Authors: Sam Austin
Damsel Knight (6 page)
“I don’t climb ropes,” princess Alice says, her green eyes wide.
Bonnie rolls her eyes. “Oh for the love of - get on my back!”
The princess does as she’s told, which is about the only positive thing about her. Bonnie’s starting to think that whoever would have won her for a wife would’ve gotten a very bad deal. She tries to imagine herself spending the rest of her life with this pretty little creature who can’t even pull her own weight up. She’d be terrible at sword fighting, even more terrible at a good old fashioned fist fight. No, she’d be no fun at all.
The weight on her back and shoulders is a little less than her own weight, despite the princess’s extra head of height. She’s carried Neven on her back before to re-enact stories of warriors gaining great strength from strapping sows to their shoulders - a comparison that Neven didn’t care for. So the princess’s weight doesn’t tax her legs much, but swinging herself onto the rope with the tower crumbling around her, it drags down her arms enough to make them burn white hot. Not even winding her legs a little tighter around the rope does much to alleviate the strain. Neven is right above her, and it’s a long way to the ground. She has to move fast to get them all to the ground in time. Gripping too much with her thighs or shoes would slow down her progress.
Instead she slides down hand over hand, fast enough to know her hands and legs will be raw with rope burn by the time she reaches the grass. The tower wavers, swaying from side to side. The rough bricks in front of her face break apart from each other and fall downward. She hears the thump as each one hits the ground, knowing that could easily be her fate.
A roar echoes from below, making the tower shudder. And a horrible thought hits her all at once. The spells in the tower broke once Neven entered. What if the spell over the dragon broke too?
The tower leans sharply to the right, taking their rope with it. Princess Alice squeaks like a startled kitten, and grips Bonnie’s throat so tight she can’t breathe. It's all Bonnie can do to keep going, one hand over the other, wishing she'd thought to wrap her palms in cloth so she could slide down the rope as easily as if it'd been polished metal.
The rope whips from side to side, then around and around like a pin wheel. Her elbow thumps against stone, and tingling pain spikes all the way to her fingers. Even when her entire arm flashes numb she keeps moving, faster and faster. Rubble rains all around her. The rope digs into the flesh of her hands, and she fancies she can smell her skin start to burn.
The tower teeters above her, for one mad moment looking like it's going to topple forward on top of them. forty feet to the ground, and a tower falling on top of them. It's not the way Bonnie imagined her end to be.
Then the tower collapses inward instead. The result is no less deadly. All the walls she can see fold in on themselves as quickly as if some giant invisible fist had closed around them and crumbled them like paper. A crack, and the rope is slack in her hands
She catches a glimpse of Neven spinning through the air above her. The iron railing she'd tied the rope to chases them, spinning, and spinning. Behind it comes a hailstorm of stone, each chunk bigger than the last. Wind buffets every inch of her, slapping cold hands at her face. Princess Alice's arms remain locked around her neck, and a high pitched sound next to her ear tells her the girl is screaming. It takes longer than it should to get it, but then she understands. They're falling.
The world twists and turns. Sky, grass, sky, grass. Each time the grass spins into view it's a bit closer, a little harder looking.
The impact would've pushed the air from her lungs if princess Alice's arms weren't firmly locked around her windpipe. Blackness, and warmth. Only when her thoughts repeat themselves enough to be heard over her racing heart, she realises the black is not complete blackness. There's a soft red glow to it that grows sharper and gains more colours.
Shaking herself, she pulls the girl's hands from her throat, causing her to drop from her back onto the rough ground. She reaches up, her fingers finding that same odd texture - like smooth pebbles joined tightly together to make something that feels smooth to her fingers, and rough to her hands. Pushing against it, the world explodes into colour as the giant fingers uncurl from around them.
The dragon's house sized head looks down at them, not seeming to notice the remains of the tower crashing apart on its head and back. His black voids of eyes seem to sparkle with something. Puzzlement? Relief? Hunger? She doesn't know.
Neven levers himself to his hands and knees on the dragon's left arm. It seems so far away from where she and the princess sit in the palm of the dragon's right hand. His expression is dazed. A harder landing than her and the princess perhaps? She's relieved to see that he doesn't appear injured.
Her relief is short lived.
The dragon drops them the short distance to the ground as the last of the rubble falls on his shoulders. Then he moves his left arm suddenly, flinging Neven into the air. The giant jaws close around Neven with a sickening snap.
