A Natural History of Dragons (10 page)

Having done so little traveling in my life, I imagined our luggage for the trip would be akin to that which I packed when Mama and I went to Falchester for my first Season, with fewer evening gowns and more in the way of practical wear. Foreign travel, for those who may not know, more closely resembles moving house. In addition to clothing, scientific equipment, and the materials for my sketches, we brought with us various accoutrements of our daily lives that we hoped would make our lives abroad more comfortable: saddles, lamps, writing desks, and one armchair which Lord Hilford apparently took with him wherever he went. I overheard him advising Jacob to bring with him a good supply of coffee—“As it can’t be got for love or money in Vystrana, and the stuff they drink would be more suited to scouring rust from horse tack.”

We journeyed together down to the coast at Sennsmouth: myself and Jacob, Lord Hilford and Mr. Wilker, and a variety of friends and relations, including Andrew. I had never been to the port city before, and much entertained my companions by exclaiming over all the new sights, of which the grandest by far was certainly our steamship, the
Magnolia.

It was a measure of Lord Hilford’s wealth that we would travel in such style. When I was born, everyone assumed steam engines would be ubiquitous in the future; but that was before the iron deposits in Scirland were found to be all but exhausted. Coal we still had in abundance, but to build the machines themselves, we had to engage in expensive trade with other lands—or, often as not, try to colonize them, which was the origin of our misadventures in Eriga and elsewhere. To travel in a steamship was, in those days, still a rare and wondrous thing.

Rare and wondrous—and new enough that it was quite prone to trouble. The
Magnolia
carried sails, for use if the engine should fail us. “Just as ancient ships sometimes carried oars,” Mr. Wilker said. He had what I saw as a regrettable habit of showing off his learning. “In case the wind should fail.”

“We had best hope the engine and wind don’t fail together,” Jacob said. “I don’t see oars anywhere.”

Our route would take us around the Cape of De Vrest and through the Sea of Alsukir to the port of Trinque-Liranz in Chiavora, from which we would go north into the Vystrani highlands. Andrew came on board to help settle me in the cabin I would share with Jacob, which lay in the forward part of the ship, along the starboard side. “I hope you aren’t prone to seasickness,” he said, peering out the porthole that was the room’s only source of natural light.

“How should I know whether I am or not?” I replied, hanging a few of my dresses in the tiny wardrobe. “I’ve never been to sea before.”

Andrew had gone to Thiessin last year, as a reward for completing university at last. “I advise not being seasick, if you can avoid it. Not a pleasant experience.”

While he continued to potter about the small room, peering into the ingenious little cabinets with which its designers had supplied it, I sank onto one of the two narrow beds. When at length Andrew noticed me sitting there—when he noticed the expression on my face—he became awkward. “Buck up, old girl; seasickness isn’t
that
bad.”

I took a steadying breath, not certain whether it was tears or a hysterical laugh I was trying to hold back. “Oh, it isn’t that. A touch of nerves, nothing more. And a realization that I will not see anything familiar for some time—not my house, not my family, not Scirland itself.”

He patted my shoulder. “You’ll have Camherst, won’t you? Surely that counts for something. I’m sure he’ll take care of you.”

How could I have explained it to him? My fear was not that I would not be taken care of; it was that I would
need
to be. That my inexperience, my provincial upbringing, would render me little more than a child who had somehow convinced her parents to bring her along to an event she would not enjoy in the slightest. Oh, yes, I believed I would enjoy dragons—but in between me and the great beasts lay a tremendous number of things unknown, and therefore frightening.

This worry may sound ludicrous to those who know the later parts of my life’s story, but there on that steamship, at the tender age of nineteen, it was a terrifying thought indeed.

Despite that terror, I took Andrew’s hand in my own and squeezed it, making myself smile at him. “I’m sure. And just think of the stories I will have to tell when I return!”

