The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle (7 page)

11

Ren decided not to wait for nightfall. The death of the female skaler had brought others to the mountain from all directions. But as time went by and flurries of snow began to drift into the cleft, the sky emptied and he guessed that the beasts had gathered around the great ice lake. If they were anything like the men of his tribe they would have come together to decide what must be done. Now and then he could hear them roaring. He almost felt he ought to be among them, sharing their loss, giving word of what he’d seen. But that was a fever talking. His bitten hand was beginning to swell and purple blotches were spreading out around the tooth marks. He could feel the pupp’s fire flowing up his arm, breaking in beads of hot sweat across his brow. Another reason to get home soon. He needed herbs. He needed Targen the Old.

But first he had to attend to their wounds. The youngster’s cut was healing quickly. The blood loss, in fact, had almost stopped. Ren spat on his hand and rubbed some wet into the wound, then tied another strip of his mother’s under-robe around the belly, knotting it off at the back, between the wings. It was a struggle. Although the little one was yet to grow scales, there were bristles all over its bony body that wanted to stand up at different angles. And like any young animal, it pecked at the binding as soon as it was on. Ren sighed, knowing he had done all he could.

For himself, he made another binding, which he wrapped three times around his injured hand and attempted to tie off using his teeth. While he was labouring, he noticed the skaler sniffing at the dressing he’d applied to his knee. He batted it aside before it could rasp the red stain on the cloth. ‘Nuh,’ he grunted, the tie between his teeth. He didn’t want a skaler tasting his blood. Who knew where that might lead?

Grracck
, said the pupp, which seemed to be its response to everything.

Ren went back to his hand.

The pupp, looking on, tilted its snout and tottered forward again, this time stretching its wiry neck and nipping at the knot that held the knee tie in place.

The dressing slipped down Ren’s shin.

‘No!’ he said, and tried to swipe the pupp again, but was overcome by a sudden bout of dizziness, a sway so strong it turned him onto his side. He lay there panting, the mouth of the cave growing large and small. Once again the pupp came forward, lifting its dark wings, sniffing for blood. Ren tried to kick out, but the fever wouldn’t have it. This was it, he thought. His life was over. The skaler had numbed him with a poisoned bite. Now he was just a lump of meat, as useless as the caarker he had trampled in the tunnel, as dead as the mutt with its staring eye. Killed by a skaler barely out of its egg.

It was going to eat him alive.

When he woke, the pupp was the first thing he saw.

There was blood,
red
blood, around its mouth.

Horrified, Ren sat up and felt for his knee. He feared he would find the leg severed in half or at best put his fingers in a gory hole. But the limb was good and the wound clean, all its shredded edges sealed. At first he thought it had healed itself and the skaler had grazed on a crust of dried blood. But a gouge like that took days to mend. And though he couldn’t know how long he’d been sleeping, he felt sure that very little time had passed. That must mean the skaler had healed him. And all he had done for it in return was to slap it around the cave.

He put out a hand, palm upraised. The skaler was hesitant, but eventually climbed on and seemed glad to be cradled back at Ren’s chest. It had pulled off its dressing, but its bleeding had stopped.

Ren tickled two tiny stumps on its head.

Grracck!
said the pupp.

Ren laughed quietly. ‘Grracck,’ he whispered, in a tone he hoped would sound grateful. He glanced outside. The snow was falling steadily now. Not the best conditions for running, but at least he felt better, stronger for the sleep. And though his bandaged hand was still a worry (unlike his knee, it hadn’t stopped hurting) now was the time to leave.

With the pupp in his arms, he approached the cave mouth. Another low rumble drifted over the hills. The skalers were still by the lake. What was going to happen, he wondered, when he walked into the settlement and laid the pupp at the feet of Targen? The Kaal might kill the youngster just as gladly as the adult skaler would. But men had voices he knew and understood. Men, he could reason with – he hoped.

First, he had to survive the journey. ‘We go,’ he said to the pupp. He pointed to the hills, the forest, the scorch line. ‘You stay close to Ren.’ He made claws with his fingers to demonstrate.

The skaler gurgled and gripped the robe. Ren accepted the pinching this time, but the noises, he knew, would have to stop. He put a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. The pupp made a happy hurring noise. ‘No,’ Ren whispered, shushing again. He wagged his finger. The pupp tried to nip it, thinking they were playing. Ren sighed and patted its head. Hopefully, it would get the idea as they went, otherwise one of them, at least, was dead.

