Handbook for Dragon Slayers (23 page)

He stalked over to me and grabbed the dress that trailed loosely in my fingers, pressing it more tightly into my hands. “Get dressed,” he barked.

“What—what's happening?”

“I am going to
vary the timing
,” he said through clenched teeth. “Tonight.”

He left, locking the door behind him.

Air no longer wanted to come into my lungs all the way. I pressed my hand to my suddenly panting chest, trying to calm my gasps, but it didn't calm my breath.

I was going to die tonight.

I
SUCKED IN ALL THE AIR
I
COULD, THEN HELD MY
breath by plugging my nose and putting my palm over my mouth. My lungs rebelled after a few seconds, and my breath exploded out, but I'd regained control of my breathing.

“I am not going to die tonight,” I said aloud.

But I didn't believe it. I didn't eat from the tray Egin had left.

I did think to put on the dress he'd brought, though; it was considerably warmer than the dress I was wearing, and far cleaner. I washed the best I could with the little water I still had, then pulled the dress over my head.

As I thrust my hands through the sleeves, something scratched my right arm. “Ow!” I furiously turned the sleeve over to find a pin stuck in it—holding in place my necklace. I stared at it, puzzled, even as a small line of blood welled on my skin from the scratch.

“How did you do it, Frau Dagmar?” I wondered, and put the necklace on. I couldn't guess.

But I did know, now, how I had resisted him throughout our confrontation. I had been holding tightly to the dress, and thereby holding tightly to the necklace.

I wished I had a knife—any knife—but all I had was the long claw I'd taken from the cave at Mount Lorelei. Egin might take my blood for his sacrifice, but perhaps I would take some of his first.

When the door lock clicked, I didn't get off my bed until it was insultingly obvious that I wasn't going to curtsy. Then I stood to face Sir Egin, crutch under my arm.

“Where's the priest?” I asked, making a great show of peering out the door.

His sneer was amused. “Not coming.” He grabbed my arm and pushed me ahead of him down the stairs. “We're not getting married. It's unnecessary . . . there is no father coming to save you, no brothers to ride to your rescue. So strange that you are so unprotected, when you are the first one to see through my beguilements, my first unwilling girl. The previous seven came to me as docile as lambs to slaughter. But you, my eighth, are my most difficult.”

“I'm not difficult,” I said. “I'm just not insane.”

“Oh, unfair, unfair!” he tutted as he kept pushing me down the stairs. We were well below the surface of the castle now, and I wondered if he was taking me off to some cellar or dungeon for his ritual. “They weren't insane—just beguiled. Bespelled. They wanted nothing more than to hold me in their slender arms, stroke my hair so tenderly, and call me husband. Now. Go. Through there.”

He pushed me through a doorway into a dank, dark passage that smelled of rock and water. There was barely enough light to see by, and I stumbled.

“No tricks, or I'll gut you here and now!” To show he was serious, he pressed the point of his dagger into my stomach. Not far—less than the width of a fingernail—but far enough that warm blood spread across my belly.

I was frightened then. I had been frightened before, but this was when true fear took me. I let him push me forward, and stayed upright thanks only to my crutch.

A small whimper escaped me, but I clamped down on my emotions, pretending giant iron bars came around my body, squashing my heart and my lungs and my stomach in all together. I didn't have to feel anything as long as the iron was there—nothing except the squeezing.

Something cold and damp touched my face, and I almost screamed. I forced myself to breathe deeply and slowly, because if I did anything else at all, I would lose control utterly. And if I lost control of myself, I would never get free.

I took another breath, smelling marzipan and sweet wine on Egin's breath. The wetness on my face—it was a hanging vine of some sort. Egin had pushed me through a cave and outside, onto a small promontory. The cliff was encircled with trees, whose bare winter branches blotted out patches of stars.

Ahead of me, I saw a wide, dark stone altar. Underfoot, my shoe crunched on something.

