by CC Hogan
Chapter 16 – X
Weasel had used the trick previously when he and Fren-Eirol had brought Farthing to Taken after being stung by the Onga. Draig Bach-Iachawr might be dragons with wings large enough to fly as high as a sea dragon, but they did not have the same lungs as the great dragons, and Mab-Tok would have trouble breathing. He had to help the small dragon and keep him conscious.
“I am worried this will make you sleepy!” he shouted at Mab-Tok against the growing wind as they spiralled up and over the Moor.
“I am not Fren-Eirol and you are just by my ear, don’t shout!” shouted back the small dragon.
“Sorry,” Weasel said with a little less volume. “How long can you go without my help?”
“Five more minutes before I get breathless I reckon.”
“Get as high as you can and level out, then I will help. This will slow your heart rate down and you will feel like you are in a daze, but you should be able to ride the current. When you need more control, drop in height. I will take that as meaning you don’t need me and stop helping you.”
“I will.” Mab-Tok pushed harder into the wind, trying to find the sweet spot that Fren-Eirol used to increase her climb. Suddenly he found it and let out a yelp of surprise.
“Lean forward!” Weasel shouted as he felt the small dragon pushed upright. Mab-Tok dropped his head and tilted his wings forward and they shot up into the high winds. For the next three minutes, he adjusted his flight till he could feel the winds beneath him, carrying him east. With any luck, he would not have to flap at all. On his back, the magician placed his hands at the base of the dragon’s neck and Mab-Tok felt a warmness creep over him. He locked his wings in position, letting the fast current of air hold them open and let out a long breath. He had never flown like this. They were much higher than he had been when crossing the eastern half of the Yonder Sea flying in Fren-Eirol’s wake, and this was far faster too. He vaguely wondered how Weasel was able to survive such height. Any human would have been dead from lack of air or the extreme cold. Without the magician’s help, he would be too.
It took nine hours to reach the Black Hills and as they descended, the dreamy warmth left Mab-Tok and he heard Weasel take a sharp breath.
“Are you alright?” he called back.
“Sorry, yes. That was hard.”
“You have my thanks. Can you see at night?”
“I will be fine,” Weasel answered evasively.
“Well, just hold on. I need to land for a bit. My wings are as stiff as anything.”
The trees on the slopes of the foothills jumped out of the darkness, and Weasel gasped in surprise. But the Draig Bach-Iachawr’s sight was much better than his, and he steered them to a small glade. Once Weasel had leapt to the ground, Mab-Tok flopped down and rolled onto his back.
“That was tiring!” he said with feeling. “But incredible. I have always been envious of the true high-flyers, but now I have felt it for myself, I am amazed they ever come down.”
Weasel laughed weakly. “Think about the Scimrafugol, then. We saw them on the way over and they can stay up there for days on end. And they travel faster. Fren-Eirol thinks it is because of their long thin wings; they are better suited to working with the high winds than a dragon’s large, broad wings.”
“That makes sense,” Mab-Tok said with a sigh. Mention of Fren-Eirol was a sharp reminder of why they were here.
“Where are we going?” the magician asked. He wanted an answer this time.
“We are going to the ruins of an ancient abbey,” Mab-Tok told him. “There are those there that can help where I cannot. I won’t explain more now for we have a hard flight through the mountains.” He stood up and stretched. “We should leave. I am worried about Fren-Eirol and our time is short.”
Weasel climbed onto the dragon's back. “Do not compromise for me, dragon; just get there. I will hang on.” Mab-Tok agreed, and took flight out of the glade with a shout.
The mountains wrapped around them, and the small dragon powered his way into the high peaks of the Black Hills, twisting and turning through narrow gorges, sharp crags and tall cliffs, while Weasel held still on his back. The magician could do nothing now but trust to Mab-Tok’s exceptional night vision and hang on for dear life.
“Catch!” Mistry threw down a thin line from the branch from which she was hanging. This was the third tree she had climbed, taking a line up each so they could pull a canvas over the unconscious dragon. They had already draped it over Fren-Eirol to keep her dryer, but they wanted to suspend it to trap heat from fires and then wrap her up warm with whatever they could. The girl scampered back down the tree and grabbed the last line from Farthing.
“Can you get up that last one?” he asked, pointing at a conveniently placed giant which had little to recommend it for climbing.
“No lower branches to hang onto,” the girl said. “Unless you can push me half up.”
“My job I think,” called out Seb Dawfoot, and he scooped up Mistry like his tiny little daughter and dumped her on his shoulders. She shrieked in surprise. He stood with his back against the tree. “Step onto my hands, facing the tree. I do this with Silvi all the time.” As she did so, he raised her right up above his head and she grabbed the lowest thin branch and swung herself up. He walked away and looked up with his hands on his hips. “You are good at that.”
