Master of Dragons (13 page)

“And everyone
knows that we are forbidden to go near it,” Anton said sternly. “That includes
children.”

Draconas gave them
a mischievous grin and held out the bowl. “Could I have some more to eat,
please? It’s really, really good.”

Rosa, gratified,
ladled out more stew.

Anton rose from
the table. “I have to get back to the forge, Wife. I may be late for supper. We’ve
a deal of work to do all of a sudden. A large order came in this morning. An
order for weapons.”

Rosa set down the
bowl in front of Draconas, who watched and listened, all the while pretending
to be absorbed in his meal.

“Weapons?” Rosa
repeated. “What sort of weapons?”

“Throwing darts,
mostly. As many as I can turn out as fast as I can turn them out. One of the
Blessed came by the shop this morning to tell me. And it’s not just me. Every
blacksmith in the city has been told to drop all other work and turn his hand
to this.”

“And what are you
to do with these weapons?”

“Hand them over to
the Blessed.”

“And what do they
do with them?”

“They take them to
the palace. That is what I hear. The weapons are being stored there.”

“The palace . . .”
Rosa wrinkled her forehead. “Maybe the rumors
are
true.”

“Maybe,” Anton
grunted.

Rosa sighed. Her
hands squeezed together tightly.

Anton kissed her
cheek. “Don’t fret, Wife. It’s nothing to do with us, whatever may be brewing,
except that it brings me more work, and that will mean extra rations. What are
you doing this afternoon?”

“I should go to
the market. I meant to go this morning, but I didn’t want to leave Draca home
alone.”

“I’m fine. Truly I
am,” Draconas piped up. “You can go, Rosa. I don’t mind being alone. I like it.”

“We are out of
meat,” said Rosa, and she gave Anton a meaningful look. “I was thinking of
going to the butcher. Dimitri, perhaps. There’ll be nothing for your supper
otherwise—”

“The child will be
well enough on her own,” said Anton, and he added in a whisper not meant for
Draca to hear, “See what you can find out. If Dimitri’s not around, go visit
the chandler, Carlo. Tell him about the weapons. You can have the Widow Meadows
look in on the girl.”

Draconas’s dragon
ears caught every word. He picked up his bowl and went to wash it out, along
with his spoon. Then he returned to his bed and crawled under the blanket. “I’m
still feeling tired, Rosa. I think I’ll take a nap. Don’t worry about me.”

Rosa kissed the
girl on the forehead. “The widow will check on you, and I’ll be back in time to
cook your supper. Sweet dreams, Draca.”

Draconas closed
his eyes and nestled beneath the covers. Anton departed. Rosa washed up the
dishes and left shortly after, taking her marketing basket with her.

Draconas waited
until he was certain that neither was coming back, and then he slipped out of
bed. Cautiously, he opened the door and peered out into the street. The forge
was adjacent to the house. He could smell the acrid scent of molten iron and
see Anton’s broad back and shoulders silhouetted against the glare of the forge
fire. The ringing sounds of Anton’s hammer echoed up and down the street, which
was crowded with people heading back to work after their dinner break.

Draconas dashed
out the door and quickly lost himself in the crowd. Behind him, an illusion of
a little girl slumbered peacefully in the bed.

DRACONAS ROAMED
THE STREETS OF DRAGONKEEP, MULLING OVER in his mind his conversation with Anton
and Rosa and that pain in the backside, Malfiesto: Anora talking about armies,
orders given to the blacksmith to produce large quantities of darts in a hurry.
Draconas had been in human cities on the verge of war, and he remembered
clearly the forge fires of the blacksmiths burning far into the night and the
furious din of hammers pounding like war drums, turning out armor and swords,
arrows and shields. Yet, he’d seen no soldiers in Dragonkeep.

The darts were to
go to the palace. Only the monks were permitted to enter the palace. Was the
army composed of mad, dart-flinging monks?

Draconas was
familiar with the darts Anton was making—one such dart had felled Bellona.

