A Plague of Dragons (A Dragon Anthology) Read online

  “Then why did Kalina light their signal fire? They’re much closer to Halana. They no doubt saw something to alarm them.”

  Bern grunted again but said nothing.

  “Where is Rina?” I asked.

  He pointed toward a narrow path leading into the forest. “She’s gone to fill up the water jugs. You might go help her carry them back if you want to be useful.”

  I nodded and stepped past their hut. As I made my way along the path leading to the spring, I passed a dozen or so others as they returned from filling up their jugs. If we did go to the caves, water was the first thing we would run out of. If it rained, there were hollows in the rocks near the caves where water might pool, but we could not rely on that.

  At last, I reached the spring and spotted Rina. She was sitting on her haunches, facing away from me, and my heart thumped as I saw that the sides of her reed skirt were widely parted, giving me a clear view of the curves of her thighs. Her black hair was loosely tied up, and aside from the skirt and the thin band of cloth tied around her chest, her entire body was revealed to me. I stood still, marveling at her beauty as she squatted before the spring. Finally, she sensed my presence and whipped her head around. She laughed as she saw me and beckoned me to her side.

  I placed my hand against her bared lower back as I squatted down beside her then ran it over the band of cloth covering her chest and up her neck. I pressed against the back of her neck and brought her mouth toward mine. Her soft, warm lips greeted me, and I wrapped my other arm around her waist then ran it down her exposed thigh. She laughed again then tried to make her expression serious. She failed.

  “Many people are coming for water,” she whispered, scolding me.

  “We’re alone for now,” I said and kissed her again. “I missed you.”

  “And I you.” I could see in her eyes that her thoughts had turned to the reason for my premature return from the volcano. I hadn’t seen her in the plaza, but word had certainly spread quickly.

  “It might only be a wildfire,” I said.

  “Kalina wouldn’t light their signal fire because of a wildfire on Halana.”

  I frowned, knowing that I couldn’t disagree. “Even so, it may turn out to be nothing. But even if it is, we’re well prepared. We’ll be safe in the caves.”

  I could tell that she wasn’t convinced. I understood. I wasn’t being very convincing. There was one other way I might make her forget her worry. I put my hand on her inner thigh and ran it under her skirt.

  Her eyes widened, but she was not really shocked. We had gone this far before. “Not here. Someone might come at any moment!”

  I looked behind me, up the path. “I see no one.”

  She bit her lower lip as a wicked grin upturned the sides of her mouth. She kissed me again, throwing her body against mine. She pulled away and ran her hand down my bare chest. “Then no one will see us sneak into the forest.”

  I felt a momentary pang of guilt as I thought about everyone in the village preparing for possible disaster while we cavorted in the forest, but it vanished as Rina stood and lifted the rope from which two water jugs were hanging. She handed it to me, careful not to spill any water, and took my hand as we crept away from the spring, into the brush. We said nothing as we walked, moving farther and farther away from discovery.

  Finally, satisfied that we had gone far enough, she stopped, took the rope off my shoulder and carefully lowered the jugs to the ground. Before I could say anything, her hands were on me, running down my chest, wrapping around my waist. I pressed into her and kissed her hard, no longer able to reign in my desire.

  It was our first time together. We had come close many times before, and I don’t know what it was about that moment that made us finally succumb, but the look on her face afterward told me that it had been no mistake. We were now coupled, and when the time was right, I would ask her father for his permission for us to be married. He did not particularly like me, that was true, but did not hate me either, and he was not a cruel man. I felt confident he would accept me if Rina told him that I was her choice.

  We left the spot where our bodies had made their impression and returned to the spring. I replaced the water that had spilled during our walk and, since there was still no one else there, I took the opportunity to caress her one last time as I kissed the side of her neck. I pulled away as voices carried up the path, and we began walking back toward the village. We met two of our neighbors and greeted them, and there was something in their eyes as they returned the greeting that told us they had their suspicions. I looked at Rina after they passed. Her cheeks were flushed, but a smile was still on her lips. By the time we reached her hut, her father was no longer there, and for that I felt some relief. We had been gone too long. He would have undoubtedly suspected something.

  I set down the water jugs and, glancing around to see if anyone was looking our way, gave Rina one final kiss before leaving her. As I walked back toward my hut, I realized we had not said a single word to one another after our tryst in the forest. It didn’t seem like there were any words good enough to intrude on how we were feeling. She felt it; I felt it. We loved one another, and we didn’t need to say the words to know it.

  Chapter Four

  The Black Dragon

  The second dragon to come to our islands arrived almost seventy years after the first. That first large dragon and most of those who came afterward were shades of green or brown, but this creature’s body was as black as cinder, and its pale blue eyes seemed to glow in comparison to the dark scales around them.

  Like the previous dragon, it attacked the island of Halana first. They usually come from the east, but Halana’s village is close to a network of lava caves. Unlike the people on the other two islands, they can reach safety within minutes.