“Hey, don’t go away, I have to get down yet.”
“Jump?”
“From here? Forget it!” The giant of a man smiled and went back to the tree and collected the girl. “Is that enough lines?” she asked.
“That will do us,” Farthing called over, threading the last line through the eyelets on the canvas and pulling it out.
“I need to find more herbs,” the girl said with a frown. “I used them all on the first dressing.”
“Will you need more water?” Farthing asked.
“There is a small stream about 100 paces down the trail,” Seb told her.
“Thanks, I will find what I need down there too, I hope.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Tindel, raithsporn and Tind Root.”
“I don’t know Tind Root,” the big man told her, “but the others you will find a bit of a way down the stream; they like it wet.” The girl thanked him again, grabbed two empty skins and headed off.
Farthing watched her go. “Is it safe in the forest?”
“Oh, safe enough, lad. We don’t have wolves here and bears are rare and are up north at this time anyway. The odd wild pig, but they will run the other way if they see her. So, unless she gets mauled by squirrels, she should be fine.”
“We have had a lot of bad luck,” Farthing said, pulling at each line in turn. Seb grabbed the oposite line in each case and pulled the other way till the canvas had lifted clear of the dragon but was sagging in the middle. The big man took his long machete from his belt, cut and cleaned two stout poles from younger trees, and used them to raise the centre of the canvas into a peak. Hopefully it would trap the heat and help the rain run off. Their timing was perfect as it began to rain more heavily.
“So, tell me about this monster,” the big man said. “For all these years I have seen the signs and the carcasses, but I have never actually seen the beast.”
“Well we think that is because you’re not female,” Farthing told him.
“You are joking, lad!”
“No joke. The first one was attracted by Mistry, we think. When it caught sight of her, it went nutty, but it did the same when Fren-Eirol turned up. And when he bit her and she bled, they all went barmy.”
“All of them?”
“Five.”
“Well, I never!” The big man scratched his head. “It was bad enough when I was telling stories about one, but if I turn it into five, they will lock me up!” He laughed, a warm hearty laugh.
“Well, maybe this will help.” Farthing took the tooth from
his pocket and handed it over to Seb. “The wyrm left it in the wound.”
“Silvi is going to squeak like a piglet when she sees this!” Seb said. “Can she have it?”
“I don’t want it, and I doubt Fren-Eirol collects trophies. Does Silvi ever come up here?”
“I bring her up with me sometimes, but she has never been to Tailin Moor.”
“Don’t ever let her anywhere near it, Seb,” Farthing told the man seriously. “I’m not joking about the female thing. We think the wyrms burrow under the ground which is why they were able to surprise us, but may also be why they don’t come into the forest; the roots, you see. But on the moor? They are the kings up there.”
“Thank you for the warning, Farthing. I will keep her away from the moors and maybe put out a warning to other villages too.” The big man sat down and looked up at the grey sky. “Let me help you with the fires and then I must get back down to the village. I was on my way back there when I heard your dragon, and my missus will be wondering where I am.”
“Thank you for your help, Seb. We would have been struggling.”
“Oh, you look like you could have coped, but you seem a strange little band.”
Mistry returned up the path, passing Seb as he headed down at a gentle trot. The two men had lit four fires around the camp, just outside the canvas. It would not keep away all the cold, but the forester had shown Farthing how to keep them compact and hot; more heat and safer for his precious forest.
“Help me with this?” Mistry asked Farthing as she struggled with two skins and a big bag of herbs and roots. “The roots need peeling and chopping and then boiling for ages and I have some more of those mushrooms too for keeping her asleep.” Mistry put her hand on the side of Fren-Eirol’s face.
“Is she alright?” Farthing asked.
“Her breathing is so light, Johnson,” the girl said with a catch in her voice. “It is normally so deep and rich.”
Farthing ached inside. It seemed that everything was stopping him from getting to his sister, and it was always his friends getting hurt.
“I will keep the fires going to keep her warm,” he said. Other than mash herbs, there seemed little else he could do. The girl put a pot full of water on their small cooking fire away from the shelter. They fell quiet as they prepared the ingredients they needed for the change of dressing.
The two small, distant candles of light in the gloom grew into huge, roaring beacons in the precipitous, grey canyon as Mab-Tok flew down to the broad concourse in front of the ancient abbey. Great statues of mythical beasts looked down over the edge of the cliff, and either side of the main path sat two great Black Dragons. Weasel’s mouth dropped open as they landed and the two beasts raised their heads and sounded a long, deep, horn-like call in welcome, that bounced off every cliff and every peak.