Bonnie's jaw drops open and she scrambles backward to where she'd left her sword at the bottom of the tower. Time skips, and she's running toward the dragon with her blade raised in front of her. Some part of her must know that with the dragon standing as he is, the highest part she can hope to reach is his ankles, but she runs anyway.
This is Neven. The boy who met her as a ragged orphan living on scraps from the stalls of Porthdon and promptly claimed her as his sister and brought her home. The boy who helped her when he discovered her love of sword fighting, instead of reporting her.
She'll slit the dragon's belly open to get him back if she has to.
"Sir Dragon," princess Alice calls out, her voice as clear and bright as a bell. "If you please, could you spit the boy out? He is my true love you see, and I do not want him harmed."
The dragon seems to consider this a moment. Then reluctantly it lowers its head and sticks out its massive tongue. Neven rolls wet and sticky to the princess’s feet and lies there gasping.
Bonnie lowers her sword. "You just - you asked it nicely?"
"I consider it the best way to get things done," the princess says, brushing down her pretty silk dress. "He really is quite gentlemanly for a bloodthirsty beast. I know father said I shouldn't, but I've grown fond of him. I'm so glad you didn't kill him."
Something white hot and painful opens in her chest at the warmth in the princess's green eyes as she looks up at the dragon. "There's time for that later."
Princess Alice flushes a deep red. "Of course good sir. I should not have presumed otherwise. Forgive my manners. Sir Dra - I mean the dragon is all I've had to talk to in three long years."
Neven raises his head from the ground. "Remind me why we can't kill it now?"
"Honour," Bonnie says, reaching down a hand and pulling him to his feet. Her hand comes away wet and stinking of rotting meat. "I mean to kill him while he's not so senseless as to stand there and let me do it. He deserves better."
Neven shakes his head at that. "And what makes you think he won't kill you first?"
***
"So I'm your true love?" Neven asks as they walk over hill after hill, the dragon shuffling slowly behind them. His face is scarlet, but whether that's more from trying to get back in time or from his question she's not sure.
The princess nods, just as out of breath as he is, but trying not to show it. "Yes. Though you are younger than I expected." Her face turns almost purple as she seems to realise what she's said. "Meaning no offence of course."
"And you're my true love?"
For a smart guy Neven seems to be having a hard time wrapping his head around this. Bonnie decides to stay out of it, dropping back a little to walk next to the dragon. Or rather, to walk on level with the dragon's shuffling front feet. Both her and the dragon could be making much better time than this, but the princess and her completely impractical frilly dress set their pace for them.
"That's the way my father said the spell works," princess Alice says. "My true love will slay the savage dragon and climb the tower. The moment he walks through the threshold the charms to fill my needs will cease to be, as he is the one charm I will need for the rest of my life."
Somehow Neven turns an even brighter red. Bonnie stares, fascinated at the change in colour.
"Are you surprised good sir?" Princess Alice asks, her bright eyes wide. "Are you displeased with me?"
"What? No." Neven scratches his head. "It's just a shock is all. This whole day is a shock. And for a while there I thought my true love was... Well, that doesn't matter. What matters is we get off this island."
The lapping sound of sea on shore seems closer now. Bonnie passes by them, running down and up two hills before she sees what she's looking for. "That might be a problem."
Neven huffs and puffs along until he's standing beside her. "The boat's gone."
"It's barely past mid day," Bonnie says, gripping her sword tightly. "And the magic. All the spells broke, which means the island shouldn't have pushed him out to sea."
"He didn't know that," Neven says, twisting the cloth of his shirt so tightly around his fingers that the metal contraptions on his arms spring upright. He pushes them back down absentmindedly. "He must have waited until he thought he couldn't wait any longer. Then he left."
He left. The words sting more than they should. This isn't the first time Jack had dropped her on a shore and left her. The first time she'd been forced to fend for herself for months before Neven's family took her in. So she shouldn't be surprised. Jack was a man who did what he could and felt no guilt about not being able to do more.
Still, it hurts.
"What's this?" The princess asks, wandering to the shore.
There in front of the hollow tree is a single crate like the ones he'd used to haul the teeth in. For just a moment another crate springs into her mind. One of darker wood, and stained with dirt and blood instead of sand.
'No, don't open it' she wants to say as Neven bends down bedside the princess. Then her senses come back. This is a different box. And she's not a little girl any longer. She's to be a knight. Nothing should scare her.
Still, she finds herself watching closely as Neven pries off the lid.
