Dragon's Milk

by Susan Fletcher

  She led Kaeldra to the doorway. The dragons, awake now, prowled at her feet. She could feel their restlessness as if it were a live thing inside her. Yet Kaeldra, filled with dread, hung back, her mind groping for some reason not to go.

  “But how will I find it?” she asked. “I’ll never find that fortress.”

  “The bird,” Granmyr said.

  “The bird?”

  “Hush. Listen.”

  Silence. Then, far away, a thin, shrill cry. A kestrel’s cry.

  “Follow it,” Granmyr said. She hugged Kaeldra again, then abruptly let go. Her eyes, for the second time that day, glistened.

  “Now go.”

  chapter 13

  Yet herein lies the peril: as the falcon finds the dragon, the dragon feels the finding.

  —Dragonslayer’s Guyde

  Not until dawn did Kaeldra know that they were followed.

  The kestrel had led them north of Myrrathog. They must turn east, she knew: over the mountains to the sea, over the sea to Kragrom, then over the sea again, to the island of Rog. But soon Kaeldra had lost all sense of direction. The moonlit landscape flowed around them: a confusion of winding sheep paths, of crowded forests, of wind and rock and stunted trees.

  Often the kestrel disappeared, and Kaeldra was left to stumble on with no guide. But just as fear would begin to swell in her throat, she would hear the cry, feel the wingbeat, see the dark flying form ahead.

  “Kiree! Kiree!”

  Now the kestrel swooped past, soared over the next rise. Cresting the hill, Kaeldra looked down into a soft darkness of trees. There was a rushing of water, a freshness of air.

  A stream.

  The draclings tumbled lightly down the slope. They pranced and drank in the stream, sent up a silvery spray.

  Kaeldra followed. She plunged her hands into the water and drank until her throat ached with cold.

  The moon drifted through the trees. The air was sweet with fir. From nearby came a ring owl’s muted whoot.

  Kaeldra shivered. She felt a sudden unease, as if something had shadowed the moon. The draclings stood still, eyes to the sky.

  〈What is it?〉 she asked.

  She reached for an answer, and the earth dipped under her feet, stars wheeling and swaying around her.

  Kaeldra touched her temples. I’m hungry, she thought. That’s all. She clambered up an outcropping of boulders and opened her blanket roll. The draclings surged up the rocks, shaking off water in luminous sheets. She gave each a hunk of dried meat, then tore off some for herself. Only hunger. She stretched out her legs, flexed her feet.

  〈Hungry.〉 Pyro nosed at the blanket.

  As always. Kaeldra tore off more meat for the draclings. There had better be hart where they were going. Or bear or wypari or something else big. Well, Kaeldra thought, that was not her concern. She would deliver the draclings to this Landerath, and he would get them to their kyn.

  She wondered, not for the first time, how Jeorg had come to possess Landerath’s brooch. Was he a thief as well as a slayer? He did not seem so.

  Kaeldra shivered again. Jeorg. When she set out, she had listened for the hoofbeats, for the gyrfalcon’s cry. But even the dragonslayer could not have tracked them in the dark, she told herself. Not this far.

  Abruptly, she wrapped the remaining food, rolled it up in the blanket. 〈That is enough. We must save some for later.〉

  〈More,〉 Pyro demanded. 〈Hungry.〉

  〈Hungry. Hungry,〉 Embyr and Synge chimed in.

  〈No. No more. You can have more later.〉 The draclings pressed around her, sniffed at the blanket roll. Pyro bit it, clamped on with his teeth. 〈No, Pyro! Let go! Give it to me!〉 Pyro tugged. Kaeldra yanked back. There was a ripping sound; a flap of blanket hung ragged from the roll.

  May they burst from eating so much! The thought came to Kaeldra before she could squelch it. They needed more meat every day. A mountain of meat! She saw herself suddenly, standing next to Myrrathog. Only the mountain wasn’t made of rock. It was made of meat. Raw meat. She was scooping out handfuls and flinging them at three grown dragons.

  Where would she ever get that much meat?

  Pyro nudged her hand; Kaeldra jerked it away. 〈Oh, stop it!〉 She would never find enough meat, never. She stared at the stream.

  But of course!