“Draig Mynyth Dun,” Weasel whispered as he climbed from the back of the exhausted Mab-Tok. “I have never seen one before.” The Black Mountain Dragons had little contact with other dragons and almost none with humans. They were thought to be few in number and no one knew where they lived except that it might be in an isolated area near Hoar North. The greatest of all dragons, they stood three times as tall as a red mountain dragon and three times as long. Their heads, the size of a horse, stood out on graceful necks and their wings were long and slender, more like the Scimra than other dragons. They were sometimes known as moon dragons, and the stories told that they could fly between the two moons. To most, they were the stuff of children’s stories and legend, and yet here were too monstrous beasts, looking down on the diminutive magician with intelligent and knowing eyes.
“Mab-Tok,” he whispered, and turned to the small healer dragon, but he had collapsed on the ground. “Mab-Tok!” Weasel shouted, and rushed to the dragon, putting his hands on him; he was barely breathing. Weasel looked up at the huge, silent beasts.
“Help us!” he called out with his mind with every ounce of power he could muster. The Black Dragons, first one and then the other, called out with their haunting, deep cry once more and from the Abbey rushed a dozen of the smallest dragons Weasel had ever seen. Shorter than he, these were pure white, wore flowing white, silk robes and had no wings. The tiny dragons, chattering in an ancient tongue, gathered around Mab-Tok, gently lifted him, and carried him through the stone arch of the Abbey. Another took Weasel by the hand.
“Come,” she said in a clipped, high-pitched, voice. “We will look after Mab-Tok and I will show you to a room.” She guided him through the arch into a small atrium and led him up stairs on one side.
“You know Mab-Tok?”
“Of course, he lives here,” the white dragon said simply. She opened a door and ushered Weasel into a tiny room with a small fire and a warm looking bed. “Sleep now,” she said. “We must tend to Mab-Tok. I will wake you in just a few hours.”
The magician sat on the bed with no argument. He realised how tired he was, and his head was pounding from healing Fren-Eirol. He looked out of the small window across the dark, grey canyon. Looking up, he could see a glimmer of light over the peaks. Dawn was not far away. Mab-Tok had achieved an incredible flight for such a small dragon, but then the magician had fed him every ounce of energy he could. Weasel lay down feeling sick and exhausted, and fell quickly asleep.
“Farthing!” Mistry hissed urgently to the young man who was banking up the fires in the early light of another grey dawn. He put down his small shovel and came over to where she sat next to Fren-Eirol’s face. “Her breathing, it is becoming ragged. That is bad!”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know!” The girl sounded so tired. They had both been up all night; he tending the fires and cutting more wood in the shadows around the clearing as quietly as he could, and she sitting by the dragon, making dressings and grinding up mushrooms to mix with the spice that Mab-Tok had left for them. Twice in the night, Fren-Eirol had stirred and moaned in agony, and Mistry had put more of the paste on the dragon’s tongue. Farthing looked to the sky and sat down next to the girl, putting his arm around her.
“It is near sun-up, but I doubt we will see much of it through the clouds. Does it ever stop raining here?” The two of them were soaked through.
Their fire was in one corner of the large clearing and that had afforded them a degree of shelter, the tall, ancient firs towering above their heads. The ground was sloped and well drained, but Farthing had used his shovel to redirect a few impromptu rivulets of water that had threatened to soak the ground where Fren-Eirol lay unconscious. Farthing took the pot of beans out from the large bag and put it on his cooking fire to heat. A distant scraping of gravel caught his ear and he looked down the path. Trundling up towards them was a small cart pulled by a pony driven by Seb Dawfoot. Farthing grinned. The giant of a man looked ridiculous on the small driving seat with his knees sticking up at an angle. He stopped the cart before the clearing and out from the back jumped a small woman and Silvi. The little girl came running up the path excitedly and then skidded to a halt when she saw the dragon lying on the ground beneath the canvas.
“Mistry,” Farthing said. She looked up at him. “We have company.”
Mistry stood up from where she was hidden behind the dragon to see Silvi standing dead still chewing her finger. The woman walked towards them, carrying a large bag, followed by Seb, who was carrying two huge bundles of dry firewood under his arms. Mistry smiled and walked down to meet the little girl and her mother.
“Hello,” she said tiredly.
“You must be Mistry,” the woman said. “I am Melini, Seb’s wife, and I must say I don’t know what you have done to my daughter, but this is the first time she has stopped chatting since we left an hour ago!” The woman smiled broadly. “Here, I have brought some bread and cheese.”
Farthing trotted over to help Seb with the wood.
“I am alright, lad,” he said warmly. “But there is an
other on the back of the cart. I stopped early so I did not scare the pony; he ain’t never seen a dragon before.” He laughed suddenly. “And neither has our Silvi! Stunned her silent, by the gods!” Farthing collected the remaining bundle from the cart and returned, staggering under the weight.
“I haven't seen a dragon before, either,” Melini said. “How is she? Seb told me what happened.”
