Dragon Fate

by J. D. Hallowell

  Soon he and she were again standing together on that same mountaintop where Geneva had told him her lineage and her name in their dreams. He didn’t know how this worked, but he was sure that, while they remained asleep, they were actually sharing this dream and were conscious of each other on a different level. At first, neither of them spoke this time. They simply stood and watched the other dragons soar in the strange reddish light. He noticed, too, that there were other dragons sitting or laying on other ledges, and when he looked off in the distance, he could see other mountains. It was a bit like sunset through swirling clouds, but the light didn’t grow brighter or diminish, as if the sun never set in this dream world.

  Finally he turned away from the light and faced Geneva. “What is this place?” he asked.

  She smiled at him and said, “This is a collective Dream State of the dragons. As a Rider, you are able to come here with me because our bond is so strong. The other dragons you see soaring or perched are also asleep, and together we all create this place.”

  “How are we able to talk here? When we are awake, we talk with our minds.”

  She snorted a little laugh and said, “We are talking with our minds. This whole place is in our minds. Here, our ‘mind bodies’ simply conform to our expectations, so we appear to speak out loud.”

  Delno tried to count the other dragons, but found that they tended to move about too much. Even the mountains seemed to move. He gave up counting, but was sure there were more than a dozen. As he looked at another mountain, he noticed that there was even another Rider here. He waved. The other Rider saw him and nodded in acknowledgement, but that was as much interaction as the man seemed to want.

  He considered this for a time and then asked, “What about the other dragons here? Can we speak to them?”

  “I communicate with them, but they choose not to communicate with you, for now.” Then she turned directly to him and said, “You see, Dear One, many of the other dragons who come here are what men call ‘wild’ dragons. They come here to indulge their desire for companionship. It is not as fulfilling as having companionship in the waking world, but it does ease the loneliness.”

  “Wild dragons,” he said. “Are there males here as well?” He began looking about somewhat excitedly.

  “Males don’t feel the loneliness as females do,” she responded, “They rarely come here. Those who do are usually quite young and haven’t established a territory of their own yet. They don’t stay long.”

  As if on cue, a small brown dragon appeared and Geneva said, “There is a male.”

  Delno looked more intently. The male was only about half the size of the females, not much larger than Geneva, and looked surprised to be in this place. He noticed Delno watching him, and, snarling, dived at him in attack. Geneva roared a warning, but was more amused than frightened. The male dragon, however, pulled out of his dive, and, looking a bit frightened, faded completely from view.

  “Male dragons succumb to the territoriality even here,” she said. “That is one reason they don’t stay long; here that behavior isn’t tolerated.”

  “He seemed frightened of you’, Delno observed.

  “Well, you can’t really be hurt here, but males aren’t as intelligent as females, and he was young, so he might not have realized that.” Then she said, “Males have good reason to be frightened of an angry female. We are bigger, stronger, and more likely to deal a death blow than another male would be.” At his look of surprise, she added, “Though it shames us, female dragons are harsh. In our defense though, we have developed this way to ensure the survival of the species.”

  “But the way your mother talked about mating flights I had assumed the male could be a danger to the female. She hinted that if the male outright rejected a female, it could result in injury.”

  “She told you the truth, but you didn’t have enough information and misinterpreted it. A male dragon is not a direct threat to a female. However, during a mating flight there are several females vying for the attention of the male. They participate in aerial contests of agility, grace, and stamina. The male will choose the one that excites him most during the contests. Just competing in the contests is enough to quell the mating drive. If one female does something that makes the male reject her outright, she creates the danger that the male will then refuse to mate with any of them and leave the area. If that is the case, the frustration of rising to such a heightened emotional and physical state only to be denied even the opportunity to compete can drive the other females, especially the ‘wild’ ones, to turn on the offender and attack her.”

  He again turned to watch the dragons soaring, but she said, “We must go now.”

  “It feels as though we just arrived,” he responded.

  “Yes, but we have slept long, and if we do not return to the waking world soon, your dinner will be burned, and you will have to eat cold jerky. If that happens, you will be grumpy, and I don’t wish to travel with a grumpy companion. Besides, I want to eat the rest of that pig and have a bath before we go.”

  As Delno stared at her, she, and the rest of the Dream State, faded to black. Then he came fully awake right where he had fallen asleep. He quickly moved to the fire, and, using the rag that had until recently been his tunic to protect his hand, he pulled the pan out of the heat. As she finished the pig, in a couple of bites, he removed the cover from the pan. The dragon had been right; if he’d waited much longer, the meat would have been ruined.

  As she walked to the stream to bathe, he remembered his question from this morning. “Geneva,” he said, “perhaps you can answer a question for me.”

  “If the answer is within my knowledge,” she responded.

  “Very well, since the day I met your mother I’ve been living in the wilds, often sleeping under the stars. We’ve been camping in areas that have a great deal of water where mosquitoes and other such pests flourish; however, I can’t remember being bothered by them during that whole time. Why is that?”

