The Saint of Dragons (5 page)

“You,” said Aldric, “are about to join the family business.
Dragonhunting.”

“S
OME THINGS YOU’LL LEARN
on the job,” said Aldric, and he took out an old curly pipe, relaxing for the first time since Simon had met him. “And some of it you need to know right away.”

Simon reclined against the wall. The ship swayed gently, and pipe smoke filled the room with a pungent smell.

Aldric began. “Nobody knows when the first Dragon was sighted, but it must have been a very long time ago. They began their lives right after man began to walk the earth. They were born when the first man had his first evil thought. They grew like a tiny worm in his head, and when the man died and was buried, they went into the ground and spread. From this tiny beginning, many more of them grew from tough, leathery eggs hidden deep in the earth. White, like a spider’s eggs, they were, but giant.

When the young Dragons hatched, they crawled their way to the surface. They have caused constant trouble for humankind ever since.

“What does a Dragon want? It wants nothing more than to cause people pain, fear, and sadness. The Dragon feeds on these things. It is attracted to human misery—it thrives on it, in much the same way that plants need sunlight and water.

“Whenever a person feels down, the Dragon wants to be nearby. It crawls underground and feels with its tongue for vibrations of sadness. It sucks up the sadness right through its skin, and this makes the creature stronger. In turn, a Dragon, through his magic, can make people
more
unhappy. Whenever a person feels self-doubt, whenever a person thinks he or she cannot succeed, that life is not worth a penny, it’s a good bet a Dragon is behind it. Nothing causes more evil in the world than self-hatred. When a person hates himself, he will do terrible things. He wants everyone to feel as bad as he does. A Dragon loves to make people hate themselves.

“Dragons have always wanted to dominate mankind. They need us, but they look at humans as if we were rats or cockroaches. They see us as pests. Vermin. There are so many of us that the Serpents have never been able to wipe all of us out. But they try. They try to thin our numbers. They try to get us to wipe ourselves out by tricking us into hating each other. There were only two thousand Dragons at the height of their power, and they could never get rid of the millions and billions of people in the world.

“You see, Pyrothraxes see themselves as better than humans, superior in intelligence. Stronger. They cannot stand humans because to them, humans are weak.

“Add to that the fact that humans hate fire. Pyrothraxes love fire. Their favorite place is inside the heart of a good blazing fire.
They play with fire, they eat fire, they sleep in fire. Most of the time when you hear about a building going up in smoke, it was a Pyrothrax having some fun.

“The worst part is, they can’t help themselves. They are
addicted
to fire. They have to have it, and more and more of it every time. If the Pyrothrax had no fire, he would go mad. He couldn’t stand it. And, since humans are the enemy of fire, Dragons are the enemy of humans.

“For a long time, there were warriors who would fight Dragons alongside certain magicians who had learned about Serpent trickery. Each warrior had a magician to help him. In ancient Egypt, magicians banished the most terrible beast, the Serpent Queen, into a never-ending slumber, and sent it away into a shadow realm, never to be seen again. Dragons have never forgiven the humans for doing this.

“Over the millennia, Dragons were hunted down until there weren’t many left, and very few females to continue the species. So the Serpents went away from man, into hiding. Slowly they changed themselves. They made themselves smaller and outwardly more like us, so they could live in cities and towns and not be noticed. They learned a kind of magic that would make people see what the serpents wanted them to see.

“Today, because of this magic, a man could look a Dragon right in the eye and not see it for what it really is. The Dragon can make itself look like another ordinary human being, unless it’s an old Dragon, or a weak one. Then its magic might wear thin. But you and I are special, Simon. We can see right through that magic.

“In the past few years, the Serpents have grown very strong.
They have turned the tables on us. They have hunted down all of the magicians, every last one. There are no magicians left. And there are only two Knights left. Me…and you, Simon.”

“Me? I’m not a Knight.” Simon recoiled.

“You will be,” said his father. “It’s your duty. You see, in the Middle Ages, the Knights did battle with Dragons and destroyed most of them. A very great Knight named Saint George killed a very nasty Dragon in the Arab desert, and from that day forward his sons and their sons, and the entire family for centuries and centuries, went after the Dragons to protect the world. We are his descendants, Simon. And the job must go on.

