The Dragon' Son (8 page)

“Please, come and eat, youngling,” he said politely to Keegan.

“What are y-you g-going to eat?” Keegan stuttered, feeling very small as he looked up at the large dragon.

“I will eat what remains after you have had your fill,” the dragon stated calmly.

“Does that include me?” Keegan asked as he swallowed hard.

The dragon raised his head higher as his expression hardened. “No, that does not include eating you,” he answered.

Keegan stared at the dragon for a moment, not sure if he really wanted to believe the word of a beast. His stomach was screaming for food, however, so he decided that, for now, he would just have to believe the dragon had good intentions toward him. He walked carefully over to the well-cooked venison, pulled out his dagger, and began to cut some of the warm cooked meat. The dragon began to move, frightening Keegan, and he jumped away from the meal with his dagger clamped tightly in his hand. He stared up at the beast with wide eyes like a scared mouse.

“I’m sorry,” the dragon apologized, “I was just lying down. I did not mean to startle you.” He gracefully rested his large, golden mass on the gravel across from Keegan, but he never removed his piercing eyes from the boy.

Keegan was very shaken, but he slowly stepped forward and knelt down to cut more meat. He kept his head down, letting his shaggy hair hide his face, but he watched the dragon out of the corner of his eye as he sliced at the venison. When he had cut as much meat as he thought he would need for the journey back to the village, he backed off to a corner near the mouth of the cave. He began to chew on some of the hot deer meat quietly, while the dragon watched him intently.

“This will be all I need,” Keegan motioned at the small mound of venison that he had cut, hoping to divert the dragon’s gaze. It was very disconcerting for the large beast to watch him so intently and with such a piercing stare. He felt as though the dragon could see right through him.

“Are you very hungry to cut so much meat?” the dragon asked, not moving a muscle otherwise. “Or do humans have larger bellies than they appear to have?”

Keegan swallowed a piece of meat before answering, “I am very hungry, however, I need food for my journey, unless….” He stopped and looked at the dragon with large frightened eyes, “Unless you’re going to keep me here forever as a slave.”

The dragon raised his head and snorted repulsively, “Keep you as a slave? Never! I could do more for myself in a moment than you could for me in a lifetime. Also, men are to have the dominion over the animals, not the animals over the men. Next, you came in here of your own free will; you can leave here of your own free will.” With that, the dragon leaned forward, and in one snap, snatched up what was left of the buck. In almost two bites, he had it swallowed. “How you humans do come up with such distorted ideas of dragons,” the dragon said, shaking his large, magnificent head.

Keegan was so startled that he gulped down a piece of meat without properly chewing it. Had he been insulting this dragon? This was indeed a gracious dragon if it had been quietly listening to insults from its uninvited, ignorant guest.

“Please forgive me. I have insulted you,” Keegan said with a shaky voice.

The dragon sighed. “You could not know that you were insulting me. You were raised to think this way of dragons,” the beast said with understanding. “Besides, humans have reason to hate us dragons. If one dragon turns against human kind, he is a great and terrible foe.” The dragon turned his mighty head toward the cave mouth and stared through the falling water for a time as if looking into the past at some ancient memory.

Keegan resumed eating. Despite his circumstances, his mind wandered toward his mother’s warm, delicious meals. The well-seasoned meals prepared by the experienced cook would oftentimes just melt in his mouth and sometimes cause him to overfill his belly with its delicious contents. Keegan swallowed a piece of the bland venison that he was chewing and tried to push the thought of his mother’s cooking from his mind. He turned his mind to when he last saw his mother. She had held a sword and had a firm expression on her face, but he still remembered seeing the concern in her eyes and hearing her love in her voice as she had embraced him tightly.

“There was smoke to the north this morning,” the dragon remarked softly, looking at Keegan.

Keegan awoke from his thoughtful trance and found that his eyes were wet with tears. “Forgive me, I did not hear you,” he said as he discreetly wipe the tears from his eyes.

