Dragon's Bait

by Vivian Vande Velde

  They dug a hole, deep to go beneath the shifting mud, then set up a rough-hewn pole, tamping down the dirt to hold it fast. Gower pulled her from the cart, using more force than was needed considering she didn't resist. They never untied her arms, but ran another rope through the bindings and then around the pole.

  "Iron's surer," Gower complained.

  "Fey creatures have an aversion to iron," Inquisitor Atherton said. "We don't want to frighten the dragon away." Then he stood before her and bellowed, "Do not, therefore, let sin rule your mortal body and make you obey its lusts. No more shall you offer your body to sin as a weapon of evil. Rather, offer yourself to God as one who has come back from the dead to life, and offer your body to God as a weapon for justice. Then sin will no longer have power over you."

  It was bad enough they were going to kill her; she wasn't going to let him twist Scripture to fit her. She spat at him, remembering what they had said about Margaret's goat. The action lost some of its effectiveness since he was already soaked with the rain and she couldn't even tell if she had hit him.

  But Atherton could afford to be magnanimous. "Repent," he told her, "and save your immortal soul."

  She stared beyond his right shoulder, to a place in her mind where dust motes played in the sunlight and her father's big but gentle hands guided hers over a piece of tin that would eventually become a cup.

  Atherton was willing to be magnanimous, but he wasn't willing to get wet for nothing. He instructed them to stick some of the flaming torches into the ground so that the dragon wouldn't have any trouble finding her. Then he sketched the sign of the cross in her general direction and turned his back on her.

  The villagers followed him, returning down the slope lest the dragon come and make a meal of them all. She could hear the creak of the cart and a snatch or two of excited chatter, and then the rain swallowed up the sounds as thoroughly as the shadows had swallowed the people themselves. The torches sputtered and smoked in the dampness.

  I should have left them with a nice curse, Alys thought. Something to keep them up nights, shivering in their beds. But Alys didn't know any curses, and anyway it was too late now.

  She found a position where she could lean against the pole without any of the rough places sticking into her back.

  At least she was alone, and for a while that was a comfort. But she could no longer form the picture of her father's workshop. Pieces of it kept slipping away, like shards of tin falling to the floor. And when she'd concentrate on those elusive parts, force them into being, other things would dissolve until eventually she couldn't even picture her father's face.

  Then, with no one there as witness, she finally cried.

  EVENTUALLY THE RAIN stopped. Clouds like tattered rags raced across the face of the almost-full moon. Alys was certain the rope around the pole was loose enough that she could slide down to rest her legs, but she wasn't sure she could get back up. The pole had been shaped so quickly, so roughly, that it was likely to snag the bindings, and that would be a terrible way to die: caught in a half-crouch, her bottom all muddy from sitting on the wet ground.

  How would the dragon kill her? Perhaps she would be less afraid if she figured out just what to expect.

  A blast of flame? Not likely, she decided. In the stories, dragons frequently asked for young maidens. If they simply incinerated their victims, why worry about age or gender or lack of ... Alys's stomach tightened. Despite what Inquisitor Atherton had shouted at her about sin and lust and Satan ruling her body, she was a maiden. In the village of Saint Toby's, there were girls who had been born the same year as she who were already married; two of them—Nola, whose father had gone to sea and never returned, and Aldercy, who was wed to Barlow's second-youngest son—already had babies. But Alys had never had much use for the village boys, who had all seemed coarse and pushy and who never dreamed of anything beyond Saint-Toby's-by-the-Mountain and one day running their own fathers' shops. Alys had always thought ... she'd thought...

  What difference did it make what she had thought? Here she was tied to a pole as dragon's bait, and if the dragon ever got around to coming, it would kill her in some fashion that probably would not be with a blast of flame.

  Which undoubtedly would have been the quickest.

  In all likelihood it would eat her. The call for maidens could conceivably have something to do with the quality of taste. All she had to worry about was whether it would start to eat her right away, while she was still breathing and screaming and knowing what was going on, or kill her first, perhaps with a swift flick of those claws, which had cut through the stone by the lake, or maybe by biting off...