"Food," Neven says. He turns, his eyes searching for hers. "He left us supplies. Does he mean to come back do you think?"
"If he does it will be after going back to King’s City to deliver the rest of the boxes. The King will be waiting for them. After that he needs to journey the circle to collect his wares." She hides the queasiness that comes over her remembering all those teeth. "If he travels it all he won't come back this way for a year, but he might turn around after dropping his goods at the palace. He usually rests a while before starting his journey, so he should have time to collect us. And if he doesn't, they'll come to drop off champions in a month’s time."
"It'll take weeks for Jack to get here even if he does turn right around," Neven complains. He turns to princess Alice, stumbling back a step like he'd forgotten she was with them. "My lady - I mean, my princess. Do you know a way we can get to your father's city?"
"I'm afraid I wasn't told what happens after my true love rescues me," princess Alice says, her wide eyes darting between the shore that led out to sea, and the giant trees that form a wall to their left. Blushing again, she seems to remember her courtesies and returns her full attention to Neven. "My father just said it would be the end of my waiting."
"Seems like this is the start of it," Bonnie says, sighing. She lowers herself to the ground, laying her sword across her lap. The day had taken its toll, and her limbs ache for rest. "The castle is gone. We can't go back."
"No. But maybe we can go forward." Neven looks up at the dragon with a glint in his eyes she doesn't like. It's the same expression he wears just before coming up with some insane idea that usually ends with something exploding or catching on fire. "The city is over the forest right?"
"Sure," Bonnie says. "The forest, a few villages including our own, Porthdon, then a few miles along King’s road. But you're forgetting one thing Neven. We don't fly."
"And we can't go in that forest," princess Alice says, her pretty face pale with horror. "We can't. I've read stories about what lives in there. It teems with dark magic. All my nursemaids said so."
Neven catches one of her hands in his with more confidence than he'd shown since he'd met her. She stills under his touch, but her green eyes are still wide and fearful. "It's fine. We won't go through the forest. Bon - Boone had the better idea."
Bonnie narrows her eye. She just knows she won’t like where this is going. “I did?”
“Yes,” Neven says, his eyes still on the dragon. “We fly.”
Still, she’s not so sure about this latest idea.
“Come on dragon, fly!” Neven calls out from behind her, the princess clinging to his back. For all his wariness of the beast, he’s caught in an idea. And she knows from experience that ideas can make him fearless, something that doesn’t always end well.
The dragon twists his massive neck around to look at them, then exhales a puff of smoke into their faces. They choke, Bonnie leaning forward to try and find fresh air to clear the burning from her throat. The ridge of tough bone and tougher scale runs from base of skull to tip of tail, a darker red than the rest of him. It provides them with a seat of sorts, and the thicker scales covering the ridge hold none of the smoothness on other parts of his body. The roughness under her fingers gives her something to grip.
“Maybe a different command?” Bonnie says between coughs. She turns around to catch the princess’s eyes. The girl’s commands had worked well enough before.
The princess ducks her head behind Neven’s shoulder, but eventually she speaks. “Please Sir Dragon, we have need of your wings. Will you please fly us over the forest and to my father’s palace?”
The dragon lowers his giant head, making that grumbling noise again. He exhales a stream of dark smoke over the ground.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Neven says grudgingly. “This is never going to woooooooorkkkkkkkkk.”
The dragon launches himself into the air like a stone flung from a catapult. Bonnie grips the rope and flattens herself onto the dragon’s body in order to stay on. Her stomach seems to fling itself right down to her toes, searching for the ground. She glances down and wishes she hadn’t. The ground is so far below, the hollow tree is nothing more than a dot. She can see the castle from here with its fallen tower. She can even see one of the great stone pillars that marks the edge of the circle, emerging a little way out to sea.
Neven groans behind her, sounding like he might throw up. Air sick as well as sea sick. She hopes he doesn’t throw up as much as he did on the boat. She can’t imagine the dragon would like that much.
The dragon flaps his wings, and they soar higher over the forest. From this high the Dark Forest doesn’t look as frightening as she’d thought from the tales people whisper, and the ones Jack sometimes tells through his puppets. Monsters are supposed to live in there, with witches, dark spirits, demons, and all kinds of products of dark magic. There is good magic; the kind trained druids carry out for the King and other rich lords and ladies, and there is bad magic carried out by the untrained and cruel hearted. Those found using dark magic are either killed or flee to the Dark Forest that covers the land almost from the bottom of the circle to the very top. Miles and miles of forest that would take many weeks to travel on horseback.