All the while keeping a watch on the skies, he took the drop one boulder at a time, careful not to stand on any rocks heavily wetted by snow. If a bone broke now or a muscle tore, the journey home was over before it had begun.

He started to run as he hit the slope proper, the skaler bobbing freely at his chest. The ground chattered as he knocked the shale aside. Noisy, but a risk worth taking, just to get across the scorch line as fast as he could.

He ran at an even downhill pace, covering the ground twice as quickly as he had in the night. The Whispering Forest was his first objective. Before long, it rose in the distance, a huge ribbon of green flowing over the hills, just starting to be capped by snow. Ren ran and ran, finding rushes of energy he never knew he had. He was almost on the point of self-congratulation, close enough to the trees to think that the skalers were not as smart as Targen claimed, when the pupp made a warning noise. Ren hit the ground fast, pulling up his legs and sheltering the youngster in the curve of his body. The land outside the forest was more green than grey, with few rocky outcrops of any size. Even huddled in a ball, he was going to stand out. And maybe his nose had gotten used to the smell, but his robe no longer reeked of filth. Ren pressed his eyes shut, trembling from his hair to his aching feet. He could hear wingbeats. Close. Very close. Any moment now the erth would boom and a skaler would surely set itself down. All Ren could do was offer up the pupp and the darkeye horn still tucked into his robe and hope that the monster was merciful.

But there was no boom. No shake of the erth. Ren felt the rush as the thing swept over. It was flying low, and yet it had missed him. He took a chance and opened one eye. A skaler was disappearing into the distance. It was one of the two he’d seen fighting earlier. Not the glorious white one tipped with yellow. The other. The strikingly-coloured blue.

He let it fade from his sight before he stood up. A poor (or stupid) hunter it might be, but if nothing else Ren was grateful for the rest. He waved it goodbye, arrogantly thinking he could now afford to stroll into the forest. But as he turned toward the trees, he found his way blocked by the point of a spear.

It jabbed at his belly like the end of the mother skaler’s tail, carried by a man no wider than the bones his skin stretched over. A man with so much hair around his face that his eyes looked like two eggs in a nest. Despite the cold, his chest was bare, the skin grown over with dark green moss, notably on his shoulders and back. Twigs and old leaves were clinging to the moss and even some wild flowers sprouted there. A treeman. The first Ren had ever seen. Two more of them rose from the ground as if they had floated up from the grave. The Kaal had always believed that the skalers had driven these men from the forest. Yet here were three, all wielding spears.

‘What got?’ said the first, dribbling into his beard. His milky eyes squinted at the shape in Ren’s hands.

Ren wrapped his arms round the pupp. He wouldn’t be able to shield it for long. ‘Mutt,’ he said.

The treeman squinted. Outside the forest, their sight was poor. ‘Show,’ he grunted. He jabbed again.

Ren shook his head. ‘I am Kaal,’ he said proudly. He nodded at the lowland beyond the forest. ‘I have no quarrel with treemen. Let me go.’

A second man stepped forward, the point of his spear less lenient than his friend’s. Without warning, he stabbed Ren’s bandaged hand.

Ren cried out and the skaler echoed. Its head wriggled free and it hissed like a slitherer. Tiny though it was, its teeth, when it set its jaws wide, were chilling.

All three treemen backed off in fear.

Ren clasped his injured hand. ‘Stand away,’ he growled, the words burning angrily on his tongue. And at first he thought they were going to allow it, but they looked at each other and seemed to reach a mutual conclusion.

Kill the boy.

Kill the beast.

They came for him, spears raised, murder in their eyes.

A strange sensation flooded through Ren. In the face of this danger he suddenly felt the mother skaler’s presence, as if she had emerged from within him like a spirit. But what could she do? He had nowhere to run and no weapon with which to defend himself.

Or did he?

Faster than the treemen could have thought possible, he went into his robe and pulled out the darkeye horn. He held it high in his fist, the way they held their spears against him. Now the mother skaler came alive in Ren. His chest seemed to double in size. The fingers on his bitten hand curled like claws. More remarkable than that, his lips rolled back and he heard himself roar. But it was not the roar the treemen ran from, it was the fire that burst from the darkeye horn. Ren felt it coming like a rush of hot blood, from the centre of his chest all the way down his arm. It leapt across the space between them, catching the nearest man and setting his brittle grey hair alight. He screamed. His spear hit the ground. He fled with the others, beating his face, leaving cinders trailing on the wind. He ran from the boy who made fire in his hand. The boy who could roar like a skaler.

