Dragon's Milk

by Susan Fletcher

  “Get away from there! Stop that!” Kaeldra reached into her pocket and tossed them a handful of whisple nuts.

  The draclings lunged, captured the nuts in their claws and crunched them with their thin, sharp teeth.

  Kaeldra sighed as she gathered up her things.

  Hungry. Always hungry.

  Pyro poked her with his nose, nipped at her skirt. Kaeldra jumped up and yanked her skirt away. “Stop it, Pyro! You’ve had enough.”

  The dracling cocked a mournful eye at her. 〈Hungry.〉

  “Your mother fed you before she left.”

  〈Hungry.〉

  “No. I can’t feed you anymore now. We won’t have anything for later.” A wave of emotion hit her, an aching and a sadness and a hunger. “Oh, very well.” Kaeldra reached for her blanket roll, then felt a ticklishness at the edge of her mind.

  Laughter?

  Yes!

  Pyro was laughing at her.

  “You little whelp!” Kaeldra shook her fist; Pyro spun around and scampered into the passage.

  They were so full of energy! All day long they darted through the cave, vaulted from boulder to boulder, pounced, wrestled, rolled. If Kaeldra refused to join in their play, they lay in ambush and tumbled her to the ground. Once, remembering the dragonslayer’s story about the silver tone pipes, Kaeldra tried whistling a single high note to calm them. The draclings stilled, sleepy-eyed, until she ran out of breath, then they bounded past her in a burst of exuberance.

  Kaeldra set out snares to catch small animals whenever she came. She wondered what Fiora fed the draclings. They were still nursing, but Kaeldra knew they must be eating more than just milk. She suspected that Fiora brought her kills home and hid them somewhere inside the cave, but Kaeldra never looked; she feared what she might find.

  Lambs, of late, had been disappearing from the graze. Some full-grown sheep, as well. No one knew for certain what predator was responsible. Some said wolves; others, a dragon. The men had vowed to track it down.

  Kaeldra hoped it was wolves.

  Early one morning, when Fiora had been gone for more than a day and still had not returned, Kaeldra set off for the spring to check on her snares. The draclings lounged in the sun just outside the cave, occasionally pouncing at whistle pigs. The fearless little rodents popped up from their burrow holes, whistled, and just when the draclings were upon them, disappeared into the earth again.

  “If only those bunglers could catch something, I wouldn’t have to do this,” Kaeldra muttered.

  A breeze stung her face, but the sun shone and tiny green shoots thrust up between vanishing pockets of snow.

  The spring bubbled up from the ground, forming a shallow pool in the rocks. Kaeldra went from snare to snare, but her take was not good; of seven snares, she netted only a whistle pig and a rabbit. The last snare held a whimble thrush, which saddened Kaeldra. The draclings mourned when she brought dead birds, refusing to eat them, although they felt no compunction about devouring anything else.

  Kaeldra closed her game sack and tied it with a leather thong. If only they didn’t eat so much. Hoisting the sack over her shoulder, she started back up to the cave.

  A sudden pain shot through her head. She heard a high-pitched cry from somewhere up the mountain, and a chattering of birds.

  The draclings.

  Kaeldra ran, slipping on loose scree, scraping her knees. A flurry of whitchils circled and dove up ahead. When at last the cave came into view, she gasped and dropped her bag.

  It was a wolf.

  It lunged for Synge’s neck. The dracling twisted; the wolf missed her neck but buried its teeth in her back ridge. Synge flailed and cried and beat her flimsy wings. She was as large as the wolf, but it was stronger; it was dragging her away. Synge lashed at it with her tail. The wolf yipped, let go and backed off, waiting for a chance to pounce.

  “Get out of here!” Kaeldra ran toward the wolf, waving her arms. She picked up a sharp rock and hurled it at it; the wolf dodged and crept closer to Synge.

  A second wolf prowled by the cave mouth. Pyro cowered just inside. Embyr, ever the bold one, charged the wolf, snorted smoke, then scrambled back into the cave.

  “Go away!” Kaeldra pitched another rock; it nicked the first wolf’s ear. She threw again and heard a solid whack. The wolf yelped, pawing at its snout. “Go!” Kaeldra advanced upon the wolf, pelting it with rocks. With a last, hungry glance at Synge, it fled with its companion, pursued by a whirl of birds.

