The Moon Coin (The Moon Realm Series)

by Richard Due

  “Find cover!” ordered Dubb.

  Everyone scattered.

  All save one.

  “Tasty dragon,” said the metallic voice.

  The dragon sucked in vast quantities of the cool night air. Tavin held his ground, staring dumbly at those who fled.

  “Cowards!” he screamed, eyes flashing.

  Andros leaned out of his hiding place, begging Tavin to take cover.

  He looked blankly at Andros, who held out his hand imploringly. Others began shouting encouragement. For a second, Tavin lowered his swordpoint and took a step toward Andros.

  Then came the shrill metallic voice.

  “Kill it!” it hissed.

  Tavin held up the sword and staggered backward, as though he were attempting to back away from it. The dragon continued to inhale. Tavin stepped on the edge of the shield in the dirt. He looked down at it, confused.

  “Nooooooo!” screamed the metallic voice, “Rush it! Rush it now! I will show you where to bite!”

  Dubb’s men and women shouted to Tavin. “The shield! Pick up the shield!” and “Run! Get away!”

  Tavin made as if to reach for the shield again, but the voice rang out.

  “No! We must kill it! Now is the time!”

  The dragon’s lungs quieted, releasing Tavin from his indecision. He rushed to the dragon’s forelegs and stooped low. Planting his feet wide, he placed the tip of his blade to where the dragon’s scale-plating was weakest, at the pit of the joint between the chest and leg, and heaved upward with all his strength. At first, the tip of his long blade strained against the hide, and then, with a horrible sound, it pierced the dragon’s scales and thrust upwards, aiming straight towards the heart.

  The dragon jolted upright, snapping the nets like kite string. Its long neck uncoiled, stretching upwards and smashing through the arch as its head sought out the night sky. The blast of its breath formed a tall pillar of flame from which the mists and clouds shrank. The dragon’s breath lasted far longer than Lily expected, briefly lighting up the entire camp like daylight. The opening around the fiery pillar grew, revealing stars and moons.

  And then it was over. For a moment, all was black except for the light of the moons and stars that shone down on the dragon’s face and body. Its neck twisted and swayed, jaws opening and closing, its surviving eye taking one last long look at the heavens. Its great frame gave a violent shudder, and it released one final cry. The moon coin resting on Lily’s chest pulsed. Over the sound of the dragon’s bellow, she heard two words in her head: forgive me. And then the beast collapsed, like a giant redwood felled.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Harvest

  Bathed in moonlight, Tavin stood alone under the shrinking hole burned into the clouds by the dragon’s breath. Lily took a step forward. Had the dragon really spoken? Or had it been someone else? People were talking and shouting in voices she didn’t know. Forgive me. The words could have come from anyone—even from the peculiar metallic voice.

  What happened next surprised Lily nearly as much as the sight of the dragon.

  Tavin spun around. The campsite slowly dimmed as the clouds closed up. The men and women had not stood down from their battle stances, though they had all exchanged their weapons for nets and ropes. Their quarry had shifted—to Tavin. And he knew it.

  Two robed figures stationed themselves on either side of him.

  Lunamancers? wondered Lily. They placed their hands before their chests, slowly spreading them apart.

  “Peerins!” gasped Lily, stepping out from the crag. How many times had she and Jasper tried to make them: placing their palms together, fingers pointing to wrists, then slowly sliding them apart, spreading their fingers until only the tips of their index fingers and thumbs touched? How many times had they tried to peer through the rectangle they’d made in hopes of revealing the world of magic that lay beneath? Lily placed her palms together. How old had she been the last time she tried? Six? Seven?

  The lunamancers chanted spells, for which the moon coin offered no translation. Suddenly, bright beams of light erupted from their palms and focused directly on Tavin’s eyes.

  “Run, you fool!” shrieked the metallic voice. “Get away!”

  Lily ducked back into the deep shadows, flattening herself against the wall of the crag.

  Tavin turned on his heel, but one of the lunamancers had anticipated this and was waiting to shine another beam into his eyes.