  This wasn't helping. This was making things worse.

  It would probably be fast, she tried to convince herself. I won't cry again. It wasn't enough that Gower and his horrid family and Atherton and all the rest couldn't see her, would never know: She wasn't going to cry again.

  It would be fast. She'd seen the claw marks on the stone, the trees knocked out of the way of the creature's passing. It had a wingspan hundreds of feet across, and it was incredibly strong. It would be fast.

  In the distance a wolf howled.

  Alys shivered, a combination of the cold breeze through her rain-soaked clothes and the thought that a wolf wouldn't be fast.

  The moon was no longer directly overhead. It wasn't exactly sinking below the horizon, but what if the dragon didn't come? What if she remained here for days, starving, fevered from the chill she was surely already catching? And what of wolves?

  She twisted her arms and realized the rope that held her wrists was looser than she had anticipated. She tried to think back, to remember all the way to this afternoon and to who had tied her.

  Perryn the wood-gatherer. Ah yes. Not that he was of a kinder disposition than the others, but he never could get anything right.

  Alys folded her thumbs and little fingers in, trying to make her hands as narrow as possible. The twine rubbed painfully against her flesh as she tugged.

  She yanked and nothing happened.

  She pulled with steady pressure and felt the rope ease down over her right hand. Again she tugged.

  This time her right hand came loose. She shook the tangle of knots off her left wrist, and that rope, still entwined with the rope that went around the pole, dropped in a heap to the mud at the foot of the pole.

  Her arms felt as though they were going to fall off. The burning pinpricks of pain were so bad she almost wished they would. She flexed her fingers, her wrists, her shoulders—to get the blood moving again.

  Now what?

  She couldn't go back to Saint Toby's. They'd just bring her straight back here, and this time make sure she was tied securely. And even, she thought, even if they did take her escape as proof that she was innocent and forgave her, how could she ever forgive them, live with them, see them every day for the rest of her life knowing what they had thought, what they had caused to happen to her father, what they had wanted to do to her, what they still might do?

  And she couldn't just go to a different village and try to make a new life. It wasn't like she was a boy with a trade, or even one who could be apprenticed. A very young girl child might be taken in on mercy, but she was too old by at least half.

  Wrapping her sore arms around herself for warmth, Alys stooped down to ease her legs. She was no longer tied to the stake, but she had not really escaped for she had nowhere else to go.

  That was when the dragon came.

  Chapter 3

  HER FIRST INCLINATION was to hope the dragon hadn't seen the torches and that she'd have time to run under cover of the nearby trees. It was hard to judge how high the creature was flying—above the treetops, below the almost-full moon—without knowing how big it was. And it was big, whatever the distance worked out to be. Its enormous wings carried it halfway across the sky with one powerful beat. The thing was close enough that she could see it had a mane, which she had never heard mentioned in any of the legends, but far enoug
h away that she couldn't make out the individual scales.

  Then she realized the dragon hadn't seen her, and that if she stayed still for a few moments longer, she was free. But she was soaked to the skin and cold, and she hadn't eaten since early morning—and here it was, almost dawn of the following day—and she was an orphan with nowhere, absolutely nowhere, to go. And she remembered the wolves.

  Her choices, as she saw them, were to die quick or to die slow.

  She chose quick.

  Standing, she flung a rock with all her might. "You stupid dragon!" she screamed. "Come and get me!"

  Her muscles, cramped and strained from being tied so long, rebelled. The rock arced and plummeted to the ground far short of the dragon. But her movement, or her shout, attracted its attention.

  Probably the wrong choice, she thought, as the creature wheeled gracefully and glided back toward her. She closed her eyes and braced herself.

  She felt the wind of its wings as it passed overhead, circling, perhaps suspecting a trap. Then it settled to the ground before her. She braced herself ... braced herself ... braced...