Mistry looked close to tears. “I think I am losing her. Her breathing is ragged like a goat’s kid is when it’s too weak to survive.”
“Come on girl,” the young woman said. “Let’s have a look at your wonderful friend.” She took Mistry by the arm and walked her up to the dragon. Seb Dawfoot stopped by his young daughter who didn’t even reach the huge man’s waist.
“You planning to stand there all day, or do you want to meet a dragon?” The little girl looked up at him with big, nervous eyes. “Well, come on then, climb on,” he said, bending down while still holding the two wood bundles. Silvi climbed up him as if he was a tree and scrambled onto his shoulder, burying her head in his hair to hide. He laughed and walked up to the camp, Farthing huffing and puffing behind him.
Melini dropped her bag and felt along the dragon’s body.
“Well, I have never dealt with a dragon before, but I have dealt with most things, and this lady is cold. Seb, you and the lad get those fires built right up so we have lots of heat. I’ll look at this dressing.” She turned to Mistry, who was standing with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. “Child, you will catch your death like that. Strip off those clothes by the fire and put something dry on! You too, lad,” she called over to Farthing. The two young people stared at her. “Oh, don’t be silly, you ain’t got nothing none of us have seen a thousand times before. Get on with it.” From the other side of the dragon Seb laughed out loud again.
Farthing and Mistry pulled out dry clothes from their bags and without looking at each other, stripped off and changed in lightning quick time. Farthing grabbed their clothes and hung them on a line which he tied beneath some of the denser trees. Amazingly, the rain had not made it through the canopy, and he wished he had noticed it earlier.
“This dressing needs changing again,” Melini said. “How many times have you changed it?”
“I just need to make up the herbs first, but we changed it completely three times last night and cleaned it too.” Mistry told her. Melini studied the girl.
“Have you two slept at all?”
Mistry shook her head. “Fren-Eirol, the dragon, she was in pain last night, and we have been keeping her quiet with a paste made from Hithe mushroom.” The woman looked startled. “Apparently it is not poisonous to dragons, but it is keeping her asleep.”
“What about something to kill the pain?” Melini asked.
“Mab-Tok, he is a healer dragon friend that has gone for help, he said pain numbing doesn’t work on greater dragons very well, partly because of their size and something about the way their body works. I don’t understand it, to be honest.”
“Well, I am learning too. You have been doing well, child, so let us see if we can do better between us. My Seb is the best forester there is, and he will get it warm like a southern summer sooner than anything. Now get yourself something to eat while I unwrap this and let the air get to it for a bit. We also need these cloths boiled off. Seb!”
“Yes, dear one,” the big man said, striding over.
“You got that big pot down by your charcoal clamp?”
“I moved it; it’s in my shed up the path.”
“Good. Go get it and some more water. I want to boil all these cloths.”
Seb called over to Farthing. “You get those other two fires banked up with that wood like I showed you and I will be about ten minutes. We can get them scorching when I get back.” The big man detached the small girl from his neck and put her on the ground. “Now, girl, you wanted to see a dragon and there is one for you to see. You get yourself all brave and go say hello to it. All right?” The little girl nodded and looked at the large sleeping dragon suspiciously. Seb kissed his daughter lightly on the top of her head, then disappeared up the trail in long, smooth strides.
Mistry took a bowl of beans and a chunk of the fresh bread up to where Farthing was building up the wood around the fire. The bread smelt like it had been baked just that morning. At what time had this little family woken to come and help? Farthing took the bowl from her and she leant against him while he ate.
“Are we losing her?” Mistry asked.
“I don’t know,” Farthing said, his face etched with lines of worry and tiredness. “I can’t even think about it.” He looked up to where Silvi was standing about ten feet from the dragon’s nose. “Do you think you should introduce her while Fren-Eirol is not jumping around?” He was trying to lighten his own mood as much as Mistry’s. The girl pushed herself off her newly adopted big brother and went over to the small girl, still chewing on her knuckle.
“Hello, Silvi,” she said gently.
“Is she hungry?”
“Er, I don’t know …” Mistry was taken aback by the question.
“I don’t want her to eat me if she is hungry when she wakes up.”
Mistry managed to fight off a giggle. “Shall I tell you a story?” The small girl nodded, her knuckle still taking punishment. Melini looked up from where she was tending the dragon’s terrible wound and smiled. “Well, once there was this beautiful princess who every day went down to the market next to the castle to sell her cheeses.”
“Princesses don’t sell cheeses!”
“This one does. One day, bandits invaded the market looking for the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, and seeing the princess grabbed her. Their leader threw her across his horse and rode out of the castle and far away!”
“Ooh!”
“Beautiful, huh?” commented Farthing, stoking the cooking fire ready for the water pot.