  She rummaged through the blanket roll. There. A candle. She held it in front of Pyro.

  〈Flame!〉 she thought.

  Puzzlement.

  Kaeldra closed her eyes. She pictured in her mind a flame, flickering above the candle.

  〈Flame!〉 The candlelight danced in her mind. 〈Flame!〉

  Bright-rush! Hot air scorched her cheek.

  The candle slumped pathetically, but it was lit. Blue smoke wisps trailed from Embyr’s nostrils.

  Kaeldra laughed. 〈Good girl!〉 She stroked Embyr’s head; the dracling thrummed. Then she knelt by the stream, held the candle low over the water as she had learned when she stayed out with the flock all night in the high country. Something flashed. Kaeldra grabbed for it. Missed! Another flash. This time when she reached, something cool and slippery lurched in her hand. She tossed the fish onto the bank. Pyro pounced; in a gulp it was gone.

  Flash again! Kaeldra reached, but Embyr was quicker. With a single swipe of her talons, she flipped the fish out of the water onto the bank.

  The draclings learned fast. Kaeldra merely held the candle; before long the stream bank glistened with fish and spray and happy draclings. They ate until their sides bulged, until dawn bled up through the trees to the sky.

  “Kreekreekreekreekree!”

  The kestrel burst through the trees, streaked across the stream, calling wildly.

  “Wha—?” Kaeldra stared after it, into the woods. Then from far away came the sound she had dreaded, a sound that pricked at the flesh on her back.

  A gyrfalcon’s cry.

  The dragonslayer. She knew it was his bird as surely as if she had seen him release it. He was following them, and he was near.

  The cry came again, fainter, farther.

  〈Hurry! Let’s go.〉 Kaeldra blew out the candle, tied up the torn blanket roll. They crossed the stream and plunged into the wood.

  When all of the stars had faded, the kestrel led them to a cave. It was a small cave, much smaller than the dragon den. Kaeldra dared not make a fire. Quickly, she set snares in a stand of scrubby firs a little way below. She dragged a heap of brush to the cave, stacked it in front of the opening from inside, then curled up among the draclings and slipped into a restless sleep.

  * * *

  A thin, blue smoke strand threaded up through the trees to the sky.

  The dragonslayer.

  Kaeldra knew it must be he. She squinted into the midday sky and found what she sought. A black speck, circling high above the smoke. Who else would be out in these woods with a gyrfalcon?

  Hands shaking, Kaeldra untied the blanket roll. She had checked the snares as soon as she had wakened. Empty. Now the draclings thronged about her, snuffling, poking her with their noses. She meted out the last of the food, then packed to go.

  〈Hungry.〉

  〈Hungry.〉

  〈Hungry.〉

  〈Not now. We must go.〉

  All afternoon the hills and ridges rose before them like waves on a wind-blown lake. Each time Kaeldra thought the next must be the last, with the Kragish Sea beyond it, a ripple of ridges would swell up before her, lapping at the horizon in long, thin lines. The shadows lengthened, and the wind whipped hard. The draclings stumbled on loose rocks and cringed against the wind, silent except for an occasional faint hungry, which drifted like smoke through her mind.

  Kaeldra strained to hear or see the falcon, but could do neither. Yet often when she looked into the draclings’ green eyes, she felt the strange floating dizziness she had sensed before. These moments filled her with foreboding, as if she could enter the draclings’ minds and touch the consciousness of another—somet
hing flying—a bird. They could commune with birds, she knew, with birds and with dragon-sayers. And if a falcon could feel the draclings’ thoughts, might it not lead its falconer to them?

  Toward nightfall a heavy mass of clouds curled in. A late snow began to fall in fat, wet flakes.

  A damp chill crept through her cloak, lodged in her bones. She strapped on her shoe-baskets, but still slipped and sank and faltered in the snow. Her feet and hands grew numb; the world shrank to a circle of snowflakes, which swarmed like sprybugs around her candle. The flame was yellow, like firelight at home. Like firelight, with something simmering—with stew in a pot above it. When Kaeldra looked into the flame, she could feel the warmth, could hear the familiar voices, could smell the stew. She tasted the way it separated into tender strands in her mouth, the way the juices rolled over her tongue and the spices tickled her nose. She heard the baby crying. . . .