Humans had long
played dart-throwing games. Draconas had watched them and even participated in
a few. He’d known humans who could throw darts with remarkable accuracy, but he’d
never known one who could throw a small metal dart—no bigger than his index
finger—with such force that it could kill a person a furlong away. The impetus
behind the dart was dragon-magic. The monk used his magic to increase the force
of his throw. Perhaps the monk had even been able to use the magic to assist
the dart in finding its target.

Yet, Draconas
considered, most of the monks he’d seen were mentally unstable, bordering on
the insane. The dragon-magic in the blood did strange things to the brains of
human males. An army of insane men was not an army any rational general would want
to lead. Impossible to discipline, they could not be counted upon to obey the
simplest command. Turn them loose on a battlefield and they could conceivably
do more damage to themselves than to an enemy.

“Unless Grald
discovered how to cure the madness, just as I did,” Draconas muttered. “Marcus
was insane until I taught him how to master the magic, not succumb to it. If I
could find a way, so could Grald. And he’s had far longer to experiment. Maybe
there are soldiers
and
monks in Dragonkeep. Maybe the monks are the
failures. . . .”

That opened up new
and extremely disquieting possibilities. Obviously, the answer lay in the
palace that no one was supposed to enter.

Draconas continued
his wanderings until he found what he was looking for—other children like
himself.

The children of
Dragonkeep were expected to make their contribution to society, and in this
they were no different from the children of Idylswylde or New Bramfells or
Weinmauer or countless other human communities. Those children who lacked the
dragon-magic were apprenticed to craftsmen or worked in the fields. They milked
goats, tended sheep, fed the chickens. Those with dragon-magic lived with the
monks and the holy sisters.

Still, children
were children the world over, and Draconas hoped to find some like himself who
had sneaked out of the shop when the master went home for his dinner or had
left the chickens to go off in search of fun. Draconas knew where to look for
such rascals, and he soon came upon a group of youngsters skulking in an alley,
playing at mumblety-peg.

“Can I have a
toss?” Draconas asked, joining them.

“No girls,” said
one of the boys.

“You’re just
afraid I’ll beat you!” Draconas sneered.

Several of the
boys snickered. The speaker cast little Draca an angry glance.

“Oh, yeah? Let’s
see you.” He handed over the knife.

Draconas had been
playing mumblety-peg for several hundred years. He could have beaten his rival
handily at the game, but that would have alienated the children, and he wanted
them to accept him. Draca demonstrated her skill, and the match was considered
a tie, with the result that she was pronounced an expert mumblety-peg player
and accepted into the ranks of boydom.

Draconas and his
newfound friends played at mumblety-peg until they grew bored, at which point
they began to look about for other forms of amusement. The boys—six of
them—ranged in age from nine to fourteen. One was an apprentice to a disreputable
shoemaker, who had a taste for ale and generally took a nap about this time of
day, leaving the boy to his own devices. Two were supposed to be working in the
fields, but had thought better of it. Another was meant to be running errands
for his mistress, an herbalist, and another was supposed to be home sick in
bed.

The sixth was
vague as to where he came from. The others indicated with winks and nods,
whispers and nudges, that he was a “runaway”—one of those children with the
dragon-magic in their blood. Draconas kept a wary eye on this boy, who was
constantly mumbling to himself and who, when given the knife for mumblety-peg,
made a wild swipe at Draca. When the other boys told the runaway that stabbing
fellow playmates was against the rules, the boy then sliced open his own
forearm. Not the least bothered by this bizarre behavior, the boys simply took
the knife away and told their friend to go wash off the blood at the public
fountain “or the Blessed will nab you for sure!”

This done, the
boys suggested various means of passing the time. Some wanted to steal apples
from the market. Others wanted to ogle the women who were doing their laundry
in the creek, and still others wanted to go look at the destruction caused by
the explosion, on the off-chance that they might find a dead body.

The majority was
leaning in this direction, when Draconas said, “Pooh! There aren’t any more
dead bodies. I heard my father say everyone had been found.”

Faces fell. The
boy with the dragon-magic slammed his fist into the stone wall in disgust and
drew back bleeding knuckles.

“I know!” Draconas
said, edging away from the boy, who was looking at her oddly. “Let’s go see the
palace.”