Ren sank to his knees and let go of Pupp. The youngster, who seemed unaffected by the conflict, was happy to potter and graze for a moment. Ren looked at the horn, still glowing at its tip. He clamped his fist even tighter around it, curling his fingers into its spirals. ‘What am I?’ he whispered. He raised up his hand and stared at the bite marks. The mother skaler had left him now, but during the time she had spent in his mind, she had opened a pathway to understanding, beginning with the words she had spoken in the cavern:
galan aug scieth
. ‘I am you and you are me.’ That was what it meant. Somehow, she had made herself part of him.

And Ren was coming to know her too, and all that glittered in her haunting eye. She was called Grystina, of the Astrian line. To her son she had also given a name: Gariffred, meaning ‘flame of truth’.

Gariffred. On Ren’s tongue, it was hard to say. Begging respect, he chose to stick with Pupp. But there were other words that caught his imagination. He had always wondered how they named themselves, these astonishing creatures of fire. Now, with the mother’s help, he knew. They hailed from a world they called Ki:mera. And they were not beasts, nor monsters, nor skalers, but went by a word that spilled off the tongue like a storm of fire.

Dragons.

They called themselves dragons.

Part Three

Grendel

and

Graymere

12

‘Herbs?’ said Gossana, twisting her snout in a way that Grymric found uncomfortable to watch. He had served many matrials in his time spent studying the healing arts, but never one quite as off-putting as Gossana. Those eyes, as changeable as the planet’s skies. And those sharpened sawfin scales that somehow felt like an extra set of claws she might use to slash through an old dragon’s neck. She had Veng in her bloodline somewhere, he was sure of it. He shook himself and put the thought from his mind.

‘The myss has suffered a great trauma,’ he said, squinting sideways at the female wearling huddled up at the mouth of the cave. She looked miserable. Worse than that, cold.

‘Herbs?’ Gossana repeated, as if she expected a great deal more from the healing dragon than
vegetation
.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Grymric, sweeping his claws over the rich array of samples he’d collected, all of them sitting in separate piles, well out of the wind. ‘The planet has an endless supply of green forms. I have still to discover what benefits many of them could have for us, but I’m certain that with a little time I can—’

‘I don’t have time,’ Gossana cut in, flexing her glistening claws. ‘I need something to raise her out of her melancholy. I was thinking of fhosforent.’ She snorted across the cave floor, making the nearest leaf pile dance. They resettled in a less than perfect heap. Grymric shuffled forward and tidied them again, being careful not to show any hint of displeasure.

‘I would not advise it,’ he said. ‘The properties of fhosforent are still unclear and it has never been tested in one so young. In her present state, even the smallest quantity might kill her.’

He thought he saw Gossana raise an eye ridge, but did not care to interpret its meaning. ‘Of course,’ he said, before she could carp, ‘no amount of plant life could replace the warmth of a mother’s love – which only a matrial as experienced as yourself could offer.’

Gossana snorted again. Her jaws were tightly clenched, but there was just enough movement in the skin around her mouth to show off her impressive fangs. Grymric noticed she was dribbling slightly and wondered if it would be impolite to ask if she was having a problem with her teeth.

‘She’s not
mine
,’ Gossana growled. ‘And she does not want to be. I cannot raise a wearling that will not bond, not even with the noble G’vard at my side.’

These last few words were spoken with a high degree of irritation, leading Grymric to fear even more for the wearling. What hope did the orphan have if its appointed mother did not wish to raise it? And if there was no fondness between that mother and the dragon destined to be her companion, what then?

Thankfully, he didn’t have to offer up a comment. At that moment, another dragon appeared in the cave mouth. Grymric was pleased to see it was Grendel, a female he had a great liking for. She took a keen interest in the healing arts and often came to spend time with him.

‘Oh, forgive me,’ Grendel said, bowing to the superior female. She threw a worried glance at the wearling.
‘I did not know you had a consultation with Grymric. I will leave.’

‘No…wait,’ Gossana said. That glance from Grendel to the youngster had not escaped the old queen’s attention. In a silky voice most uncommon to her she said, ‘Grymric and I were just discussing the welfare of the orphan. As I think you noticed, she is not what one would want to see in a dragon so young.’

‘No,’ said Grendel. She lifted her tail and ran her isoscele down the wearling’s back. The youngster shuddered and gave out a pitiful, but not ungrateful
graark
.