  She thought about it for a moment then said, “Sorry, Love, I have no idea. I am not bothered by such things, and there is nothing in the knowledge that my mother passed on to me that hints at an answer to your question.”

  “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully, “I wonder.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Well, I have noticed a slightly musky odor about you, and, when I think about it, your mother had that smell about her also.”

  “Are you saying that dragons stink?” She sounded a little offended.

  “Not at all, my dear,” he replied hastily. “In fact, I find the scent quite pleasant. More like a very fine perfume, light as butterfly wings, but it lingers pleasantly.”

  “How very poetic, thank you,” she said a little sarcastically.

  “I’m serious,” he declared, feigning indignation. When Geneva only chuckled, he went on with his thought. “Perhaps this scent, that I find so pleasant, is a natural defense that dragons have as protection against such annoyances.”

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “We have no way of knowing, and since we can’t prove your theory one way or the other right now, if you are finished eating, could you come down here and scrub the area between my wings? I’m having trouble reaching it, and it itches terribly.”

  Delno joined her at the stream. She had, even though it had only been a few moments, wallowed the bottom out enough to make it deeper. He told her to wait a moment while he removed his pants. The last thing he wanted to do on a warm humid summer night was spend several hours in the saddle wearing wet trousers. Then he waded in and immediately attacked the offending dirt that was causing her such distress. He noticed that the skin under the dirt appeared to be flaking off. As he scrubbed, a couple of scales, each larger than his own palm, even came loose.

  “Geneva,” he said with some concern, “are you sure everything is all right? Your skin is flaking off here, and you just lost two of your scales.”

  To his surprise, she laughed out loud for the first time in her lif
e. “Yes, my overly protective partner, I am fine. As you have noted, I am growing bigger every day. Well, I am actually outgrowing my hide. My skin can’t keep up so it sloughs off in patches to be replaced with new growth. Usually I just roll on the ground, or rub against trees and rocks. It’s nice to have someone to rub the parts that are hard to reach.” Then she added, “Thank you!”

  “Of course, Dear Heart, any time.”

  This new revelation only brought more questions about the nature of dragons to his mind. He decided that the questions could wait, though, as he moved out of the water and retrieved his pants. He didn’t want to be preoccupied while he packed. Last night’s lesson was still fresh in his mind, and he wanted his packs tight and everything in just the right place in case something else happened. If he were accosted again, he doubted he would be so lucky as to be set upon by more idiots. The bandits who tended to work farther out from town were not so stupid and traveled in larger numbers.

  He finished packing, and they moved out once again as the sun disappeared completely from the sky. He set the same pace as before, figuring that at such a rate they would probably be able to make seven or eight leagues before they would need to find a campsite. It ended up being much closer to seven leagues when exhaustion forced him to have Geneva find a place for them to rest.

  Chapter 22

  “You are grumpy this evening,” Geneva said. “Remember what I said about traveling with a grumpy companion?”

  It was almost morning, and they were just making camp after only traveling, by his estimation, a little more than three leagues.

  “Of course I’m grumpy,” he said. “We’ve been traveling for six nights; each night we traveled for a longer period of time, and each night we’ve traveled less distance. At this rate, we won’t make Palamore by late winter!”

  “Well, it’s not my fault,” she retorted. “I am bigger than both of those beasts put together,” she said, inclining her head toward the horse and pony, “and I can travel many times the distance they can in a night!”

  He sighed and said, “I am sorry, Dear Heart, it’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on you. You’re right, of course; the horse and pony are actually slowing us down at this point. Unfortunately, you still aren’t strong enough to carry your weight and mine, too; otherwise, we could probably have made the whole trip in less than a fortnight.” Then, in frustration, he said out loud, “Hell, if it weren’t for that eight-stone pack on the pony’s back, I could probably walk faster on my own feet!”

  She knew he hadn’t been speaking to her, but she responded to his last statement with a question. “Are we sssure that you can’th ride with me?” She had just started to speak out loud in the last couple of days and still tended to lisp around her fangs, which, at this point, were a bit too large for her mouth.

  The lisp made him smile, “No, Dear Heart, on this I must remain firm.” As she started to object, he raised his hand to quiet her. “We’ve had this discussion already. You may be maturing extremely fast for one of your kind, but your mother told me that it would be six months before you would be ready to carry a rider. I will not rush that. Suppose we overtax your growing muscles and bones, and do permanent harm?”

  “I carry a great deal of weight when I fly with the animalsth I kill back to camp before eating thhem,” she replied.

  “I know you do, but I am heavier than most of the animals you carry back, and we would be traveling much further each night,” he said. Then he added, “A one-year-old horse appears almost fully grown, but if you start riding it before it is about three years old, you can damage the bones that are still growing, causing it to have problems for the rest of its life, perhaps even permanently ruining the animal for riding.”

  “I am not a horse,” she pointed out.

  “I know you are not a horse, Geneva, but I also realize that I know so little about dragons and their growth that I can’t say whether or not you carrying me in flight would do you harm, and I would rather err to the side of caution.”