“Oh, very! Anyway, the bandit was very, very mean and he had this big, ugly scar all the way down his face. ‘I will take you for my wife,’ the bandit said. ‘And you will live with me in my cave in the mountains!’”
“He wasn’t very nice, was he?” Silvi said.
“No, he wasn’t. Back in the castle, the King was frightened. The bandit was powerful and had a lot of men, and the king thought that he would never see his very, very beautiful daughter ever again.”
“Did my daddy go and rescue her?”
“No, he was busy getting water.”
“My daddy is very big; he could rescue anyone!”
“Yes, but he was busy that day, so he couldn’t,” Mistry said with a hint of impatience. “The next day, a tall, handsome young man called …” Farthing and Melini looked up expectantly. “Called Erik, rode into the castle and asked to see the king.”
“Are you sure he was called Erik?” asked Farthing, who had been rather hoping for a part in the story.
“Yes, I am. The king said he would see the young man in his throne room. The young man came in and said, ‘My King, I hear that your incredibly beautiful daughter has been stolen by the evil bandit. I and my dragon will get her back!’ The King looked up, startled. ‘But dragons eat princesses,’ he said in fear. ‘Everyone knows that!’ ‘Girl dragons do not,’ the young man told him. ‘And Fren-Eirol is a girl dragon.’”
“Is this Fren-Eirol?” asked Silvi.
“Yes, this is her.”
“And she is a girl dragon?”
“Yes, she is a big girl dragon.”
“If she is a big girl dragon, where are her …?”
“Dragons are different. Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”
“Yes please!” Melini called over. Mistry sighed. She was beginning to wonder whether this had been such a good idea.
“So, after many hours of pointless argument, the king said that if Erik could rescue the princess, he would make him a baron.”
> “What is one of those?”
“Very rich. The young man left the castle and went into the forest where Fren-Eirol waited for him. Fren-Eirol leant down and lowered her wing, and the handsome young man who was very definitely called Erik, leapt up onto her back and they flew off to the mountains. Down below, the king and his people looked up and saw the beautiful blue and grey dragon fly over the castle, her thin wings shining in the sun, and ribbons of fine silk flowing from her crest.” Without thinking, Mistry touched a hand to the dragon’s face. “It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever seen!”
“More beautiful than the princess?” Silvi asked.
“No. Now, when they got to the mountain, the dragon hovered in front of the cave and the young man called to the bandit. ‘Bandit,’ he called. ‘Release the princess or we will shake your mountain down!’ The bandit called back. ‘No one is that powerful, boy. Go away and leave me to my beautiful new wife.’ The young man frowned and called again. ‘Bandit, I give you just this last chance. Release the princess or we will shake your mountain down!’ ‘Go away, boy,’ the bandit laughed from inside the cave, ‘for you cannot harm my mountain!’ The boy touched the neck of the beautiful dragon and said, ‘Fren-Eirol, will you sing for me?’ The dragon smiled and said, ‘Erik, I would love to sing for you.’ The dragon began to sing and her song was beautiful and sad. And as she sang, her voice grew louder and louder and louder, and the ground began to shake and rocks tumbled from the mountain.”
“Ooh, she is shaking it!”
“Yes, she is. And one by one, all the bandit’s men ran from the cave, and seeing the huge dragon, they ran into the mountains and were never seen again. At last, the bandit emerged, holding the beautiful princess in front of him. The young man did not know what to do. If he jumped off the dragon’s back to fight the bandit, then the princess would be hurt! But the dragon landed in front of the bandit and she spoke to him. ‘Bandit,’ she said in a golden voice. ‘You are a brave man, but you are a sad man. All your men have run away and the girl you hold in your arms hates and fears you. Will you release her? For if you do, I will let you go from these mountains and from this kingdom without harm. The bandit shook, for he was very afraid of the huge dragon, but looking into her eyes, he could also see how beautiful she was, and he felt shame for what he had done. So, he let the princess go and Erik jumped down from the dragon and grasped the frightened princess and comforted her. The bandit started to walk away and the dragon turned from him and faced the young princess. The princess knelt before the great dragon and in the words of old she said, ‘Fren-Eirol, may I ride?’ And the dragon looked at her and said softly, ‘You may ride, child, but ride as one who knows how to fly with grace.’
“And the young, very, very, very beautiful princess climbed onto the dragon’s back and so did the young man who held the princess tight so she did not fall. But just as the dragon lifted her wings to fly, the bandit whipped out his sword and slashed at the dragon’s leg. Fren-Eirol let out a cry and in anger picked up the bandit with her huge clawed foot and threw him for leagues across the mountains to land no one knew where. Then the dragon, her leg sorely wounded, flew back to her forest and collapsed in a glade. The young man and the Princess slipped off the dragon’s back and tried to tend the dragon’s wound. The king and the queen road up with their youngest princess, and they worked all the night to make the Dragon better.”