  And she was in the snow again, in the freezing dark, and the kestrel was crying. She looked round for the draclings. They floundered after her, pillowed with snow. Synge lagged far behind the others and moved so slowly, Kaeldra feared she would soon collapse. There was nothing else to do. Kaeldra stumbled through the snow after Synge, then carried her in the direction of the kestrel’s cry.

  The wind abated; the air warmed. A darker darkness crowded around them. Trees.

  Kaeldra set out the snares and made camp in the shelter of firs. Embyr and Pyro breathed sparks for a fire. There was no food.

  In Kaeldra’s dreams the draclings were eating. They were eating a mountain of meat.

  chapter 14

  Children! Obedient as hungry dragons!

  —Common parental lament, Kragrom

  When Kaeldra awoke, the sun was shining. Tree boughs dripped, sloughed off snow in wet heaps. She crawled out of her snow-dusted blanket, careful not to disturb the draclings, who had burrowed in beside her.

  Not far away was a vantage point where the land dropped off to the east. Kaeldra squinted into the distance, looking for a thread of smoke, a circling bird. But nothing marred the perfect blue of the sky. A bright snow-quilt spread across the shoulder of the mountain, smooth at the top, then draping and pleating below, where a tiny village nestled in its folds.

  Maybe he is lost, she thought. Maybe he abandoned his pursuit and turned back.

  With the sun warming her face and a village in sight, it was easy to believe that the danger was past.

  There were four rabbits in the snares. Elated, Kaeldra ran back to the camping place, calling for the draclings. Embyr and Synge stumbled, yawning, from under the blanket. When they saw the rabbits, they perked up and jumped on her like puppies.

  “Down! Get down, you two.” She threw each a rabbit. “Pyro, you lazy oaf! Wake up!”

  She poked at the rumpled blanket with her foot. Pyro did not come out. “Food, Pyro! Meat!” The blanket looked flat. Too flat. She grabbed it in one hand and yanked.

  Pyro was gone.

  “Pyro! Pyro, where are you?” Kaeldra fell to her knees and dug through the snow where the blanket had lain. No Pyro.

  Tracks. He would have left tracks.

  The snow was trampled all around, but the only tracks that led far were her own. He must have left long ago, she thought, before the snow stopped. He could be anywhere.

  “Pyro!” Kaeldra wailed.

  〈Help!〉

  It was the tiniest cry, like a needleprick in her mind.

  Kaeldra leaped to her feet. She scanned the forest all around; the firs were black against the snow. She ran to the bluff and looked down.

  Snow and snow and trees and snow.

  〈Help!〉

  “Where are you?”

  No answer. Kaeldra dashed back toward the camping place, then slowed, then stopped. Embyr and Synge were no longer eating. They were staring at something—staring straight up.

  Kaeldra followed the direction of their gaze. Floating high in the air, caught beneath an overhanging fir bough, was Pyro.

  Kaeldra’s knees went weak. She had forgotten to tie them down.

  “Pyro,” Kaeldra said, “you come down from there.”

  The dracling pumped his legs futilely, like a beetle stuck on its back.

  〈Help.〉

  She couldn’t climb the tree. The trunk was too wide, the lowest boughs too high. She could try to rope him or—

  Kaeldra thought back to the times she had seen the draclings float in their sleep. They would rise, puffing up, as if they had taken an enormous breath. Then they would flame and shrink and drop.

  “Pyro,” Kaeldra said, “flame!” She closed her eyes and pictured a candle flickering in the dark.

  Bright-rush!

  The wet fir bough hissed; Pyro sank a little.

  “Flame!”

  Bright-rush!

  The dracling dropped again, not far enough.

  Praising and chiding by turns, Kaeldra talked him down. It was lucky that the trees were snow shrouded and did not catch fire. Gradually, Pyro took heart and even maneuvered a bit with his wings. This proved to be so much fun that he ventured higher, defying Kaeldra’s commands to flame. She grabbed a rabbit and held it up high. “Look, Pyro! Meat!”

  Whomp! The dracling belched out a crackling flame ball and landed with a thud upon the ground.

  When they had finished eating, the kestrel called. They set off down the mountain.