  The dragon found its first meals on Halana—the evacuation plans had not yet been perfected—then traveled on to Kalina. Rowers from the other island came to warn us, and perhaps emboldened by Laran’s victory over the first dragon, a hundred men of our island readied themselves at the bay, waiting for the moment the dragon swooped overhead on its way to the village. It would find no prey there—everyone else was already in the caves—but the men hoped to keep the dragon away from the village, to keep it at the bay where it would not destroy everything.

  They had an idea to position themselves in their boats. The canoes were tied together and stretched across the mouth of the bay. When the dragon came, they hoped it would see the men in the canoes and focus its attention on them. The men would shoot their arrows in volleys, hoping at least a single one might pierce the beast’s mouth or eyes, and they could dive into the water to escape the dragon’s flames when it did attack.

  The first part of the plan worked. The dragon, leaving Kalina, spotted the canoes as it approached our island. The sight did seem to interest it for a moment, and it hovered above them, flapping its great wings as it looked down. A hundred arrows flew toward the creature, but none of them found a soft target. The attack only enraged the dragon, and it dove toward the center of the line of canoes, burning three boats and their occupants before swooping back skyward.

  In a panic, the men began releasing their arrows at will, but without the advantage of concentrated volleys, none of them were aimed true enough to injure the dragon. The creature circled around to the end of the line of canoes and, with a single breath, shot a jet of flame toward them as it glided across the mouth of the bay. Their position in the bay did save some of the men, but only a handful. The fire was too hot and too swift for most of them to reach the safety of the water.

  This dragon, though, did not seem as senseless as some others that came later. The survivors from the canoes say that it flew to a point above the center of the bay and hovered there for several long minutes, turning its head first one way then the other, as though it were working out some puzzle. At last, it sped skyward and disappeared from view.

  Later, the elders of the village came to the conclusion that it had
found their plan ingenious enough that it worried there might be yet other traps laid for it. And the plan was ingenious. If just one of those massed arrows had found a mark, it would have succeeded. But the careful consideration on the dragon’s part—seemingly weighing the risks against the promise of further feasting—established the fact that dragons were not mere animals. They had some kind of intelligence perhaps even rivaling our own. The first great dragon that Laran had slain had showed signs of thought, as had this second creature. This, the elders decided, meant that the best defense against dragons in the future would be to make them know that we also had intelligence and that we might possess the means of defeating them. And that strategy did work for the next three attacks. But the sixth attack was when everything changed, and my people discovered that just as we had learned how to deal with dragons, they could also learn. They could see through our deceptions and learn from past mistakes. Yes, dragons had some intelligence, but that was the first time we realized that they might in fact be even cleverer than we were.

  Chapter Five

  Word from Kalina

  I did not sleep. It wasn’t the worry about what was happening on the other islands; I was thinking about Rina. I went over in my mind every detail that I could remember from our rendezvous in the forest. I was disappointed to find that I could recall less of it than I had hoped. It came in flashes, in faint impressions, leaving me wanting more. I wanted more of her; I wanted all of her. Sleep would be impossible until I knew whether or not she was to be my wife.

  I resolved that I would ask Bern for his blessing as soon as dawn broke. In the meantime, I sat outside the hut I shared with my parents and watched the rim of the volcano, a black monolith silhouetted against the star-bright sky. Lashen was up there now, and he’d had plenty of time to build a new signal fire. If he saw anything that worried him during his vigil, we’d know.

  But there was little that could be seen at night. Even Kalina, the nearer island, was almost invisible against the ocean’s expanse. Fire would be the one thing he could see. Knowing that I would not be able to force myself to sleep even if I tried, I decided to walk to the bay to look out toward the other islands myself.

  I started down the well-worn path linking the village to the bay. Aside from a narrow strip of sky overhead, the forest blocked out the starlight. But I didn’t need any illumination. The path was straight and smooth, and I had walked it thousands of times.

  When I reached the beach, I looked past the boats that had been hauled onto the sand for the night and out into the bay. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear the rhythmic, tell-tale slapping of paddles. The canoe that had gone to Kalina was returning.

  I looked at the sky. They couldn’t have stayed on Kalina for long—two hours, I guessed. I called out as the canoe came into view, and they acknowledged me. I helped the men drag the boat onto the sand then anxiously awaited their news.

  Coran, one of the village elders, was among them. He put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head. “Dragons.”

  Despite the warm, wet night, a chill ran through my body. “How many?”

  “Kalina’s watchman saw at least two attack Halana. That’s why he lit the signal fire. When we left, the dragons had still not reached Kalina, but it is only a matter of time. It is usually like this. They come from the east and attack Halana first, then Kalina. We’ll be the last. Sometimes this is good, as the dragons’ hunger may be sated. Sometimes it only means their bloodlust is at its peak, and they are no longer killing for food but for pleasure.”

  I wanted to speak but couldn’t find any words.

  “We are tired from rowing,” Coran said. “Run to the village ahead of us. Tell them what I have told you. Tell them not to wait for us but to start for the caves immediately.”

