Dragon! Book One: Stealing the egg

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Still keeping himself positioned between the dragon and goat, Gareth waved his arms up and down and shouted, “Stay back! No! Leave the goat alone.” After a time, the dragon and goat separated. However, the dragon acted like a wrestler eager for the next round as it danced and darted, looking for an opening. It avoided every attempt Gareth made to grab it.

The goat watched them with wide, terrified eyes. It bellowed and stretched the halter rope wire-tight as it put as much space between it and the black fury determined to make a meal of it. Blood ran freely down the goat’s hind leg, two patches of fur missing from the haunch.

The dragon finally paused at Gareth’s shouted orders, looked from the goat to Gareth, and back again as if deciding how it might manage one more bite. Then it calmed, moved closer to Gareth, and emitted a small sound, almost a “purr”, as if trying to clear its throat.

“Don’t purr to me, you monster. Why’d you eat my goat?”

The dragon’s wings wilted. The head swayed slowly back and forth as if the head was suddenly too heavy for the serpentine neck. It turned to one side and made the purring sound again, before moving carefully closer to stand near Gareth’s foot. It looked up at him but didn’t race up his leg, as usual. The dragon attentively rubbed its neck on Gareth’s leg in an affectionate manner. Gareth’s instincts wanted to lean down and console the chick with a few gentle pats, but he reconstructed the savage attack on the goat in his mind and waited.

And he watched the dragon. His vision blurred. He felt a wave of dizziness, then a shift in focus. Blinking, he reached for a nearby branch and steadied himself while shutting his eyes tightly and trying to remain upright. He no longer looked at things from his perspective. His vision flashed into a sharper image than ever, details of the bark of distant trees clearer and sharper. The individual leaves of trees across the meadow swayed with the breeze. Each vein of each leaf stood out as if inspecting them from a few inches away.

He saw an image of himself standing above, looking angry and perplexed.

Gareth’s sense of balance wavered. He gripped the branch harder.

The twisted vision passed with another wash of dizziness, again a switching of focus like looking at something far off and then quickly changing to something nearby. He looked down at the bloodstained dragon, tongue darting out to gather a stray drip of blood from its chest.

What just happened? Gareth sat on the ground before he fell.

The dragon acted forlorn. Gareth knew the beast only did what dragons do when it tried to eat the goat. A natural reaction. It was hungry and tried to make a meal out of the goat. His responsibility was to teach it and keep it under control. His other responsibility was to protect the goat. It brought up the question of dragons being taught and learning. Was it even possible for them to learn? He didn’t know, but if the army used them in warfare, dragons must be capable of at least some basic skills.

He pictured a dragon in the king’s army attacking the wrong side in a battle and spewing black acid over them. Dragons must have at least enough intelligence to tell one army from the other. Probably they were much smarter than that, but he had no way of telling. Nobody to ask. The dragon standing beside him gave no indication of intelligence. At least, not so far.

Gareth spoke to it in a firm voice. “You have to leave my goat alone. Listen, I’ll feed you all you need, or, at least, try to teach you what is okay to eat.” He stroked the dragon, running his hand down the sharply ridged back and across the folded wings, finding the skin on the wings pliable and loose, and slightly warmer to the touch than expected. The animal closed its eyes and leaned closer to his ankle, as if in pure ecstasy with every touch. “What am I going to do with you?”

Gareth remembered Tom telling him about the baby ducks following their mother, or whoever they thought of as their mother, for their lifetimes. He stood and took a few steps away. After a pause, the dragon skittered to settle near his feet, again. He walked a few steps into the field of wheat, the chicken-sized monstrosity waiting until he gained a few paces before hurrying to catch up.

A field mouse darted across their path.

The dragon spotted it. The tiny head spun to watch. The whole body came alert, and the anxious eyes glanced up at Gareth. When he didn’t object, it darted after the mouse. In a couple of heartbeats, the dragon returned, mouth dripping red again, and looking as if it could have formed a smile, it would have.