  Kaeldra chased the wolves, peppering them with rocks, until their hunched forms disappeared behind a stony hummock. Then she spun round and dashed back to Synge, who lay gasping and whimpering just outside the cave.

  Gently, Kaeldra fingered all around Synge’s throat and neck and back. No break in the hard, light green scales near her spine. No break in the skin at her throat. Kaeldra felt Synge all over: her back, her belly, her tail. She coaxed open the dracling’s wings, gossamer as spider spin.

  Except for a serrated nick in her back ridge, Synge was not hurt. Kaeldra gathered her up and carried her back into the second cavern, wondering again at how light she was.

  She laid Synge in the puddle of sunshine from the hole in the roof, then turned to Embyr and Pyro, who had followed. “Now, stay! Both of you! Don’t move until I get back!”

  Kaeldra sprinted outside and returned with the game sack. She set the whistle pig on the sand in front of Synge, who suddenly stopped whimpering and fell upon the kill. Pyro inched toward the whistle pig, snuffling. “Oh, no you don’t. That’s for Synge. You and Embyr share this.” Kaeldra tossed them the rabbit.

  The draclings ripped open their kill, demolished the bloody meat. Kaeldra turned her head. She was glad to see that Synge had not lost her appetite, but she couldn’t bear to watch the draclings eat. They’re like wild animals, she thought; and then, surprised that she had forgotten, they are wild animals.

  Embyr and Pyro, having made short work of their rabbit, began to slink toward Synge.

  “No!” Kaeldra said again. “That is Synge’s.”

  〈Hungry,〉 Pyro protested.

  “Well, you’ll just have to wait until your mother gets home,” Kaeldra said, irritated at Fiora for staying away so long.

  Pyro scampered down the passage.

  “Pyro! You come back. Pyro!” Kaeldra ran into the passage and listened in the dark. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to go outside the cave again, would he?

  There. A rustling. He was coming back. Pyro materialized in the darkness—Pyro and something else, something he was dragging. It looked vaguely like a blanket, only heavier, perhaps. But it wasn’t her blanket. That was behind her in the cavern. Where would he get another blanket?

  Pyro drew closer, dragging the thing. He dropped it and ran to Kaeldra.

  〈Hungry,〉 he said.

  Kaeldra stared.

  It wasn’t a blanket. It was a lamb. The bloody, eaten carcass of a lamb.

  chapter 10

  May your groom in his sleep snore not.

  —Elythian wedding toast

  Look, Kael!” Lyf’s little fingers tightened around Kaeldra’s own. “Someone’s coming!”

  Clouds fled across the sky as if chased by a pack of wolves. A long shadow wound down across the hillside from the west, a horse and rider at its tail.

  “It’s likely Jeorg Sigrad,” Kaeldra said. The Kragish youth had visited often since that first night, but stayed only when Granmyr was gone. He told tales of ancient dragons while Ryfenn and Mirym plied him with honey cakes and brew. He did not again ask Kaeldra about dragons; nor did he mention the green in her eyes.

  Still, Kaeldra felt her shoulders stiffen. Ever since the day the Elythian men had come seeking her, dreams of horsemen had filled her nights. She would wake suddenly and sit up in the dark, palms damp, blood pounding in her throat like hoofbeats.

  “Master Jeorg! Master Jeorg! I hope it’s Master Jeorg!” Lyf did a little dance. Dark hairwisps escaped her woolen headwrap and whipp
ed across her face. Lyf grabbed Kaeldra’s hands, spun her around. Kaeldra, looking down at her, felt light inside. Lyf was well again. That’s what Granmyr had said. Well enough to come watch the flock with Kaeldra as before.

  The horseman grew larger. His shadow rippled across a moving sea of gorse and bracken. It was Jeorg, she saw. He would be disappointed that it was she, and not Mirym, who watched the sheep today.

  Jeorg reined in his horse and jumped to the ground. “Kaeldra!” he said. “You’ve returned!” He turned to Lyf, lifted her high over his head. His cloak billowed and snapped in the wind.

  “Let me down! Let me down!” Lyf shrieked, delighted.

  He laughed. “And how’s my Lyfling?” he said.

  His Lyfling? That was Kaeldra’s special name for Lyf. It didn’t sound right when he said it.

  “Mirym’s at the cottage,” Kaeldra said.

  Jeorg set down Lyf. He tousled her hair, then pulled her headwrap snug over her head. “I wasn’t looking for Mirym.” He straightened. “I came to talk to you.”