“It was the tradition of the Order of Dragonhunters to bring their sons into the battle when they reached the age of fifteen. When a boy reached fifteen, he was ready to become a Knight. But I have need of you now.”

What about what I need?
Simon thought to himself.
What if I don’t want to do this?

“I’ve no one to turn to,” Aldric added. “My fellow Knights have all passed on. Even my brother Ormand has been killed.”

“Your brother?”

“The bravest of us all. He was older than me. Smarter. Trustworthy. Good-natured—everyone loved him. I made strategy, and he held the Knights together. They were from families that long ago pledged to defend the Dragonhunters. I don’t know if they would have followed me alone, had they lived. But they are all gone now. And I have work left to do.”

“You want me to fight Dragons with you?” asked Simon, bewildered.

“I don’t have any choice. You have to come with me, there’s
nowhere safe for you to go. Don’t worry, boy, I’ll be with you all the time now. The challenge is real, but we’re up to it. And there’s good news. There’s only one Dragonman left to find.”

Well, that
was
good news. Simon couldn’t believe this. It was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. And since when could he count on his father for anything? If this
was
his father.

Simon did his best not to upset the man, father or not. “I think,” he said, coughing from the awful pipe smoke, “you’d better take me back now.”

Aldric looked displeased. “That place is not safe for you. You couldn’t stay there if you wanted to. The Pyrothrax is looking for you. It has spies all over the world. It knows that I am the last Knight, and if they get rid of me, and you, there will be no one left to stop it. We can identify the creature—do you think it would allow that? It owes a great debt in blood to the St. George family. It would love to find you and get its revenge on all of us. That old lighthouse keeper is getting older—you think he could protect you? Don’t you see? The wretched thing knows where you are. All these years I’ve kept you secret, but now they know you exist.”

Simon’s mind flashed back to the strange man in the trench coat crossing the street, the man who seemed to have a tail. But that was just a shadow, surely. Was the man in white one of the Dragon’s agents?
This simply can’t be happening
, he thought.

Aldric interrupted his musings. “I’m sorry all of this is rushed, but I’m on to something. I think I know where the Dragon is. I was closing in on him weeks ago, but my brother called me away to help with a Serpent he’d found in the heartland. That was when I found out you were in danger. We’ve got to get back on
the hunt. You are the only one in the world I have left. Your mother passed away years ago, and there is no more family except for you, the last of the bloodline.”

Simon was shocked. He had imagined he wouldn’t like his mother, whoever she was, but he always figured she was alive, out there in the world, sipping fancy wine on a big yacht and never giving him a thought. It shattered something in him to know that he would never meet her.

“We have very little time,” continued Aldric. “If the Pyrothrax knows we’re on his trail, he’ll move on, and we’ll miss our chance.”

Simon was now convinced the man was off his rocker. But then Aldric added something: “I don’t expect you to swallow this story without any proof. I’m going to show you what I’m talking about.”

Simon’s head hurt from so much information. It must have shown on his face. “In the morning,” Aldric said. “In the morning I will show you proof that the Creature is real, and things will be much clearer.”

Smoke burned in Simon’s eyes, and he almost wanted to faint.

“Now get some sleep,” he heard his father say, but he was already slipping into dreamland, worn out. He wanted to hear the rest of the story, but his brain had shut off. It had had enough.

The real shock was that morning would prove to be even more amazing.

Come morning, he would indeed be joining the family business….

S
IMON FELT A LARGE
tongue licking his face. He was being eaten.

In shock, he opened his eyes and rolled on the floor! He scrambled to his feet, ready for battle. But the creature he was looking at was not a Dragon. It was a horse.

Aldric must have moved Simon into the hold of the little ship while the boy was sleeping. He had put him down to sleep in the hay.
Not very comfortable
, thought Simon.
Not very nice
.

Nevertheless, he had slept without waking once, even with the tilting and swaying of the ship. He must have been totally drained.

He backed away from the horse and looked around. The hold had a tidy and sizable space for the animal, and along the wall there were some chickens in pens.