  She opened her eyes just the tiniest bit, sure that what she'd see would be her last sight: a tongue of flame about to engulf her, or great slathery jaws opened wide to tear her, or sharp claws about to rake the life out of her.

  What she saw was the dragon's kneecap.

  Momentarily she reclosed her eyes. She had expected the creature to tower over her; she just hadn't realized that it would tower over her even before its legs ended.

  She swallowed and opened her eyes again. She tipped her head back, back, back.

  The dragon watched her from that impossible height.

  "Well, kill me," she whispered.

  Still the dragon just stood there, pale in the light of the moon and torches, its wispy mane fluttering in the soft breeze, its eyes too far up for Alys to see more than a dark hint. It didn't smell of sulfur, which was something the balladeers almost always said, or of blood or carrion, which was something else she'd expected. More like damp meadow grass on a spring day.

  Alys thought back to this past winter when so many people had gotten sick, which made her think of her father, who had survived, which made her think of him collapsing in Gower's storeroom, his hand to his chest. She kicked the dragon, hard.

  The impact made her toes sting.

  The dragon tipped its head slightly to one side as though considering. Something.

  So, this wasn't going to be quick after all: The dragon was going to play with her. She should have chosen the wolves while she'd had the chance. But, from some unexpected place within, a giggle bubbled up. "Now, dear," she said, "don't play with your food." She covered her face with her hands and sank to the ground. She had so wanted to be brave, even if she was the only one who'd know it, and here she was laughing and sobbing at the same time, facing her death with her rear end in the mud after all.

  With her eyes scrunched closed behind her hands, she was aware of the dragon moving. This is it, she thought. But still she jumped as something brushed her hand. I'm sorry, she thought desperately to God, not for being a witch, which they both knew she wasn't, but for anything else—she was too scared to think of specifics—the impatiences, the missed opportunities to go out of her way to be kind, the times she'd daydreamed during Mass, the ... the ... what? Her mind shut down, refusing to come up with anything. And what was this stupid dragon doing?

  Just as she was trying to get up the courage to open her eyes, she realized that hands were pulling at her hands, uncovering her face.

  Hands—not claws.

  Alys gasped, opening her eyes and dropping her hands all at the same moment.

  A young man, looking maybe two years older than she, crouched before her, his hands still on hers even now as they rested in her lap.

  There was no sign of the dragon.

  For the briefest moment she wondered if he were some sort of dragon-slaying prince who'd killed—No, there'd been no time for that—who'd frightened away ... But there'd been no sound ...

  She looked again, and didn't know how she could have ever mistaken him, however briefly, for human.

  The thing that was most obviously wrong were the eyes. And she thought that before she even noticed the color, which was that of the amethyst gem in the crucifix Inquisitor Atherton wore. "It's a small dragon, "Alys recalled Atherton saying. No wonder. If this human manifestation was any indication, the dragon wasn't fully adult yet. It gave her a perverse pleasure to think of the villagers of Saint Toby's having to contend with him when he reached his full size. Even if she wouldn't be alive to see it.

  By the light of the torches she saw that his hair was the color the mane had been, palest gold, and it hung almost to his waist. Alys jerked her gaze back up to the face, for she had suddenly—finally—noticed that he wore no clothes.

  For the first time, the purple eyes flickered with emotion: amusement. He had seen her discomfort, and recognized the cause.

  "I didn't know," she said, to say anything, and looked away and simultaneously tried to pull her hands from his, "that dragons could take on human shape." She was surprised that her voice worked. His hands felt like human hands—the texture, the warmth, everything was just as it should be, but...

  He refused to release her hands until she looked at him again. He smiled, but this time the amusement didn't reach his eyes. "It's not often," he said in a voice that was soft and husky, but well within the norms for a human of his—apparent—age and build, "that I find a damsel flinging rocks at me." He paused as though considering and slowly added, "It happened once with a knight, but I'd already eaten his horse and most of his weapons. The squire, too, as I recall." He tipped his head slightly as though waiting for a response, the same gesture he had made while in dragon shape.