We made a grand sight that sunset, steaming our way out of the harbor at a slow but deliberate pace. Andrew and various other well-wishers stood on the jetty that thrust out into the sea, from which they waved farewell. I waved in response until we drew far enough away that they retired back into Sennsmouth, vanishing among the houses; then I stood on the deck for some time more, watching Scirland dwindle steadily behind us. Around me the crew conducted their duties, and I tried to stay out of their way, until the light was quite dim and Jacob came to take me below.

PART TWO

In which the expedition arrives in Vystrana, but faces difficulties in commencing its work

SEVEN

The journey to Vystrana — My first wild dragon — Arrival in Drustanev — A chance to depart

Although it is hard to find now, I encourage any youngsters reading this—by which I mean anyone under the age of forty—to seek out a copy of my first publication,
A Journey to the Mountains of Vystrana.
Not for reasons of quality; it’s an insipid little thing, produced because at the time travel writing was considered a suitable genre for young ladies’ pens. But that book, which contains a much fuller account of our travel from Scirland to Vystrana, is a window into a time all but forgotten now, in this age of railways, fast ships, and caeligers.

You cannot conceive, if you are young, the slowness and difficulty of travel back then. Nor, I imagine, do you want to; this modern speed has brought many improvements for commerce, diplomacy, and learning, and more. And yet, there is a part of me that misses the old way. Call it an old woman’s nostalgia if you like, but our journey to Vystrana served as a useful transition, a separation from the young woman I had been in Scirland, and a preparation for the woman I would be on the expedition. Had it been possible for me to arrive quickly in Vystrana, I think I would not have been ready when I did so.

I believed myself to be ready then; now, with the hindsight brought by greater age, I see myself for the naive and inexperienced young woman I was. We all begin in such a manner, though. There is no quick route to experience.

From our landing in Trinque-Liranz we went upriver to Sanverio, where we attached ourselves to a trio of carters taking supplies across the nearby border into Vystrana. For a fee, they packed their wagons high with our belongings, and so we began our climb into the mountains.

It was my first real taste of hardship, though by the standards of such a word, my sufferings were mild indeed. The village we aimed for was very isolated, even for Vystrana; the carters only made the journey because it was more convenient for the local boyar to be supplied from Sanverio than anywhere else. Once or twice we managed beds in a farmhouse, but more often than not we slept in tents, on folding cots that kept us off the ground, but had nothing else to recommend them.

So determined was I not to complain that I did not let myself think of the day when this stage would end. It therefore came as a shock to me one morning when Lord Hilford said, “We should make it there today, if this weather holds.”

Blinking in the early sunlight, I said, “Make it where?”

He smiled at me. “The village of Drustanev. Our destination, Mrs. Camherst.”

After so much time on the sea and the road, I could hardly believe we would be stopping at last. We loaded ourselves onto the wagons in a hurry, and set out with more energy than usual.

I studied the landscape around me with a newly curious eye. It was uneven territory, valleys of spruce and fir alternating with gentle slopes of grass and windswept ridges of limestone and lichen. Even with the cloudless sky, the air was no more than pleasantly warm. I wondered how far we had risen from the coast. High above I saw a bird floating lazily on the winds; with no point of reference, I could not be sure how large it was, but I rather thought it must be some breed of eagle. Certainly it was not a dragon, though I kept my eyes eagerly open for one.

The weather held fine for most of the morning, but as the afternoon drew on, clouds grew on the mountaintops and rolled in our direction. One of the carters shot at a wolf that was following us too closely, scaring it off. He and his fellows held a brief conversation (in the impenetrable dialect of their native region, not the more refined Chiavoran the rest of us knew), and decided to press on; they judged this a bad area to camp in, even if it meant a wetting before we arrived in Drustanev.

As the wind picked up, I tied my bonnet more firmly to my head. The clouds seemed very low. I had a book out which I had been attempting to read, and for a time I tried to go on doing so, bracing my forearms along the edges of the pages to keep them from flapping about. From the wagon bench at my side, though, Jacob nudged me and said, “You might want to put that away. I fear it will rain soon.”

I sighed, but he was right. Closing the book, I turned in my seat and reached over the back of the wagon bench to stow it in a pack that would all too soon prove whether it was as waterproof as advertised or not.