“Mice aren’t going to satisfy you for long, my little friend. Not if you keep eating like this.” Gareth went to the goat and found it had calmed somewhat, but kept its eyes fixed on the dragon’s every move. After examining the wound and ensuring the goat would live, he walked back to the bedroll and lean-to. The dragon led the way, and the goat followed well behind. Every time the goat caught sight of the dragon, it snorted and tugged at the rope, but the dragon ignored her. After building a small fire, Gareth spread the blanket on soft grass under the lean-to and folded it over himself. In seconds, the dragon found the edge of the blanket with its tiny nose and wriggled underneath. It found its customary resting place at Gareth’s waist.

Is it going to still try sleeping with me when it’s as big as I am? Bigger? The way it eats that might only be a week from now. What have I gotten myself into?

He lay awake thinking of all that had happened in a few days. Back in Dun Mare, he had dreamed of adventure and excitement as he followed the ox while plowing. He had pictured himself as the hero, defeating enemies with ease. Now he hid under scraps of wood and waited for an old man to arrive and direct him on how to hide to survive with his goat for another day. Gareth felt tired of running. He felt his resistance growing with each breath.

He had expected Tom to visit during the night and explain what they would do next, but near dawn, Gareth woke and realized he was still on his own. The night whispers had come again, whispering tales of mistrust and suggesting he take the dragon and run off, alone. Nothing more specific, but they seemed clearer, more distinct than ever before. Almost understandable instead of vague feelings and hints, like shifting shadows in the moonlight. They gave him no reasons as to why he needed to run away, and no mention of where. Just distinct feelings of danger and mistrust.

He considered the change in the tone of the whispers and tried to sort them out. He fled from Dun Mare on their advice, but now they insisted he break out on his own. Leave Tom, if he interpreted them correctly, but that couldn’t be right. Tom helped him. Tom understood how to flee from the Brotherhood and how to survive. He knew the ways of people and how to hide among them. Perhaps Gareth’s dreams and fears brought on the night whispers like other people had nightmares after eating too much. The whispers came from within his mind. It made sense.

He opened his eyes and watched the eastern sky begin glowing with the new light of the day. He didn’t get up. His mind churned with doubt and uncertainty. After considering the situation he found himself in, and of not knowing what to do, he decided to continue walking on the road until contacted by Tom. He’d walk all the way to Drakesport alone if necessary. The best thing to do was stick to their slim plan until told otherwise. If Tom had been able to safely contact him, he would have. Gareth felt alone and scared, not a new experience. Most of his life he’d been alone and scared, but this affected him in a different manner. Once you have something and lose it, you miss it. But you cannot miss what you’ve never had.

With a start of comprehension, he understood part of his problem. He sat up and glanced around the campsite. In the dim light of morning, the goat looked back at him. He looked further.

The dragon was gone. That’s what he’d missed. A dragon.

He leaped to his feet and stumbled to the goat, fearing the worst. His sudden movement startled the goat, and it pulled away in fear, but as Gareth searched the campsite the dragon was nowhere to be found. The goat looked fine, despite the dried blood on the leg. Turning a full turn and not finding the dragon, he called, “Where are you?”

The little black creature appeared out of the depths of the tall wheat, eyes alert and wild. It snorted and hopped from one foot to the other, then raced to his side and settled near his feet, eyes fixed on Gareth as if they were going to a hunting party together.

“Monster, what have you been up to?”

The dragon leaped a few inches and the small wings spread and fluttered in excitement. They seemed longer than only a day earlier, and more substantial. Fresh blood dripped down the front of the creature. The smell of older blood had turned foul. The dragon ran to the blanket and slipped underneath, immediately becoming still as it curled and tried to sleep. Gareth viewed it as a small mound of disgust. He didn’t want to share the blanket with it again, or the fresh blood smearing its chin and chest. God knows what animal the dragon had slain during the night. He went to the goat and used a gentle hand and felt the wounds on the rear hip as he examined them. His probing must have hurt, but the goat seemed to sense Gareth was trying to help and watched with large, soft eyes.

