Dragonheart (15 page)

“About what?”

“Many things . . . Mostly what to call you . . . I’ve found you a name.”

The dragon smiled at Bowen’s sudden burst of boyish enthusiasm. “You say that as though you reached up and plucked it from the sky.”

“I did. Up there. See that cluster of stars there?”

Bowen pointed to a patch of sky where a serpentine constellation shone brilliantly against the night’s black curtain. The dragon stared at the pattern of stars in fervent longing.

“I know those stars very well.” He sighed wistfully.

“Do you see the shape they make?”

The dragon smiled. “A dragon.”

“Yes. We call it Draco,” Bowen explained. “It means dragon in some scholar’s tongue.”

“So instead of calling me dragon in your tongue”—the dragon chuckled—“you’ll call me dragon in some other tongue.”

“You’re right.” Bowen frowned. “It’s a silly idea.”

“No! No . . .” the dragon protested gently as he realized the knight had thought he was mocking his offer. He had been touched. Friends called you by a name. “I would be honored to be named after those stars. Draco. Thank you, Knight.”

He had embarrassed Bowen once again.

“I have a name too, you know.” Bowen feigned casualness.

“Yes, I know . . .” The dragon smiled, unfooled. “Bowen. Thank you, Bowen. Thank you for my name . . . Draco.”

“You whisper it as though it were a prayer,” Bowen said.

“Perhaps it is the answer to one, Bowen.” The dragon gazed heavenward and breathed: “Draco.” And the whispered syllables echoed above the rush of the creek and the tumble of the falls, out into the night, across the sky, toward the glittering stars so far away.

Part IV

THE REBEL

His blade defends the helpless.
His might upholds the weak.

—The Old Code

Eighteen

A MAIDEN SACRIFICE

“I merely chewed in self-defense.”

Bowen recognized the village immediately as he rode over the log bridge toward the rustic huts. It was here he had last seen Einon. Here they had parted ways, with the boy shouting, “The king is above the code.” He could not forget this place. He could not forget that gray morning.

The goatherds had shunned him as he had ridden through the pastures on the other side of the stream. And as he rode toward the village no one came down now to greet him. But he did not expect anyone to greet him. These people had no use for men-at-arms. To them, he was just another of the king’s hunting hounds. He wondered under whose domain this place had fallen. He hoped it was someone as disagreeable as that fop, Lord Felton. Whoever it was, he’d make them pay for his unpleasant memories today.

As he turned his horse down the main path, the sleepy village suddenly erupted with wild commotion. An angry mob rushed into the path, pursuing a disheveled young woman, pelting her with rotten vegetables and mud. Shouting above the crowd, the girl futilely tried to hold her ground.

“Throw off the yoke of Einon’s oppression!”
Splat!
A glop of mud sprayed across her forehead.

“Madwoman!” someone shouted.

The girl was undeterred. “Raise arms, I say!”
Splotch!
A sodden cabbage plowed into her chest.

“You say too much! Leave us in peace!”

“We want no trouble with Einon.”

Whack!
Another cabbage smacked her face, its rotting leaves sticking to the mud already there.

Still the girl persisted as the crowd pressed her back, converging around Bowen and his horse.

“You already have trouble with Einon!” the girl snarled defiantly. Bowen admired her spirit, if not her intelligence. “Listen to me!”

“To treason!” bellowed a burly voice. A bear of a man, sporting an eye patch, brushed past Bowen’s horse to confront the girl. “You father sang that sour tune once, Kara.” He pointed to his covered eye. “And once was enough. We’ll not dance to it again!”

“No, Hewe,” the girl replied contemptuously. “Just cringe like a dog under Einon’s boot.”

“A cringing dog’s a live one!” Hewe, the bear, reared back to toss the gooey lump of cheese in his hand, but Bowen leaned over in his saddle and scooped it from his grasp. The bear angrily wheeled about with an oath, but seeing his potential foe was an armed knight, said nothing more, eyeing the intruder warily.

Bowen smiled pleasantly and bit into the cheese. The girl laughed. Bowen looked over at her. A smile broke through her veil of vegetables and she was staring at him with a probing interest he found unnerving. He turned back to Hewe, still licking smears of cheese from his lips.

“Why waste good food on bad rhetoric?” he said, and took another bite.