  I nodded and began running. At my top speed, I could make the run from the beach to the village in a little less than twenty minutes. I knew because one of the things the men in ships had brought was called a chronometer. It measured the length of the day and divided it up into even parts. One of our elders had been quite taken by the chronometer and had commanded that everyone in the village learn how to read it. It was a fascinating toy for a while, but once the initial wonder had worn off, it didn’t seem to serve any practical purpose for us. Timekeeping, we decided, was for people who were unfortunate enough to live in places where one’s time could be traded for money. Yes, we’d learned about that, too, and we also found it to be a rather silly concept.

  Still, the chronometer had its uses. I’d once run the path with the device in my hand after being taught how to read it, and I had made the journey in just over nineteen minutes. Several others had tried to beat my time, but none could.

  But I wasn’t thinking about my speed as I ran. I was, once again, thinking about Rina. Dragons. At least two. If anything certain could be said about the arrival of dragons, it was that people would die. That was inescapable. In the best of encounters, the number of dead was a few dozen across all three of the islands. In the worst… hundreds.

  Whatever happened, I could not lose Rina. She had to make it to safety. I went over every story I had ever heard about dragons. If my memory wasn’t failing me, there had been twenty-nine attacks, beginning with the dragon that Laran had slain. In truth, most of these events were largely indistinguishable from one another, but the story that was the most vivid, aside from the tale about Laran, was the sixth attack. It was that event that forever changed the way my people dealt with dragons, and the lesson had come at a terrible cost.

  Chapter Six

  The Silver Dragon

  I have mentioned the intelligence of dragons. After five encounters, my people felt that they understood these creatures. They felt that the best way to deal with them was to invent interesting, elaborate traps or deterrents.

  The dragons, it was believed, would begin to think of it as a game. They would see us as clever and worthy opponents who generally deserved to be left alive. People still died, of course, but for several generations, this tactic worked. The line of canoes that had been placed across the bay became a common defense, but we learned to half-submerge the canoes and man them only sparsely. Next, we baited the dragons to land on the beach by placing more bowmen there. Several times, they were able to lure a dragon and make it follow them into the woods, right into a waiting pit trap. Other times, they would ensnare the dragons’ legs with ropes and harass them with spears and arrows until they broke free. These traps worked best on the smaller variety, and most dragons were small, no longer than the height of two or three men from snout to tail.

  While a few did receive apparently mortal injuries and took to the air to die over the water, these measures seldom hurt the dragons. Aside from making the encounter seem like a game, they also discouraged the creatures. They no doubt stopped to feed in many lands along their great migration route, and if they were not too hungry, there was little advantage in hunting people who made the ordeal more effort than it was worth.

  My people grew confident that the dragon problem had finally been solved. At the cost of perhaps ten or twelve men from our island, we could effectively drive the dragons away, often before they laid waste to the village.

  But the sixth time they came, all of this changed. As before, my ancestors set a line of canoes at the entrance to the bay. They positioned men on the beach to lead the dragons toward the traps in the forest. But this time, there were three of them.

  Now, many dragons look the same. We did not always know which creatures had been to our islands before, if any of them. Still, there was one particular creature that stood out to the men on the beach as the trio swept low over the bay. It was silver but had a reddish tint to the scales around its neck. The eldest of the men recognized this dragon. It had attacked a generation earlier, and its unique appearance had been noted. It had been alone that time, but now it had brought companions.

  The first time it had come, the dragon had fallen for their ruses. It had blundered into no
less than three of their traps. It killed nine men during the battle but had flown away unsatisfied. The older men noted that it had grown somewhat in the intervening decades and was longer by perhaps an arm span. Its companions were smaller.

  The number of dragons posed a unique challenge, but as the smaller two went for the canoe line, the men on the beach readied for the next part of the game. They watched a volley of arrows fly from the archers in the canoes as the dragons swooped low to breathe their fire down on the defenders. To the great delight of everyone watching, one of the creatures seemed to take a wound. It screamed and twisted its neck around, sending its jet of flame skyward as it plunged into the bay.

  It thrashed horribly in the water for a moment before raising one claw and ripping the offending arrow from its mouth. They saw a great spray of bright red blood fly from the dragon’s maw as the fire-blackened arrow came out. The dragon thrashed for a few moments more before its wings came out of the water and lifted its body back into the sky.

  The silver dragon, meanwhile, had been slowly circling above, watching. At the sight of its injured comrade, though, it dove straight down toward the line of canoes. It did not bother to breathe its fire, instead using its tail, wings and claws to rip apart the canoes and send men flying into the air.

  The other smaller dragon, the uninjured one, took the opportunity to pluck a man from the sky as he was thrown from his canoe. The men on the shore watched the thing bite down, separating the man’s head and legs from his body and swallowing whole what was left in its mouth.

  Men tried to swim for safety, but the silver dragon splashed and heaved through the shallow water of the bay, going after each one until all of them were dead. When the horrible deed was done, all three dragons landed on the rocks on either side of the entrance to the bay, the silver dragon on one side, the other two opposite it, and cast their cold eyes across the beach. They were thinking. The silver one remembered being lured into the traps in the forest. It would not make the same mistake again.