Dragon Talker (5 page)

Yuri wrapped the leather cord of the necklace around his hand tightly. He was already learning. He lost his necklace the first time, let Hental carry it the second time, and there would be no third time. He wasn’t ready to wear it yet, but he was sure it was his to wear. Even hanging from his hand, Yuri could feel the dragon’s presence in the scale, like a heavy magnet pulling him towards something he did not know.

Chapter 7

Winderall was glad to be on the road again. He rarely stayed in any village for more than a week, maybe two if there was useful information to be mined. Perante’s information had definitely been worth the trip to Perantium and the company he had to keep. He was heading to Mandan, as Perante’s spy, to see what had happened.
Second spy, more likely
, he thought.
There’s no way he didn’t send someone out immediately after it happened.

Even on horse, it would be a long trip, nearly a month. Never one to be idle, Winderall continued to work on his new horse, using magic to implant the destination in his horses mind. He also enjoyed connecting with a foreign mind. Ultimately, there was only one beast he wanted to be able to read and communicate with: dragons. Ever since he was a boy, Winderall had been fascinated by tales of dragons. He had spent his adult life trying to find out which of those tales were true.

This search directed his travels more than anything. It was why he was going out of his way to the village of Drenden, formerly claimed by the dragon Vanata, before the dragon gave everyone the ability to read minds and they killed each other, or so the story went. He didn’t know what he would find, but that was much of the appeal.

The road leading to Drenden was overgrown, already disappearing. After a battle, villages were often rebuilt in time, but this, this mass insanity and lack of survivors left the village deserted. Even from a distance, Winderall could see nature’s reclamation of the land. What buildings that weren’t already collapsing seemed to be vanishing under the fall foliage. At the edge of Drendon, he got off the horse. “Thank you. Please stay in the area.” Under the words, he planted the image of him returning in the mind of the horse. It wasn’t 100% effective, but Winderall left the out-and-out mind control to mages like Perante.

A breeze swept through the village, adding to its ghostly feel. Winderall liked it. “So what happened here?” He was talking out loud to animals, land features, and corpses. There were many around, which was strange. A year later, scavengers should have torn them apart and scattered the bones. The fact that they hadn’t was a clear sign of magic being involved. The bigger the magic, the more scavengers stayed away.
This must have been big magic
,
indeed
, he thought.

Some weathered bodies lay like abandoned dolls. A few where paired up, each person getting in a blow that killed the other. This was a simple village, which meant deaths came from knives, axes, or large pieces of wood. More than one was in a seated position, calm in death. “Did you kill yourself, my friend?” Winderall asked a corpse. He knew of magic that could make the corpse speak, but this wasn’t who he was looking for. Walking to the village was simply to get the feel of the event; the dragon talker’s hut was his real destination. Magic seeks magic.

Once through the village, he saw a path leading away to the north. A dragon talker’s hut was most likely away from the village and away from main roads, which made this path a likely option. What didn’t make sense were the deep wagon ruts in the path. Heavy travel had gone this way, but dragon huts do not get heavy travel. Still, there was no other promising path to choose. “I’ll follow you, my friend.” As he continued, he returned to the most important question: “Why,” he asked, “would a dragon want everyone to kill each other? Unintended consequence of something else? Dark humor? Why do you wipe out a village? To take its land. So what would a dragon want with this land? It already had it? Privacy?” Winderall stopped walking. “That could be something. No one will settle here for a long time. Still, all the worlds mountains, forests, and deserts, and this dragon wants this particular place?”

He started walking again. When he finally found the hut, the ruts in the path were explained, but they only raised more questions. “What the dragon’s tail?” It was a centuries-old curse, a reminder of all the mages who lost their lives focusing on the threatening face of a dragon as that dragon’s tail whipped around and caught them unexpected. Stones. There was a new hut being made of stone. Mages use stone, men in war against dragons use stone, but a village under a dragon never uses stone, not if they want to survive.

