Then there was a rush of wind, and Saxbriton soared once again into view, her wings taking the air like a kite, her magnificent body steaming with heat and raw magic. Merle dug his little flashlight out of his pocket, switched it on, and chucked it in a hook shot over the top of the nest. Saxbriton chased it like a dog.
He’d bought John only moments, but it was enough for the knight to steady his lance and ready himself for another attack. But he’d expected the dragon to close in and snap at him with those teeth and talons, and now Saxbriton only pivoted away from the flashlight, propped her forelegs atop the pile of timber, and inhaled. Once again her belly glowed blue.
John dropped his spear and fell to his knees, crouching behind the chickadee shield as another surge of fire enveloped him.
CHAPTER 12
Soon the shield was too hot to hold, but the flames passed and John fell backward, gasping for air.
“She isn’t running out of fire, Merle!”
But in truth she had, and Saxbriton advanced now, beating her vast wings and stirring up a storm of cinders and soot. John recovered his shield and grasped blindly for his spear, but it was Merle who got to it first, and the old man dug in and brandished it at the approaching dragon.
“Come and get it, you . . . marshmallow!” Merle shouted.
“That’s telling her,” creaked John.
Saxbriton swooped low, talons first. Then she wrenched the spear out of Merle’s grasp and dropped it off the side of the mountain.
John was on his feet again, and both men stumbled back to the cover of the nest as Saxbriton rounded back toward them. She screeched happily. They ducked and scrambled their way deeper into the pile of trees.
“Sorry I lost the spear,” Merle whispered.
“That’s all right. I was never sure what I was going to do with it anyway—apart from pointing it at her and hoping she ran into it.”
Saxbriton screeched again, but there was a different tenor to it. Frustration. She didn’t know where they were. The beat of her wings whipped the ashes and turned the crater into a dirty snow globe.
John coughed. “I’m tired, Merle.” He sighed. “Already I’m so tired. My shoulder hurts and my . . . head feels funny.”
John’s head felt funny because Saxbriton had burned off two thirds of his hair, but now wasn’t the time to mention it. “Let’s get some of this leg armor off you,” Merle said. “It’s just weighing you down. No knight ever died of a leg wound.” He tore off John’s knee plates and went to work on the greaves. As he dismantled the armor, Saxbriton commenced to dismantling her nest.
She snatched up tree trunks in twos and threes and flung them to the edges of the crater. The woodpile shuddered ominously all around them. A scaly talon seized another trunk, this one dangerously close to Merle and John, and showered them with charcoal and twigs. But Saxbriton still failed to spot them, and went to work on the other side of the nest.
“Okay,” said John. “Now’s when I have to attack.”
Merle looked horrified. “Are you kidding? Now’s when we run.” He started feeling his way to the edge of the stack. “We gotta cut the line and let this one get away—she’s too big.”
John looked back and forth in consternation. Finally he chased after Merle.
“If I can’t slay her now,” he said, “then when?”
“You gotta stop thinking of yourself as the leading man all the time,” Merle answered as he contorted himself through a gap in the logs. “That prophecy scroll the villagers showed us was a crock. It’s some kind of Chosen One scam, to get out-of-towners to solve their dragon problem for them.”
They reached the edge of the nest. Saxbriton was still picking at the other side.
“But I’m a knight,” John insisted.
“And if we get the queen back home, everyone else’ll be too,” said Merle. He peered out at the crater’s rise in front of him. “I know you want to be the one who does it, John, but you were never our only hope.” And with that, Merle lumbered as fast as he could up the rocky bank.
John sighed and followed, and behind him Saxbriton squealed. John kept a hand on the hilt of his sword as he dashed up to the lip of the crater, caught a glimpse of Merle sliding down the mountain, then lost control of his own momentum and fell face-first onto his breastplate.
He was skidding downward now on the loose shale, his armor grinding out a shower of sparks that bit at his eyes and face. He reached out blindly with his sword arm for something, anything he could use to halt his slide, and soon his hand closed over what he took to be a sapling growing out of the mountainside. It swung him around, and for a moment he was weightless. Then gravity reasserted itself, and he opened his eyes to find himself hanging off the edge of a cliff.