Mistry ground to a halt, realising that you should not be telling a fairy tale to a child while a tear is running from your eye. The little girl stepped forward and hesitantly touched the dragon’s nose. Fren-Eirol stirred very slightly.
“Did Fren-Eirol really rescue a princess?”
Farthing had come up and he knelt beside the girl and put his hand over hers on the dragon. “Yes, she really did rescue the princess, Silvi,” he told her. “And she rescued me too. She is the bravest and the most beautiful dragon ever, and we love her.”
The little girl nodded. “Can I love her too?”
“I think she would like that very much indeed,” Mistry told her, choking up. And she stepped quietly away and hid behind a tree.
A little while later, Melini came and found her.
“What happened to you?” she asked. In floods of tears, Mistry told her of the death of her father and of her capture and of how Fren-Eirol had rescued her and taken her into her arms. And she spoke of her feelings for Farthing and how he had taken her in as his sister.
“And how do you feel about that, Mistry?” the woman asked.
“I would rather him as a brother than as nothing at all,” the girl admitted. “He is a bit of a lump too.” She smiled. The woman hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.
“Mistry, we should change this dressing, and listening to your story, I think I should not call you child.”
“I did not mind, Melini. But now I am afraid she is dying.”
“Well, let us go to battle for Fren-Eirol together.”
Weasel’s head was pounding when he was awoken by the small white dragon. He sat up to find fresh fruit and a steaming cup of coffee waiting for him. Ignoring the fruit, he drank back the hot coffee gratefully, and slipped on his robe. Looking out through the window he realised that he had slept but an hour or so and it was only just past dawn. He stepped outside the room where the small dragon waited.
“I am to take you to meet the owner of this house.” The dragon said in her clipped, light voice.
“House?”
“It was once an abbey, maybe a thousand years ago, but was left in ruins for many centuries; much of it still is. The present owner is not a priest, so this is no longer an Abbey.”
“What about Mab-Tok?”
“He will be fine. He was exhausted. Draig Bach-Iachawr are not the best flyers and I am not sure we have heard of any of them flying so high. We must hurry, for you have things you must do, and we must go and rescue the sea dragon.”
“Good, Mab-Tok told you about Fren-Eirol.”
“No, you did. Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
“Occupational hazard, apparently,” said the magician wearily.
As they walked around the balcony that overlooked the atrium, Weasel could see that many repairs had been made, but even those looked many centuries old. He wondered about the person who would live in such isolation. At the far side, they entered through double doors; heavily worked wood detailed with delicate decorations. Inside was a large room covered with rugs and lit by flaming oil lamps. A woman sat in a chair at a long table, her head bowed reading, her long hair flowing over her shoulders. When he entered, she looked up and smiled.
“Eafa,” she said.
“Oh, shit!” Weasel replied.
In the ten seconds that followed, the small white dragon looked first at Weasel and then at the woman, grinned slightly and shot out of the room.
“I would have thought that after all these years you might have said something a little warmer,” the woman said.
“All these years? It has been nearly a thousand of them!”
“That is not my fault, Eafa!”
“Of course it is! I thought you were dead. Father said you were dead, my brother’s thought you were dead and most of Ein Town thought you were dead. Why would I think of contacting you? It was not as if we liked each other when you were alive. I mean before I thought you were dead.” Weasel turned around to go and then turned back. “What are you doing here, mother?”
“I live here, Eafa. This is my home. I found it a long time after I had to leave.”
“What do you mean, had to leave?” The woman looked pained and suddenly very old. Weasel wilted.
His relationship with his mother had been terrible. She and his father had always argued, she had kept disappearing and then he had left for several years to go up to the mines where he met Mab-Aneirin. When he had returned, he had heard she had died. For some reason, it had not bothered
him. He never got on with most of his family anyway, and when he had left again, it had been for good. But this woman in front of him, though undoubtedly his mother, was not the person he had so quickly forgotten. She was old and grey and, well, still alive.
“I had to leave because of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, or because of who you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” The woman stood up and walked over to the magician. He always remembered her as taller, but now she was much smaller than he. “I cannot explain now for I must go and rescue your sea dragon friend.”
“How?”
“With my dragon family. We will go and get her.”
“I will get my things.”
“No, you will stay here, Eafa.”
“What?”
“There are things you need to know and you need to know them now. Well, actually you should have learned them ten years ago when I sent Mab-Tok to look for you.”
“What happened?”
“I should know not to send a weasel to look for a weasel! On the table is a book. Read it all!” She strode from the room and slammed the door behind her. Weasel sat down in the middle of the floor and did something he had not done since Bren-Aneirin had died. He cried.
Mistry was worried. Fren-Eirol’s breathing was terrible and she did not know what to do about it. Worse still, the paste that she had made to keep the dragon sleeping was no longer working and the dragon was stirring.