Two rows deep and roughly waist high, a new hut was partially built. “What are you doing here? Did you cause this or was it something else?” He tried to fathom why a dragon talker would do such an offensive act. Was he mad? Did he know something? Did the dragon learn through the necklace connection or did the talker learn something that set him off? He entered the hut. It was dug out two feet below the surface. The entry sloped down. Two blankets lay scattered on the floor and a small pile of rocks lay in the corner opposite the doorway.

Winderall went to the rocks. They were not randomly placed. He carefully unbuilt the small tower he assumed the talker put together. Under the rocks and in a shallow hole, he found what felt like a board wrapped in the remains of a shirt. The sun was starting to set, so he took the bundle out of the darkening half-constructed hut into the last light of the evening.

Pulling it out of the shirt, he saw that someone had carved something into the wood. Holding it high and turning it so it caught the light of the setting sun, he saw an image that was obviously a crude attempt at a dragon at the top of the board. Underneath the dragon were hundreds of vertical scratches. “Well, you don’t make a lot of sense.” Winderall had hoped for something more obvious; what, he did not know. He wrapped it up and tucked it inside his coat for further study in the morning. He began walking back to his horse.

Before he got to the village, he heard it – a rustling in the bushes near the path. “What do we have here?” The full moon was just beginning to rise, so there was little to see besides the outlines of the tops of the bushes, until he saw one bush move.

Winderall took a deep breath to make sure his mind was clear. There were few animals in the woods he had to fear. “Come out, my friend.” Slowly, a long nose emerged from a gap between bushes, followed by the rest of a gaunt-looking dog. “What are you doing here? Around all this old magic?” By the looks of the dog, it was not doing well staying in this area. Even in the increasing moonlight, Winderall could tell that the animal was nearly starved to death.

“I have not had a dog in, well, it’s been a while.” The dog walked to within three feet of him and stopped, sitting down. “You’re an interesting fellow.” The dog cocked its head. “Oh, I know that trick, my four legged friend.” Winderall bent down to one knee. The dog slinked forward until it was within arm’s reach. Winderall put out his hand. The dog slid forward until its snout was running up his sleeve. Winderall scratched behind its ears. “Okay, you can come with me, but be nice to the horse or I leave you here.”

Chapter 8

Most of what is known of dragons is from stories. Some are mostly true, some are mostly false, most fall in between. All are inaccurate because no one has ever really understood the mind of a dragon. Or if someone had figured it out, he told someone in a backwoods village, and the truth was buried, hidden amidst all the other tales coming from the peasants.
But I,
thought Marcus, the first mage Perante sent to see what was going on in the village where his brother died,
will not only connect with the blue, I will write the definitive work on the dragon mind, cementing my name with the other greatest names in magic, Altair, Landrau, and Menlar.

Normally, even thinking a thought that put him above Perante would send waves of fear through his stomach. This was not one of those times. The blue had come screaming out of nowhere, causing his horse to throw him and take off in the opposite direction. It didn’t just skin the tree tops, it crashed through them. Something was definitely wrong with this dragon and he was about to find out.

Every animal in the vicinity was doing its best to leave. He could see his horse running back down the trail. He did not have it long enough or was not powerful enough to make it obey him in this extreme a situation. The horse lasted longer than his canine companion, though. It, too, was a relatively new companion; still, with dogs, mages expected more. Dogs were a preferred early warning system for not only people, but especially dragons. There was no love lost between those two species. His dog, though, had been the first to leave, disappearing off the trail before Marcus heard the first sounds of the dragon.

The trail was not hard to find. At first, he simply headed in the direction the dragon went, noticing new treetop branches falling to the ground or catching in lower branches. As he weaved his way through the thick forest, he ducked his medium-size frame under the lower branches of the trees. The dragon was descending like a massive cannon ball through the woods. The loud cracking of damaged branches and trunks assured him he was heading in the correct direction.