  "I see," Alys said.

  He raised his eyebrows doubtfully.

  Alys stared at her hands in her lap. Dragon or human, he certainly appeared human, and it was disconcerting to have him crouched before her with nothing on.

  The dragon-youth sighed and sat down on the cold ground, his right leg folded under him, the left up so that he could rest his elbow on his knee, which afforded some modesty, if she didn't think about it. "Humans," he sighed in a tone that reminded Alys that—whatever was the dragon equivalent to seventeen years old—dragons lived for hundreds of years. "Sometimes I forget."

  Alys glanced up and then away. Up long enough that she saw him nod toward the pole to which she'd been tied.

  "That yours?"

  She nodded, never looking up.

  "You had time to get away."

  She met his eyes then. Defiantly. "You didn't see me."

  That stirred something deep beneath those cut-glass eyes, but it was already gone before he spoke. "Of course I saw you. I wasn't interested until you began to act out of the ordinary."

  His superior attitude annoyed her despite her still very real fear. "People staked out on hillsides is ordinary?"

  He flashed his cold grin. "It is for me."

  She sucked in a breath, reminded of her earlier concern. "Why is it...?" She hesitated, not sure she wanted to know.

  "What?"

  Maybe she was worrying needlessly. "Can all dragons change to human shape?"

  He paused, as though considering how much to tell her. "No," he said, just at the point she realized she couldn't believe him, whatever he answered. "Only gold-colored dragons have magic." He repeated her own words to her: "'Why is it...?'"

  She looked down again.

  He forced her chin up.

  In a very small voice, never meeting his eyes, terrified of the answer that she had so glibly dismissed earlier, she asked, "Why is it dragons ask for maidens?"

  The dragon-youth released her, his hand shaking. Startled, she looked up and saw that he was silently laughing. "Dragons don't ask for maidens," he said. "Dragons are offered maidens."

  Alys shook her head to show she didn't understand.

/>   "Is a king likely to be a maiden? Or a village headman? It's the men who make the laws that decree that maidens be offered."

  Alys thought of all the lovely old songs, the grieving kings, the valiant knights. "That's a lie," she whispered.

  "Perhaps." She saw a glint in his eyes. "I do lie."

  "Yes," she snapped at him, suddenly more angry than afraid, "just like the old riddle: Everything I say is a lie. But if that's true, then it's not a lie, so that makes it not true, which means it's a lie, which—"

  The dragon swept to his feet, and Alys kept her gaze firmly on his face. "I didn't say everything I said was a lie. And I hate riddles. The last time a knight challenged me to a riddling contest, I lost. And then I ate him anyway. Why"—he leaned down with his hands on his knees to put his face on a level with hers—"didn't you run away when you had the chance, before I saw you?"

  "You—" Alys had started to say, "You said you saw me all along," but she stopped just short of it.

  Maybe he read her thought in her eyes.

  She looked at her hands in her lap.

  "Why didn't you run away?"

  "To where?" she shouted. "I have nowhere to go. They killed my father. They convicted me of being a witch. I'm cold and wet and hungry." She gave a ragged sigh and lowered her voice. "And I have nowhere to go."

  The dragon sat down again. "Are you a witch?"

  "No."

  "What are you going to do about it?"

  "There's nothing I can do. Except enjoy the thought of you flying over Saint Toby's village and breathing fire and roasting them all, every single one of them, down to the last baby."

  The dragon raised his brows.

  "Well," she said, "maybe not the babies."

  The dragon grinned and stood again.

  Alys refused to look up.

  The dragon gave an awful cry, like a huge bird of prey.

  Alys jerked her head up and saw that he'd resumed his dragon form. Now she'd made him angry, failed whatever test it was he'd set, or simply no longer amused him. The great wings flapped with a sound like sails snapping in the wind, and she threw her hands up to protect her face.