  Quib moved into position, just out of Tavin’s lunging range, and uncoiled a whip from his belt. He flicked his wrist, and the whip leapt up to Tavin’s chest, encircling it like the living coils of a snake. Instantly, Tavin’s arms were lashed to his sides. Only from the elbow down did his sword arm remain free. He tried to pivot, but the whip fought to hold him in place.

  The metallic voice whined then. “Imbecile! Idiot! They will have us!”

  Even with his elbow pinned to his side, Tavin struck at the whip, but it dodged his blows. Tavin made a rush for the whip’s master, but Quib bore down, squeezing the coils still tighter. The lunamancers moved closer now, intensifying the light trained on Tavin’s eyes.

  Then Andros appeared. Moving with tremendous speed, he seized Tavin’s sword arm. The instant his big hand closed around Tavin’s wrist, everyone jumped in, each grabbing some part of Tavin’s forearm or scabbard in a vigorous struggle to sheathe his sword.

  “Stop them!” screeched the horrible voice. “Stop them! I demand to be sharpened! I demand to be oiled! I am the hero!”

  The second Tavin’s blade tip aligned with his scabbard, Andros slammed the hilt home. Tavin groaned. Limbs limp, he collapsed to his knees.

  “Bind him!” said a commanding voice that Lily recognized as Dubb’s. “Marred! Quickly! Is the thing truly dead?”

  But Marred needed no urging. While the others were struggling with Tavin, Marred had rolled a boulder to the dragon’s mouth. Using a stout spear as a lever, he pried open its jaws and propped them open with a log.

  “Marred—” cautioned Dubb.

  Marred tossed off his helmet and quickly wiggled out of his strange armor, which Lily now thought looked suspiciously like dragon scales. He lit a small hand torch.

  “Marred, is it—”

  Holding the torch in front of him, Marred plunged into the dragon’s mouth.

  “—dead?” finished Dubb, just as the heels of Marred’s boots vanished.

  People around her murmured, and Lily heard someone say, “Not again.”

  A second later, the dragon twitched. Its jaw muscles strained spasmodically. The log holding open the dragon’s mouth burst into splinters. A puff of foul smoke came out of its nostrils, and its tail knocked someone to the ground.

  Dubb’s sword leapt from its scabbard. “Swords!” he cried, “Andros! Spike that tail!”

  A “Why me?” look flashed across Andros’s face, but he dove for the tail just the same, tackling it and dragging it to the ground.

  The ones who hadn’t drawn swords set to prying open the dragon’s jaws again. Straining and tugging, they finally forced the jaws apart. There was Marred, face blackened, torch in hand, kneeling on the dragon’s tongue. He wore a big grin on his face and slime in his hair. As he wormed his way out, carefully skirting the dragon’s sharp teeth, Lily noticed that in his hand was a small lump of what looked like dragon flesh. He held up his prize triumphantly.

  “The igniter organ!” he announced, looking very pleased. “You wanna talk spicy?” He rubbed his stomach for emphasis.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” said Boots, placing a hand over his stomach and turning away from the sight. He wasn’t the only one.

  “They’re best pickled,” Marred explained to Lily, rummaging through a pack by the fire and pulling out an earthenware jar. The jar fizzed loudl
y when he opened it, and its odor caused all in the immediate vicinity to scatter. Quib, though, with a dreamy look in his eyes, smacked his lips hungrily.

  Marred popped the organ into the liquid and recapped the jar.

  “And, yes, if you’re still wondering, it’s quite dead.” He sounded happy when he said it, although his face reflected a disappointment that Lily didn’t understand.

  Quib clapped his hands together. “All right! You heard the man! There’s work to be done. It’s dragon chili time!”

  To Lily’s horror, this brought smiles to everyone’s faces (except Tavin’s; he had slumped forward and fallen face first into the dirt). A cheer went up.

  Lily chose this moment to step out of the darkness and into the firelight. “Just beans for me,” she said brightly. Her stomach was empty, but not that empty.

  An odd stare flitted across Quib’s elfin features.

  “No dragon chili?” he asked, clearly not understanding.