“Good, you’re awake,” said a voice from above. Simon looked up at the hatch that led to the galley. His father threw down a bunch of apples. “You can feed the horse.”

Simon looked up at him, but all he could see was his shape, lit by the bright sunlight flooding into the hold. Simon picked up the apples. He’d been awake two seconds, and already he was doing chores.

“Give her some oats. You’ll find them in the wood bins on the port wall,” Aldric added, disappearing somewhere up above deck.

Simon threw some oats into the horse’s stall and held an apple out for it to eat. The horse chomped the apple eagerly. Simon was hungry himself. He took one of the other apples, sinking his teeth in for a big bite.

“DON’T EAT VALSEPHANY’S APPLES,” came a warning from upstairs. “SHE’S EARNED EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM.”

Guiltily, Simon swallowed. But he was still hungry, and it made him a little angry.

“Does anybody care I’m hungry enough to eat Valsephany?!” he said loudly.

His father came back down with a look of fierce annoyance on his face. “Eat Valsephany?” he repeated. “Eat Valsephany?”

“It’s an expression,” said Simon mildly. “You know. In America, we say, ‘hungry enough to eat a horse.’”

Aldric plucked the apple away from Simon and went to his horse. It gave a thankful neighing, and fed from his hand.

“Valsephany is the greatest animal a man could ever have,” Aldric said. “Very few steeds on this earth could withstand what she has withstood. Not many would be able to look a Dragon in the eye and hold its course. Most horses would bolt away. Or their legs would buckle, and they’d fall to the ground in fear. It has taken ages to prepare Valsephany for battle. She’s priceless.”

The horse seemed to understand, raising its head with a
whinny of pride. Simon made a mental note. Never joke about the horse.

“I didn’t know she meant so much to you,” said Simon.

“We’ve grown up together,” said Aldric, putting his face against Valsephany’s. “We were trained for battle together by your grandfather, Veritus St. George. Fascinating creatures. Did you know that thousands of years ago, horses were wee small little fellows, the size of terriers? Now look at them. You see?
Everything
evolves.”

He may not have a sense of humor, Simon thought, but Aldric’s knowledge was impressive. From all his talking the night before, he got the feeling Aldric knew a
little
bit about a great many subjects, but probably not a whole lot in depth about anything. He wondered if his father had ever had the benefit of the education he had gotten at the Lighthouse School.

“A horse is a perfect companion. When you get your steed, you’ll understand,” said Aldric. A horse? For Simon? His heart leapt at the mention of it. But before Simon could be sure that’s what he meant, his father brought up something more pressing.

“If you’re hungry,” said Aldric, “there’s a plate of food over there on that old box. I was eating it while I watched you sleep.”

Simon looked at him with curiosity.

“I came down once in the night. I had to be sure you wouldn’t try to jump overboard,” his father said to the unasked question. “I need you for battle.”

Simon frowned.
Oh, it was distrust, not concern
, he thought. He reached for the plate, which was piled with meat, fried potatoes, and onion.

Suddenly, a large red fox darted from the shadows and stuck
its snout onto the plate.

Aldric looked over disdainfully. “Fenwick. I guess I should have introduced you. Did I mention a horse was the greatest of all the animals?”

Simon stared at the fox, which seemed to be glowering unhappily.

“An old English fox is probably the worst,” muttered Aldric, shooing the animal back.

“He’s hungry,” Simon said, and held out some food, which the fox took quickly.

“Oh, poor thing,” Aldric mocked him. “He’ll eat when he’s earned it. This stable is a mess, Fenwick. I have to tell you, Simon, he spends most of his time fishing alongside the boat, and he stinks at it. As a matter of fact, he just plain stinks.”

Fenwick gave what seemed to be a scowl. Then, to Simon’s surprise, the fox scurried its furry red body into the stable and began cleaning up, pulling tools back into their spots, using its nose to push boxes into place. Fenwick, apparently, had been expertly trained.

“I’m sure this wasn’t exactly your idea of a wonderful Halloween,” said Aldric. He looked at the black knight mask in the hay. Somehow it had made it through the ride, in Simon’s satchel. “Interesting choice. It wouldn’t offer you much protection, though. Our armor is strong as titanium—it’s overlaid with an alchemical resin created by my magician friend Maradine, who died long ago. There’s still enough of it left for your armor, if I can adjust it for your size, but I doubt you’ll need any of it on this trip.”

