The Blood of a Dragon Read online

“What is it, boy?” she asked. “Aren't you a bit young for a traveler?”

  “I'm not a traveler,” Dumery said, concocting a lie on the spot. “I'm a messenger. My master heard that there was a man here selling dragon's blood, and as it happens, he has need of a pint or so.”

  The woman frowned. “Oh? And who would your master be?”

  “Doran of Wizard Street,” Dumery improvised.

  “And the name of the man he sent you after?” she asked.

  “I don't know,” Dumery admitted. “A tall man in brown leather, I was told. My master said I'd be sure to know him when I saw him. But I've looked, and I don't see anyone here like that. This is the Dragon's Tail, isn't it?”

  “Of course it is!” she snapped. “You saw the signboard, and there's the skin of the tail itself.” She gestured at the hide stretched on the wall.

  Dumery nodded. “Of course. Well, maybe he's stepped out, then, this man I was sent after?”

  “No,” she said, “I know who you mean. He's upstairs, settling his bill and packing his things; he's been three days here, and he's done his business and ready to go. I don't think he's got a drop of that stuff left, but if you want to ask him, he should be down again any minute.”

  “Oh,” Dumery said. “Thank you.”

  Someone called, and the woman turned away, lifting her tray. Dumery sat down on a nearby chair and waited.

  While he waited, he tried to figure out just how he wanted to approach the situation.

  Perhaps fifteen minutes later, when Dumery was beginning to wonder if he'd been tricked, two people came tramping noisily down the stairs. One was a plump, elderly woman wearing a white apron and carrying a plump purse—the innkeeper, presumably—while the other was the familiar man in brown. The man had a large pack slung over one shoulder.

  Dumery waited until they had passed him, then got quickly to his feet.

  The innkeeper turned left and headed for the kitchens; the man in brown turned right and headed out the door.

  Dumery followed the man in brown.

  The man marched across the market square, Dumery staying close behind, watching his every step. It appeared he was heading for the south gate-tower once more.

  Sure enough, he stopped and exchanged a few words with the guard; Dumery was not close enough to catch the words this time. He worked his way through the crowd, and emerged a pace or so away just as the man in brown turned away and marched on—out through the city gates and into the wide World beyond.

  A sudden irrational terror struck Dumery at the thought of following him.

  Never, in all his life, had Dumery left the protection of Ethshar's city wall. Venturing out of the streets into the wilderness beyond—or at least, comparative wilderness—was truly frightening. Dumery knew that the real wilderness didn't begin for a hundred leagues or so, but anything that wasn't city seemed dangerous and alien.

  Still, this was his one chance at becoming a dragon-hunter.

  "Hai!" he called, running after the man.

  Even as he ran, Dumery was surprised to see that the market continued outside the gate. The city did not; to either side of the bare packed dirt of the highway lay open green fields, rather than streets and shops. Even so, wagons lined the sides of the highway, and farmers were selling their wares to a milling crowd of city-folk just as if they were all safely inside Westgate Market.

  “Hello,” he called, “dragon's blood! In the brown leather!”

  The man in brown heard him, and stopped. He turned, startled, as Dumery ran up to him.

  “Yes, lad?” he asked.

  Dumery had to catch his breath. Furthermore, he was disconcerted to find himself actually outside the wall, and the broad expanses of open space, dotted with trees and farmhouses, were so strange that his eyes kept being drawn away from the man's face. By the time he could gather himself sufficiently to speak impatience showed in the man's features.

  “Please, sir,” Dumery said, “I'm of an age to begin an apprenticeship, and I saw you selling dragon's blood, and I thought that you must be a dragon-hunter, and I can't think of anything I'd rather do than to become one. A dragon-hunter, I mean.”

  This was not the careful explanation and appeal he had tried to plan out while sitting in the Dragon's Tail, but rather a rush of words that got out before he could stop them. He shut his mouth, cutting the flow off, and bit his lip nervously, trying to think what he could say or do to improve the impression he was making.