  The sun shone all that day. From time to time the draclings played at flying. They wobbled low over streams and gullies, pitched, reeled, rose, and dropped in jerks, then crashed—more often than not—into trees and bushes. Kaeldra tried to stop them at first, imagining them wafting away up into the sky like wyffel fluff; but finally she gave up.

  By dusk they had reached the place where the forest met the fields outside the village. The draclings pestered her with their plaintive hungrys, and Kaeldra, too, felt weak and shaky. They skirted the fields until a low barn came into view not forty paces from the edge of the wood. A two-story stone cottage stood a little way off.

  The kestrel cried and swooped down on the barn. It preened itself on the rooftop in the fading light.

  〈Stay here,〉 Kaeldra told the draclings.

  She stepped out of the wood and crept toward the barn. She tried to move soundlessly, scanning the gloom for signs of people or dogs. Yellow light seeped from cracks in the shutters of the cottage. Kaeldra hoped the people were eating, their day’s work done.

  The barn door was open. It was warm and dark inside. It smelled of manure and mildew and sweet dried hay. To her right, Kaeldra could make out the cows, their backs like giant bread loaves outlined in the dark. One lowed softly. She could hear them chew. There was another animal—a mule—among them; to her left, a large mound of hay leaned against the wall.

  Perhaps the kestrel meant for them to bed down here tonight. It would be soft and warm, but—there was no food here. What would they do for food?

  Something tingled inside Kaeldra’s head. She whipped around. Embyr peeked around the barn door.

  〈Embyr! I told you to stay! Go back!〉

  Two more dracling faces appeared. 〈I said—〉

  But it was too late.

  The cows shifted and lowed uneasily. One turned its head, saw the draclings. The rims of its eyes shone white. It let out a bellow. A cloud of hens flapped and squawked.

  “Shh!” Kaeldra said to the cow. “It’s all right. Just—” Another cow mooed. “Quiet!”

  From somewhere outside came the slam of a door. Footsteps.

  Kaeldra looked around wildly, searching for someplace to hide. The haystack. 〈Quick! Get in here!〉 She burrowed into the hay, the draclings fast behind her. The cows mooed and stomped. The mule brayed. A rooster crowed. Then the kestrel called, loud and long.

  “Get away you, you bird!” Kaeldra heard. A boy’s voice. And the sound of something pelting against the barn thatch.

  The kestrel called again. It sounded thin, far away.

  “Missed ’im.�
� The boy’s voice came from so close Kaeldra started. She heard him murmuring comfort to the cows, heard his footsteps on the barn floor. The sweet, musty hay smell tickled her nose. She willed herself not to sneeze; she willed the draclings to stay still.

  The mule and cows calmed. The chicken squawks diminished to a disgruntled cackling. Through a gap in the straws she could make out the boy’s shape as he knelt and spoke to some animals in a small hutch.

  “He’s gone now, little rabbits. The bad bird won’t get you now.”

  The boy spoke to them a while longer, too softly for Kaeldra to hear. Then he crossed to the barn door. Kaeldra waited until she heard the cottage door shut, then let herself breathe again.

  Food. She still had to do something about food.

  She shifted around in the hay until she found all three draclings. 〈You stay,〉 she told them. 〈Stay!〉 This time she had to make them understand. They had to obey.

  〈Hungry.〉

  〈I know you’re hungry, and that’s where I’m going right now. To find food. But you need to stay here. Stay! Do you understand?〉

  She felt the draclings’ warm breath. It smelled like wood smoke.

  〈Well? Do you?〉

  〈Stay.〉 It was Embyr.

  〈That’s right, Embyr. Synge?〉

  〈Stay.〉 The voice was a whisper in Kaeldra’s mind.

  〈Good, Synge. Pyro?〉

  The hay rustled. 〈Pyro!〉

  〈Hungry.〉

  〈I’ll get you something to eat. Don’t worry. But you have to stay. Stay.〉

  〈Stay,〉 Pyro grumbled.

  Kaeldra sighed, unconvinced. But what more could she do?

  She crawled out of the hay and brushed the clinging straws from her clothes, then stood at the barn door, watching shadows move across the shutters of the cottage.

  There were people in there, and food, and a fire.