  She knew, from three consecutive nights of repeating this conversation, that Delno would hold firm on this point, so she shifted the topic. “Then what are we to do if we wish to increase the distance we can go in the time we have to do it?”

  “The farther we get from the cities, the more danger of being waylaid by bandits, so we need to travel at night to avoid being seen. However, the farther we get from the cities, the worse the road gets, and the slower the horses have to go to avoid injuring themselves stepping in a pothole. The slower the horses travel, the longer we are traveling in the wilderness putting our selves at risk of attack,” he mused. “I can see no other way; we will have to start traveling during the day.”

  He was exhausted, but he was too frustrated to sleep, so he unpacked a few camp supplies, still opting for not erecting the tent, since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and then gathered wood for a fire. Once he secured the horses, he settled down and read his map by firelight. “If I am judging the landmarks and distances right, we are about one day’s travel from this small village,” he indicated the spot on the map with his index finger.

  Geneva’s vision could range from miles to just a couple of feet from her eyes, though when she viewed a small object that close she tended to look with one eye or the other, so she was able to see the point on the map.

  “This village is right at the southern border of Corice. I will stop there and get more supplies and see if there is any news of the road ahead. It is the full dark of the moon now, so it will be another week, at least, before the horses will be able to see the road well enough in the dark to make good headway, so today we will begin traveling before full dark to try and make up time we will lose once night has fully fallen if we don’t reach the village before dark. After we have rested and I have resupplied at the village, we will start traveling during the day.”

  “I still think we would be better off leaving the horses. . . .” she started, but he cut her off.

  “I won’t hear of it. We’ve been over this every night for the last three nights. Me riding you is out of the question until I can be sure that doing so won’t damage your growing wing bones, muscles, and spine.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment until Geneva shrugged her shoulders in a surprisingly human-like gesture and gave up on the argument. She lay down and lowered her head to rest. Delno pillowed his head on her front leg and closed his eyes. Soon they were both sound asleep.

  Later that morning, she hunted and returned with one small deer haunch that she allowed him to take enough meat to make a nice roast from, and then she slept again. He cooked his meat and ate quietly. Shortly after noon, he began breaking camp in preparation of her waking. When she woke, he made sure she was ready for the day’s journey, and then gave her instructions.

  “I need you to fly ahead and scout the terrain. Fly high enough to avoid being seen, but stay low enough to still be able to see enough detail to warn of any danger. Then find a suitable campsite near the town. Once you have done that, you should hunt and eat well. We may be at that camp for more than one day, so make sure it is fully concealed and you are well fed. If I can travel fast enough, I may be able to get to the village early and conclude my business there before nightfall, and thus we will be able to move on tomorrow. Otherwise, I will join you at camp, and we will leave the day after.”

  “Very well,” she said. “I will do the scouting; you just get some haste out of those little beasts.” Without another word, she launched herself into the air and was soon just a tiny speck in the sky.

  He pushed the horses into a trot and maintained that pace for over an hour. Finally, he relented and allowed them to slow to a fast walk. After another hour, they came to a ford, which meant they were only about four leagues from the village, and he waited long enough for them to drink their fill before pushing on. He’d made good time, and he had several hours before the summer sun would set, but he decided to join Geneva at camp rathe
r than continue to town. Some of these out-post villages closed up fairly early, and he didn’t want to have to explain himself to gate guards any more than was absolutely necessary. Also, he knew Geneva might still be peeved at him, both for not relenting about riding her, and for the way he had ordered her about this afternoon. He wanted to join up with her and make sure she wasn’t still upset.

  “Good evening,” she said as he entered camp.

  “Good evening to you, too,” he responded. “Is everything all right?”

  “If by all right you mean am I over being angry, then yes. I know that your arguments against us flying together are based on sound logic and are for my own protection, and your instructions this morning made good sense. Although I didn’t get over being angry with you until after I had eaten, so I’m afraid that I didn’t save you any meat.”

  Delno laughed a little and said, “That is not a problem, Dear Heart, I passed a fruit tree a short way back and found enough ripe fruit lying on the ground to make a good supper. Being human, I need more than just meat anyway.”

  That night things were much happier in camp then they had been in the preceding few days. Delno even finished the carving he had started after their first evening on the road: it was a wild boar with wicked-looking tusks. He was quite pleased with how it turned out. He had erected the tent this time, but he used it to stow his gear, preferring to sleep under the stars with his head pillowed on Geneva’s leg.

  He again went with her to into the Dream State, but this time they barely spoke to each other. He was more than content to sit with her and watch the other dragons soar, and conversation seemed unnecessary.

  Chapter 23

  The next morning he woke later than he had planned, but it was still plenty early enough to go to the village. He told Geneva that he had decided to forgo breakfast in camp, as there would surely be a bakery or some other shop where he could buy something to eat. After assuring her that he would be as quick as possible, he started off on foot, preferring to leave the horse where she could watch over it rather than trust it to some stranger in a strange town. The last thing he did as he left the camp was caution her against being seen, which she took good naturedly as him being over-protective, and then he was on the road by himself.