  But it was impossible to keep Quib’s spirits down for long. “Don’t you worry, lassie,” he said, a big grin filling his face. “We’ll have this critter stripped to the bone in no time. As the youngest, you can have the first bowl of dragon’s blood pudding. And that’s a promise!”

  Lily blanched.

  “Of course,” Quib went on, “the meat closest to the bone is the best.”

  Lily shook her head, confusing Quib.

  “Plenty . . . to . . . go around?” he said.

  “Just beans, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, suit yourself,” he said, and he turned to those around him and began barking orders.

  The dismantling of the dragon began in earnest then. Three wagons, pulled by half-starved horses and loaded with sacks, chests, barrels, and buckets of tools, were wheeled out from the center of the ruined keep. Men and women tossed their cloaks and helmets to the ground and rolled up their sleeves. Boots grabbed several tool-filled buckets from the wagons, selecting a wicked looking knife for himself, before he and the others descended on the fallen dragon. The lunamancers formed their peerins, chanting indistinctly. Lily could see they were casting spells on the tools, which glowed strangely. The men and women made small incisions behind the dragon’s scales, peeling back the hide bit by bit. The work was laborious, and the magical glow barely lasted long enough for a cut or two.

  Everywhere Lily looked, people were in motion: lighting fires under cauldrons, cutting long strips of meat, dragging out smoking racks from the shadows. The work reminded Lily of Native Americans stripping buffalo—nothing went to waste.

  Lily helped move the packs and bedrolls into an adjacent wall-less room, and Andros plucked up Tavin’s senseless body, tossing him heavily before the fire. Andros knelt down gingerly, as though his knee was in great pain, and propped Tavin up against a large rock. Tenderly, he brushed off some of the caked dirt on Tavin’s shoulder, which Lily thought rather pointless, as all the men were covered in grime and filth.

  “Ah,” sighed Andros, pushing the hair out of Tavin’s vacant eyes. “You’ve outdone yourself this time. Now there’s one less monster in this world.” Andros turned to Dubb. “He won’t even remember, will he?”

  “Doubtful,” said Dubb, in a quiet voice. “Thank you, Andros. If I’m not mistaken, I think you’ll find Quib is very much in need of your services.”

  Andros nodded his big head and thudded off to the adjoining room. Now there were just the three of them: Dubb, Tavin, and Lily.

  Stiff-legged, Dubb slid down into a sitting position, shoulder to shoulder with Tavin, who was blinking uncertainly. Dubb motioned to Lily and pointed to a stone opposite them. Lily was glad to finally be sitting, and the new fire was warm and comforting.

  Dubb gave Tavin a hard nudge in the ribs and lightly slapped the sides of his face.

  “Wake up, Tavin. Wake up. I have a surprise for you.”

  Tavin continued to blink his eyes. He didn’t appear to know where he was, nor did he seem to care. He stared at Lily blankly.

  After a time, he seemed to focus. “Where are we?” he asked, looking up at the night sky. “Bairne?”

  “No, Tavin. We’re still far from Bairne. We’re at the ruins; we’re at Perch.”

  The name Perch pricked at Lily’s memory, but she couldn’t recall anything specific.

  Tavin looked at Lily more carefully. “Perch . . . we brought a maid with us to Perch?”

  “No.”

  “Well . . . then where did she come from?”

  “A fine question.” Dubb turned his attention to Lily. “Would you be so good as to enlighten us?”

  Lily bristled. Again, just as with Nimlinn, she found herself in the position of not having considered what she did and didn’t want to tell. She had lots of questions, of course. Like, where she was, and if these people knew Uncle Ebb. True, she felt a budding trust in Dubb, but Tavin’s Jekyll and Hyde act had her a bit worried. And the two of them were obviously friends.

  “Why don’t you start with your name?” prompted Dubb.

  “All right,” she said. “It’s Lily—Lily Winter.”

  Dubb glanced quickly at Tavin, but Lily’s words had made no impact on him.

  “Winter. Interesting. Does the name Autumn mean anything to you?” murmured Dubb.