On bone. I remembered from the dragon's cave what bone felt like underfoot. I let out a shrill gasp of fear.

This was it. This was my last chance. The words of the dragon summoning came to me then from
The Sworn Book of Hekate
. Could I find aid in this moment, a frail hope for survival?

I yanked the dragon claw from my sleeve and turned, slashing wildly at Egin's neck, crying out the words from the book, calling forth the dragon from the deep.

I caught him under the chin, and his blood rained down on me.

The blood burned. I screamed.

I
SCREAM
. I
ROAR
. I
BURN
.

Every inch of my flesh is on fire. Every bone and tendon is ignited from within. My brain burns, my liver burns, my heart. I roar.

There is a little creature in the place with me, and he is a lie. He glows with a lie. He has one shape around him and another shape underneath, and I can see both shapes for what they are. Both are ugly.

He is bleeding. He presses one hand to his throat, to hold in the blood. With his other hand, he holds a weapon. An edge. A sword. Thoughts are not so much words anymore, though I can't think why thoughts should be words. Thoughts are images. Thoughts are smells.

He is waving the edge. The sword. The edge? I can't remember the word! I lift my great hand and push him aside. I feel he should meet the wall. And he does. Hard. He falls to the ground in a heap. The edge bothers me, gleaming and bright, and I pick it up in my hands and snap it in half.

I am strong.

And I don't belong here, in this place of death. I can smell the bones of humans all around me, even over the stench of the man who wants to kill me and the stink of his metal.

In the distance, I hear horses and thunder, and I know I do not want to face them.

Also, there is something I meant to do. I can't think what it is, though. All I know now is that I must get away. I cast about me on all sides, looking for escape, but my body is uneasy with itself, and I cannot imagine climbing rocks straight up and down—not just yet.

So I go back the way I came, sliding into the cave as easily as a fish in water, and run the length.

The cave is not darkness to me. I can see the light in the stone here, but too soon I come to a place where the cave is not cave anymore, but human fashioning—a squareness where there should be no squares.

I break through the doorframe, leaving a small pile of stones behind me. I broke the stonework. Which is as it should be. Rock is not meant to be square. Rock is meant to be rock.

I climb stairs, up and around, up and around, and then burst through another doorframe, shattering it with happiness and satisfaction.

I am outside again. There is sky above me, but still there are walls all around, square walls. I have wings—I feel their unused weight on my back, and their untested muscles sing to me—but I don't know how to fly. I barrel straight for the great gate.

The door is barred to me. It is a door made of iron. I try to push it down, but I guess I'm not strong enough. This is a little surprising to me. But then I look at my hands and understand that they are
hands
, meant for delicate work, and that my tail is the source of my strength. I whirl about and slam my tail into the portal. It flies out. It falls down.

I leave the castle at a run. There are scores of men around the castle. I am confused. I do not remember there being scores of men around the castle before, when I had a girl's face. They shout with their weak lungs, and possibly it is supposed to be a roar, but it is no roar that makes sense to me.

These men have edges. One comes at me. I lift a hand and swat him aside, and it is satisfying to watch him hurtle through the air. I could kill him. I don't, but I could.

There are more men coming, and I hear their dogs. Enough men, enough arrows and edges, and enough dogs, and I might be in danger. But I'm not in danger yet.

I roar back, wordless roars. All these men and their edges are frightening. I am not meant for men and edges. I am not meant for walls and rules.

I am a dragon.

I
FIND A FALLEN TREE IN THE FOREST—A ONCE-
powerful oak that has been ripped up at the roots by a great wind. There is a huge shield of roots and dirt rising above the hollow carved out by the rupture. I slide into this hollow with a sigh, and I nestle against the tree roots. It is not a cave, but it will do.

I am exhausted, disoriented, confused.

I lay my heavy head down between my hands.

There is something I was supposed to do.

I close my eyes.

In the distance, I can hear the sounds of men fighting. Edge clashes on edge. I try to block out the noises. I should be running, but I cannot think of where to, until I remember the cave on the other side of the Great Flow.