“When I went out to hunt, I saw smoke to the north.” The dragon nodded his head toward the direction he spoke of and watched Keegan closely, obviously looking for something in the boy’s face.

Keegan tried not to look at the beast, but the dragon’s intense stare made Keegan feel that the beast could look right through him and see his every thought. It made him very nervous.

“So? What of it?” Keegan asked with a shrug, hoping that the dragon would change the subject.

“So, what of it?” the dragon echoed, seeming somewhat amused by Keegan’s attempt to hide the truth.

Keegan looked up at the dragon and marveled how well it seemed to understand everything. “Well,” Keegan started and paused, unsure how to approach this issue with such a creature. The dragon stretched his head forward, obviously intent on getting the truth. Keegan looked down at his feet. He wasn’t interested in telling his story. It was already playing over and over again in his head. He didn’t need to replay it and tell it to a dragon. “The story is not important. The important thing is that I have to go back; I have to go see.” Keegan stood, but the dragon didn’t budge.

“It is a long trek out of this forest, to the plains. Would you care to ride upon my back, and I'll fly you there?” the dragon asked.

Keegan was taken aback at the dragon’s offer. He wondered if he should or even could do such a thing. Who had ever heard of someone riding a dragon? “I could not ask that of you,” he said.

“You did not ask me,” the dragon stated, still not moving anything but his mouth and the tip of his tail calmly.

Keegan stared at the dragon for a moment, unsure how to continue with this. He leaned over to pick up his dagger from the gravel as he thought about his predicament. His ring fell out of his shirt as he did so. It hit the end of the silver chain, its red stone glistening and twinkling brightly.

The dragon let out his breath with a threatening rattle, and the smell of smoke reached Keegan’s nose. Keegan caught the ring in his hand and jumped backward, expecting to be dragon toast at any moment.

“I know that stone! I know that stone in the ring which you have,” the dragon said in a surprised, mournful tone of voice. He stood as he spoke. Both of his sharp golden eyes locked onto Keegan.

Keegan closed his eyes, expecting the great beast to catch him up in its mighty talons and squeeze him to death. However, after a moment of silence, Keegan opened his eyes to see the dragon still staring at him. “Well, go on! Get it over with!” Keegan said loudly. He wished that the beast would just kill him, instead of staring at him.

“If I had wanted to kill you, I would have done it last night when you laid down between my foreleg and neck,” the dragon said loudly and sternly, with a growl behind his words.

Keegan was slightly shocked by the dragon's statement, as well as the huge boom of his voice. “Well then, why didn’t you kill me?” Keegan asked more quietly.

“Because you wept, and because I knew that you had a dragon stone. I just didn’t realize that it was the dragon Tolloan’s stone,” the great dragon said, somewhat emotionally, with great sadness in his big, golden eyes.

Keegan realized that his life had been spared again the night before, just as it had been in the village. He was so near to death, but pity took over each time. Why was his life being continually spared from death? And what meaning did the dragon stone have for the dragon?

“What does a dragon stone mean? Why is it that you did not kill me because I had a dragon stone?” Keegan asked.

The dragon stared at Keegan, with sadness still lingering in his eyes. “A dragon stone symbolizes protection, honor, strength, and bravery. No one is to harm another that has a dragon stone until he has been tested. No one is to take away someone's dragon stone, even in death. Few dragons have a dragon stone. And fewer than that have taken the Oath of the Stone, which is something that you would not understand.” The dragon was deliberately slow on nearly every word, as if to help Keegan better understand what he was saying.

Keegan really didn’t understand any of it at all. His mind was so muddled that it was hard to understand anything at this time. The beast turned away from Keegan, took three steps toward the cave entrance, then stopped and sighed. “Will you ride me or not?” he looked back at Keegan. “I offer you my service.”