The blood on the goat’s leg had dried and crusted, but his probing fingers felt twin depressions the size of his thumb where the dragon had gouged out mouthfuls of fur and flesh. “Don’t worry I’ll keep him away from you.”

The goat didn’t look convinced.

He threw an arm around the goat’s neck and attempted to hug it, but the animal pulled away as if he had tried to choke it.

“Time to go,” he laughed. Gareth pulled the spare blanket from the lean-to and discovered most of the food he’d stored in the bedroll was gone. The dragon must have smelled it during the night and devoured the strips of dried meat along with everything else. Gareth would go hungry for breakfast.

The dragon was fast asleep under the blanket. Gareth wanted to shout angrily at it, but without a name, the dragon couldn’t be properly addressed. He considered giving it a name, but that implied attachment. He intended to rid himself of the dragon at the first chance. Blackie. The name appeared full blown in his mind without reason, but he rejected it immediately. Too obvious and it sounded like the name a small child would use for a puppy. He pulled the blanket off the dragon and woke it before slipping it into the shoulder bag. The bag would soon be too small. The effort for him to carry the weight of the growing dragon would soon drain him, so there had to be another solution. Had the animal already grown so much larger, or was it his imagination? Is it only two days old?

How long did it take a dragon the size of a chicken to grow so large it carried a deer in its mouth while flying? It had to grow incredibly fast, doubling in size several times over, which meant it had to eat an enormous amount of food to fuel the growth. If dragons were similar to most animals Gareth knew, the bulk of their growth came at the beginning, slowing as they neared full size, but he knew little of dragons, and they might be different.

The goat’s halter in hand, he tugged and pulled her to the road and walked, slowly at first. As the sun climbed higher, he found himself moving faster and his mood lightened until he found himself humming a sprightly tune. The goat limped along behind. Gareth couldn’t account for his good feelings, but allowed them to wash over him like a welcome wave of cool water. He didn’t know many songs, but there was one bawdy tune he’d heard often enough at the inn in Dun Mare, late at night after the children were asleep. He liked the melody as well as the suggestive lyrics.

The words passed his lips softly at first, and then without thinking about it, his voice grew louder and more confident. He sang aloud and smiled inwardly when he saw a pair of teachers gliding in his direction. Walking side by side, their attention lay elsewhere if their vacant eyes were a good indication. Stopping his singing might draw their attention, so he kept on, but slurred words and sang through his nose as Tom suggested.

The teachers glided up to him with their curious gait, their eyes looking past as if he was not walking on the same road, and that indifference irritated Gareth. They acted so superior. One of them spoke to the other, so softly Gareth couldn’t hear the individual words so he assumed they were talking about him. Still, neither acknowledged him. When only ten steps separated them, Gareth tipped his straw hat and called, “Mornin’ sirs,” before continuing singing the song and repeating the bawdy refrain in a louder voice.

Neither responded with as much as a twitch.

Despite knowing he shouldn’t push the subject, Gareth was about to make a rude comment fighting himself to maintain control. It was no time to act the fool. He turned to check on them one last time. When he did, he saw the head of one teacher spin around to stare directly at the crusted blood on the hip of the goat. The stride of the teacher didn’t break, but the inquisitive action put Gareth on edge, and any words he was about to sing stuck in his throat.

He watched the teacher, expecting him to return and ask about the wound on the goat, but the teacher turned away, and they continued down the road. The Brotherhood looked ahead for as long as Gareth watched.

Hustling on, he reprimanded himself for being so stupid. It would only take one tiny slip to alert the teachers he was not the farmer boy he pretended to be. Rounding a bend in the road a short time later, he saw Tom’s wagon a fair distance ahead. It stood still in the center of the road, the mule loose in its harness, head hanging low. Tom sat high above in the wagon seat. Beside the wagon stood four men wearing leather armor in the king’s wine and white colors. Each wore a sword. Their attention centered on Tom.