Grendel looked up to see both adults watching her. Despite the wet trail running from her jaw, Gossana’s expression was as close to smiling as any dragon ever came. Grymric, however, had tightened his eye ridges. Displaying signs of affection to a wearling bound to another female might confuse it. He’d expected better of Grendel.

She read his eyes and tented her wings in apology. ‘Something my mother used to do for me.’ To satisfy Grymric, she pulled her tail well away from the youngster.

But Gossana, who ought to have been the one doing the scolding, stretched her head toward Grendel and said, ‘You may be able to help.’

‘Me?’ Grendel looked puzzled.

And Grymric seemed alarmed. ‘In what way might Grendel help?’

Gossana took a breath that bowed her chest and made her dark green scales clatter. ‘How goes your courting,
plentyn
?’

Grymric almost choked on a ball of his smoke. He looked again at his pile of herbs, wondering if Gossana had accidentally ingested an overdose of the green stalks he knew to cause dreaminess.
Plentyn?
Why was she using the ancient tongue? To call a younger female ‘child’ was a sign of immense fondness – a quality no dragon would ever have assigned to the most fearsome matrial the Wearle had known.

Grendel bowed in acceptance of the compliment. ‘I…it is only five days since…’

‘Since the Prime instructed you to enter a laying cycle,’ Gossana reminded her. ‘And no male has come to you yet? I find that hard to imagine.’

Grendel floundered again, her neck scales flushing a light shade of green. ‘I…no,’ she said.

‘But you’re so…
radiant
,’ Gossana remarked.

Another extraordinary compliment, but Grymric had heard a hiss beneath the words and realised Gossana had slavered her way through them. There was definitely something wrong with her teeth. He broke in nervously.

‘The matrial knows that Grendel is entitled to take her time before allowing males to court her.’

Gossana turned and stared him down. The amber eye (the ‘kind one’, as some dragons called it) was suddenly glowing as red as the other, sending its sharp light around the cave. ‘Don’t ever tell me what I
know
,’ she growled. ‘Grendel’s eyes are as bright as new snow. And I see fresh lytes along her tail. Her heartbeats can be heard all around the mountains. Any day now she’ll start to
sing
. She is ready. And yet no males pursue her. And she comes here seeking advice from a healer? This can only mean one thing.’ She turned and looked at Grendel again. ‘She has already made her choice of companion and is actively avoiding all other approaches.’

‘No, no,’ said Grymric, flashing his tail. Now he did feel able to disagree. ‘Grendel cannot choose one male above all others. That would be absurd. I would expect at least four males to be presenting the Elders with their right to do battle to be her guardian.’

Gossana raised her head so high it almost touched the ceiling of the cave. ‘Have I suddenly become a vapor? Did I or did I not just say don’t teach me what I
know
.’

‘Matrial, I…’ Grymric shrank into a huddle, his protests now as parched as his herbs.

‘Tell him,’ Gossana snapped at Grendel, her menacing eyes changing colour again. ‘Tell him before I roast his ears. Tell him how your second heart beats for one dragon. Tell him what
colour
that dragon is.’

‘Blue,’ Grendel admitted weakly. She looked at the sky as if to remind herself.

‘Hear that, healer? She desires a blue.’

‘A BLUE?’ said Grymric, coughing up a long-dead cinder. There were only two blues he could bring to mind: Goodle, who had an excellent bloodline but was a little immature to court a dragon like Grendel, and… ‘Not G— Not Abrial?’

Grendel rolled her upper lip.

‘I saw the signs during Galarhade’s address,’ Gossana said, raking one foot with the claws of the other. A web of saliva fell from her jaw. ‘Our future queen was making glances at a dragon who is now little more than a renegade.’

‘That’s unfair and you know it,’ Grendel said, her voice approaching the pitch of a roar. The sound boomed around the walls, alarming the wearling and causing her to flap. Grendel immediately corrected herself and leant nearer to the youngster, blowing warm air along her back to soothe her. ‘I don’t believe Gabrial killed Grystina. I know him. We grew up together. He’s gentle.’

Gossana snorted again. ‘Not a quality most queens would want in their companion.’

Grymric interceded with a heavy sigh. ‘This is not good. Not good at all.’ He was pacing back and forth now, swishing his tail. ‘The Elders will not allow this match.’

‘Indeed they will not,’ Gossana agreed, and yet there was a strangely triumphant tone floating just under her words. ‘That leaves us very few options.’