It would be hard to run there, with the Great Flow between there and here.

It seems to me that it is unusual that I can run with ease.

I flex my right hind foot. It stretches all the way. I bring it up to stare at it. It looks like a foot. My ear itches, and I use this foot to scratch it.

All of this seems wrong, and seems right, too.

I do not think I sleep then, but once I put my foot down, the word-images overtake me, and I put my head down again and let them come.

T
HE NOISE OF THE
distant strife dies away. Creatures approach. My ears pick out the noise of hooves coming. They are hooves shod with metal, but not human metals. I know these hoofbeats, though I have never heard them like this before, with such clarity and at such a distance.

I listen for the creatures. Horses. The silver horse is one of them, the horse that brings me joy. I know her by her gait. The horses and their riders are not coming right toward me. They are searching. They do not know where I am. They are going to walk by on the wrong side of the tree roots. They will never see me if I don't step forward.

My claws itch to possess the silver horse, and it is frightening to me. I want to watch her under the sunlight.

The riders are calling a name. “Maaah-tilll-daaaa.
Tilll-daaa!
” It doesn't seem right, but I know it's my name. It's like listening to things underwater. Not in the way the noise is distorted, but in the way the words don't match up with the way I know they should sound.

Maaah-tilll-daaaa is my name.

Mathilda
.

Tilll-daaa
.

Tilda
.

But no. These are not my names anymore.

One of the horses and her rider are close. They see me. I stand up. I am not sure if I should fight. When I had a girl's face, I loved both of these creatures, the rider and the horse, but I don't know anymore what I'm supposed to do. When I had a girl's face, the things I loved could hurt me by not loving me back. I'm much stronger than that now.

When I rise from the forest floor, the horse rears and trumpets a warning. The boy shouts:
It's the dragon!
The horse backs a step away from me, nose up and scenting the air, but the boy raises his shining edge.

My head lowers, teeth battle ready. I see the thousand ways to win if we fought. The boy would be easy to defeat. I could just open my jaws and kill him with one bite. I could stab him through with my claws. I could turn aside and whip him with my tail, and break his bones into tiny pieces. I could, if I could figure out how, blow flame to char him to ash.

The horse might claim victory over me, though. I remember, somehow, that flame does not char her. Whipping her with my tail would not work either.

But I do not fight them. I cannot fight them. I step backward, then step backward again. The horse advances on me, nostrils still flared and sniffing, eyes wide. I raise a hand full of delicate claws to stop her, even as I scrabble backward.

Where is Tilda, dragon? What did you do to her?
the boy shouts, brandishing his edge.

What did I
do
to Tilda?

The boy tries to spur the horse, but she plants her feet strongly on the forest floor.
Go, go!
he cries.
Joyeuse? Advance! Why won't you fight?

The horse drops one shoulder abruptly, and the boy tumbles off, losing his edge to the leaf litter. He rolls to a stop against a tree but leaps up to face me, unharmed, fists clenched.

By then the horse has moved toward me, whickering softly.

I wait. Her nose touches the crown of my head, and her breath is gentle warmth against my scales.

The boy stares.
Joyeuse, what are you doing?
he asks, but he stops speaking and comes closer.

The dragon didn't eat Tilda. It
is
Tilda
.

The boy I knew when I had a girl's face comes toward me. And I let him.

Oh, Tilda
.

And the boy I knew when I had a girl's face reaches out and touches the thing around my neck. The necklace made from horse's hair. He's so weak, I can barely feel his touch. His hand on my throat is a rabbit's paw of softness.

How did you do it? What did you do? Come back to the castle, Tilda
.

His eyes, watchful as a hawk's, leak water.

They had the castle under siege for the last day, but you broke it. We beat Sir Egin. He's gone, fled. Your steward from Alder Brook? He's here with all your knights and all your neighbors' knights. Even Sir Kunibert is here. Everything is over
.