Tugging the goat’s lead, Gareth sidestepped from the road into the edge of the trees and waited for his heart pounding. They hadn’t seen him, and his breath came easier. He eased a few steps further into the underbrush, keeping a partial view of the wagon while hiding himself and the goat.

Their swords remained sheathed, but their body stance belied any peaceable intent. The four looked angry even from a distance. One appeared to be the aggressor and spokesman for the group as he did most of the talking. The old fisherman sat and answered his questions calmly, but the soldiers appeared agitated and waved an arm in frustration. He took one step forward and raised a fist at Tom, but only for effect. Tom drew back but didn’t look as if he’d given up on whatever the argument was about. Then one of the others stepped forward and flipped a coin high into the air.

Tom snatched it. He reached into the bed of his wagon, pulled a handful of ears of sweet corn, and passed it to them. More tense words flew between the soldiers and Tom. He reluctantly handed them a few more ears of corn before slapping the reins of the mule beginning his slow travels again.

Gareth wondered why Tom had not simply given them the corn to begin with, but then realized the obvious answer. A farmer on the way to market wouldn’t give away his crop to anyone without payment. Doing so would raise suspicions. Besides, Tom probably suspected Gareth was close behind and wanted to delay the transaction long enough to warn him of the soldiers on the road.

The soldiers settled down in a small clearing beside the road. One went to work with steel and flint building a fire while the others gathered additional dry sticks and branches. They were going to roast the corn and eat it for breakfast. A young man with a goat traveling down the road might find himself “donating” his goat to the army for them to enjoy a meal or two. Worse yet, they might search him, including his shoulder bag, for whatever else he might have that they could relieve him of.

His mind played over a scene of them searching him and one of them reaching into his bag and pulling out his hand with only four fingers remaining as the dragon stuck his head out and licked his bloody lips. The scene in his mind continued with his arrest and the dragon killed. He didn’t see any favorable outcome.

Moving slow and easy so the goat didn’t make noise and warn the soldiers, he ducked deeper into the trees until coming to an animal path heading more or less parallel to the road. Before long, it joined another, wider path. When it crossed a stream, he stopped and spent the time required to wash the dried blood off the goat’s leg, and examined the wound again. It seemed stiff, but otherwise showed no signs of infection. The clean leg should not attract any attention from the Brotherhood. The goat drank its fill of water and Gareth scooped several handfuls for himself.

Do dragons drink water?

Gareth hadn’t seen it drink, but it was only the third day they’d been together. When they stopped, he had placed his blanket and shoulder bag near the edge of the stream. Glancing around, he saw no sign of the dragon, only a deflated leather bag.

“Where are you, this time, you little beast?”

“Snort?”

He turned. The animal stood downstream a few paces, balanced on a rock at the edge of the water. It looked at him for a brief second, then quickly turned and watched the stream. In a move almost too fast to for human eyes to follow, the head darted into the water, and the mouth lifted a small fish the size of his little finger into the air, wriggling and twisting. The dragon looked to Gareth as if asking permission. When he didn’t object, it tossed its head back and swallowed.

“You’re not going to need me to provide food for you much longer, are you?” Gareth laughed and reached out grabbing the dragon’s neck to hold it still. With his other hand, he splashed water on the dragon and cleaned some of the caked blood and grime from the loose skin. The dragon turned and twisted in his grip, baring teeth and hissing with each splash of water, but Gareth managed to clean most of him off. He held the flap of the bag open. “Now get in here and let’s be on our way.” The dragon leaped from the side of the stream and raced inside. As if you’re going to need me any longer. You’re doing fine without me. The creature darted inside the bag, seemingly wanting no more of Gareth’s attention.

The road Tom followed had been on Gareth’s right when he departed from it. It would be somewhere in that direction now unless the road had taken a sharp turn. The four soldiers eating corn should be well behind, but he hesitated to approach the road, again. Those soldiers had been deployed by their officers to search for him. He felt certain of it. There were probably many more of them on the roads nearby, and more on the road, Tom traveled. Teachers and the king’s army both hunted him, casting a loose net that they seemed to draw in tighter and tighter with every step. He left his things, including the bag with the dragon sleeping inside, beside the stream while he jogged through the thin underbrush to check on the road and look for Tom. In less time than he expected, he came to it.