Only, from this far up it doesn’t look like it’s teeming with dark magic. It just looks like a forest. A large forest certainly, the trees as far as she can see, and beautiful. Definitely beautiful, but a forest. Nothing more than that.
The dragon makes that groaning sound again. Only, now he sounds like he might throw up. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Absentmindedly she pats the dragon’s neck, although she doubts he can feel her through the rough ridge. “You’re fine. It’s going to be alright.” She catches herself mid-pat. What is she doing? The dragon is supposed to be her enemy. Instead she almost feels sorry for it.
“What’s going on?” Neven yells, leaning close to stop his words from being swept away by the wind.
“I think he’s sick.” Bonnie leans sideways as far as she dares with the rope in one hand and her legs firmly gripped over the dragon’s ridge. She catches only a glimpse of his face, far into the distance, but it’s enough. “His eyes are closed. I don’t think he likes heights.”
“You’re kidding me? He’s a dragon! How can he be afraid of heights?”
Bonnie has no clue. She racks her memory for some kind of explanation but comes up empty. The last time she’d seen him he’d been a lot smaller, and hadn’t been flying yet. There was a moment when -
No. She doesn’t want to think about that. It makes her heart ache in ways she doesn’t know how to deal with. One day soon she’s going to use her father’s sword to kill him. She doesn’t need an aching heart for that, she needs a fierce one.
Her stomach lurches. She grips the rope tighter, looking for the cause. Either side of her the dragon’s giant wings have stopped their steady flapping. They’re frozen like the crooked sails of some giant ship.
Her insides feel like they’re trying to rise up above her. A sudden rush of blood thumps around her head, making her skull seem like it’s about to burst. It’s when her legs rise off the dragon’s back, and she has to grip the rope to stay seated that she understands.
They’re falling.
The forest turns from an indistinct mass of greens to giant trees close enough to count their branches. Bonnie can’t see, but she knows the dragon still has his eyes closed. He’s scared, and they’re going to crash. “Dragon open your eyes!” She shouts as loud as she can, hoping some of it reaches his ears over the wind. “Dragon! Gelert! Open your eyes!”
He must do, because all at once his wings start to flap again, but it’s too little too late. Bonnie presses herself against Gelert’s back, gripping rope and scale as tight as she can. The first tree they hit cracks so loud she thinks her ears might burst. Then they hit the second, third and fourth all at once and the sound of the first seems a whisper in comparison.
She lurches forward, slamming her head hard against the dragon’s rough scales. Her hands grip the rope so tight that she can’t feel her fingers. The dragon skids along the forest floor, knocking down trees left and right, and churning up a wave of dirt and grass that flies just short of her feet. It’s a relief when she feels Neven’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She thought she might have lost them for a minute.
It seems an age before the dragon finally skids to a stop. He raises his head from where it’s half covered in dirt and shakes it blearily.
Bonnie twists around to take in her companions. The princess clings to Neven like a very young child, her eyes squeezed shut. Neven sits, his brown eyes dazed, and his tanned skin an unhealthy grey.
“My Da was right,” he says, the words shaking. “Flying. It’s not natural.” He leans over and throws the contents of his stomach up over the dragon’s side.
***
“I don’t want to stay here,” princess Alice says for the hundredth time. “I want to go back to the island.”
Apparently flowery language only lasts when she’s not terrified. Bonnie doesn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed about that. On the one hand all that stooping was getting on her nerves. It’s strange being the man in the situation and having someone scared to look you in the eye or offend you. It’s nice that three years with only a dragon for company gave her confidence enough to express an opinion to two men she doesn’t know. On the other hand, it’s an annoying opinion, and it doesn’t get any less annoying every time she repeats it.
“Great idea,” Bonnie says throwing her arms in the air. “Just show us the way. I’m sure we’ll be there in no time.”
Princess Alice hunches her shoulders and drops her gaze to the ground.
“Leave her alone,” Neven says, moving faster to walk by the princess’s side. “It’s not her fault we’re lost.”
“As opposed to you, you mean?” There’s an ache of regret the moment the words leave her mouth, but its pain is tempered by another feeling. Satisfaction. Her tongue may have been more free with Neven than other boys, but she’s always been aware that he would grow into a man. A woman insulting a man is as unnatural as a dragon playing tea parties. A man insulting a man however, that’s as commonplace as that same dragon eating its tea party companions, china cups and all.