  The man stared coldly down at him, and for the first time Dumery really got a good look at him.

  The man's hair and beard were dark brown, almost black, and both were long and thick and not particularly tidy. His eyes were brown and sunken, beneath heavy brows. His nose had obviously been broken at least once, and three scars ran parallel across his right cheek, as if something had clawed him badly once. He was big, well over six feet, probably over six and a half, and he was broad, too—his chest and shoulders looked as if he'd have to turn sideways to fit through most doors. His hands were gnarled and scarred and looked strong enough to crush stone.

  He wore a heavy brown leather tunic, cut longer than was the fashion in Ethshar, and matching breeches that were stuffed into the tops of his heavy brown boots. A wide brown belt held three knives of different sizes, an ordinary purse, and a larger pouch. He carried a pack on one shoulder that was roughly the size of Dumery.

  He did not actually look like very pleasant company, but Dumery had committed himself.

  “Ah...” the boy said. “My father can pay all your expenses, if you take me on...”

  “Boy,” the man said, interrupting him, “I don't want an apprentice, and if I did, it wouldn't be a runt like you. Go home and find something else to do.”

  Dumery's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  Runt?

  The man had called him a runt?

  He wasn't terribly big for his age, but he was no runt! He was maybe a little over average height, even. Perhaps a little thin, but he'd fill out, he was sure, in a few years.

  “I...” he began.

  The man held up a silencing hand.

  “Forget it, kid,” he said. “I don't need an apprentice, I don't want an apprentice, and I won't have an apprentice, and I certainly won't have you. I don't care if your father's the overlord himself and you're Azrad the Eighth to be, I'm not interested. And quite aside from any apprenticeship, I won't tell you anything about dragons or hunting or anything else. I don't want anything to do with you. Don't argue—just go away.”

  Dumery blinked, but could think of nothing to say.

  The man in brown—or the dragon-hunter, as Dumery thought of him—turned away and marched on down the road.

  At first Dumery simply stood there, watching him go, but something inside him refused to give up that easily.

  The man had called him a runt and had refused him—but what if he showed that he wasn't a runt, wasn't as scrawny as he might look? What if he proved he could handle the wilderness, and wasn't just a pampered rich city kid?

  Then maybe the dragon-hunter would take him on!

  After all, even Thetheran had tested him. He had failed that test, of course, but he wasn't going to fail this one.

  Maybe the man in brown was even doing it deliberately! Maybe he really was testing Dumery, to see if Dumery had what it took to hunt dragons.

  Dumery had to follow him.

  He began to hurry after the man in brown, but then he stopped, considering.

  If it wasn't a deliberate test, and maybe even if it was, he didn't want to be spotted too easily. He ducked off the highway, cut through the line of farmers’ wagons, and set out, traipsing across a muddy field, paralleling the road, trying very hard to keep the man in brown in sight.

  Maybe, he thought, I can find some way to help him out somewhere. Then he'd have to accept me as an apprentice, if I saved his life from a rampaging dragon or something.

  Awash in dreams of glory, Dumery marched on through someone's
cotton field, stumbling over plants and ditches. He kept an eye on the man in brown, but he didn't try to catch up; instead he deliberately hung back. He didn't want to be spotted.

  Once they were both well past the outermost fringe of the market, though, Dumery did return to the highway. Pushing through the fields was just too much work.

  They marched on. Or rather, the dragon-hunter marched, while Dumery kept up as best he could, maintaining the distance between them. He had to run occasionally, to make up for the big man's much longer legs, and he often thought he was about to collapse from exhaustion—but each time he reached that state the man in brown would settle down for a rest.

  When the dragon-hunter rested, Dumery rested, stopping fifty or a hundred yards away, where he wouldn't be easily recognized. He would sit, massaging his feet and nervously watching the man in brown, and when the dragon-hunter rose, Dumery would snatch his boots back on and leap to his feet and set out anew.

