Dragon Talker (44 page)
Authors: Steve Anderson
“That,” Yuri said, “is Mandan. This is my home, boys, and I think you’re going to like it, too.”
Bernard asked, “Is there anybody my age?”
“Let me see,” Yuri ran through the boys he knew Bernard’s age. “I’d say about fifteen, give or take a year or two. And about twelve Stone’s age.”
“I’m hungry,” Stone said flatly.
“Well, you’re in luck, because right about now, my mom is getting dinner ready and you are going to have cooking that is a lot better than mine.” Looking past the village, Yuri saw a boy herding goats back down the lower slopes of the mountain. He pointed, “That’s my brother, up on the other side of the hill.”
Stone didn’t even try to see him. Bernard shouted, “I see him.” He didn’t.
“I wonder where Selma is?”
Yuri looked down at the boys. He wanted to run ahead, pick up Hental, and give him a big hug, whether he wanted it or not. Instead, he looked at Stone, trudging along but tired from the days walking. Yuri tried to ignore the itching in his legs to take off and run home. Taking a deep breath, he told himself,
a dragon talker doesn’t run into his village like a little kid missing his family.
“Let me take your pack, Stone. I can carry it the rest of the way.”
Yuri reached for his pack, but Stone took two steps away, snapping, “I carried it this far and I’ll carry it the rest of the way.”
“Okay.” Yuri resigned himself to getting home as fast as Stone’s legs would get there, and not a step faster.
Two boys wrestling at the edge of the village stopped when they saw Yuri and the boys. One, Yuri recognized him as Lemek, ran into the village while the other, Piotr, ran out to meet him.
“Hey Piotr,” Yuri called as he approached.
“Hi, Yur…” Piotr caught himself, shouting, “Good day and service, Samora-Kin.”
Yuri had been gone so long he forgot about the traditional greeting and his honorific. He answered in kind, “My honor and my duty, Piotr. That’s a very official greeting. Are you thinking of being mayor?”
“Nah, the grownups have been making all of us practice for your return.” He started walking next to them. “Hi.” He waved at Stone, who waved back, but with less enthusiasm.
“Lemek is going to the mayor. Want me to tell your folks you’re here?”
“That would be great, and tell them I brought guests.” He nodded to the two boys.
“Sure.” And with that, he took off running.
“Hey,” Yuri yelled to Piotr, “where’s Selma?”
Piotr never stopped running but yelled, “Passed through the fire!”
Yuri stopped walking as that sunk in. He knew Selma was near the end of her life, but it bothered him that he wasn’t there to honor her at her funeral. He wondered what else he had missed as people starting coming out of the village to greet him. Soon, there were surrounded by villagers, greetings, questions, and lots of arm grabbing and patting on the back followed.
Yuri kept smiling and returning greetings, but it was all a bit overwhelming until he heard his father’s voice, “Yuri!” His eyes went to him immediately as the polite smiling he was giving his fellow villagers grew into one of serious joy.
“Tatush!” he shouted back. He reached over his shoulders and lifted Bernard off his back as he approached his dad. He held on to Bernard’s hand, keeping him close, until he was right next to his father. Then he let go to give him a big hug. He held the hug a long time.
Tadeus didn’t let up until Yuri did. The he held him by the shoulders at arm’s length.
“It’s good to see you, son.” He nodded at the boys, “and it looks like you brought some company.” Smiling at them, Tadeus smiled added, “So who are these adventuresome looking boys?”
Bernard was the first to speak. “I’m Bernard.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Bernard. Welcome to Mandan.
Stone waited a moment before saying, flatly, “Stone.”
Tadeus looked at Yuri quizzically before turning back to Stone and saying, “And greetings to you, Stone. Welcome to Mandan.”
Yuri looked around, “Where’s mom?”
“Back home, Lared broke his leg yesterday and she’s keeping close watch.”
“What?” Yuri asked.
“I’ll let Hental fill you on the details. He was out with Hental and the goats when it happened. As long as infection doesn’t set in, he should be fine. We’re being careful.”
Yuri’s tone turned serious, “Let’s go.” He grabbed Bernard’s hand and started pulling him towards his parent’s hut. Stone followed, happy to be leaving the crowd, which parted when Yuri made it clear that getting home was the only thing on his mind.
As he entered the hut, he said, “What’s this I hear that Lared is laying around like a plucked chicken?”
Both Lared and Agardia yelled, “Yuri!” in response.
Lared leaned up in bed as his mother ran and hugged Yuri hard. Yuri winked at Lared then concentrated on the hug. Yuri felt a few tears drop from his mom’s cheek onto his shoulder. “Oh mom,” he said, “it’s okay. I can take care of myself out there.”
She leaned back and looked at him, answering, “That’s part of why I’m crying, Yuri. You are going to have to tell us everything that happened, including why there are two boys in my hut more dirty than Hental after a day with the goats.”
Yuri smiled. His mother never missed a thing. “You could use a good cleaning, too.”
