ONE
THE DEMISE AND DEMESNE OF DRAGONS
As told by Sir Nathaniel, Knight of the Grass
On my oath, I, Sir Nathaniel, do swear that what I am about to tell to the Distinguished Mage is the truth.
It was autumn in the year 651 since the Reckoning. It is not false modesty to say that I was one of the best three knights in the fourteen realms—maybe even as high as the second best. A dragon is a fearsome challenge, but also the dream of every knight. Being so skilled, I thought myself the perfect challenger for the Glebe-Reaver. I was so terribly, terribly wrong. I wish to tell my tale now so it is set down in history and may deter other knights from being as foolhardy as I was.
The Glebe-Reaver lived in a cave near the town of Exenham, which lies in the Exen Valley. My squire—Tomas—and I ate heartily in an inn before we set out to confront the beast. I had a particularly good beef stew—I remember because it was as delicious going down as it was disgusting coming back up.
No one had seen the dragon in sixty years, although the grooves from its claws were visible in the surrounding fields. The farmers plant red clover in the furrows since the land is poisoned by those claws, and red clover is the only thing that grows there. I’m told it takes twenty seasons for the plant to soak up all the rot, making the land ready to till again.
I had done my research in the mage library, and I knew that the Glebe-Reaver generally slept for eighty to ninety years, so it should have been in the deepest part of its sleep cycle. I understand the dangers of killing a sleeping dragon, but still thought it better than the dangers of killing an awake one.
As with most dragon demesnes, there were no trees for about a quarter of a mile near to the cave entrance. We knew that the Glebe-Reaver’s breath was toxic, and we had a special ointment to rub on the insides of our noses and mouths to decant the badness from the air. We had expected the stench to be a gradual thing that came upon us, but it was like running into a wall. One breath was easy and scented with the pleasant tang of autumn, the next burned my nose and throat. It made me feel as if someone held a noxious pillow over my face, smothering me in the foulest way possible. Tomas and I staggered back to the fresh air—that’s when my stew made its return—and recovered ourselves before applying the salve that General Mage Thrax had given us. Please do pass on my thanks to him.
Once our noses and mouths were coated, we tried a second, more successful assault. The way to the dragon’s lair was blessedly short, although we needed to reapply the salve before we reached the cavern, so insidious were those fumes.
It was a short battle. I had a sword General Mage Thrax had bespelled, and every strike I landed on the beast opened up a wound that kept growing. Because the Glebe-Reaver was asleep with its head elevated on a stone ledge, I was unable to deal it an instant, killing blow to its brain like Sir Gaius—although, given his end, perhaps matters were in my favour. It was a thrust to the chest that ultimately did it for the beast, not because it hit a vital organ but because the wound opened so wide that its guts flopped out of its internal cavity and landed on the sandy ground.
I have been on the battlefield, and I have seen men try to stuff their insides back into their bodies. That is exactly what the dragon did, letting out pitiable keening noises as it did so.
I have hunted with kings and knights, and I have never seen a beast do such a thing. I mention this now because it led me to wonder just what kind of mind resides in a dragon’s scaly skull, whether it is as bestial as we assume. However, I am but a humble knight, and I know the honoured mages will be able to make a better study of such a thing than I.
Having read the earlier volumes of The Demise and Demesne of Dragons as well as having listened to other knights speak of their experiences, I know it’s possible to tell the instant a dragon dies because of how the magic in the air changes. So it was with the Glebe-Reaver. My ears popped, my mouth filled with bile, and a blasting hot wind scathed my skin for several heartbeats.
Once we knew the dragon was truly dead, we waited a few moments to see what would happen. You can’t kill a magical beast without consequences. When nothing dreadful happened immediately, we began gathering up the coins, gems, and more valuable items in its lair. You know how it is—those beasts will seize anything of metal, but not all metal is valuable. There was an anvil, several copper bathtubs, a gilded hairbrush—all sorts of trivial and worthless items.
It was Tomas who first noticed the sludge, and I will be forever in his debt. I myself was examining a set of cutlery when Tomas cried out, “Master! Behind you! Stand still!”
