Isle of Dragons

by J H G Foss

  Now, here they were, Arrin, Salveri and Tankle, the last of the Red Maiden. He didn’t count Dreggen or Ophess. Well, Ophess maybe. She had not been part of the crew and she was pretty horrible really, but he felt sorry for her.

  He still found Salveri grumpy and complaining, but saw the wisdom of sticking with the older man. Salveri knew lots of things and seemed to have the measure of the mercenaries they had been taking west. What had the captain been thinking? What had he, Arrin, been thinking, come to that?

  His father and older brother were both sailors, but they just went up and down the west coast. When the captain had said they were going to go further west than anyone had gone before and that they were all going to come back rich, Arrin had been all for it. What a fool.

  How he wished he was back home now, with his mother, helping around the house and running errands as he had when he’d been a boy. His father was a first mate, their family was well to do. It wasn’t as if they had really needed him to bring back a fortune. He’d give all the diamonds in Fiarka to be home right now.

  ‘Sal, where are we going?’

  ‘North. Stovologard. Haven’t you been paying attention?’

  ‘My mind keeps wandering. You know, wandering back to the Red Maiden…’

  ‘Don’t let it. Don’t dwell on it, just concentrate on staying alive. If we survive we’ll have plenty of time to relive all that horror.’

  ‘I know, but...’

  ‘Just keep it together,’ Salveri seemed in a foul mood this morning. ‘She’s ready now, let’s go.’

  Ophess marched past them in a sulk. Meggelaine rolled her eyes at Ghene as she went past.

  The elf then said, ‘looks like we are ready then. Broddor, bring up the rear please.’

  The dwarf nodded.

  Arrin suddenly realised they were missing one of their party and blurted out, ‘Oh, my lord! What about Roztov?’

  ‘Do not worry, man,’ said Ghene. ‘He has already had his breakfast and gone on ahead. I dare say that we will see him at lunch.’

  Arrin nodded, feeling rather stupid. He shouldered his bag and fell in behind Salveri as they began their march.

  They did indeed meet Roztov for lunch. He walked into the camp and sat down at the fire where some rotrok meat was being roasted. There was enough room for them all to sit by the fire and there was only one conversation. It had turned to the varieties of dragons.

  ‘Are the coloured ones evil and the metallic ones good?’ asked Floran.

  ‘I’ve heard that,’ said Roztov, the nearest they had to a dragon expert. ‘But I’ve never seen any evidence of it.’

  Floran reached for the spoon that sat in the cooking pot and put more meat onto his plate while he said, ‘what, then, are the colour of the ones in Styke?’

  Roztov, who had already finished eating, leaned back on his elbow and smoothed down his beard.

  ‘Hmm, let’s see. There are a few young ones in Tanglewood, I think they are all green. Then there is Caladrak, well he’s just a heap of bones. And the Usurper, well I’ve never seen him, but I think he’s a sort of yellowy-brown. Kresh-ember once flew over Timu when I was young, he was black. Oh, and some grey thing once crept out Gnarlwold when I was even younger. I was just a baby, but I remember my father told me it was grey or maybe silver.’

  ‘I see,’ said Floran with interest. ‘And which of those were good and which were evil?’

  ‘They are all pretty nasty.’

  Meggelaine, who could never stay out of any conversation for long said, ‘I heard that too though, the colours, red, blue, green, you know, they are all evil. The metallic ones, gold, silver, copper and things. They are the good ones.’

  Roztov tried to pat her on the head, but she flinched away with a look of irritation.

  ‘I think that’s just in chapbooks, Meg. I’ve no idea to be honest. All I know is that in Styke, whatever colour they are, they are all horrible bastards.’

  ‘What was the name of that thing we came up against in Pechanga?’ asked Broddor.

  ‘Oh, the Sleeper. Ice Dragon, his name was Hydrefin.’

  ‘Huh.’

  Meggelaine clapped her hands. ‘Yes yes. What an adventure that was! We had trekked all the way up from Ixnay. Knowing what we know now, it was obviously a bad idea. We had no guide or anything. What was the name of those people that we met? Oh, they had a chief, ugly fellow. What was his name, Roz? No, Anyone?...’