Nobody in sight. No sound of the creaking wheel of the wagon.

The road appeared to go straight ahead as far as Gareth could see. Fresh wagon wheel tracks told him Tom was somewhere ahead. He ran back to the stream and gathered his belongings. Instead of returning to the road and all the danger of teachers and soldiers, he chose to continue traveling on the path. The goat seemed to have more spring in her step, and they made good time. Twice more he checked on the road for the army or the Brotherhood, or Tom, before returning to the path. The third time he heard the rumble and squeak of the wagon long before seeing it.

Instead of calling out and possibly alerting unseen enemies, he decided to get further ahead of the wagon and find a private place on the road to wait where they could speak. Drakesport couldn’t be too far ahead, and if they couldn’t talk beforehand, he remembered the name of the inn Jenson suggested while floating down the river. The Sleeping Lion. Tom would too. If necessary, he could sell the goat at the market and use the coin to eat a meal and get a room while waiting for Tom.

The path he walked was wide enough to travel without slowing. Animal tracks of many kinds showed in the patches bare dirt, but never the footprint of a man, nor a boot. The forest thinned into spreading trees with wide leaves, covering rolling hills. Many of the shallow valleys were alive with fields of lush wild grass. He saw no signs of farmers or their homes. While crossing one of the small clearings in the forest, he stumbled to a stop and knelt down because he felt dizzy – the same feeling as earlier. A fever? He looked for something to grab onto to steady himself. Inside his mind, the blurred vision crystallized. He saw the cloudless blue sky with a massive red dragon flying just above the far off treetops, near the next ridge. Gareth had never seen a red dragon and hadn’t known they existed. He had only seen the female black dragon that sometimes flew over Dun Mare, and that only for the mating season the last spring and early summer.

He shook his head and the vision blurred. He saw from his eyes as normal. Feeling his forehead, there was no indication of fever, and he felt fine. He spun and looked off to his left where he saw a ridge like in the vision. It was the same one his dragon now watched intently from the bag he carried. Yes, it was all there as in his sight, the ridge and a red dragon in the distance, against the pale blue of the sky. It was flying low and fast.

From inside the shoulder bag, he heard an angry hiss and glanced down. The black head extended as far as possible from under the flap. The small dragon growled and hissed. Then it quivered and stilled, eyes still fixed on the far off dragon. It inhaled deeply, drew its head back and spit a minuscule dot of black spit at the red dragon.

Gareth’s eyes automatically tracked the arc of the black dot. It landed four or five paces away, in some green grass. He stepped nearer to the landing spot and found a few green blades shriveling and turning a deadly shade of black. Looking up at the sky again, the red dragon was gone.

“How did you know it was up there when you were asleep in your bag? Were you warning me?”

The dragon’s head turned at his voice, and the red eyes examined Gareth. It slowly pulled its head back into the bag as if detecting disapproval.

“You knew about it before I did. You saw it in the sky, but how? You were inside your bag, last I looked.”

There was no reply. The incident gave Gareth food for thought as he trudged down the path. Twice he’d felt the odd sensation of dizziness followed by a shift in his vision as if a shift in his point of view. It might be exhaustion or lack of food or water. Maybe the local water was making him sick? But he didn’t think so.

While reviewing what had happened, he imagined an experience of a sort of shared sight with the dragon, Gareth seeing what it did. The concept was completely new to him, and he wanted to think more about the idea. He paused near the top of a rise and turned a full circle, examining the lay of the land. More rolling hills lay ahead on the path, with a ridge of snow-capped mountains far beyond. The land appeared flatter to his left, where the river flowed down a wide valley. Off to his right heavy forest obscured his vision. No sign of a town or city appeared anywhere.