The creature’s guts had started to turn into a black bubbling sludge that inched its way across the cave floor. A thin line of it had already spread between me and the exit. In retrospect, I should have jumped then, immediately. But I wanted to secure some of the treasure. You probably know this—most of the realm does—but my father has debts, and I wanted to bring something home. So I knotted my sack of treasure and tossed it over to Tomas. He darted forward to snatch it up before returning to a place of safety, but we both saw what that bubbling black mass did: it oozed towards him like it had a mind of its own. All this could only have taken twenty seconds, no more, but in that time, the pool of ichor separating me from the exit had grown. I knew I had to act straightaway or risk it becoming too large to jump. I was on a large stone, the better to reach a stash of treasure in a crevice, so I could not take a run-up. Instead, I leaned back against the wall and pushed myself off. I cleared the sludge, I really did, and I remember a moment of pure elation before that horrible substance surged over my foot.
When I was a squire, I got drunk with some friends and ended up walking through a campfire. Given my flimsy shoes, I was lucky to escape severe burns, but I remember the heat and the pain.
This heat was worse, the pain tripled.
I staggered forward and away from the foul stuff, my plate armour dripping off my feet like silver treacle; my flesh followed soon after.
As I stumbled away, I glanced fearfully over my shoulder and saw the sludge surging after me. It was as if a taste of my flesh had invigorated it. Before, it had moved sluggishly, but there was no mistaking its hungry, malevolent motion now.
My right foot was now nothing more than a stub of bone, and I was unbalanced enough that I nearly toppled to the ground. It was Tomas who saved me. He caught me and acted as a crutch all the way to the cave entrance. I can’t tell you the bliss I felt to lurch out into the sunlight—I had thought never to see it again.
When we were a safe distance from the entrance, Tomas lowered me to the ground and saved my life for a second time by cutting away the poisoned flesh of my leg with his knife. I’m convinced that if he had not, that poisonous ichor would have spread through my veins. I believe I passed out due to pain, but afterwards, he showed me the blackened patches of earth where my flesh had befouled the ground. The blade of his knife was smoking, and over the course of a day, it shriveled away into nothing.
I owe that young man my life. The people of Exenham owed us their livelihoods because we rid them of a pestilential beast that had blighted their fields for almost two centuries. It was a task that needed completing, but there was no glory or thrill in it.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter.
Note by General Mage Thrax: The Glebe-Reaver was aged circa 365 years and had been in its demesne near Exenham nearly all its life. Distinguished Mage Mair and Lower Mages Rushmere and Olton visited the area six months after the dragon’s death. They took scrapings of the sludge using a diamond chisel, the instrument necessary as the substance had hardened considerably. Apparently, the locals had had some success in retrieving larger items from the sludge for up to a week after the Glebe-Reaver’s death before the substance hardened to the point of securing everything in place. Since those items recovered in this manner were partly dissolved, they were only of use as scrap metal.
During their operations, one villager accidentally stumbled and put a hand out to steady himself, plunging it right into a patch of sludge. By all accounts, the local physick tried to save him, but the man wouldn’t sit still and was too hysterical to take quieting syrup. The physick was unable to remove all the tainted flesh, resulting in the ichor traveling through the man’s veins and into his heart in just two days.
The patches on the grass where Nathaniel’s flesh fell were still black and barren when most recently investigated.
Samples of the dragon’s death matter are held in the library archives marked with 651/GR/N/1–9.
TWO
Maddileh swayed slightly and glanced over her shoulder. Just a few steps away was the outside world filled with early-summer sunshine, the air stirred by playful zephyrs, the birds singing their joy at the world reborn. Inside the gloomy tunnel, it felt as if she’d crossed from one glorious world into a dank and dangerous one. For a terrible moment, she thought about throwing down her weapons and walking back out into the world behind her. For innumerable nights, her dreams had been filled with fire. Dragon hunting was a fool’s game, and she should never have come, the king’s command be damned.
But what choice did she have? Leering, mocking faces rose up in her mind. The snide whispers, the sly glances as she walked the tourney fields, trying to be equal among men who saw her as nothing but a cast-off woman, all because she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with a cruel man.
Who could love a thing like you? What kind of thing are you anyway? Neither knight nor lady. She winced as Sir Allerbon’s words echoed in her head. She’d given him a lock of her hair, her trust, and her heart, and he had taken them and crushed them. Now she knew she should have just walked away, should have resisted the urge to punch his smug, grinning face, but retrospection was pointless now that she’d been banished. Besides, broken hearts did not listen to reason, and if she lived that moment again, she’d probably still punch him.