Whether I pry open its weakened mind or cut out its heart, this is going to make even Perante respect me
. It was not easy working for a mage like Perante, but until now, he hadn’t thought he was strong enough to change that dynamic.
I’m coming for you, Blue. What will you do?
His sword was with his horse, wherever his horse was, but Marcus was counting on his brains and magic to defend him.

Soon, the fallen branches changed to fallen trees, and there, surrounded by knocked-down trees and a cloud of dust and tree debris, was a massive blue dragon. The silence was eerie and broken occasionally by a wakened branch or trunk giving up the fight to stay connected, falling to the ground and making Marcus wonder if something else wasn’t coming up behind him.

Marcus looked behind him one last time and committed to meeting the blue. He eyed it through the dust. Motionless, he realized it was not so silent after all. With the echoes of the crashing trunks and branches receding from his ears, he could hear the blue breathing. It was ragged but deep, as if the blue was struggling to get as much oxygen into its lungs as possible.  

No one had ever seen a dragon die before.
I will be more famous than them all!
Marcus could not help his excitement at witnessing the death of a dragon. He walked slowly towards the dragon, approaching from the dragon’s left side. At fifteen paces, the dragon turned its head towards Marcus, who froze. He could see its cat-like eyes narrow to focus on him and its nostrils flare as it tried to take in his scent.

Marcus saw that its eyes were a light, almost steel blue. He noted the darker scales on its forehead. In general, the color of its scales seemed to lighten as they moved from the deep blue on top to the light bluish belly of the dragon. When Marcus felt the dragon was not going to move suddenly, he let his gaze move over the rest of the dragon’s body. The wings, leathery and thick, covered most of its body in this position, but he saw one of its powerful hind legs, complete with massive talons. He could tell the dragon had dragged its hind legs by the furrows in the ground before it.

The dragon moaned. Marcus almost felt sorrow for the dragon until the moan turned into an angry roar. He suddenly felt naked and stupid. What would he do if the dragon attacked him? His knife would not pierce its scales, nor would he have the necessary power to over-magic a dragon. But this dragon was dying, at least, that is what anyone would think if it was any other animal.
What,
he thought
, am I doing?
Dragons don’t die. Still, this one sure looks like it is giving it a try.

Marcus felt a pressure on his head. He put his hand up to feel it and realized the pressure was coming from the dragon. This, one-to-one contact with a mind of the dragon, was why he followed the dragon’s path through the woods, risking his life. The pressure was heavy, both physically and emotionally. He felt his energy being squeezed out of him at the same time he felt pulled toward the dragon. The dragon continued its ragged breathing. As he approached, he could see black blood running out of the dragon’s right nostril.

Tell me
, Marcus directed his thoughts at the dragon,
why are you dying? Where do you get your power?
The dragon continued its ragged breathing, but raised its head a few feet in the air, like a dying man standing up one last time. There were not words, but an idea started to form in Marcus’s mind. The dragon wasn’t exactly dying, it was transforming.
What is happening to you?

Samora took two steps forward as the image of transformation expanded in Marcus’s brain. He was still trying to understand what the dragon could possibly transform into when Samora bit off the top half of his body. The blood loss and shock made the end quick for Marcus, but it was Hental, touching Yuri’s dragon medallion hundreds of miles away in a field, who felt his bones being ground up and swallowed. A lone boot fell to the forest floor.

Samora noticed Hental’s presence in its mind. It felt his shock and horror at the sounds and sensations of the grinding of bones in its teeth. Samora was amused. Little humans can do and feel funny things. Those thoughts quickly disappeared. Crashing through the trees had taken a lot of energy, and it didn’t like the feelings of brokenness that were growing ever greater. It was time to focus on healing. The mage’s body and magic were both useful for that.

The bleeding didn’t stop, but it did slow. Samora took a deep breath, still rattling a little, and thought,
now where did that dog I sensed go?