“Let her wake, Mistry,” Melini told her. “Perhaps we need her help to fight this. Better she gets to fight.” Mistry nodded and threw away the paste she had made. The healing that Weasel had done was failing and the wound opening and bleeding.
“How do we close it, Melini?” Mistry asked. “I can stitch a wound on my dad... on a person, even on a goat, but on a dragon?”
Seb walked up and handed over a rope. “Use that to tie around the leg.”
Mistry picked it up and looked at it. “Might work at that! Seb, can you lift the leg? It’s heavy!”
He looked at the huge dragon leg as if sizing up a log and nodded. “I can lift it, but I won’t lift it much, it might make things worse.”
Melini went to the other side of the leg and crouched down. “Pass it through to me, Mistry.”
“Good idea. Ready Seb?”
The forester bent down and gently put his arms around the lower leg and lifted. Fren-Eirol groaned in pain, but Mistry clenched her teeth and slid the rope under the leg to Melini. The woman picked up the end and handed it back over and Mistry tried to tie it up. Seb lowered the leg and gently took the rope and pulled it tight. The dragon cried out, and Silvi, who was sitting by the dragon’s head, jumped back in surprise, her eyes wide with fright. Seb ignored them all and calmly tied the rope, pulling the worst of the wound closed.
“It is not a proper job, but tie it up with more cloth and it might slow the bleeding,” he said.
Fren-Eirol’s eyes flickered open. “Where am I?” Her voice rumbled and was painfully weak.
“A bandit has stabbed you with a sword and you have been very, very sick and I was very frightened of you, but I think I love you now!” The words tumbled from the little girl, and she stood in front of Fren-Eirol’s face, twisting her hands nervously. Mistry ran up and touched Fren-Eirol on the head.
“Eirol, you have been severely injured by the Wyrm and the wound is infected. Weasel and Mab-Tok have gone for help. You are sick, Fren-Eirol, very sick. We need you, I need you to fight.” The dragon blinked at the girl and she reached up with her hand. Mistry held it in hers.
“I will try, dearest girl. I have never had so much pain. I need water, I think.” Seb Dawfoot walked over to the large pot that was bubbling with the water they were using to clean the dressings. He kicked it over, spilling the hot water into the fire, then grabbing fistfuls of rags, he picked up the hot vessel.
“I will be back in a moment,” he said, and with long strides, ran down the path.
“Who is that?” Fren-Eirol asked in confusion.
“The best of people, Fren-Eirol, the very best,” Mistry told her. Behind her, Melini beamed and scooped up her own daughter to give her a hug. She desperately needed to hug something.
As Fren-Eirol drank awkwardly from the pot filled with cool spring water, helped by the strong forester, the sky suddenly blackened and the air filled with the sound of a deep horn. Farthing looked up in alarm as two dragons swooped down, and then in joy as he realised that one was Mab-Tok and the other was a big Mab-Tok! Mab-Tok landed and shook Farthing by the hand.
“How is she?”
“Bad,” Farthing was always to the point.
“I will deal with it. This is my brother, Mab-Lotok. You need to pull the canvas down and clear a space. We need a lot of room.”
“What for?”
“Him,” said the dragon pointing up. Mab-Lotok burst into laughter as Farthing looked up and his mouth dropped open.
“What the hell is it?”
“It is a Draig Mynyth Dun and it needs to land,” the bigger Mab-Tok said.
“Right,” said the young man in bemusement. He snapped himself out of it. “Seb, we need to clear everything out of the way and get the canvas down now!”
“Done,” said the big man, and taking his long machete he walked around the camp cutting all the ropes while Farthing and Mab-Lotok pulled the canvas free so it did not fall onto Fren-Eirol.
Mab-Tok went straight over to Mistry. “Speak to me girl.”
“The wound is infected and wouldn’t stay shut. I have dressed it like mad and Melini has been here all day helping and cleaning it. We have had to close it with a rope. The mushrooms stopped working, Mab-Tok, and her breathing …” It was coming out too fast and Mab-Tok put his hand up to stop the girl.
“Take this,” he gave her a packet. “Mix it with a whole skin of water. It will smell terrible. Don’t take it anywhere near Farthing.”
“Why?”
“He won’t thank you for the memory, trust me. Then bring it back here.” He turned to Melini, who was looking around in awe at the proceedings. “When I pour this into her mouth, the dragon will try to vomit. We mustn’t let her. I will hold her mouth closed and you stroke her throat.”
“Like a lamb?”
Mab-Tok looked at the size of Fren-Eirol’s neck. “Well, more or less.”
Seb strode up having cleared away everything he could mostly by picking it up and throwing it into the trees. Mab-Tok looked at the man’s massive arms.