  Roztov shrugged and smiled, the succeeded in tussling her hair.

  ‘Oh get off,’ she said.

  After a pause Arrin said, ‘what about Old Bones?’

  ‘What about him?’ asked Roztov.

  ‘I mean, is he real? My mum always used him to scare us into doing what we were told.’

  ‘You’re mum and everyone else’s mum.’

  Arrin was shy when speaking to the druids, but continued, ‘I’ve never seen a dragon, but I’ve heard of Old Bones. The great undead dragon that lives east of Norob. Well, that’s what they say.’

  ‘Ghene is the expert on that subject,’ said Roztov with an almost inaudible sigh. He then gestured with his free hand as if to give the elf the stage.

  Ghene looked up from his plate where he had been picking at the remains of his dinner.

  ‘Oh, ahem,’ he said clearing his throat. ‘He is real alright. He’s a very big problem in the Great Forest. Not only is he undead, he is a necromancer. This voyage, well it was not a secret, was to find the ancient Dynarians because it had been them that had stopped him back in the year 25. They didn’t kill him, or even defeat him, but the pushed him back. True, it cost them their civilisation, but they did it.’

  Arrin listened on, trying to take in things that sounded very alien to him. Roztov lay back and shut his eyes. He had had similar conversations with Ghene every evening on the Red Maiden.

  Ghene continued. ‘It’s… well, you know, most of the people don’t realise just how strong his influence is all over the world. Look at what’s happening in Gnarlwold. That’s the work of Garumuda. That’s his more proper name by the way. You can see his influence in the eastern kingdoms. Vampires, witches, all sorts of terrible things. If it wasn’t for the GFC the whole continent would be overrun. It’s most of our work just holding it all in check.’

  Roztov knew most of this, and did think that Ghene was overstating things a bit. Garumuda tended to get the blame for everything that happened in Nillamandor, whether he was involved or not.

  ‘I had no idea,’ gulped Arrin.

  ‘The history of my people is the history of our fight against Garumuda. If he’d not tried to conquer everything west of Norob the Dynar would still be here. There would have been no Marawan empire and, I dare say, there would have been no kingdoms of men.’

  Roztov leaned up and said, ‘you always say that. I’d just like to state for the record - who can say what might have been? I’ve always said this, never underestimate the goblins. They have shaped the whole continent more than anyone else and yet they are always forgotten in history.’

  ‘Because they record no history.’

  Broddor laughed. ‘Don’t start this line of argument again Roztov, you daft old goblin-lover.’

  Roztov knew what Broddor said was in good humour, but still he had to bite back an angry remark. He had heard this many times before from Broddor and the other dwarves of the Company back when there still was one. How can you trust creatures that eat their own young, was what the dwarves would say, in order to point out how evil they were. It was true, but it didn’t necessarily make them evil. When he had gone into the darkest roots of the Spidertooth Mountains, where there were tribes of goblins that never saw the light of the sun, he had met some of them, the Gloomeye, shy and timid creatures that he had offered food to and befriended. They were different from their warlike brethren nearer the surface, more thoughtful, more placid. A well-fed dwarf would have little way of understanding what level of desperation would lead a creature to eat its young. The Gloomeye mot
her loved her children as much as a dwarf mother loved hers, but down in the dark, where there was so little food, if the mother died then all the children died. If one had to be sacrificed so that the rest of the family could eat and survive, then hard as it was, that’s what they did. Roztov could hardly comprehend what it must be like to reach a decision like that – which of your children to... He shuddered to think of it. This and many other things he learned from the months he had spent with the Gloomeye.

  ‘Yes, yes, old news I know,’ said Roztov finally, with as much good-humour as he could muster. ‘I can agree that Garumuda has contributed to the shaping of the world today, that’s true. But what would have happened had he not been around is just speculation.’

  ‘Roztov,’ said Ghene patiently.‘I’ve spend more than your span of years studying this subject. All this has led up to this ill-fated journey and our presence on this island. We are searching for the last of the Dynar. They were a mighty race, who sacrificed themselves to save the world from Garumuda. If not for that wretched dragon they would still be here.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Roztov conceded. ‘I know you don’t agree with this, but in Styke we don’t see any difference between the Dynar and the Empire. The Dynar never left, they just became the Marawan.’