Neven’s mouth drops open, before he closes it, gathering himself. “Well if someone didn’t decide out of the blue that slaying a dragon was a great way to spend a sunny morning…”
Red hot anger boils through her. Anger at him, anger at herself, anger at the dragon. Before she knows it the words are out. “And if you weren’t so scared of everything, your father would’ve sent you off to war and we wouldn’t be here!”
It’s unfair. She knows it as soon as the words are out. Neven can’t help who he is, just as she can’t help who she is. She opens her mouth to take the words back, but can’t think how.
“We should stop for the night,” Neven says, his voice ice cold. “I’ll gather wood and you can start a fire.”
She nods. There’s nothing else to do. Hopefully a fire will keep the worst of the dark magic away.
By the time they find a clearing , Neven’s arms are full of sticks of all sizes. They build the fire in silence, Bonnie’s experience working together with Neven’s instinctive knowledge of where the bits should go. The princess crouches down beside them, her arms crossed over her chest for warmth. She’s shaking. Her dress is made for beauty, not for warmth. The shining blue material would be fine in a summer’s day, but does little to keep the cold of the night out. Here in the forest, the thick barrier of trees should protect them from the worst of the cold, but somehow it seems colder here than it should.
The dragon follows them, trees creaking sideways as he pushes past, sometimes cracking in two or wrenching up out of the soil. He shuffles around the clearing a few times, making it bigger with every step, then curls up like a cat opposite their fire. It’s a stark reminder of how large the dragon is; him lying in his self-made clearing while they huddle together in the tiny space they have left between his belly and feet.
Heat radiates off his stomach where the scales are not quite as thick. If they were to huddle in close there, they might not even need a fire. Bonnie glances up from the flint she’s striking to look at Neven and Alice’s faces. They’d have to be pretty desperate to consider that. She doesn’t even know why SHE’S considering it.
“When we were falling,” the princess says shivering, her nose and cheeks a raw red in the dim light. “You called the dragon Gelert. Why did you do that?”
Bonnie drops the flint onto the pile of underbrush she’s trying to light. For a moment she can’t breath. Gelert. How long has it been since she’s said that name aloud? Wooden boxes, red scales, and blood the same shade all fill her mind before she shakes her head, makes herself pick up the flint. “It’s got to be a better name than Sir Dragon.”
"I read about him," Princess Alice says. "Gelert the hound. He was a loyal hound, until one day his master found his infant son gone from the cradle, and when he went to look for him he found Gelert with his muzzle covered in blood. Enraged the man killed the hound."
Neven glances uneasily at the half asleep dragon. "I don't think that's the smartest thing to name him. If he turns, he's going to be a lot harder to stop than one hound."
Bonnie shakes her head, picking up where Alice left off. "After killing the hound, the man went to look for his son's body. What he found was a wolf dead and the baby unharmed. Gelert had killed the animal and protected the boy. So he was faithful to the end. Some say he was the most faithful hound that's ever lived."
“It’s so very cold,” the princess says. “Will we have a fire soon?”
“Soon,” Bonnie says, striking the flint again. A spark rises but fails to spread to the underbrush. She remembers enough from father’s lessons to know how it should work, but it doesn’t seem to work the same way in her small hands as it did in his large ones. She takes a sharp breath, trying to force down the urge to throw the stones into the darkness pressing in on them.
“Here. Let me,” Neven says, taking the stones from her without waiting for an answer. “Look in our packs and see if there’s something warmer for the princess to wear.”
She steps away from the fire and sits down heavily next to the princess. Cold leeches up from the ground like it’s something alive, wriggling its freezing fingers up through her veins to warm itself over her heart. She ignores it, digging through the bags. The dress she’d changed out of sits at the very bottom. She’d forgotten she had it. She tosses it into the girl's lap.
Princess Alice pulls it on over her blue gown. It looks odd, worn woollen material over shining silk. Blue stands out bright on the arms and hem where Alice's extra head of height makes the dress sit shorter on her than it did Bonnie. She's lucky it had always been such a poor fit on Bonnie, like wearing a turnip sack instead of a dress, otherwise it would never have fit over Alice's waist and chest, let alone the frilly gown.
No sooner has Alice pulled the dress on, than the fire springs into life. The princess leans into the heat, watching as Neven piles on twigs, then some of the larger pieces of wood. "Gelert is a good name," she says. "But we should still be careful. My father said that after my true love came, none of the spells would last. I grew fond of the dragon, but I know his true nature is not the one he carries now."