“Aw, mom.” For a moment, Yuri felt like a kid again. He didn’t mind because right now, he was home.
Seeing his little sister wrapped up in her crib, Yuri was looking for one more person to make his homecoming complete. As if on cue, Hental stepped in, carrying a goat. Seeing Yuri, he said, “Yep, you’re here. I got to take care of my goats, then I’ll be back. Good to see you, Yuri Samora-kin.”
Yuri was thrown by Hental’s formality and also his seriousness, but he decided to go with it. “Good to see you to, Shepard Hental.”
Hental’s grin was practically ear to ear as he left the hut.
“Oh, he’s been waiting to show off his new status to his big brother,” Tadeus explained to Yuri.
Yuri’s smile grew even bigger as he felt the love of his family. “It is good, so very good to be home.”
He spent the next day and a half sleeping.
Epilogue
Yuri walked into the field where he first met Samora. Walking around the boulder, he tried to remember what he was like before he became the talker. It was hard to imagine, and the one thing that kept coming back to Yuri was his smallness, his former naive view of the world. He knew it had only been a few months, but he wasn’t the same Yuri.
He looked to the east in anticipation of Samora’s arrival. Not yet, he knew, but soon. He ran his hand around the boulder. He didn’t remember hitting it, but he knew he did. “I’m hard to kill,” he confided in the boulder. “Between you and me, I think I’m going to get harder and harder to kill.”
Two months ago, the idea would have sounded exciting. With more experience, Yuri was decidedly reserved. Everyone knows the gift given by a dragon is for the dragon and not the talker, but the reality of it was sinking deeper and deeper into his bones every day. If Samora wanted Yuri to be hard to kill, what she wanted him to do would probably be things that get a normal person killed, unless it was only some twisted dragon joke he didn’t understand.
Yuri didn’t need the amulet to know Samora was nearby. He looked at his cart full of dried fish once before heading to the center of the field. He reached the middle as Samora came into sight, flying a few hundred feet above the trees to the east. She slowly descended. By the time she reached Yuri, she passed over his head within arm’s reach. Yuri stood calm and still as a gust of wind followed Samora’s overpass.
“I hope you like the fish,” Yuri spoke as he turned around to see Samora emptying the cart of both its fish and its sides in three big bites.
Yuri felt Samora’s enjoyment of the fish in his mind, which he realized was the dragon equivalent of a thank you. This, though, Yuri realized, was him trying to make Samora human. She was more likely letting him know so he would get the same type of fish next time. Again, humans work for dragons, not the other way around.
That thought was followed by a wave of overwhelming confirmation that caused Yuri to sway as if in a stiff wind. He nodded his head at Samora. “Above the village, below the dragon.” The saying popped out of Yuri’s mouth without him thinking about it.
He looked at Samora. “I understand my role, and I share an addition.” He had been practicing for this moment for the last week, looking for just the right wording to convey his thoughts to Samora. “Above the village, below the dragon, my family second to be first.” It was important to Yuri to say it out loud and to Samora
Samora turned to face him directly, her tail smashing the cart to pieces. Yuri instinctively took a step back as Samora arched her back and extend her wings. When she set her front legs down again, she moved quickly towards Yuri, who was ready to take the consequences of standing for his family. He hoped it didn’t hurt and then he realized that what he actually wanted was to live through Samora’s response. When she was just about upon him, Samora opened her mouth wide and unleashed a blast of ice that surrounded Yuri, trapping him like a fly in amber.
Through the ice, Samora was a blue blur. Yuri couldn’t move his head, so all he saw was a large blue form one minute and the next it seemed to leap over his head. Like the cold water of the lake, the ice felt invigorating, though he couldn’t understand how he could breathe. Was he breathing through the ice? Breathing the ice?
He smiled in wonder and relief that he was still alive. After waiting a while to see if Samora would return, he flexed his shoulders and felt and heard the ice crack near his left ear. The more he flexed, the more it cracked. He felt a puff of air on his neck and tried to lean his head to the right, then left. It gave towards the left, and after straining against the ice for a few seconds, a large chunk surrounding his head fell off. Yuri thought he would be out of the ice soon.
But he was wrong. The ice around his head crumbled soon enough, but the ice around his shoulder wouldn’t budge - it didn’t even crack. “Okay,” he said out loud. “You, village, family.” He was disappointed. The disappointment turned to anxiety as he felt someone behind him. Turning his head back as far as he could, he spotted a blue form behind him to the left. Straining in the other direction, he saw another blue form.
A large smile crossed his face as the identity of some of the shapes sunk in. There, behind him, stood ice sculptures of his father, his mother - holding his baby sister, and both Hental and Lared. Family second was going to be okay with Samora. Two were just out of his field of vision, but he assumed they were Bernard and Stone.
“Dragon humor,” Yuri smiled. Then he wondered how long he would have to wait for the ice to melt before he could break out and get back to his new life - as Mandan’s Dragon Talker.
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