Dead silence fell.
The boys stared at her, some with awe, others nervously.

“Why? What’s the
matter?” Draconas asked.

“We’re not
allowed,” said one.

“We’re not allowed
to skip out of work and we’re doing it,” Draconas reminded them.

“This is
different,” said another.

“If he catches us,
the dragon will eat us,” said the youngest boy in a whisper.

The others scoffed
and knocked him around playfully and mussed his hair, but no one made a move to
go. The boy with the dragon-magic had quit talking to himself and was staring
at Draca with narrowed eyes.

“I think you’re
all afraid,” said Draconas loftily. “I dare you to come to the palace with me.”

The boys looked
uncertainly at each other.

“Double-dare,”
said Draconas, upping the stakes.

“I’ll go,” said
the boy with the dragon-magic. He had an eager look on his thin and
blood-smeared face and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.

“Good for you!”
said Draconas. She held out her hand to him and pretended not to notice when he
recoiled and backed away from her. “You and I’ll go. The rest are too scared.”

There was no
question for the others now. Their honor had been challenged.

“We’ll just go
look
at the palace,” said the eldest, clarifying the rules.

“Of course,” said
Draconas scornfully. “You don’t think I mean to go inside, do you? Who’s the
leader?” Her gaze went to the eldest and she smiled sweetly. “I guess you must
be.”

“I am,” he
affirmed, flattered.

“Then you lead the
way.” Draconas flashed a glance around at the others. “We’ll follow, won’t we,
boys?”

All agreed, though
with mixed levels of enthusiasm. The eldest boy, his head held high, started
off down the alley. The rest fell in behind. Draconas was slightly disconcerted
to find the boy with the dragon-magic dogging his footsteps, his mad gaze fixed
on Draca with rapt attention.

Some males with
dragon-magic had the ability to see through Draconas’s illusion, see the dragon
that he was, not the little girl he was pretending to be. He wondered uneasily
if this boy was seeing Draca or the dragon . . .

The children
wended their way through streets that twisted and turned, rambled into alleys,
wandered uphill and down, and meandered around buildings that were all jumbled
together in seemingly senseless order, judging by human standards. Grald had
laid out the city and Draconas saw the dragon’s instinctive need to surround
and defend himself with mazes and labyrinths in every twist and turn. Draconas’s
dragon-brain being accustomed to mazes, he was able to keep track of the route
they were taking. He now had a pretty good notion of where the dragon must have
located his “palace”—somewhere near the mountain where Grald would have his
lair.

The gray stone
walls of the Abbey rose up in front of them. Beyond the Abbey was a broad
expanse of meadow land where sheep and cattle grazed. The eldest said that they
should avoid the Abbey “because that’s where the Blessed hang out.” The boy
with dragon-magic nodded his head emphatically at this.

“The Dragon’s Son
lives there,” he said, his voice low and reverent. He repeated this several
times.

“Dragon’s Son!”
said one and rolled his eyes.

“It’s true,”
claimed the youngest. “I saw him. He has the legs of a dragon. And claws
instead of toes.”

“And a tail, too,
I’ll bet,” the eldest sneered.

“I didn’t see a
tail,” said the nine-year-old.

“Pooh, you didn’t
see anything!”

“I did so.”

“Did not.”

“Careful! There’s
one of the Blessed!” Draconas warned, and the quarrel ended abruptly. The boys
darted off down a side street. Now that they had made up their minds to this
adventure, they were giving it their all.

Draconas glanced
back at the Abbey. He now knew where to find Ven.

The children made
a wide circle around the Abbey and were about a half-mile past it when they
entered a part of the city that had the look of being very old. It was also
very empty.

The stone
buildings had not been kept in repair and were in various stages of tumbling
down. The streets were deserted.

“I don’t like
this. We’re not supposed to be here,” said one of the boys—the shoemaker’s
apprentice—and he came to a halt.

“Shut up,” said
the eldest. “Or maybe you want to run home to your mama.”

The boy looked
defiantly at his leader, then looked around at the others. “You can all get
eaten by the dragon if you want to. Not me.” He took to his heels and went
racing back the way they’d come.