“I speak the truth!” the girl snarled, her smile disappearing.

“Truth is rarely inspiring, lass,” Bowen mumbled, his mouth full of cheese, “and never wins rebellions. But it can stretch rebels’ necks . . . if there
is
a neck under that vegetable patch.”

The crowd laughed as the girl self-consciously wiped at her face. She was actually quite pretty, thought Bowen, cleaned up a bit. Her long red hair was striking enough, even caked with mud. He grinned at her flustered attempts to reclaim her dignity and, pulling the cabbage leaf from her fiery tresses, offered her some cheese. She grabbed his hand and indignantly shoved the soft glob into his face. The crowd laughed again until . . .

. . . a woman screamed . . . and pointed skyward. The crowd gazed up. So did Bowen, wiping the cheese from his eyes.

“About time . . .” he muttered to himself as he watched Draco circle ominously overhead, then swoop down, scattering the panicked crowd.

Negotiations were going nowhere. Bowen peeked around the hut with a couple of frightened villagers. Smoke curling from his nostrils, Draco stood perched on the bridge over the stream like a hungry vulture. He had them worried but not exactly desperate. Perhaps it was time to torch a thatched roof or raid the goat herd. The bear, Hewe, peered over Bowen’s shoulder.

“Maybe he’ll just go away.” ventured the burly fellow hopefully.

“Maybe you’ll all just die of thirst,” Bowen suggested, peeved. “Where is the lord responsible for this village?”

Hewe snorted. “Lord Brok lives in a fine house six miles away. He’ll only blame any destruction on us and pluck our pockets to pay for it.”

Bowen sucked his teeth. Brok, eh? Just as well he wasn’t here. He’d just have to bluff his way through this one. “Well, I won’t pluck them as deeply! It was a fair offer, take it or leave . . . him!”

He pointed to the dragon. The villagers mumbled among themselves.

“Leave
him!”
The girl, Kara, was pointing at Bowen as she shoved through the crowd, dripping mud and mushy vegetables in her wake. “It’s bad enough that you grovel to Einon. Will you be bullied by some blackmailing knight? You don’t need him to get rid of a dragon!”

Bowen glared at the girl, caring neither for her insults nor her meddling. He turned to a rotund villager who stood nearby along with three rotund young girls, obviously his daughters. “That’s right. Perhaps you’ll part with one of your delectable daughters instead of gold. Dragons are partial to maiden sacrifices.”

The rotund father fanned his arms in front of his daughters to protect them from such a horrid thought.

“Why must it be a daughter?” said Hewe, smiling at Bowen, and the knight followed the shifty gaze of the fellow’s good eye as it fell on the red-haired girl.

Draco watched the group of villagers roll the rickety cart down the path to the bridge. The young girl was strapped to a pole wedged into the back of the cart. She was yelling like a madwoman.

“No! No! Please!” she pleaded.

The front wheel of the cart bumped to a stop at the opposite end of the bridge and the peasants, with elaborate bows, hastily retreated back to the village. The girl gazed up fearfully at Draco and screamed. It was a very healthy scream and it annoyed him, almost as much as this bizarre spectacle befuddled him.

“Psst! Psst!”

Draco turned his head toward the urgent hissing. It was Bowen. He had sneaked across the stream and hunkered behind a clump of bushes near the bridge.

“Don’t look over here,” Bowen whispered frantically, gesturing for him to turn his eyes away. Draco stared back at the girl, more befuddled than before. He whispered back to Bowen out of the corner of his mouth.

“Who’s the girl?”

“A nuisance. Get rid of her.”

“Why?”

“They’re trying to placate you with a sacrifice.”

“Whatever gave them that bright idea?”

“Never mind! They’re imbeciles.”

“Barbarians!”

“Just get rid of her!”

“How?”

“How should I know? Eat her.”

“Oh, please! Yech!”

“My, are we squeamish? You ate Sir Eglamore.”

“I merely chewed in self-defense, I never swallowed.”

“Oh . . . I suppose scorching her’s out of the question, then?”

“Absolutely!”

“It would impress the yokels.”

“Will you listen to yourself?”

“Well, do something with her!”

Draco leaned into the girl. She screamed that annoying scream of hers again, and when Draco reached out a claw to her, she fainted. At least it stopped the screaming. Wrenching the stake from the cart, the dragon flew off with the limp girl. The crowd poured out of the village, cheering.