  Roztov knew that Ghene knew all this, but continued for the benefit of the rest of the listeners.

  ‘In Styke the ruins of the Marawan Empire are everywhere. In the north of the country are hundreds of miles of canal that they built. They were hardly a remnant. Half the cities of man are built on the ruins of Marawan settlements. Garumuda had nothing to do with that. It was the endless goblin wars, picking away. You know there is way more goblins in Styke than all the other races put together?’

  Meggelaine realised that this could be the start of another heated argument between Roztov and Ghene and that Roztov was not above name calling, something that she couldn’t abide the notion of in front of the non-druids.

  She coughed and said, ‘we can all agree that you-know-who is bad anyway. While Ghene looks east, I look west and take it from me, you-know-who has his claws in everything. Half the plots against the rulers of the kingdoms of men are funded by gold that has come from the Norob Forest. He is too old to conquer the continent with force and fire so now he uses intrigue and guile - and his armies of undead. Who wants the last of this meat? Anyone?’

  The conversation moved on, and after a while meandered into the oft travelled territory of the druids explaining to Floran what was going on.

  ‘I noticed that you did not summon wolves to aid Broddor, Salveri and Arrin in the fight against the manhunters. I thought it odd at the time, was there a reason? Is it because there are no wolves in this forest?’ asked the wizard.

  ‘That’s a good guess, Tup.’

  ‘I remember you used to summon dire wolves in Styke and snow leopards in the Moon Marshes. There would not be much point in summoning a herd of vegetains to fight dragons I suppose.’

  ‘That’s right, Tup. Druid magic is a bit more, what’s the word, uh, sympathetic maybe than you and your lot. You learn a spell, you cast a spell. Seems simple.’

  Floran choked back an indignant laugh. Roztov winked at the others and continued.

  ‘For us, we need to attune to an area for a while. The longer we are in the forest the more power we can draw from it. It’s a decent size, not the Great Forest, but decent. I think I’ve been here long enough to summon wolves, even if the nearest one is hundreds of miles away.’

  Roztov knew that Floran knew the rest, but continued for the sake of Arrin and Tankle who were listening intently.

  ‘Well, we summon aspects of creatures, not the creatures themselves. If I summon a bunch of wolves they are a manifestation of the power of the forest, not actual wolves you understand. The longer we are here, the more can be summoned.’

  ‘Can Ghene and Meggelaine do it too, my lord?’ asked Arrin.

  ‘Oh, of course. All druids learn this.’

  ‘I could just about summon a squirrel,’ said Meggelaine as she sorted out the leftovers. ‘Roztov is the master of it, probably better than any druid in the GFC.’

  Roztov coughed. ‘Come now, don’t compare me to Lilly and the rest.’

  ‘Oh, she says you’re obsessed with it,’ chortled Meggelaine. ‘You should hear her. “Roztov and those bloody animals, he should be helping us here in the Council, not surrounding himself with beasts”.’

  Roztov laughed but explained to the bemused sailors. ‘She jests. Lilly would never talk like that. She is an ancient elf elder of the Forest Council, not a comedy act.’

  ‘Well, I bet she thinks it though,’ said Meggelaine. Roztov nodded agreement at that.

  ‘You could summon wolves now, my lord?’ asked Tankle looking around at the shadows anxiously.

  ‘I probably could yes. I feel attuned enough with this forest now I think. If the need arises. There are no wolves or bears within hundreds of miles of here though, no predators of any kind, unless you count sharks I suppose. Or dragons of course. It makes it harder, but not impossible.’

  Meggelaine had put away the uneaten food and lunch was over. They would eat the remainder in the evening. Camp was broken and they moved on again. The line was the same as always, with Ghene at the front and Roztov at the back. Occasionally one of the druids would scout ahead for a while and then they would continue.

  Ghene was an expert woodsman, a druid attuned to the forest, with all of abilities channelled into knowing the land and what lay ahead. As a result he saw the hunter before the hunter saw him. It was a short, old looking man, perhaps in his fifties, who had the face of someone who had a rough outdoor life. His skin was the colour of bark and he was dressed in deerskins. Over his shoulder he carried a bow and a boar piglet carcass strung on a stick.