Legs dangling, he panted, “Merle! Merle?”
“Right here.”
Merle was hanging beside him from another sapling. John looked up. No, not saplings—ribs. A blackened rib cage half buried in the earth.
“I already looked down,” Merle told him between deep breaths. “Nothing good came of it.”
John looked anyway. There would be a very long drop if they fell.
“Can’t hold on,” said Merle. “Can’t hold on much longer. Too old.”
“We’re going to be fine,” said John. He looked sadly at his shield. You couldn’t see the chickadee anymore—it was black as coal. He was going to have to drop it if he was going to help Merle.
“Can’t . . . even feel my fingers anymore,” Merle added. “Tell everyone good-bye for me. Maybe . . .” He puffed. “Maybe you all can look in on my mom and dad. I’ll be born soon. Maybe . . . you can all come to my bar mitzvah, say hi.”
John dropped the chickadee shield and swung his left hand over to grasp Merle’s wrist, just as the old man gave it up and let go. Merle dropped, then swayed beneath John as a freight train of pain traveled up the knight’s left arm, through his shoulders, and up his right to the tips of his white-knuckled fingers. It was all he could do to keep from crying out.
Below them, something clanged.
“No!” Merle huffed. “Lemme go! You’ll get yourself killed!”
Through the pain, John thought it was the shield that had clanged. But too soon. It couldn’t possibly have hit the ground so soon. And just as he began to wonder where Saxbriton had gotten to, he felt a hot wind billow up from below.
The dragon was clinging to the mountainside, lightly, keeping her place with a gentle beat of her wings. She leered at them. She had a shield caught in her ear.
She’s like a huge cat, thought John as Saxbriton’s tail quivered. She likes to play with her prey before she eats it.
“Don’t look down, Merle,” he said.
“AAAAH!” said Merle, after looking down.
Saxbriton ascended, slowly, claw over claw, until she had only to stretch out her neck to bite Merle in half. The heat of her breath made them both slick with sweat, and John was considering whether a well-timed drop into the monster’s mouth might get them lodged in her windpipe—they could choke her and all die together. Better not try to explain this plan to Merle, he thought as the dragon opened her jaws.
Then there was a burst of blue flame, and for a moment John thought Saxbriton had her fire back.
But it was Finchbriton.
The dragon shook herself loose from the cliff side and whined. The little finch held his jittery place in midair and let Saxbriton have another firecracker right in the eye.
It didn’t appear to really hurt the dragon much—maybe she couldn’t be hurt by finch fire any more than she could her own. But here was something new—a bright, fluttering thing—and like a cat, she went after it. In an instant John saw his chance, and let go. He and Merle dropped—not down to the rocks, nor into the monster’s jaws, but square onto a frill of long scales that grew where Saxbriton’s head met her neck. They slipped and flailed around for something to grab, or a foothold. Then they held fast to the whiplashing neck as Saxbriton followed Finchbriton d
own the mountainside.
The little bird managed to stay just out of reach, even riding the blasts of air from Saxbriton’s snapping jaws. Now, thought John, would be a good time to stab this dragon with my sword. But he could barely move his arms. He and Merle both were reduced to hugging the dragon’s neck tight and blinking against the rushing air.
Farther down, around a craggy bend, Billy Butcher and William Baker were still astride their mules, looking at nothing. Billy chewed a bit of dried skin on his lip. William sniffed, then spat.
“Wonder how he’s doin’,” said Billy for what was the third time.
A little bird passed overhead. They craned their necks to watch it, then fell off their mules as it was followed by three hundred tons of pink dragon.
“Holy—” said Billy from his back in the dirt, and then he went to sleep for a while after a burned shield landed on his head.
William rolled over and watched the dragon recede into the distance. “It’s heading straight for Reek,” he said.
Finchbriton flew for the village wall and perched there. The village guards, seeing what followed, scrambled to ready their bows and arrows and pikes.
