The Blood of a Dragon

Chapter Thirty

The latch was a black lump in the dimness, and he poked at it in growing frustration.

How in the World did the damn thing work?

It was like no latch he had ever seen before. There was no simple bar to lift, no lever to pull, no knob to turn; instead two thumb-sized stubs protruded from the top of a tangle of ironmongery that Dumery could make no sense of. He tried pushing first one stub, and then the other; both resisted, but either one could be moved. Neither one seemed to do much of anything.

Annoyed beyond reason, he bashed at the thing with his fist, and that didn’t help either. It made the cage door rattle against the frame, but the latch stayed closed.

A dragon snorted somewhere nearby; Dumery didn’t look up. Instead he grabbed each stub in one hand and tried working both at once, to see what would happen.

Sliding both to the right didn’t work, nor did both to the left, but when he pushed them together in the middle he heard a clank, and the door swung open.

Dumery smiled.

A dozen little dragons stared up at him from inside the cage, their gleaming eyes unreadable. He stared back. The colors were harder to distinguish in the gloom than he had expected-the orange light of the greater moon turned both green and blue-green to a murky, dim, nameless color. He was about to step into the cage for a closer look when he heard the growl of a larger dragon. He turned away from all those staring little eyes to see if anyone in the house had noticed the noise, or had just happened to be looking.

He found himself looking directly into another, much larger, pair of draconic eyes.

He blinked, and caught his breath.

One of the big dragons was loose, and standing not ten feet away, its long neck extended so that its head was mere inches from his own.

It growled again.

One of the hatchlings hissed, and snapped at Dumery’s leg; he snatched the threatened limb away and started to kick at the little beast, then reconsidered as he felt the big dragon’s hot breath on his shoulder.

Snatching up two of the hatchlings while this monster watched did not seem like a viable plan. In a hopeless attempt to look innocent, Dumery managed a sickly smile and started to close the door of the cage. He stopped abruptly when one of the hatchlings shrieked; he had caught its neck and one wing in the door.

He decided to leave the door open after all and to just forget about the hatchlings.

In fact, he decided to forget about everything except leaving, as quickly as possible. He began backing away, watching the big dragon carefully.

His foot landed on something slick, and a hatchling yowled; stepping quickly aside, Dumery saw that one of them, the black one, was out of the cage already, and he had just stepped on one of its dragging wings.

The big dragon roared angrily at him.

Dumery didn’t dare turn away, and he found himself with a clear view of a dark mouth lined with hundreds of extremely sharp teeth; foul breath, redolent of rotting meat, swept over him, and his ears rang.

A window swung open in the farmhouse.

“Who’s there?” someone called.

Dumery wasn’t stupid enough to answer that, but the big dragon turned away for a moment, distracted, and Dumery seized the opportunity. He spun on his heel and ran, narrowly avoiding tripping over the black hatchling.

As he ran, he heard a man’s voice shouting, “Hai, dragon! What is it? Guard, boy, guard!”

Dumery ran for the loose upright in the fence, not worrying about what that meant, not worrying about anything except whether that huge, angry dragon was following him. He didn’t see it start after him, nor did he see it stop when it heard the order to guard. He didn’t see it return, disgruntled, to the door of the hatchling cage, where it began snatching up errant dragonets by their tails and tossing them back into their pen.

Dumery didn’t dare look back as he groped along the fence in the dark, feeling for the broken bar, but at last he found it and squeezed through. He stumbled on until he rounded the boulder and was out of sight of the farm.

There he fell to the ground, panting.

After a moment he felt sufficiently recovered to sit up, look around, and listen.

He heard dragons bellowing, but that was off in the distance somewhere; there was no sign of pursuit. The lesser moon was up again, looking even more pinkish than usual and half-obscured by a wisp of cloud. The greater moon’s glow had faded to a mere tinge in the west, and no more stars were visible through the gathering mist and cloud.