As I did so, a gust of shockingly cold air pulled at my sleeves, and ice stung my face. Wondering if we were in danger of hail, I looked up.

I have little recollection of the next several seconds. Just a moment of frozen staring, and then—with no transition—my voice shrieking
“Get down!”
as I wrapped my arms around my husband and dragged him forward, off the wagon bench.

Two other screams overlaid my own. One, high-pitched and awful, came from our driver as claws snagged him off the wagon and into the air. The other, lower but even more terrible, came from above, as the dragon plummeted from the clouds and raked over our heads.

Jacob and I landed in the wagon traces, the reins and harness tangling our limbs while the horses shied and whinnied their terror. Being on the outside, I tumbled free first, and cried out to see the wagon lurching forward, my husband still caught within. He fell a moment later, directly beneath the wagon, and the wheels passed close enough to leave a track across his coat.

I crawled toward him, hearing shouts from all around us. Frantic glances skyward showed me nothing; the dragon had vanished again. From the slope ahead, though, came the agonized groans of our driver. Just as I reached Jacob, a loud noise cracked the air: a gunshot, as one of the other drivers fired off the rifle he carried against highwaymen or wild animals.

Wild animals. I had not, until that moment, put dragons in that class. I had thought them something apart.

“Stay down, Isabella,” Jacob said, shielding me with his own body. I crouched in his shadow, and realized quite irrelevantly that my bonnet had gone astray. The wind was very cold in my hair.

A great flapping, as of sails: the dragon, though we could not see it. Looking under Jacob’s arm, I saw Lord Hilford put out a hand and stop his driver, who would have fired at the sound. With nothing to see, there was no point in wasting the round.

Then suddenly there was something to see. Several shots rang out, and I swallowed the protest that tried to leap free of me. This was no vulnerable runt in a menagerie. The dragon was huge, its wingspan far larger than a wagon, with stone-grey hide and wings that kicked up dust with every beat. The guns fired, and the beast made a dreadful noise, aborting its stoop on us and climbing rapidly for the sky. Clouds enveloped it once more, and we waited.

Waited, and waited, until at last Lord Hilford sighed. “I think it’s gone.”

Jacob helped me to my feet. My bonnet was caught in a low, scrubby bush; I retrieved it and smoothed it out with shaking hands while Mr. Wilker and one of the other men went after the driver the dragon had seized. Its claws had left great gashes in his back and chest, but the worst injury was to his legs, which had broken badly when he fell. Blood seeped out where the bones had breached the skin. If I had not seen a similar injury once to a horse, I might have fainted.

“Make room for him in one of the wagons,” Lord Hilford said in Chiavoran, then turned to me. “Mrs. Camherst, if you would—in my green chest there should be some laudanum. Black bottle, in the top rack.”

I crammed my bonnet back onto my head and did as he asked. There were bits of grit and rock in my palms, which I picked out as I went, and I had torn my skirt, but seeing the driver, I was acutely aware of how lucky Jacob and I had been. Had I not seen the dragon coming …

Rain began to fall. Mr. Wilker bound up our driver’s wounds as best he could. We needed to get him to shelter, but first there was his cart to deal with; the horses had quite understandably bolted at the approach of the dragon. They had both gone lame, and the wagon had overturned, spilling our trunks onto the ground and knocking one of them open. Working together, the men retrieved everything while I created a makeshift canopy to keep the rain off the injured man. The laudanum, fortunately, put him into a shallow sleep, and he did no more than moan in protest when we moved onward and the road jolted him where he lay.

In this manner, bedraggled and scarred, we arrived in the village of Drustanev.

I did not see much at first of the building that was to be our home for the next several months. I accompanied the injured driver as some locals carried him inside, and tried to explain in my very bad Vystrani what had happened. I expect that little of what I said even registered on them, between my limited vocabulary, appalling accent, and atrocious grammar, but one thing I did notice: the villagers did not seem surprised to see his wounds. No one could have mistaken them for anything other than dragon-inflicted, even without me repeating that one word over and over again—
balaur, balaur
—and they did not seem surprised.