Dragon Talker (14 page)

“Tatush, what about the dragon story?” Hental had not forgotten.

“Ah yes, the dragon battle. Let’s get comfortable and I will tell you a tale that will put chills down your back. I will tell you things about Samora only we in this village know.”

Tadeus added two logs to the fire as the boys grabbed their favorite places. One of their favorite things about the fall and winter were the stories their father would tell. It wasn’t just the boys who liked his stories. He was considered one of the best story tellers in the village and he would often be asked to tell village favorites at festivals and ceremonies. Outside of the hut, it gave the boys a sense of pride; inside the hut, it was just plain fun.

“Where was I on the trail?”

Hental answered, “The dragons were ready to come up and fight.”

“That’s right,” his father continued. “Before the dragons could even get to the water, though, they had to tunnel from the center of the earth. Samora’s huge claws tore through stone and dirt. The other dragons stayed behind her till they neared the surface, then they split up, each digging its own tunnel. As Samora broke through to the surface of the land, the water tried to force her back down. The water pummeled her, but she dug her heels into the dirt and held her ground.

“The water did not know what to do, so it kept pushing at her. Samora got angry but clawing water is futile. Instead, it let out a blast of its first frozen breath, freezing the water into ice and trapping it in solid form. After clawing through rocks, the ice was easy pickings for Samora. She shredded it like a beaver through a birch, if a beaver was the size of a mountain!”

Both boys laughed as Tadeus raised his upper lip to bear his top row of teeth, jumped up from his chair, and made “fffth,fffth” noises. He grabbed at both boys, who took it as their cue to run around the hut as their father chased them. Agardia held the baby close just in case a rambunctious boy or husband fell or got careless in the chase.

The hut was small, but there were things to run around and over. The table where they ate was good for circling, and the bed was great for climbing over or hiding under. They circled, they climbed, and Lared dived under the bed. The chase ended with Tadeus sliding over the bed and catching Lared as he tried to get out from the other side. He picked Lared up and tackled him back into the bed. Hental took the opportunity of jumping on top of both of them. Everyone, including Agardia, was laughing.

As they all caught their breaths, Tadeus continued from the bed, with a boy on each side. “When the green and red dragons reached the water, the water tried to brush them back, but they let out bursts of flame that turned the water to steam. The water didn’t like that, so it stopped pushing.”

Hental asked, “What did the white dragon do?”

“Oh, the white dragon has an extra special gift. It can turn invisible. As soon as the water started rushing toward it, it turned invisible and didn’t move. The water could feel it, but since it couldn’t see it, it just thought it was a rock and ignored it. The dragon waited a few minutes till the water forgot it was there and started moving again.”

“Soon, the sixteen were swimming through the water like giant salamanders, their wings tucked in and their tails pushing back and forth, forcing them upward. The waters didn’t know what they were, but they knew they were from the earth, so the water started making its own creatures, creatures that could rule the water. The first was a fish so big if you dropped it on a village, it would crush 5 huts all at once.”

The boys let out “ohs” at that image. “And if it were dropped on a village, it could open its massive mouth, filled with five rows of teeth and sharp as obsidian and pointed to tear into flesh, and chew through a hut in seconds.”

Tadeus stopped talking. The boys waited, thinking the pause was part of the story, but Tadeus asked, “Did you hear that?”

Agardia immediately focused her attention out the sounds from outside. There was a wooden wind chime making soft clacking sounds in the breeze, and then she heard it, a hen let out a loud squawk. “I think we have another fox out there.”

“Those hens aren’t for foxes.” Tadeus got up, careful not to crush either of the boys in the process and went to the wall where he grabbed his bow and quiver. He also grabbed his knife which was on the mantel of the fireplace. He looked at Hental, “Well, are you coming?”

Hental leaped from the bed at the invitation. “Yes sir!” Hental always became very respectful whenever he was given responsibility he liked. Lared didn’t get out of bed, but looked jealously at Hental. Tadeus didn’t miss the look.

“Soon, Lared, soon, but not yet. You need to be a little bigger, just in case it isn’t a fox.”