All Dumery could see was rock and moss and sky.

He sat and gathered his wits.

It appeared that Kensher and company had a line of defense they hadn’t mentioned-trained watch-dragons. Or one watch-dragon, anyway. That hardly seemed fair.

But then, they weren’t trying to be fair-they were trying to defend themselves.

Against what, Dumery wondered. What was there out here in the middle of nowhere that called for that sort of defense?

Or was it to keep the dragons in?

Would a dragon, even a trained one, help in imprisoning its own kind?

Well, yes, Dumery thought, it probably would. People served as gaolers willingly enough, didn’t they?

Whatever the watch-dragon was there for, it was there, and it had kept him from getting his hatchlings. The exact reason for its presence didn’t seem anywhere near as important as thefact of its presence.

His burglary attempt was a failure; he hadn’t gotten his breeding pair.

Had Kensher guessed what had happened? Would he be guarding against another attempt? Would Teneria know what was going on?

Well, the ground was so rocky that there would be no footprints to show that an unauthorized human being had been there. The watch-dragon wouldn’t be able to say anything-would it?

No, Dumery just couldn’t believe that Kensher would keep a talking dragon around. And that one had growled and roared, but shown no signs of any greater vocal ability than that. It also wasn’t any bigger than some of the dragons in the cages.

So it couldn’t talk and say it had seen Dumery. The only evidence of his presence would be the broken fence-if that was noticed-and the open cage door.

That was quite an extensive fence, and there were a great many uprights in it; one broken one might well go unnoticed. It would almost certainly not be found until daylight, at the very least, not unless someone walked the entire fence with a lantern.

Of course, someone might do just that, Dumery had to admit.

And there was that witch. He had no idea what she might see, with her magic, or what she might do about it.

He decided that he would assume that she wouldn’t know anything more than anybody else. After all, what did she know about dragons or burglars? Neither one had anything to do with witchcraft. So he would ignore her for now, and assume that she would go along with whatever the others thought.

If he was lucky, they would see the open cage door and would think that one of the hatchlings had somehow opened it, or that whoever was last in there hadn’t closed it properly, and that what the watch-dragon had spotted was hatchlings getting loose.

After all, could they really expect intruders up here?

Almost certainly, they’d just think it was an accidentally-opened cage that caused the fuss.

In that case, once everyone had settled down again, Dumery would be able to sneak back into the house. Or even sneak back to the pens and try again.

He had to think about that. If he were going to make a second attempt it would be best to do it tonight, rather than waiting, because the longer he waited the more time they would have to find the break in the fence.

There was the problem of the watch-dragon, however. Did the creature ever sleep, or was it constantly on guard? Was there any way he could elude it, or fool it into thinking he belonged there?

This was a matter that required some thought. Besides, it would take some time for everything to settle back to normal, and there was the darkness to worry about-the lesser moon was still low, and didn’t give all that much light in any case. Dumery decided that he would wait until everyone had had time to calm down, and then would decide whether to make another try, or to slip back into the house and pretend he had slept through all the excitement.

For now, he would wait. He settled down, making himself as comfortable as he could on the hard stone.

He had no intention of sleeping, but all the same, within minutes, he was asleep.

When he awoke the sun was warm on the bare stone, and he realized with a start that he had missed his chance. The sun was well up in the east, peering down at him over the peak of the mountain-half the morning was gone. Kensher and his family would be out and about; they might well have found the break in the fence. They would surely have all the hatchlings back in their cage, and might have put a lock on it. The watch-dragon would surely be awake.

And he had missed his chance to get back into the house. They would surely have noticed his absence by now.

In fact, that Teneria might already be looking for him, brewing up her spells or whatever she did. She might come upon him at any moment; if she had followed him to the farm from all the way back in Ethshar, finding him now should be easy.

He sat up and considered.

She hadn’t found him yet, though. Maybe she wasn’t looking, or maybe something had gone wrong with her witchcraft.