  A brief afternoon shower almost discouraged him, but after some initial dismay he hunched his shoulders and resolved to ignore it. The man in brown pulled a hat from his pack and put it on, but other than that he, too, ignored the rain.

  The rain ended in less than an hour, and the sun reappeared, clean and bright. Through it all, Dumery marched on, westward and then northward along the highway as it curved, keeping the leather-clad man in sight, but never drawing near.

  Only when the sun finally reddened and sank low in the west, and the skies began to darken again even though the clouds continued to dissipate, did Dumery realize just what an incredibly foolish mistake he had made.

  Chapter Seven

  He was only twelve years old. He was wearing an ordinary cotton tunic—velvet hadn't seemed practical for a morning visit to Westgate Market—and woolen breeches, and soft leather boots. He had a cheap belt knife with him. He had a purse with a few bits in copper in it, and down at the bottom a few scraps of string and an old and somewhat dusty honey drop he had never gotten around to eating, and not much else. No blanket, no flint and steel, no enchanted bloodstone, no sword, no pads for the blisters that had formed on his feet, none of the supplies a sensible traveler would have.

  And he was about ten leagues outside the city wall and it was almost full dark, and he had never been outside the city before, not for so much as a ten-minute stroll.

  The man in brown was still walking, though, still marching on, just as he had all day.

  It was too late to turn back. Dumery knew he couldn't possibly make it back to the city gate until long after midnight, even if he didn't lose the road in the dark, even if he didn't meet any wolves or bandits or demons prowling along the way. He wasn't sure he could make it back at all. His feet and legs ached; he had never before walked anything near this distance. The soles of his boots, which he knew were really still perfectly sound, felt paper-thin and soggy with sweat; every pebble seemed to jab him.

  He saw a low ridge ahead, and at the point where the ground began to rise the road forked, the right branch going up across the ridge, the left fork paralleling the slope; a glance at the sun's fading glow told him that the right fork ran north, the left fork west.

  Nestled in the fork was a good-sized building, and with a start Dumery realized that it wasn't a farmhouse. The farmhouses he had passed all day were never built so close to the road.

  Most of them weren't so large, and most weren't built entirely of stone, either. This structure ahead had wooden shutters and doors and a thatch roof, but the walls were all stone, right up to the gable peaks, and peculiar-looking stone at that. Even the attached stable was stone.

  There was no signboard, but all the same, Dumery guessed it was an inn. The fork was certainly a logical place for one, being not merely at the junction of two highways, but just exactly a full day's walk from Ethshar.

  The man in brown marched directly up to the front door of the inn and entered, opening the door without knocking. Dumery hurried after him.

  By the time he reached the building the man in brown was inside, and the door was closed again. Dumery hesitated, unsure whether to knock or just walk in—this place, with no signboard and its door closed, and so big, was not like the inns he was familiar with in the city, and he was uncertain of the etiquette. The dragon-hunter hadn't knocked, but did that mean nobody did? Or was the man in brown privileged somehow?

  Just then the door opened again, and a man stepped out holding a torch. He was fairly tall, brown-haired and heavily built, but nowhere near the size of the dragon-hunter. He was wearing an ordinary woolen tunic and a white apron.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, noticing Dumery. “Welcome to the Inn at the Bridge.” He turned and reached up to place the torch in a bracket over the door.

  “Bridge?” Dumery asked, looking around and seeing no bridge. There were meadows, and the inn, and its attached stable, and the highway, but no bridge.

  “Other side of the hill,” the man in the apron said, turning back and jerking a thumb toward the north fork of the highway.

  “Oh,” Dumery said.

  “Come on in,” the man said, and he led Dumery inside.

  The main room of the inn was spacious and comfortable, with a plank floor and stone walls. At one end was a huge fireplace with a nondescript sheathed sword hanging above it; doors here and there led to the kitchens and stables and other such places. A score or so of customers were scattered at various tables.

  Something small and green scurried along the floor; Dumery tried to get a look at it, but lost sight of it among the chairlegs.