“You can hold her mouth closed,” he said pragmatically. Mistry ran up with the skin, holding it as far away as possible.
“This is disgusting!” she said.
“Where is Farthing?” Mab-Tok asked.
“Throwing up.”
“Oh. All right, here we go. Open your mouth Fren-Eirol.”
“Why?” she started to ask, which is all Mab-Tok needed. He squirted the entire contents of the skin down her throat in one go.
“Now!” he shouted.
Seb wrapped his tree-like arms around the dragon’s muzzle, clamping her mouth shut. Her eyes bulged and her ears stood up on end as Melini rubbed at Fren-Eirol’s neck with all her strength.
“That’s fine. She has swallowed it,” Mab-Tok told them. Seb gently released his grip and Fren-Eirol fixed Mab-Tok with one eye.
“You bastard,” she said with feeling, and passed out.
“What’s a bastard?” asked a small voice from behind them.
“Don’t ask!” said four humans and two dragons.
And then, from the sky, the huge black dragon flew down and landed in silence, his long, long wings reaching over the entire glade, the small white dragons leaping from his back. Slowly he pulled his wings in and lowered his head to the ground. Down stepped a small, grey-haired old woman.
“You must be the friends of my son, Ea
fa,” she announced.
“Your son?” Farthing asked in amazement.
“Yes, he’s not happy about it.” Despite her obviously great age, the small woman walked gracefully, if slowly, to the comatose Fren-Eirol. She touched her gently on the cheek. “You have done well, and she has a chance now, but only if we take her to the mountains.”
“How? She cannot fly!”
“Yes, she can, young man,” the woman said winking at him. “Girls, get the ropes!”
The small white dragons ran up onto the back of the black dragon and pulled down long, cloth-covered lines which they laid out on the ground. Mab-Tok and Mab-Lotok flew up to the dragon’s back and re-appeared with a large, heavy canvas which they unfolded into a long roll behind Fren-Eirol. They then positioned themselves at either end.
“Stand back,” the woman told them all. The huge black dragon turned his great head and opened his mouth. He wrapped it around Fren-Eirol’s neck as if he were going to bite her in two, but instead gently lifted her upper body as if she were but a small child, her head flopping to one side. The two brothers pulled the canvas out under half of Fren-Eirol and the black dragon laid her gently back down. He then reached over, found her good leg, and rolled her over and onto the tarpaulin.
“Now, we need to pull her onto Bell-Sendinar’s back,” the woman ordered. The small white dragons tied the ropes onto the canvas, and the humans and the brothers joined the rest of the white dragons on the far side of Bell-Sendinar. Slowly, while the Draig Mynyth Dun lay as flat as he could, they hauled Fren-Eirol up his wing till she was safely on his back. Farthing shook his head in wonder. The black dragon was so mighty that Fren-Eirol looked small and helpless on his back. He wondered for the moment, how, in this clearing, the black dragon was ever going to have enough room to stretch his wings and take to the sky.
“Johnson Farthing?” The woman walked up to the young man while the white dragons collected many of their things, stowed them in Fren-Eirol’s big bag and tied it on next to Fren-Eirol. “You cannot come with us. There is a limit to what even these friends can carry. You should rest here for a day or more to recover and then Mab-Tok and Mab-Lotok will bring you back to my home.”
“I have to get to my sister,” Farthing said, the trial of the last hours beginning to hit him.
“Mab-Tok has told me. I have sent someone to find out where she is and what is happening. It would be foolish to do anything before we know more. That will take several days; you will have to wait first for news.”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Sen-Liana,” she answered. “We will talk more when you get to the Abbey. I now must go, or your friend will die.” She stepped up onto Bell-Sendinar’s wing and strode to a position at the top of his head and stood just behind his crown. The white dragons laid themselves flat in neat rows down the centre of the dragon’s vast back, holding Fren-Eirol safely. Sen-Liana put a hand on Bell-Sendinar’s head and he slowly stood up to his full height, then reared up vertically onto his back legs, standing taller than many of the trees around the clearing. With a low growl, he leapt high into the air, leaving the ground shaking beneath him. His wings flew out sideways and with one huge flap, he sailed into the sky and turned east. The humans staggered back in awe and Silvi shrieked, not in fear, but in pure wonder. On this day, she had had all her fantasies fulfilled in one go and had seen the rarest sight on Dirt, the great Draig Mynyth Dun. Silence settled over the clearing and Farthing stood up shakily.
“I will set up camp,” he said, wondering what he would use since most of their belongings had gone with Fren-Eirol.
“No, lad,” Seb Dawfoot told him, putting a great arm around his shoulders. “For now, you stay with us in the village. Dragons too,” he added, turning to the brothers. “And I think a beer or five is in order.”
“Five?” Mistry asked in dismay.