“Wake up. Wake up, please. Good dear. I hope I haven’t frightened her to death.”

The voice sounded far away and muddy as the blackness turned a hazy gray. A blurry image emerged from the fog and sharpened into . . . a dragon’s peering face. Kara screamed the rest of her way to consciousness. The dragon winced and the small digit of his claw came down over her mouth. He shushed her with a maimed forefinger to his lips.

“Do you mind?” asked the dragon, and his voice was as polite as his manners. “I have very sensitive ears. Are you all right?”

Kara, not really sure, hesitantly nodded. Draco removed his claw.

“Oh, good.” He smiled apologetically. “Sorry for the scare.”

Really very polite . . . for a dragon, thought Kara. A bit too polite. It made her suspicious. She edged back on the rock ledge, where she lay near a waterfall, and realized her bonds were loose. The dragon nodded amiably.

“I cut them,” he explained. “You’re free to go.” His smile was unnerving. And his eyes too kind. It frightened her more than the smoke and the fire and the growls. She warily scooted back from this most unconventional dragon . . . and promptly fell off the rock into the creek.

She sputtered up, shivering from the shock of the cold water. And came face-to-face with the dragon’s sympathetic eyes again as he craned his neck over the rock.

“Oh, dear, let me help!” Before she had time to object or run or even scream again, he slid the palm of his claw under her and scooped her out of the creek. She found herself actually grabbing hold of his talon to steady herself as he lifted her back onto the rock and gently set her down. He was smiling at her again.

“Well, you did need a bath . . .” he suggested sweetly. “Why! You’re quite pretty!”

Flustered but flattered, Kara shyly pushed her hair back from her face. She was slowly realizing there was going to be no smoke, no fire, no growls. She returned the dragon’s grin with a tentative smile of her own. “A . . . th . . . thank you . . . a . . .”

“Draco!” The dragon beamed. “My name is Draco!”

Nineteen

REUNION AND RENUNCIATION

“I vomited them up.”

Bowen rode through the forest, headed for the waterfall, his sour face expressing his sour mood. He had waited an hour for Draco’s return to the village, all the while looking like a fatuous idiot, mocked and smirked at by the passing villagers who thought they had outfoxed him . . . particularly the one-eyed oaf, Hewe.

“Still here, Knight?” he’d taunted him. “After your generous suggestion, we’ve no need of you.”

“One scrawny girl won’t satisfy that beast,” Bowen had blasély retorted, “He’ll be back.”

But Draco never came back. He had left him high and dry and looking like a fool. How long did it take to drop the girl someplace and return? Draco would have considerable explaining to do once Bowen got to the falls. But what if he wasn’t at the falls? What if something had happened to him? Perhaps some chivalric dolt had seen him with the girl and tried to rescue her.

Just as these dire thoughts ran amok in his head, he spied something on the trail that gave his imaginings sudden substance. Hoofprints. Dismounting, he knelt for a closer look. Several riders had recently passed this way. By the depth of the tracks in the dirt, Bowen knew the horses were heavily weighted. That meant saddle trappings and weapons. A hunting party. Fearful for Draco in earnest now, Bowen quickly mounted and galloped for their camp.

Soon he could hear the splashing song of the falls from beyond the trees. But he also heard another song. It was the weird dragon song that he had heard long ago. The strange mystical trilling that had echoed in the mountains the night he had taken Einon up to the dragon cave. But the song was different now. It was not the melancholy music he remembered. This time the trill was light and happy. Joyous.

But it was not the eerie beauty of the song that thrilled him, but the knowledge that it could only come from Draco, and that meant he was safe from harm. How safe Bowen quickly realized as he broke from the trees onto the creekbed. His euphoria over the dragon’s safety quickly soured to irritation as he realized it had not been disaster that had prevented Draco’s return to the village, but mere dalliance.

Kara stood on the jutting rock, arms outstretched, letting the gentle, warm rush of air caress her body as it dried her clothes and tousled her wild red mane. The comforting heat steamed from Draco’s nostrils as he contentedly trilled, curled up beside her.

“Such a happy song,” she cried enthusiastically, and impulsively stroked his snout, its gusting warmth wafting her hair off her shoulders. Draco blushed a bright crimson.