“THE DRAGON!” they called to one another, to the people inside the walls. One man rang a stout bell. “MAKE FOR THE CELLARS! MAKE FOR THE CELLARS!” he shouted. “THE DRAGON COMES!”
Saxbriton reared, stretched her wings to drag the air, and landed just outside the wall.
“FIRE!” shouted the captain, and a volley of arrows dashed the sky. They snapped against the dragon’s snout, were turned aside by her chest and even her thin wings, and broke against the frill of scales where John and Merle were hunched, shivering.
“Hey!” said Merle. “Hold your fire! Chosen One right here!”
The guards paused to listen, then started shooting arrows again.
Saxbriton shuddered, her belly went bright, and she spat a cone of fire against the village walls. Guards fled or fell. Finchbriton took to the air again, and the dragon whipped forth her neck, jaws wide, and when she shut her trap the finch was gone.
“FINCHBRITON!” John wailed, and for a shaky moment got to his feet, drew his sword, and plunged it two-handed into the back of the monster’s neck.
Saxbriton roared, and the little bird flew out of her open mouth. The great pink neck drew back sharply, and both John and Merle tumbled to the ground.
“Oof,” said Merle, and then he lay there, unmoving.
Saxbriton paced backward, swinging her head about. John stumbled and pivoted, avoiding her legs, and ran to Merle’s side.
“Merle!”
“Whuh,” said Merle. John took him by the straps of his backpack and dragged him clear.
More arrows came, but they were less than horseflies to the dragon. Now she saw John again, crouching over Merle, and she whined in confusion. Her eyes bulged, crescent pupils widening into full moons. She took a step back, then a step forward, and hissed when John turned to face her.
He swiped at the air with his sword. “Get back!” he shouted, and she did. She actually did.
He advanced on her, and she pulled her head back as she backpedaled. But John broke into a run and swung again at the nearest talon. His sword bit only superficially into a single clawed toe, but Saxbriton howled. She retreated farther, opened her wings, and took once more to the air.
“Is she leaving?” said a guard. “She’s leaving.”
Saxbriton rose and turned tail. She fled, not to her mountain, but over the eastern horizon.
“He turned her back,” said someone on the wall. “HE TURNED HER BACK!”
“Merle,” said John, returning to the old man’s side. “Did you see that?”
Merle was up on his elbows, squinting. “You mean when she turned into two dragons?”
“She was never two dragons, Merle. You have a concussion.”
“She ran away,” Merle slurred. “Both of her.”
“Can you believe it?” asked John, rocking on his heels. “I barely nicked her!”
“But you scared her,” Merle said. “You know . . . that may have been the first time she’d ever been hurt.”
CHAPTER 13
The giant called Rudesby sat quietly in his underwear atop the flight of stairs.
He looked right through a narrow window into the bedroom of Fray the enchantress. But it was still dark, and there wasn’t much to see. He leaned left and looked down at Tom-Tom, who was standing on the island rocks near the base of the stairs, watching him. It was Tom-Tom’s job to make sure that Rudesby waited there for Fray to return.
He hadn’t always been called Rudesby—it was just what the other giants named him. He hadn’t even known he was a giant until he came here. Last night he’d dreamed that he couldn’t remember his real name.
He might be dreaming right now. He often wondered if this could be true—certainly he’d had dreams before in which he was missing his clothes. But now, for the first time, he considered that he might be not dreaming, but dead. Maybe he’d died back in the canyon, and this was hell.
The faint noise of a door in the bedroom beside him snapped him from his thoughts. He bent his neck to look through the window and watched as motes of dust inside the room flared like matches and lit every inch of the chamber. Fray was done with her incantations and spell casting, he supposed. She threw off a thick shawl and crossed the room to open the thin window. Then she folded her arms on the sill and studied him.
“Hello, Rudesby,” she said.
“’Lo. Done with your spell?” he asked. He knew everyone had trouble with his accent, so he spoke slowly, trying to imitate theirs. It made him sound like a halfwit.