“Wolves?” Hental asked, fear creeping into his voice.

“If so, son, I’m sending you back inside and you are obeying me without arguing, right?”

“Well, if you don’t need my help,” Hental’s voice rang with disappointment.

“Hental, you misunderstand - I’d be sending you in to protect the family.” He winked at Agardia. He knew no wolf would stand a chance against his wife when she was defending her own, not inside a hut with cooking gear that included large knives and a metal frying pan as heavier than some iron smiths own hammers. He knew his son would be helpful, too, sheparding Lared to wherever his wife thought was safest.

Hental’s little chest puffed up at the idea of his father sending him to protect the family. In the past, Yuri would be going out and Hental would have to stay in. “Well,” he started, “with Yuri gone, I have to do my duty.” Tadeus smiled at the solemnity of the tone of his son’s voice, like a villager picking up his hunting gear to protect the village from invaders.

“Let’s get out there and see what’s going on.”

Agardia added, “And be careful, you two. I don’t want some fox taking any fingers home tonight.”

Hental balled his fingers into fists as he followed his father out the door.

Chapter 22

Yuri led the boys to the center of the village when he felt Samora was close by. It felt good to know she was in the area, even though he didn’t know what she would do. Dragons and death are connected differently in every village. In the village of a Mage, the connection is violent and unwanted. In the village of a dragon, it too can be violent and unwanted, but normally dragons are considered an important part of a person’s return to the earth. There was something to Yuri, too, about her age, or her agelessness. It seemed right to have something so old present at death.

He hadn’t told the boys why he led them to the center. He wanted to see the look on their faces when Samora arrived. He also wanted them to see him unafraid, a dragon talker in action. They heard Samora’s wings flapping before they saw her. Bernard wrapped both arms around his brother’s waist. Stone didn’t cling to Yuri, but he did reach out and hold his hand. Yuri immediately felt like a jerk for not saying anything.

“It’s going to be okay.” He looked down at the boys and tried to give his most assuring smile. “I know this dragon.”

Stone looked to the sky as Yuri kept eye contact with Bernard. Bernard gave a little smile back, but he did not let go of his brother. Stone asked, “Do you know both of them?”

Yuri looked up to see Samora flying towards them with a green dragon following her. The green dragon looked small, compared to Samora. Yuri wondered what it meant to be a “little” dragon, but only briefly. Then he wondered how he could forget that he was standing in front of over a hundred dead people. The presence of Samora comforted him, distracting him from the day’s horror.

Remembering he had been asked a question, he answered, “Yes, I do. The blue one is Samora. That’s my dragon. The green one, well, his talker tried to kill me, but I’m sure the dragon is okay if it’s with Samora.” Yuri smiled as their eyes grew wide. He felt proud to be a dragon talker and liked the way the boys were looking at him in awe.

Stone asked, “You’re a dragon talker?”

“Yes, I am, but I haven’t been one for long. Let’s stand back, boys. The landings can get a little messy.”

The dragons’ landings were anything but messy. Samora descended slowly and landed crisply between the dead bodies and Yuri and the boys. The green dragon landed at the other end of the bodies. Samora stretched out her wings once before pulling them into her sides. The green dragon did the same, causing Yuri to think they were saying that they were going to stay on the ground for a while.

Samora brought her head low to look at the boys. Bernard, whose grip had lessoned on his brother, tightened it right back up. Samora snorted at the boys, causing frost to form on their eyebrows. She then did the same to Yuri. He had the feeling of pride filling his chest, and he knew that the feeling was actually coming from Samora.

“Boys, that is an honor, what Samora just did. I don’t think she does it to too many people.”

“Do we have special powers now?” Stone asked.

Yuri didn’t feel like it did, so he said, “Ah, I don’t think so.” Bernard looked relieved while Stone looked disappointed. “Hey, Stone, you will have a story to tell your… the other boys you meet for the rest of your life that no one else does. That’s a pretty big deal and an honor.” Stone smiled at that.