If she didn’t find him, he could slip away, hide somewhere, wait until nightfall, and then try again; he could break the fence again, if it had been repaired.

But how could he get past the watch-dragon?

And looking at the situation in the light of day, how would he get two squirming hatchlings out through the fence, and down the mountain?

And what if one of the hatchlings turned out to be a fire-breather?

It was a good thing that Kensher didn’t raise flyers or fire-breathers, even as watch-dragons. If the watch-dragon had been a fire-breather, Dumery realized, he might have been dead by now, a charred corpse lying on the stone, instead of alive and well. If the watch-dragon could fly it might have pursued him past the fence-and he hadn’t gone very far, had he? Around that boulder and across maybe fifty feet of open ground lay the fence; surely, the dragon could have tracked him that far.

He was glad that Kensher hadn’t thought to let the dragon out, hadn’t come after him with it.

That assumed, of course, that dragons could track, like dogs or cats, and really, Dumery didn’t know for certain that they could. And Kensher probably had good reasons for not letting the watch-dragon out; could he control the beast outside the fence?

Maybe the fence was there to keep the watch-dragon in, more than anything else.

Whether dragons could track people or not, witches surely could; why hadn’t Teneria found him yet?

And while all this speculation was very interesting, it wasn’t getting him any closer to setting up his own dragon-breeding operation.

He sat and thought, uncomfortably aware that Teneria might appear at any moment.

He devised scheme after scheme for stealing a pair of hatchlings, but they all fell apart upon close inspection. He could think of no practical way to deal with the watch-dragon, or with Kensher and his family if he tried to sneak in when the dragon wasn’t on duty. He had no way of killing a dragon that size.

Besides, killing it seemed a bit extreme. It was Kensher’s dragon.

It hadn’t been that hard to talk himself into stealing a couple of hatchlings; after all, Kensher had lots of them, and most of them were destined to be slaughtered in a year or so anyway. The watch-dragon, though, was fifteen or twenty feet long, and must be three or four years old, at least. Kensher had clearly put considerable effort into training it, judging by the way it had behaved-and Dumery was grateful for that training, because without it the monster might have gone ahead and eaten him.

He was also grateful to Kensher and the rest of the family for taking him in, when he turned up on their doorstep. Yes, it was just normal hospitality to take him in and give him a meal, but even that much wasn’t something everybody would bother with, and they had gone further than that, giving him days to regain his strength, feeding him generously, and giving him clothes and supplies for the journey home.

He began to be ashamed of himself for plotting to rob the people who had saved his life. Was he that low a person? Was he that desperate to get hold of a couple of dragons?

He shook his head. It wasn’t right. He had let his obsessions get the better of him. He had done Kensher quite enough harm already. He had repaid kindness and succor with threats, attempted blackmail, burglary, and a broken fence. He would do no more harm in return for good.

It was time to get away from Kensher and his farm.

It was time to go home.

For one thing, he didn’t really want to get caught.

Ostensibly, all he had to do was loop back around the way he had come, and head on down the trail to the river.

There was a problem with that, however. A problem named Teneria.

He was sure that she would know what he had done. She would know that he had tried to steal those hatchlings. If she went home with him she would probably tell someone, like his parents. And even if she didn’t, she would certainly be keeping a close eye on him every step of the way home.

He didn’t think he could face that.

And for that matter, did he really know anything about her? Had his parents sent her? It didn’t seem like them. After all, they knew he was all right; they’d talked to him in that silly dream Thetheran had sent.

Maybe someone else had sent her, or she had come on her own. Maybe the magicians, including the witches, were all out to get him.

Was she really a witch, though? He hadn’t seen her work any magic. She had found him, somehow, which was impressive, and she seemed to be able to tell lies from truth with phenomenal accuracy, but neither one proved she was actually the witch she said she was. He hadn’t seen her fly or anything.