“Quite so. The boat can find its own way from here on in.”
She held his gaze for several seconds without speaking. But Rudesby had never had the stamina for long stretches of eye contact, so he looked away.
“They tell me you’ve been spending a lot of time by the west rift,” Fray said. “Or should I say a lot of time by the tapestry? Perhaps you’re just an art lover.”
Rudesby shrugged. “Wanna go home.”
“I know you do. And the invisible door by the tapestry does indeed go to your world, but it seems I need to clear some things up. For any of the doors to work, there must be another living thing on the other side to take your place. Nothing ever approaches the other side of the west door. And if by slim chance it did, and you were to cross over, you would find yourself in the most unwelcoming frozen desert.”
“If . . . if nothing ever approaches, how d’ you know what’s on the other side?”
“Smart thinking. Some time ago I was fortunate enough to trade places with an unfamiliar kind of seabird. Nim was good enough to catch this bird and use it to bring me back. But you’re too big for a seabird, Rudesby, do you understand?”
Rudesby looked at his fingers, poking each in turn as if he were doing math. “You have . . . three other doors.”
“Indeed I do. And one, though it leads to the England of your world, is much too small. The next leads to the middle of an ocean. And the third . . . well, I think you already know all about the third. It brought you here. You could go back through it, and it would be as if you’d never come—you’d find yourself in thin air near a cliff, and high over a desert. Do you still want to die?”
Rudesby shook his head. “Don’t wanna wear only underpants my whole life, either.”
Fray smiled. “I’ll talk to Nim about that. My giants are mostly boys, as you know, and boys do like their little clubhouse rules. But if you are going to be one of us, you ought to know our stories. May I tell you a story, Rudesby?”
The giant shrugged.
Fray began. “King Denzil XXXIII and Queen Rosevear had four sons: Fee, Fi, Fo, and Denzil. And the kingdom had great friends in the enchantress Lady Fray and her beautiful daughter, Princess Morenwyn.
“Pixie magic is rare, Rudesby—I don’t suppose you know that. We pixies don’t have the glamour of the Fay. But pixie m
agic, when you can find it, confounds glamour. The famous fairy luck tended to unravel. It’s too simple a thing to say the fairies have good-luck magic and the pixies bad-luck magic, because one man’s fortune is so often another’s misfortune, you know, and vice versa. But if magic is a rainbow, Rudesby—and please forgive me for suggesting that it is—then the Fay glamour was ultraviolet, while a pixie jinx was pure infrared. Opposite ends of the spectrum.
“So I was always welcome at court with my pretty miracles. I enchanted their shields and made their swords sharper than they had any right to be.
“And we were all happy on our islands, away from the savage humans and inhospitable Fay. Morenwyn often stayed at court while I explored the world, and the sons of King Denzil made great fools of themselves to win her affections. You know how boys can be. Wrestling and sword fights and other nonsense—the sorts of things boys think will impress girls.
“On one day in particular I came home to the palace from one of my explorations, landing atop the castle walls astride a red-billed chough. I didn’t wait for a proper escort, because . . . because I was a little too sure of myself back then. Instead I strutted down the center stairs and into Denzil Hall, promising some fresh entertainment.
“Instead I delivered a dreadful lecture—in my travels I’d discovered that the world was dying. In our isolation we’d failed to notice what the humans and elves already knew: that much of the earth had disappeared in a magical catastrophe generations ago, and that which remained? It diminished every year. The sky had not always smoldered in twilight—the sun had once been like to a ball of fire that crossed daily through the heavens, just as it was in our oldest stories. Of course the king and kingdom trusted their Lady Fray, and believed her?”
Rudesby flinched when he realized she was waiting for an answer. “No?”
“No. You may have noticed that people will take swift action to save themselves from immediate danger, but when faced with a creeping death they’ll stand right in its path and debate its existence even as they’re patiently trampled. In this regard the pixie people are ‘only human,’ an expression that most of them would find to be in exceedingly poor taste. So.