  Kaeldra felt the warmth rush to her face. “What about?”

  “Ah,” the young man hesitated, as if uncertain how to begin. “Sheep,” he said at last.

  “Oh.” Kaeldra turned away, surprised by a twinge of disappointment. A jackdaw called hoarsely, tilted in a sudden air gust.

  “. . . eight sheep missing,” he was saying. “Calyffs have lost ten. Nearly every farm in the district has lost three or four, at least. You’ve lost—how many?”

  “Seven,” Kaeldra lied. Two days ago another sheep had disappeared, making eleven all together.

  “Mirym said nine some days ago.”

  Kaeldra shrugged.

  “And the cows. Five gone. Disappeared with neither track nor bone to go by.”

  “Wolves,” Kaeldra said. “There are many this year.” Near her foot, a clump of gorse rattled in the breeze. Its blossoms looked butter soft against the prickly stalks.

  “Kaeldra—”

  “What can I do? Why are you telling me about this? I don’t know any more than you!”

  “Look,” Jeorg said. “I need—” He stopped, and in his eyes she saw an unguarded plea for help. Vexed, he brushed back a lock of hair. “If you don’t care about the sheep, at least you owe it to your countrymen to help. They neglect their fields to hunt the thing, but they know not the craft. Someone will die before they’re through, unless you—”

  “So talk to them! I can’t do anything about it.”

  Lyf scampered up the hillside after a lamb. It bleated and ran to be near its mother.

  Jeorg sighed, shook his head, and turned to watch Lyf. “She’s much better, now, isn’t she?” he said. “The first time I saw her, she was a very sick lass. Now—look at her. As healthy a lamblet as ever I saw.”

  “She’s not entirely well yet. We have to be careful. She gets better and worse.”

  “Yes, but she’s almost well. Thanks be to the gods—and to that—medicine—you bring her.”

  A tightness coiled around Kaeldra’s chest and neck. He knows, she thought.

  “Kaeldra.” He touched her shoulder. She pulled away. “I wouldn’t kill it before Lyf was completely well. Tell me where it lairs, and I’ll protect it from the hunters until then.”

  The air felt dense, hard to breathe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He knows.

  “Don’t you? What about her eyes?” Kaeldra stared at him, uncomprehending. “Look at her eyes!” Jeorg turned and strode away, calling for Lyf. She ran to him, grabbed his hand, and tugged him down the hill. If Kaeldra had not been so frightened, she would have laughed.

  “What is it?” Lyf asked. “What do you want me to show Kaeldra?” She turned from him, tilted her head up at Kaeldra. “What does he want you to see?”

  Kaeldra felt a crumbling inside her, like a stone wall shaken apart in a quaking of the earth.

  They were green. Lyf’s eyes were flecked with green. And even more: two circles of green, the color of fir trees in the shadows, pooled around her pupils. How could she not have seen?

  “Your eyes,” Kaeldra whispered.

  “Kael?” Lyf said. She sounded afraid. “Kael, what’s wrong with my eyes?”

  Kaeldra drew Lyf to her, hugged her tight. “Nothing is wrong with your eyes,” she said. “They are beautiful eyes.”

  “Very beautiful,” Jeorg agreed. “Even more beautiful than when they were brown. The green in them—” He broke off, and as his own eyes moved to gaze into Kaeldra’s, she saw again the silent plea, felt the tug of an insistent current, drawing her toward him.

  “Kaeldra, please,” he said.

  He is a dragonslayer, she told herself fiercely. He is my enemy.

  “If you’re worried about Lyfling—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaeldra said. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  Jeorg’s eyes hardened. “Very well, I will.” He mounted his horse and wheeled to face Kaeldra. “I warned you, Kaeldra. Remember that.”

  He spun his horse around and galloped away.

  * * *

  The horsemen were chasing her. It was night, and they were chasing her up the mountain. She was running, running to the cave, but it was far away. They were shooting arrows at her, fire-arrows, arrows that flamed through the air. There was a brightness on her eyes, there was a rushing in her ears when the fire-arrows passed.

  Bright-rush.

  Bright-rush.

  Bright-rush.

  Kaeldra opened her eyes. It was dark. She was in the cave, safe, with the draclings.

  She took a deep breath to calm her bloodbeat. She smelled the smoky cave-smell, now almost as familiar as home. Safe.