  He'd been seeing a lot of those things in the last few days, where he had never seen any as of, say, two months before. He wondered what they were for a moment, then turned his attention to more important matters.

  The man in brown was seated at a table near the kitchens, chatting with a young woman who was standing beside him; Dumery turned his face away hurriedly so that he wouldn't be recognized if the man happened to glance this way.

  The woman turned and bustled away, into the kitchens, and Dumery saw she was holding a tray—one of the serving girls, obviously. The man in brown looked up when she had gone, and Dumery did his best to not be noticed.

  The man in the apron, presumably the innkeeper, told Dumery, “Make yourself at home, and someone will be right with you.” Then he, too, headed for the kitchens.

  Dumery looked about for a chair where the man in brown wouldn't see him, and as he did the thought occurred to him that although he was ravenously hungry and utterly exhausted, he couldn't stay here.

  He couldn't afford it.

  He had all of six bits in copper, as best he could recall, and that probably wasn't enough for a meal and a bed. He didn't know how long it would have to last him, either. If he spent it all here and now, what would he do tomorrow?

  If he had any sense, he told himself, he'd go back home tomorrow. He wasn't equipped for anything else.

  Well, he replied mentally, he obviously had no sense, because he wasn't going to go home, he was going to follow the dragon-hunter to his home, even if it took a sixnight.

  And that meant he didn't dare spend all his coins. He might need them later.

  Accordingly, when another serving girl, one who looked scarcely older than he was, came and smiled down at him he said, “I'm sorry, but I don't have any money. Can I work for room and board, perhaps?”

  The girl's smile vanished.

  “I don't know,” she said. “Let me ask Valder.”

  She turned and hurried to the kitchen.

  A moment later the man in the apron re-emerged and crossed directly to where Dumery sat. The boy glanced over at the man in brown, hoping that he wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary, anything that might draw his attention to Dumery's presence.

  “Asha says you told her you have no money,” the innkeeper said, without preamble.

  Dumery nodded. “I can work, though,” he said.

  The innkeeper shook his head slowly. “I'm sorry, boy, but I al
ready have more help than I need. You'll have to go.” He did sound honestly regretful.

  His sincerity didn't help any. Dumery asked, “Are you sure?”

  “I'm quite sure, yes. Asha herself is here more from pity than because I needed another wench.”

  “Oh,” Dumery said. “Ah ... but couldn't I sleep right here, in this chair? I don't need a bed.” His stomach growled, and he added, “And I have a bit, in copper; could that buy me some scraps?”

  The innkeeper sighed, looking about the room as if the furnishings might offer advice.

  The furnishings remained silent, and Valder asked, “Do you have any family, boy?”

  “Yes, sir, back in Ethshar,” Dumery replied.

  “Then what in the World are you doing here?"

  “I'm ... I'm on my way to take up my apprenticeship, sir.” That was close enough to the truth, Dumery thought.

  “And nobody gave you any money for the road?”

  Dumery shrugged and looked woebegone. Given his exhausted condition, that wasn't hard to do.

  The innkeeper turned away, throwing up his hands. "Hai, what a world!” he said. He turned back.

  “All right, boy,” he said, “you can sleep in the stable, not in here where you might annoy paying customers. And I'll be bringing scraps out after everyone's eaten. Keep your bit; people farther up the road may not be so generous.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Dumery said, relieved that he wasn't going to be thrown out entirely, but disappointed that he would have to sleep outside and eat table scraps.

  He had never eaten table scraps. He'd heard about poor people doing that; in fact, the scraps from his father's table were regularly left by the street for beggars, which was where he'd gotten the idea of asking.

  He looked forward to his dinner with as much trepidation as anticipation.

  The innkeeper stood over him for a moment, and Dumery realized that the conversation was at an end and it was time for him to leave. Reluctantly, he got up and left.

  The only comfort, he thought as he made his way around the corner of the inn and into the stableyard, was that at least the man in brown hadn't spotted him.