But even if she were exactly what she claimed to be, he really didn’t want to go home with her, having her there gloating over him the whole time.

He would find his own way home-overland, not by the river. And south, where the witch wouldn’t dare follow, if she was really a witch.

And if she hadn’t lied about the Warlock Stone.

He didn’t really think she had. He set out down the slope, to the southeast.

As he walked, he considered.

True, he didn’t want to rob Kensher, and he couldn’t think of any way to do it in any case, but did that really mean he had to just give up and go home?

He still wanted to do something about his thwarted ambitions. He couldn’t be a wizard, he had established that. And he couldn’t seem to find an apprenticeship in any other branch of magic, either.

Controlling a supply of dragon’s blood would let him lord it over the wizards.

He couldn’t wangle an apprenticeship in the dragon-farming business, that was clear, and he couldn’t see any way to get hold of any of Kensher’s livestock to set up his own farm-but were those the only possibilities?

All he needed was a pair of dragons, and while Kensher might have the only dragon farm in the World, he didn’t have all the dragons in the World, by any means. There were plenty of dragons out there.

Wild dragons.

Dragon-hunting as a career didn’t sound very promising, though. He remembered the sight of that gaping, tooth-lined maw when the watch-dragon had roared at him, and Kensher had said that the farm dragons were nowhere near as big as dragons could get. Presumably there were wild dragons that were much bigger and fiercer.

But what if he were to find and capture a pair of baby dragons? Or better yet, find unhatched eggs? It happened; he had seen dragons in the Arena that had been hatched in captivity.

That would be perfect.

But how could he hope to find them? He looked out over the edge of the cliff he was skirting, and saw forest stretching to the hilly southern horizon.

That was a lot of countryside, and dragons might be anywhere-or nowhere-in it.

He could look, though, couldn’t he?

If he did, he might search forever without finding anything. Or he might starve to death, or get killed by a wild dragon, or by wolves or bandits or something.

On the other hand, who knew what he might find?

Wolves, pitfalls, bandits-or a dragon’s lair.

Wolves, pitfalls, and bandits were probably far more likely, and if he did find a dragon’s lair it might well have a mother dragon at home, guarding her young.

That was a good way to get killed, finding an occupied lair.

No, the thing to do was to go home, to his own home, back in Ethshar, and then see if he could somehow buy a pair of dragon eggs.

A thought struck him. If he demanded that as his patrimony, would his father cooperate?

He should, Dumery thought. After all, Doran hadn’t come through with the promised apprenticeship to a wizard. Millenium-old tradition said that every child was entitled, between his or her twelfth and thirteenth birthdays, to demand that his or her parents provide some way to establish a future career-arrange a profitable marriage or an apprenticeship, guarantee an inheritance, something. Demanding a pair of dragon eggs was unusual, but it ought to qualify.

That, then, was what he would do. He would go home and demand a pair of eggs.

All he had to do was find the way.

He knew he was somewhere in Aldagmor, in the Baronies of Sardiron. That meant that he was far to the north of Ethshar of the Spices. And he was east of the Great River, since he had gone ashore on the eastern bank, while all the cities of Ethshar were more or less to the west of the river’s mouth.

Ethshar of the Spices was actually south or maybe southeast of the river’s mouth, because of the way the river and the coastline wiggled about, but it was effectively on the western side all the same.

If he headed west he would eventually come to the Great River, but that would mean cutting directly across all those ridges, and then finding transportation downstream, and Teneria might well catch up to him-there was nothing she feared in the west. On the other hand, if he headed due south he would eventually reach either the Great River-much farther downstream-or the Gulf of the East, or if worst came to worst, the southern edge of the World. And he would be passing too close to the Warlock Stone for Teneria.

He certainly hoped he wouldn’t have to go anything like as far as the edge of the World. It seemed unlikely that he would.

If he arrived at the river he could follow it downstream, either on foot or by boat, and once he reached Azrad’s Bridge he would have no trouble finding his way home.