Gareth sat in the grass to rest and covered his face with his hands. His head ached with tension and dozens of unanswered questions. Tom, the egg, the dragon, the teachers, the Brotherhood, the bounty hunters. Too many things to think about at once. Before following a single thought to a conclusion, another sidetracked him. Back in Dun Mare life had been easier. Maybe I should have stayed there like Faring said.

The dragon slipped out of the bag and explored the surrounding area, sniffing and looking at all things, as if each item might be a potential meal. Gareth watched it, allowing the antics of the chick amuse and distract him. When a yellow flower swayed on a breeze, the dragon snapped its jaws to grab it and chewed before spitting the flower out. A few petals and specks of yellow pollen remained on the evil looking face. Gareth smiled at the comical expression it created, feeling somewhat better.

However, the thought of the dragon face being “evil” triggered the truth. The animal was a vicious killer of anything edible, and in some ways, not. In time, it would attack and eat anything smaller than itself. No, that was not its limitation. The goat it had attacked was ten times its size and the dragon hadn’t hesitated to make a meal of it. Black and fearsome appearing, it was all ridges, points, claws, teeth, and barbs. Nothing to like. While it normally moved deliberately, the dragon was capable of incredibly fast speeds for short distances.

Who in their right mind would purchase such a mean, ornery, and dangerous beast? The army purchased eggs. Why? For making war on others with the dragons after they hatched and trained? Dragons fighting dragons in the sky. Doing what came naturally to them. The king’s army seemed the only potential buyer, and even it had now aligned themselves against Gareth if his experiences on the road were any indication.

The word ‘beast’ is a good one for describing the dragon. Baby beast, to be more accurate, but in a short time, the awful dragon would grow. It would destroy and kill at leisure. Nothing could stop it. Did he have any right to feed and care for it? Let it continue to grow into a monster feared by all men? Wouldn’t it be better for all if he killed the dragon and returned to his village and worked on the farm for Odd for the rest of his life?

Would I be happy with that life?

The little dragon pulled to a stop near a fallen log and the only the small head on the end of the neck moved. It twitched and paused, then repeated the action. The dragon searched for food, grabbing an insect from the air as it flew past and searching for more. Then its posture changed, becoming aggressive. It gradually turned in Gareth’s direction and snorting while keeping its eyes looking up into the sky.

Dizziness swept over Gareth again. His vision blurred and when it cleared his eyes looked at the sky behind him, but he hadn’t turned his head. In the vision, he saw himself sitting in the grass, and in the air far behind him, a gray dragon flew. Trying to hold onto the mental image of himself sitting there, he opened his mouth wide and made a face. In the vision of his mind, he saw himself do the same thing. He stuck his tongue out.

Almost like looking in a mirror.

He saw himself from the vantage of the little dragon’s eyes.

The strange sensation came again, and he was looking at the baby dragon, as normal. He’d never heard of anything similar happening. Did the dragon somehow touch Gareth’s mind and allow it to see the same things that it saw? Did it only do it when danger was near?

The questions tumbled over each other. Before determining an answer, another question came to mind. He told himself to just look at the facts. Ask questions later.

The small dragon acted upset every time it saw another dragon. It hated other dragons, maybe sensing their hate for blacks. Maybe other colored dragons didn’t have the ability to sense blacks. Otherwise, they would have reacted to him and attacked. Or, being a chick, maybe it was too young to be sensed by others. If so, when would they sense him and attack? A day? Week? Year?

Before Gareth shifted his gaze to his rear, he knew what he’d see. The gray dragon disappearing above a far hilltop. Gareth turned to his dragon again. If the dragon could send pictures to his mind, could he send pictures to it? If possible, how could he test that the dragon “heard” and “understood”?

“Dragon, move closer to me,” he ordered within his mind, no sound passing his lips. He projected the image of the dragon moving closer. Nothing happened for several long breaths. The dragon tilted his head to the left, then the right, looking confused. It took two tentative steps in Gareth’s direction.

The action may have been a coincidence. He projected his thoughts again, picturing the dragon leaping onto a near log. Nothing happened at first. Gareth subvocalized, “Jump onto that log.”