Keegan tried to think about the offer before he made a decision, but his mouth blurted out the answer before his mind had time to settle down and ponder. “Yes, I will ride you.” He nodded his head reluctantly, wondering if it was a wise choice to accept the dragon’s offer and how soon before he was going to regret this decision.

The dragon seemed to smile again, a bit of merriment coming into his large gold eyes. “Very well, we will start when you are ready,” he stated.

It dawned on Keegan then that neither he nor the dragon knew each other’s names.

“Do you have a name, Great One?” Keegan asked in a shaky voice, not exactly sure how to address a dragon.

The dragon turned his head toward Keegan and looked at him with softness in his golden eyes. “There is only One that is great. No one else is great,” he corrected. “However, yes, I do have a name. My name is Pharrgon.” The name stuck in Keegan's head and seemed to put a warm glowing feeling in his chest. He felt a hint of a smile touch his lips as the name echoed though his head, and the warmth in his chest seemed to grow with each thump of his heart.

A strange, warm light entered the dragon's golden eyes then, and he made a humming noise in the back of his throat and lowered his head. “And your name would be?” He cocked his head slightly as he asked Keegan the question.

“Keegan, son of Barden, son of Bowen the Dragon…” Keegan stopped as he realized that old habit had taken over. How would the dragon react knowing that he, Keegan, was a dragon slayer’s son? The beast had already reacted strongly to the fact that he had a dragon stone. How could it be any different with this, except worse? Keegan was just feeling like they were becoming friends, and now he had probably just ruined it.

“Bowen the Dragon Slayer? I see, however, Bowen was more than a 'dragon slayer'. I met him once, and he gave me this.” The dragon seemed unperturbed by Keegan's ancestry, and he twisted his enormous head around to his right side. Keegan nearly sighed with relief that the dragon was not angry. He then slowly walked around to the right side of Pharrgon to see what his grandfather had given the dragon. He glanced at the Pharrgon's bright gold scales on his side and saw nothing. He then followed the dragon's line of sight to its right shoulder and spotted a patch of scales that looked different from the rest. He stepped nearer to Pharrgon to have a closer look. Then he gasped and cringed at what he saw.

A large, deep brand in the shape of a crown of thorns was in Pharrgon’s right fore-shoulder. It was an old brand but still very deep and painful looking. Where Pharrgon had been branded, there were no scales at all, only soft skin. The scales all around the branded area were deformed and oddly shaped. It was a perfectly vulnerable place to stab the dragon and slay him, if one could find it. It was not something terribly noticeable until one knew where it was, though. Keegan rubbed his own shoulder where his tattoo was--a mark that cursed him forever.

“Do you also have a brand?” Pharrgon questioned.

“Yes, I do, all my people…” Keegan stopped short. The scene of the villagers being slaughtered like pigs slithered back to his mind. His stomach lurched when he remembered the terrifying and horrid events of the day before. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to hold the meat that he had just eaten.

Pharrgon made a sort of humming noise in his throat that caused Keegan to look up at the dragon. He thought the hum sounded compassionate, and it helped to calm his feelings. It made the glowing feeling in his chest swell for some reason, and that brought comfort to him.

“Come and rinse off under the water. It is refreshing and quieting and even helps to settle hot stomachs and feelings,” Pharrgon said as he walked toward the waterfall. He stepped into the pool with a loud splash, and each time he moved in the water, it was like a giant whirlpool swirling around him.

Keegan followed the dragon carefully into the pool. The water at first just came to his knees as it had when he had waded through it the night before, but, the further he went, the higher it got until finally it was up to his chest. Keegan looked down at his feet through the crystal clear water, surprised that the water was deeper than it had been last night. It didn’t look like it would be much deeper, so he took another step and slipped on a loose stone. He went under. The pool was suddenly very deep, but his body began to rise to the surface, and he knew how to swim well, so it was of little concern to him. Just then, a water reed caught hold of his leg and would not come loose. Keegan frantically began tugging at his leg and tried to swim upward but to no avail. He reached for his dagger to cut himself loose.