Samora stepped back and turned around, facing the bodies lying in the center of the village. The green dragon and she let out a roar that made Stone, Bernard, and Yuri back up. After the roar, the green dragon arched its neck back before leaning forward and exhaling a jet of flame onto the bodies. The boys felt the heat immediately, and Yuri wondered how close the fire would get when Samora also arched her neck, but instead of blasting out fire like the green dragon, she sent a stream of ice at the base of the bodies. It built up quickly and formed a wall between the fire and the boys.

Yuri had never seen a dragon blast fire or ice. To Yuri, it looked as if Samora was building an ice cocoon over the bodies. The flames, which he thought must be melting the inside of the ice, swirled around under the ice, like a trapped creature. Streaks of yellow, orange, and red warped and twisted through the prism of the ice, seeming to chase each other around the inside of the ice enclosure. Yuri also saw dark pieces of what he hoped was clothing pop up off the ground and be buffeted around before disappearing altogether.

Yuri looked down to see both boys crying. This was, they all knew, the end. Yuri didn’t know what to say, so he put his one arm around each boy instead. They didn’t look up but moved in close to Yuri and let him hold them.

Yuri heard the green dragon take to the air and looked up to see him heading back in the direction they came. He could see Samora was breathing heavily. She turned her head and looked at Yuri and the boys. In his mind, Yuri saw Samora put a wing over the boys and then the image shifted to one of the field in Mandan. Yuri felt his heart start to race as a feeling of urgency spread throughout his chest. Samora let out a short squawk and took to the air. To Yuri, she looked tired.

Bernard rubbed the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “What did she say?”

“Well, she said I was to look after you and take you to my village.” Yuri wasn’t sure about the next part, but it might be true and the boys needed some good news. “You now have a dragon protector, and let me tell you, from experiences, Samora is a pretty good protector to have.”

Stone interrupted, “but everyone still’s dead.”

Bernard bit his lip and fought to keep from starting to cry again. Yuri’s face got red, “Listen, Stone, that doesn’t help. I don’t get it any more than you, but you got a little brother to look after and I have the both of you to look after.” Yuri was emotionally drained and didn’t have anything left but some residual anger for the unfairness of it all. His tone was hard. “We both have responsibilities now.  We did the rites – we had two dragons do the rites. That’s all we can do right now. If you have anything to take with you, get it now because we are leaving.” 

The boys walked slowly back to the remains of their hut.
Of course
, Yuri thought
, theirs would have to be a one that was burned down, too
. He noted it and moved on, double checking his pack as the boys picked up what few possessions they had left. As he did so, he noticed that his shirt had opened and his kerchief had also fallen off. The blue scales would have been visible to the boys. They didn’t say anything. Yuri covered up and decided to leave the topic alone.
I don’t know what to say about it, anyway
.

“Come on boys, let’s go.” Now that the work was done and Samora had left, Yuri didn’t want to spend any more time in the villages. It may not have been the smartest thing taking the boys out as it was getting dark, but Yuri didn’t think either one of the boys would mind, and he had had enough for one day.

The boys climbed out of the wreck that was the remains of their hut. Stone had a loaded bag over his back and a too-large shirt over his own. Yuri guessed it was his father’s. Bernard came out with a stuffed shirt and a three-legged stool that was only partially burned by the fire. It was half his size. Yuri watched him struggle with it as he approached Yuri.

“I don’t think you are going to get far carrying that.” Yuri said it softly, so as not to alarm the boy. “But I, on the other hand, think I can add it to my pack without too much trouble.” Yuri set his pack down and took the stool from Bernard. He tied it to the back of his pack. “Okay, that’s fixed. Let’s get you boys ready for the road.”

He helped both boys organize their belongings - some clothes, two knives, a wooden figure for each boy, and the cooking pot. “Are you sure you want to take that cooking pot, Stone? It can get heavy.”

“I’m the man now, and how else are we supposed to fix supper?”

“You may be the oldest, Stone, but manhood is a while away. You are right about the cooking, though. I’ll set you up as best I can, but let me know if you need a break from carrying it.” A short time later, all three were packed up and ready to go.