If he reached the Gulf he could follow the coast west to the river’s mouth, then up to Azrad’s Bridge. If the gods were nasty and he reached the edge of the World, he could head west to the sea, and then take ship home, or follow the coast around to the river’s mouth.

So he would head south, and when due south wasn’t practical he would veer to the west, and sooner or later he would reach civilization, or the Great River, or something else helpful.

Accordingly, he looked up at the sun, which was almost directly overhead now, and then around at the mountains, and estimated which direction must be south.

This was turning out to be far more of an adventure than he had expected when he went up to Westgate Market to seek inspiration. He stepped out boldly, stumbled over an exposed root, fell, picked himself up, and marched on, sighing.

While Dumery made his decision, Teneria had finally gotten everything straightened out. The chaos of the farm family’s efforts to round up the escaped hatchlings and get everything back to normal had confused and delayed her, and she had not worried at first about exactly what had occurred, but only about straightening out the current mess. She had offered to help, but had been turned down-apparently these people did not entirely trust her.

That was not really surprising, under the circumstances. Her unexpected appearance the day before did look as if it might be connected with the night’s disruptions.

And the nature of those disruptions was pretty clear; the reports of the various family members, combined with what her own senses and witchcraft told her, made it all plain.

Dumery had slipped out in the middle of the night, had circled around to the back of the farm, and had then broken into a cage of hatchling dragons.

Kensher assumed that the boy had intended to steal a breeding pair, so as to start his own dragon-farm, and Teneria had to admit that it was a very convincing theory.

However, the watch-dragon, which Dumery hadn’t known about, had caught him and ruined his plans.

When Teneria first heard that she was afraid that the dragon had eaten Dumery, which would not only have been regrettable in itself, but would mean that she had failed in her task of keeping him safe. Fortunately, Kinner the Younger was able to reassure her-the watch-dragon hadn’t eaten anybody. There was no blood anywhere.

Besides, when Teneria stopped and concentrated, she could sense that Dumery was still alive.

After the farmers had rounded up all the dragons they could find and had taken inventory they concluded that only one of the hatchlings was missing, not a breeding pair, and it was entirely possible that that one, a rather feisty black one, had slipped away by itself in the confusion, rather than having been carted off. Spotting a black dragon in the dark would not be easy.

She considered offering to track it down for Kensher, but she was unsure she would be able to deliver. Dragons, especially young dragons, didn’t seem to leave much in the way of psychic traces.

Besides, the dragons weren’t her problem-Dumery was. She was not particularly enamored of the ungrateful little would-be thief, but she was supposed to see him safely home.

Once the eleven hatchlings had been rounded up and secured, and once she had used a little witchcraft to convince Pancha that she was not Dumery’s co-conspirator and that it was safe to let her out of her room and out of the house, Teneria set out on the business of tracking Dumery down.

She followed his trail around the mountain, across the pastures and through the dragon pens, and back out to the flat, stony area behind the boulder.

There she stopped.

The damned fool of a boy hadn’t gone back to the trail. Instead he had set out due south, into the wilderness. She looked down the slope after him, peering into the gloom of the forest, her supernatural senses extended.

Something muttered blackly in the back of her mind, something harsh and alien and almost seductive, something that had drawn Adar away forever.

The Calling.

That wasit, she told herself. That was the pebble that sank the barge. To Hell with Dumery of Shiphaven. To Hell with Sella, if she dared to criticize Teneria for her failure.

She had followed the boy halfway across the World, up the Great River and across most of Aldagmor, but she was not going to walk out into the uncharted wilderness, where escaped dragons roamed free and something apparently ate warlocks alive, something that seemed to intend to eat her alive, as well.

She had had quite enough. She was going home. She was going home by the same route she had come, though without the aerial detour from the Blasted Pine.

And maybe, when she got back home to Ethshar, she could contact some of the local warlocks and see if something couldn’t be done about the Calling.