recall having made a promise. What exactly had she said? The memory had dimmed and receded until Kaeldra could almost imagine that it had been a terrible nightmare, that it had not really happened at all.

  “. . . a little like Kaeldra’s only greener,” Jeorg was saying.
>
  “Her eyes are hazel.” Granmyr stood in the doorway.

  The youth started. “Ah, well, actually—” he began. “If you see them in a certain light—” He leaned forward, gazed into Kaeldra’s eyes and said with sudden defiance, “In my country they say eyes like those are dragon-sayer’s eyes.”

  Kaeldra felt the warmth creep up her face. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t, not while this young man was looking at her; she couldn’t pull away from the astonishing blue of his eyes.

  “We’re not in your country,” Granmyr snapped.

  “True,” the youth said, turning at last from Kaeldra. “Still,” he murmured under his breath, “it’s odd.”

  “That it is,” Kaeldra heard Ryfenn say softly. “Odd, indeed.”

  The Krag left after breakfast. He retrieved his falcon from the clayhouse and headed across the hills toward Wyrmward on a dapple-white mare. Later that day Granmyr moved her wheel back into the clayhouse. Little by little life slipped again into its familiar pattern, except that it was lambing time, and Kaeldra stayed in the fields from daybreak until long after dusk. Lyf grew in heft and vigor every day, and the rash began to fade from her cheek.

  It was easy for Kaeldra to keep the dragons a secret, for sometimes she did not quite believe in them herself. But one evening, a quarter-moon after her return, two days after the dragon’s milk had run out, she came in from the fields early to find Lyf asleep.

  “Ryfenn,” Kaeldra asked, “did Lyf miss her nap today?”

  “No. She napped.”

  “Look, she’s asleep already.”

  Ryfenn put down her spoon and came to Kaeldra. Lyf breathed softly on a blanket near the fire. “Well,” Ryfenn said, “she needs her rest. She’s recovering.” Ryfenn went back to her cooking, but for the rest of the evening she was silent, and furrows creased her brow.

  Four days later, the rash was back, sharply etched on Lyf’s cheek. Now she was always sleeping when Kaeldra came home. Mirym said Lyf stayed awake all morning, but after the noon meal she lay down and did not rise until the following day.