  Ghene stopped the others then went forward to make contact. The hunter was nervous at first, but was curious of the small figure that stood before him and gave him a friendly wave. When the hunter didn’t bolt, Ghene called up Floran who tried to strike up a conversation in draconic.

  The hunter smiled, revealing crooked teeth and talked to the wizard in the rough local dialect.

  ‘He is hunting food for his wife. He says she is sick,’ reported the wizard. ‘He speaks Draconic really badly. I can hardly make out what he says. I think his name is, well, it sound like Ball. Mr Ball I suppose is his name.’

  ‘I see. How far away is his wife?’ asked Ghene.

  After another exchange Floran said, ‘he says about half a mile away.’

  Ghene waved Meggelaine up to where the hunter was.

  ‘This gentleman is Mr Ball, Meg. He has a sick wife. You are the least threatening looking out of all of us. Would you like to go take a look at her?’

  Mr Ball took some persuading. Having never seen a torm before and he was convinced that Meggelaine was a small child. When Ophess grew impatient and came up to see what was going on, she demanded that she not be separated from Meggelaine. This seemed to appease the hunter somewhat as Ophess was nearly as tall as him. In the end he shrugged and led them off into the forest.

  After a few dozen yards and when they were alone with Ball, Ophess suddenly got worried. ‘Is this safe? He could be anyone.’

  ‘No need to whisper my dear. He doesn’t understand us,’ said Meggelaine as she took the girl’s hand. ‘If he causes any trouble I’ll turn into a griffon and flatten him.’

  Ophess continued to fret and complain all the way to where the hunter’s hut was. It was a well hidden lean-to that had been built up beside a low overhanging cliff. There wasn’t much room, but inside on a narrow bed there indeed lay a small lady all covered up in homespun blankets.

  She was amazed to see visitors in her small house, but Ball talked to her for a while and she settled down. Two small girls were not very threatening after all.

  ‘Now then, let’s take a look at you,’ said Meggelaine in a business-like manner. Mrs Ball was perplexed to be administered t
o by what she took to be a five year old child, but Meggelaine was so deft and her movements so practised that all the old woman could do was let it happen. Meggelaine spent a few minutes examining the old lady then said to Ophess, because no one else could understand her after all, ‘she has the blue death. From drinking dirty water. I can cure her, but I’ll also have to explain to them how to stop it from happening again. Hmm.’

  Meggelaine rubbed her hands together then shut her eyes and started chanting under her breath. After a full five minutes of this, long enough for Ophess to grow bored, Meggelaine laid her hands on Mrs Ball’s chest. Her chanting changed in tempo as her small childlike fingers began to glow at the tips. The light from Meggelaine’s fingers spread all over the old ladies body, until she was bathed in it. Meggelaine kept chanting, just audibly, as the magic did its work. Both the Balls gasped in wonder as they witnessed the druidic magic draw the disease from her and destroy it.

  In a few more minutes it was all over, Meggelaine stood back and smiled. Mrs Ball sat up in her bed and threw off the covers, evidently now as fit as a flea. She laughed and walked over to where a bucket of water was placed on the floor. She took a cup and raised it to her dry lips.

  ‘No no, Mrs Ball!’ Meggelaine said in alarm. She mimed throwing the water away. ‘It’s dirty water you silly old woman. It will make you sick again. Puh! Puh!’

  The sturdy little torm then picked up the bucket, took it outside and threw the water on ground.

  ‘Clean water from a stream!’ she said making hand motions. ‘Or boil it on the fire. Can’t you understand me?’

  Meggelaine pointed at the camp fire that the Balls evidently used to cook with and mimed boiling water. ‘Bubble bubble. Bubble bubble, Mrs Ball. I don’t know if she gets it.’

  ‘I want to go back now,’ said Ophess.

  ‘Just a little longer, sweetie.’

  Meggelaine took a further ten minutes attempting to explain to the old couple the dangers of drinking dirty water and she wasn’t content until she was sure they understood. They nodded and smiled, then nodded and smiled again, then patted her head. Mrs Ball suddenly leapt up, ran into the house and brought out a saucer of milk. She put it next to the torm on the ground and stood back.