“Why is that?” asked Simon, munching on a hard piece of
black meat. He was thinking a suit of armor would be a very remarkable thing to own.

“This Dragon we’re after, he’s an urban Dragon. We’ll have to disguise ourselves. The armor is what gives you away. The strong magic in it makes the Dragon’s teeth ache. He knows when you’re coming. So we end up with a choice. Protect ourselves and lose the element of surprise, or go in with a tremendous shock, but with no armor to protect us.”

“This is unreal,” mumbled Simon. Shining armor, urban Dragons. He realized he was actually starting to believe this insanity.

“I assure you,” said his father solemnly. “The White Dragon is very real.”

“White Dragon,” Simon repeated. “Is that what you call it?”

“Yes. He’s the last of the bunch. That’s his brother you’re eating,” said Aldric, casually.

Simon had been chewing on the tough, greenish-black meat for some time. Now he felt sick.

“I’m eating it?”

“Yes, with some pepper.”

“I’m eating Dragon meat?” repeated Simon.

“Well, why not?” Aldric asked him. “Dragonmen eat humans every chance they get. They do it for pure pleasure, just to spite us. We are a delicacy to them. They cover us with a hot milky syrup.”

The Dragon meat tasted like very old beef. Between the motion of the ship and the bad meat, Simon thought he might throw up.

“I’m not feeling well,” groaned Simon.

“I thought you wanted proof,” Aldric replied.

“This isn’t exactly proof,” said Simon. “This could be old deer meat, or dead alligator. It just doesn’t taste good. What are you trying to do to me?”

“Just keeping you from hunger. It took time to clean that off my sword and cook it up right,” said Aldric. “This one was called the Vermin Dragon, because he had a fancy for eating garlic-covered rats, and he ended up tasting rather good, if you ask me.”

Simon looked at him with utter disbelief. “Well, you sure have thought a lot about this.”

The older St. George looked irritated. “In a few hours,” he said, “we need to be ready for combat. I had hoped my word would be enough for you.”

Simon didn’t know what to say.

“But I did promise I’d show you the truth.”

He motioned Simon to follow. “I didn’t want to frighten you, but if you insist, so be it.” He walked to the back of the hold and opened a series of locks on a heavy metal door. “In you go,” he told his son.

Simon wasn’t sure he wanted proof any more.

The room ahead was dark as a shark’s belly, and it gave off a musty smell of being closed up for a long, long time.

Fenwick, the little fox, had found business at the back of the ship, cowering fearfully.

Simon stalled, looking at Aldric: “Shouldn’t you be running the ship?”

“It runs itself.”

“Runs itself?” said Simon. “You have that kind of machinery on board? You don’t even have electricity.”

“The ship runs on magic,” grumbled his father, “using devices made by my late friend Maradine, and they know the way. Now, quit stalling.”

“I’m not stalling. I just had some questions.”

“It isn’t pretty in there, but you need to see it,” said Aldric.

Simon swallowed hard.

“You
asked
to see it,” said Aldric.

“I know.”

“Then go!”

Simon entered the dark room. The ship swayed to one side, and it spooked him even more. Aldric entered behind him and clicked on some dim brass lights. The first thing Simon saw was a giant set of teeth. He almost jumped back from the shock. They were set in a skull the size of a small car. It was like the skull of a
Tyrannosaurus rex
, but it had long, goatlike horns jutting upward from the head. The eyeholes alone were big enough for Simon to walk through. The boy stayed at the door, clearly disturbed.

“Oh, come on, don’t be afraid,” said Aldric in disgust. “You can see it’s dead. Dead as Friday’s mutton. For heaven’s sake, you’re going to have to show some guts. We’re going after the real thing in a few hours.”

“But it’s so big,” said Simon. “I didn’t know it was so big.”

“That’s an old Dragon,” said Aldric. “It’s six hundred years old. Haven’t you been listening? Dragons today are man-sized. They don’t look anything like this.”