The dragon leaped onto the log looking expectantly from the top of it at him as if seeking approval. Then it spun and raised its head to the sky, a low snarl issuing from the tiny mouth.

Gareth’s eyes followed where it looked. Still far off in the sky, the gray dragon flew in the opposite direction it had earlier. Closer. It traveled on a parallel course, only nearer.

His dragon could definitely sense others, at least that much was solved. It also followed his wordless instructions, or so he believed until he found time to test it further. “I need a name for you besides ‘little dragon.' Maybe I’ll have to call you Blackie like the night whispers said. No, that sounds cute, and you’re anything but cute.”

His mind was not concentrating on the name or words as he spoke. They were just words. His thinking roiled around something as simple as giving an animal a name while considering on a deeper level the idea that the dragon obeyed his wordless orders. It also managed to find other dragons before they were seen. Could it be true the dragon could touch his mind? Easy enough to check. He would make time to check for a skill so important. In his mind, careful to allow no sound to pass his lips, he said, “Come here, Blackie.”

The dragon leaped from the log and happily ran a few steps to stand next to his leg. He gave it a pat on the shoulder and watched it cuddle closer. Gareth knelt and scratched the ridged back between the wings with his fingernails. He caught a whiff of stench. Rotting meat. The animal’s bad breath. Looking closer he noticed dried blood caked in some of the creases of the skin again, and bits of mouse-fur clung to the chest. “Next water we come to, you’re getting another bath.”

The dragon pulled away and hissed at him.

“Don’t give me any of that, you’re getting cleaned up.”

It hung its head, looking dejected and sad like a small boy told to pick up his toys.

“You’re reading my mind again, I think. Well, cheer up, a bath’s not that bad, and I’m not mad at you.”

“Snort?”

“That’s right, we’re still friends.”

Instead of snuggling closer, the dragon stood on hind legs and snorted louder, eyes raised to the sky, tiny wings vibrating in irritation.

This time, the gray flew a lot closer, again on a parallel course to the first two times it had flown over. Gareth ignored the spiteful antics of the smaller dragon while watching the other dragon disappear over the far ridge. Odd to see the same dragon flying back and forth three times, each closer to him. It’ll fly right over me soon if this continues.

The idea sent shivers crawling down his back. “It’s searching for me!”

Gareth felt no doubt. Untying the goat, he led it to a new patch of grass under a spreading tree that had plenty of undergrowth all around it. The lower limbs hung close to the ground and from the air, the goat was well hidden. He turned to the black dragon still sitting near the fallen tree, watching the empty sky. Wordlessly he said, “Come over here and stay out of sight.”

The animal spun around and without hesitation, darted in his direction.

A short time later the gray dragon flew over again. Gareth calmed his black with a few words and more stroking.

The next pass took the gray directly overhead. The tiny dragon hissed and snorted softly, but remained reasonably still and hidden. The Gray continued its regular search pattern. Gareth watched it fly three more passes before feeling comfortable in moving into the open again. He decided to find Tom as fast as possible and tell him everything. Already guilt at not sharing information with Tom had caused a rift in their relationship, and he didn’t want it happening again. Withholding secrets could lose him the only friend and supporter in this new land. The old fisherman might know what to do.

“Come on.” He silently ordered the dragon with his mind, as he grabbed the rope and tugged the goat along. The road lay somewhere off to his right, and he trotted down the hillside until he came to a small path that veered in that direction. The goat quickly tired and refused to hurry, more interested in a gathering mouthfuls of knee-high green grass.

The dragon took to leading the trio. While racing ahead, it sniffed and searched for food, snapping at, and catching several grasshoppers and a butterfly. Two field mice also disappeared into the eager mouth. Then it pulled to a stop near the trunk of a large tree, stood on two legs and hissed.

Gareth pulled the goat off the path and under the branches of a huge pine tree, standing next to the trunk while watching the sky. He saw no dragons flying past. He heard nothing of their wings beating the air. The little dragon leaped from the leather bag, spun so fast his feet raised dust, and it disappeared into the underbrush as if being chased.