‘Us?’ said Grendel, growling again.

‘Would you put aside my help?’ Gossana said. ‘Oh yes, the healer has his potions, but he does not understand the hearts of a queen. With Grystina gone, who else can advise you?’

‘I do not want your help,’ said Grendel, causing Grymric to jump in again.

He stood between them. ‘What does Gossana propose?’

The old queen flexed her neck, easing the tired muscles in her shoulders. ‘How do you live in this cramped little hole?’ Grymric started to answer, but Gossana waved an arm to say the question did not require a response. ‘Grendel has two choices, both of which will anger Prime Galarhade. Either she persists in this folly and calls the blue to her, which will bring shame on her bloodline and cause others to question Galarhade’s decision to let her be courted, or she allows me to speak to the Elders on her behalf so that the issue might be…resolved.’

‘Resolved?’ said Grendel, her nostrils widening. She pushed forward a little as if she’d like to bite off Gossana’s head. She looked at Grymric. The fine scales above his eyes were almost cracking.

‘Love is a complex emotion,’ said Gossana, before the healer could speak again. ‘If a female admits her affinity for a male, rather than wait for the strongest to fight for her, the process is hard to reverse. For the good of the Wearle, Grendel’s liking for…Abrial’ – she lashed her tongue around the name as though to flick away a sour taste – ‘should not be denied—’

‘But he’s virtually an exile,’ Grymric said. ‘How—?’

‘I haven’t
finished
,’ Gossana snorted.

Grymric shuffled back again, glad, for once, of the comforting shadows his ‘cramped hole’ offered.

Gossana picked up her thread. ‘But neither should the match be encouraged at this stage. If the blue should demonstrate his worthiness again, Grendel could yet accept him – though he would be forced to fight for her, of course, once other dragons declare their interest.’

‘But who knows how long that might take?’ said Grymric. ‘Grendel has entered her laying cycle. It could be damaging to her if the feelings she embraces are not played out.’

‘Yes,’ said Gossana, still irked that Grymric was telling her her business, ‘but it is an outcome easily prevented. It is not too late for Grendel’s feelings to be…diverted.’

‘
Diverted?
’ said the healer. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She means to give up the myss,’ said Grendel, beginning to understand where this was leading. ‘She wants
me
to foster the wearling for her, so that Gossana might be free to be a queen again.’

‘She…? You…? Exchange places?’ Grymric shook his head so hard that his stigs looked in danger of falling off. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That cannot happen. The Prime has made his decision. He—’

‘I will speak to Galarhade,’ Gossana cut in. ‘I will tell him that Grendel had already developed feelings for the blue
before
the quake that shook Mount Vargos, but was too overcome with grief and confusion to inform the Elders at that time. I will add that she has struggled to alter her affections and has wisely sought my advice. We, that is Grymric and I, having discussed the matter further and noted the fondness Grendel has for the orphan, are agreed that she, in her present state, should foster the myss – with my ongoing support, of course.’

Grendel sighed and looked down at the youngster. It had started to rain and the wearmyss was making no attempt to avoid the drops. ‘This is most irregular,’ Grymric was saying, but Grendel was already speaking over him. ‘She’s right, Grymric. The wearling will die if she doesn’t bond soon with an appointed guardian. Grystina was my cousin and friend. I could raise the myss.’

‘Excellent. Then it’s settled,’ Gossana said.

‘Hold your claws,’ said Grendel, staring her down. The old matrial rustled her wings. The look in Grendel’s eyes was not far short of a call to combat. ‘There is still the question of my honour. Before I can formally accept your terms, I must be sure of the Elders’ approval.’

‘And you will have it,’ said Gossana, not quailing in the slightest. ‘I will fly to Prime Galarhade’s settle directly. You will have your decision before the moon rises.’

‘Wait!’ cried Grymric.

‘What NOW?’ snapped the matrial, in no mood to be impeded again. She already had her wings half lifted.

Grymric glanced at his precious herbs, but could not find the courage to ask Gossana to walk to the cave edge before taking flight. Instead he said timidly, ‘Your mouth. You’re ailing, I think.’

‘Pff! It’s nothing,’ the matrial said. ‘I broke a fang on the back of a catch I was hunting. Trust me, its bones fared worse than mine.’

She bared her teeth. For a dragon of her age, her teeth were good, blackened but almost entirely intact – apart from one fang on the upper left side, sheared to a slant and as jagged as ice, stained with the red blood of her prey, and the faintest hint of dragon green.