  This caught Lily off guard, and her face showed it.

  “You see,” continued Dubb, “the name of Autumn has long been connected with that necklace you wear. Odd names: Winter, Autumn—they almost sound as if someone just made them up.”

  “Yes,” said Lily, trying to decide what else she wanted to say.

  He made an effort to smile pleasantly at her. “A relative, perhaps?” he asked.

  “Perhaps,” said Lily, considering for the first time that maybe her uncle wasn’t really her uncle.

  The light from the fire was bright, and Lily realized this was the first good look she’d had at either Dubb or Tavin. Their armor was indeed made of dragon scales, mostly green, but with flecks of blue and red. And the scales seemed far smaller than the scales on Tavin’s dragon. The breeze shifted, and Lily covered her nose.

  Tavin leaned over to Dubb and said, half under his breath, “Would it be all right . . . could I . . . just sharpen it a little?”

  Dubb shook his head no.

  “Please?” he begged, in an even more pathetic tone.

  “No,” answered Dubb. He spoke out of the side of his mouth and nudged Tavin. Tavin nudged back.

  This eccentric behavior made Lily uncomfortable. She decided she would need to collect more information before giving any away.

  “I have some questions of my own,” stated Lily.

  Dubb turned to Lily and smiled in a way that made her think he was a little surprised and also pleased by her attempt to take charge of the conversation.

  “By all means,” he said cordially, giving Lily so much of his attention that she wondered if maybe he would deduce more from her questions than she would gain from his answers.

  “This moon”—Dubb’s eyebrows shot up, but he held his tongue—“there are bits and pieces of dragoyles all over the place; I saw the fountain. I’m on Dain, aren’t I?”

  “Moon?” said Dubb in an indignant, loud tone. Tavin laughed. Affronted, Dubb gave him a sideways glance, but then softened and began chuckling himself. “Yes, you are indeed right, Lily. Welcome to Dain. But moon?” Dubb shook his head. “No, no. Make no mistake. You have found the one true world of the Moon Realm.”

  “One true . . . Dain? But I thought—”

  “You thought what?” asked Dubb pointedly.

  “I thought, um, Barreth was the—”

  “Barreth!” shouted Dubb.

  Tavin blew air through his lips as though Lily had said something funny. Dubb’s astonishment faded, and he t
oo began to chuckle. Tavin began to laugh louder, and Dubb nudged him in the ribs—hard—which finally quieted him down. Lily thought they looked like two schoolboys sharing some personal joke at her expense. And she didn’t like it.

  “Barreth?” repeated Dubb. “The one true world?”

  Their renewed laughter bordered on maniacal. Lily’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Ba-Ba-Barreth?” wheezed Tavin. “With those overgrown . . . overgrown . . .”

  “—house cats?” supplied Dubb.

  They held their sides, fighting to breathe. In fact, they were entirely useless for quite some time.

  Lily crossed her arms. “I just came from Barreth,” she said. “And their Queen was quite adamant about it.”

  This news caused Dubb to go completely silent, his face serious again. Tavin, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious. But Dubb shushed him, giving Lily his full attention.

  “You’re serious,” he said.

  “Yes. I was there for almost a full day. I arrived here only about thirty minutes ago.”

  Tavin quietly began his strange pleading again. Dubb tried to ignore him, but it was obvious that Tavin’s pathetic display was beginning to take a toll on Dubb.

  “Tavin, for the love of moonlight, would you please drop it?”

  But Tavin continued. “Just a little . . . sharpen,” he mumbled.

  Dubb grimaced and struggled to his feet. He grabbed a stick out of the fire, hooked Tavin’s sword hilt with it, and slid the blade out a few inches from its scabbard.

  “Ooooooil meeeeee,” crooned the sharp metallic voice. “Shaaaaarpen meeeeee,” it continued beguilingly.

  The edge of Tavin’s blade vibrated minutely, like a tuning fork, with every syllable. The nails-on-a-chalkboard voice was enough to make Lily cover her ears. Dubb motioned to her that it was all right.