  Bright-rush.

  Kaeldra sat up. What was that? She scanned the darkness. Where were the draclings?

  Molten panic dripped into her chest.

  Bright-rush.

  Flame shot through the air! Kaeldra blinked, blinded by the sudden light burst. Something dark floated up, beyond the yellow spots that swam before her eyes. She blinked again, strained to see what floated in the dark.

  It was a dracling.

  It was three draclings; they drifted in the air like leaves on a still mountain lake.

  Bright-rush.

  One of the draclings breathed out flame. It dropped down and rose again slowly when the flaming ended.

  〈Embyr?〉 Kaeldra reached out with her mind. Stillness. They’re asleep, she realized. They were floating in their sleep, as the dragonslayer had said.

  For a long time, Kaeldra watched. She saw the dracclings rise through the air, saw them flame and drop and rise again. After a time, they did not rise as high, and when they dropped, they touched the ground. Soon the rising was a sigh, and the flames were only sparks. At last the draclings came to rest; only their sides rose and fell in sleep breathing.

  But Kaeldra slept no more that night. She lay awake and thought—of horsemen, of green eyes, of dragons that flame and fly—until the cave walls glowed pink with dawn.

  chapter 11

  For let a man knead pitch and fat and straw into gobs; and with these let him tempte the fire-drake: so will the foule beast eat and burst to smithers.

  —Dragonslayer’s Guyde

  hungry.〉

  Kaeldra roused. Three pairs of slotted green eyes were cocked at her. Pyro pushed at her cheek with his nose.

  〈Hungry.〉

  Kaeldra yawned and stretched. Yellow light streamed in through the gap in the roof. She had lain down sometime after sunrise; now it must be midmorning, at least.

  〈Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.〉 Encouraged, the draclings nudged at her face and neck. Their complaints pelted her mind like a hail of pebbles, made it impossible to think.

  “Stop it!” Kaeldra said, laughing. She curled herself into a protective ball. The draclings prodded her, tickled her. Thrumming, they clambered onto her back. “Oh, all right,” Kaeldra groaned. She stood; the draclings slid down and landed
in a heap. She stumbled through the cave; the draclings pounced at her feet. Her head felt heavy and dull. Not enough sleep. At the cave mouth she turned. “I’m going for food. You stay!”

  She took two paces, then spun around to check. Pyro, halfway out of the cave, quickly slunk back in.

  “Stay! I mean it, Pyro.” She hoped she sounded firm enough. If they got out and started floating, she didn’t know what she would do.

  At the spring, Kaeldra drank deeply, then splashed water on her face. A smudge of rainbow blurred across the droplets on her lashes. There was a quick flash of light; the droplets burned her eyes like tiny suns.

  Startled, Kaeldra dashed the water from her eyes. And then the pain came. It grew until her cheeks and temples pulsed with it. It grew until her whole head swelled with it, drummed with it, seemed to split and burst with it.

  Kaeldra cried out and dug her palms into her face.

  The pain pulsed once, pulsed twice, pulsed three times more. And then began to shrink. Slowly, it shrank until it wasn’t pain anymore, but only an echo: a lingering ringing-in-the-ears of pain.

  Kaeldra opened her eyes. The springwater splashed against the rocks. There was a trembling in the air, a low rumble that crashed and echoed like distant thunder.

  What is it?

  Dizzy, Kaeldra staggered back toward the cave. Something still hurt inside her head, but not like the pain before. This hurt was small and sharp, like crying.

  It was crying. The draclings were crying.

  Kaeldra ran. She scrambled across the loose rocks, stooping to grab a handful. The wolves. Must stop the wolves.

  But there were no wolves. Only draclings. Outside the cave. They staggered about, jostled one another, bumped into boulders. The crying was loud in Kaeldra’s mind.

  No wolves.

  “What is it?” Kaeldra asked, but the draclings paid no heed. The crying was so loud now that Kaeldra couldn’t tell whether she were really hearing it or just feeling it inside her head. She ran to Embyr, picked her up, set her down inside the cave. Then she pushed Synge in, but Embyr was already stumbling out. “Stay!” Kaeldra cried, but the draclings seemed not to know her or what they were doing. She shoved Embyr in again and ran to get Pyro. She threw him in; Embyr and Synge were out. Kaeldra stood at the cave mouth blocking one dracling, grabbing for the others, trying to keep them inside.