The bones around the mouth and nose of the skeleton were black. The fire it spewed out must have burned the bone over time.

“What do the Dragonmen look like?” asked Simon.

“Like this,” said Aldric, and he thrust another skull into Simon’s face.

Simon almost screamed, but he held it in, just to keep his father from the satisfaction. The skull in Aldric’s hand was indeed smaller. It was quite a bit larger than a human skull, though, and shaped like a little replica of the giant fossil nearby.

“This is the skull of the Dragon of Seville,” said Aldric. “The first Dragon I took on, when I was about your age. He was an ugly Pyrothrax. Had six rows of teeth. See? Like a shark.” Simon ran his fingers over the old teeth. Still sharp. “Father and I went in together. It was the first time I’d been out of England. Easiest Serpent I ever killed.” His voice took on a melancholy tone. “The next one would put an end to Dad.” He took the skull back and set it on a shelf with at least a dozen more such skulls.

Simon’s eyes were drawn to several steel cases with glass doors on them. Inside the cases were lighted torches. Some of the torches burned green, some blue, others yellow.

“Serpentfire can burn for a very long time if the magic is strong,” said Aldric. “It’s hard to handle, that kind of fire, it seems to have a mind of its own, but it can be a good tool if you have nothing else. You never, ever want to use it unless you need it. I keep it around in case of dire circumstances. I hate to admit anything Serpentine can be useful.” Absentmindedly he picked up a Dragon’s claw from a pile of them on the table, and used it to scratch his neck.

The room had a smell like old leather. On several cabinets, and hung on the walls, were layers of Dragonhide. Simon reached out and touched the closest. It felt leathery and tough,
and scaly like a snake in parts.

“Serpent skin resists fire,” said Aldric, “unless the fire is from another Dragon. Another good reason to keep serpentfire around. It used to be that the best way to kill a Dragon was to introduce it to another Dragon.”

“Really? They don’t like each other?”

“Oh, they despise each other. They despise everything, really. They’re just gluttons for hatred,” Aldric revealed. “It all goes back to the Queen of Serpents. Once she vanished, they turned against each other, all blaming the other for what had happened.”

“That was thousands of years ago,” recalled Simon.

“Yes, but they’ve never gotten over it” was the answer. “They’ve got a long memory—they’re like the Irish that way.”

“They?”

“It. I keep forgetting, there’s only one of the terrors left,” smiled Aldric. “We’re soon to be out of a job, aren’t we? Maybe we’ll go into the fishing business. Or, who knows, maybe this last one has a treasure we can make off with. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

He took the Dragonhide from Simon. “It’s nasty material, this is, but you can drive a silver sword or a silver arrow through it if you move fast. You need the right weapons.”

With that, he clicked on another light, and on the far side of the room Simon could now see an entire wall filled with suits of armor and Dragonfighting equipment. There were swords of every kind, crossbows, shields, bows and arrows—everything made of silver.

It was an amazing sight. The boy’s jaw dropped.

He felt something brush against his leg, and looked down to
see Fenwick carefully moving in next to him.

“Get out of here, you fish-mongrel,” Aldric yelled at the fox, to no effect. “He seems to like you.”

But Simon’s eyes were on the weaponry.

“The favorite weapon of the Dragonhunter,” explained Aldric, “is the silver crossbow.” He went over to the wall and handed one to Simon. It was heavy, like holding a bowling ball.

“This one is yours.”

Simon stared at it in disbelief. “This is how you slay Dragons?” he asked.

“No, this is how you
harm
Dragons. Silver can hurt a Dragon, but their skin regenerates over time. There is only one way for us to eliminate a Dragon—to destroy him completely. And that is with a deathspell.”

“A what?”

“Long ago magicians discovered that every Dragon has a spell that will bring it to an end,” Aldric related, “and every spell is written into the book of Saint George. I know all the words to the spells; I’ve committed them to memory, and so shall you, for the last of the creatures. Each Dragon has a weakness. A soft piece of flesh in the middle of its chest, right over its heart. Its weakest part. You lay your hand on its heart, press against this skin, and call out the deathspell. And the Dragon will…expire.”