No. There was no place on the tourney field for her now; the king had confiscated her armour. She needed the Fireborne Blade if she was to regain her standing. She had to go on. Reflexively, her fingers went to curl around the spear, only to find that her hand was empty. She spun round, her eyes scanning the floor. Where was it? How could she have dropped it? When had she dropped it? She’d only just entered the tunnel a few minutes before.
“Looking for this, mistress?” The voice startled her, as she’d thought herself alone in the tunnel. Emerging from a little way down was a tall, lanky young man who looked younger than Maddileh in all respects except his gaze, which was flinty, cold, and assessing. He was holding out a spear—it must be hers, but the markings on it looked different. No. Wait. It was the spear she’d taken from the Weldrake Repository. She remembered now. Staring at the enchanted engravings made her head ache.
The young man stretched his arm out a little farther. “This is your spear, mistress,” he said, but there was the slightest tinge of anxiety in his voice.
Maddileh’s squires were with her for so little time that she barely remembered their names. This one had escaped her completely. “Master,” she said curtly. “Not mistress. Mistresses run houses or warm beds. A squire calls his knight master, and that’s what you will call me.”
A slight curl of his lip indicated his distaste.
So, he’s going to be one of those squires.
“Sorry, Master, I meant no offence.” The young man’s manner, tone, and posture were that of a perfect servant now, his distaste completely hidden. It was never good to have a squire who could lie so convincingly.
“If you were a half-decent squire, you should know that a knight never carries her own weapons unless there is immediate danger.”
His answering smile was obsequious. “But surely when one is walking through the demesne of a dragon, danger is always imminent, so—”
Maddileh stepped forward and was gratified to see the squire step back, his eyes wide with alarm. A tall woman, she could easily meet his gaze on a level.
“What is your name, boy?” she demanded. She saw the flash of anger in his eyes; very few squires liked to be referred to as boy by a woman, especially not one who almost looked of an age with her. She’d had squires before who’d resented seeking employment with her, driven by desperation rather than choice; they could be so sullen and disobedient that not only could she not teach them anything, sometimes she couldn’t even save them. It was important, with such squires, to establish the hierarchy early.
“Petros,” he said finally, courteously.
“Well, Petros, would you care to explain to me why you are here?”
He suddenly looked hunted. “You hired me, Master. To be your squire.”
Maddileh had a vague recollection of meeting this man, thinking him too old and opinionated to be her squire; there must have been something about him that had convinced her to take him on. But her head was hurting, and everything seemed muddled. That had to be the dragon magic taking effect; sometimes it crept up on you; sometimes it hit you all at once.
“I know what I’m getting out of this arrangement,” Maddileh persisted, although she suspected that what she’d be getting was a whole lot of trouble, “but what are you getting? What do you hope to learn or achieve while you’re in my service?”
She watched his expression as various answers evidently went through his mind. “I want to be there when you get the Fireborne Blade, Master. I want to share in your glory and be a part of the tales.” There was honesty to his answer, but a sullenness too. She sensed he was hiding something; she wondered what it was and whether it would be the death of him.
Or her.
Suddenly, the world lurched to the side, and she leaned against the wall, trying not to be sick.
“That’ll be the magic, Master,” Petros said. “Pockets of it drift out like little bubbles of confusion or fear. You walk through one and then you forget why you’re there and turn around to go home, or you become so afraid you run away. It muddles you or makes you sick. It does anything it can to make you leave.”
With her stomach a bit easier, Maddileh straightened and studied him thoughtfully. “You know your stuff about dragons, then?”
“Oh yes, Master. I have read all four volumes of Demise and Demesne.”
“Really? All four?”
“It took quite a while.”
“Then perhaps you’ll be useful to me after all.”
He bowed. “I do hope so, Master. Shall we start if you’re recovered?”
“Have you a light?”
“Yes, indeed.” He reached inside one of the satchels over his shoulder. With great care, he pulled out what looked like a crystal ball. Bringing it close to his lips, he whispered some unheard words; a speck of light came to life in the orb’s centre, growing in size and intensity until the tunnel was brightly illuminated.
“Magic,” said Maddileh with distaste.
Petros looked at her with surprise. “You don’t like magic? But the spear, your armour—”
“I use it when I must, but I don’t have to like it.”
“I see.” He gave her a look that was bordering on contempt, and then he was all solicitude again. “I am pleased to tell you that this orb will not only provide us with light, it should also guide us down the right path.”
Copyright © 2024 by Charlotte Bond
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