Dragon's Egg (4 page)

M
ella perched on the saddle behind Roger, clinging to his waist. Her skirts were gathered up above her knees, which made her blush. But no one could see her red cheeks in the dark. And she didn't dare sit sidesaddle, or she'd slide right off the horse's back and land in the dirt.

It would have been more comfortable if they'd taken Damien's horse as well as Roger's. Mella had wanted to, but Roger had refused. “That's
stealing
,” he'd said, his freckled face shocked in the dim yellow light of the lantern.

Mella didn't think so. They would return the horse in a few days, after all, and it wasn't as if Damien could ride it at the moment. But she
couldn't put up much of an argument when they could only speak in whispers for fear that Peder and Poll, asleep in the loft overhead, would hear. So they had only Roger's gray mare, not Damien's chestnut gelding.

Roger set the horse to a steady jog, heading east to Dragonsford. Mella yawned. The long day had taken a toll on her. She had struggled to keep awake as she lay in bed, waiting for Lilla to fall asleep so she could sneak outside unnoticed. Now, despite the chill of the night air, her eyes kept drifting shut. She forced them open again, with an effort, and discovered that her cheek had come to rest against Roger's shoulders.

She sat bolt upright.

Roger had pulled the horse to a halt. “Far enough?” he said over his shoulder. “There's a bit of a clearing there.”

“Far enough,” Mella agreed, stifling another yawn. Their plan had been simply to get away from the Inn tonight, and tomorrow morning ride the rest of the way to Dragonsford.

Tomorrow morning. Mella couldn't stop thinking of that, even while she gathered a few sticks and fallen branches, groping about in the brambles and roots at the edge of the clearing. Roger was taking care of the horse, removing the saddle and bridle.

Tomorrow morning Mella's parents would wake, and she would be gone. They would be frantic. Guilt clutched at Mella's heart. They would search the woods. They would call in all the village to help. Would they think she'd been kidnapped? That she'd run away with Roger? Would they think another dragon had eaten her?

And her own dragons. Da would have to pay coin that the Inn could ill afford and hire Tilda from the village to look after them, a keeper too old now for a herd of her own. But they'd be restless and unhappy without Mella. A herd was never right when the keeper was not there.

Mella wished she'd been able at least to leave her family a note. Her father could read and write well enough to keep the Inn's accounts. He would
have been able to puzzle out a message. But Mella had never learned writing. Too late, it occurred to her that Roger was probably lettered. Wasn't that something squires had to learn? She could have asked for his help. But there was no point in dwelling on it now.

She'd be home again as quickly as she could. The dragon had said the Hatching Ground was less than a day's flight away. It might take a bit longer on horseback. But surely her parents and her dragons would only have two or three days to miss her.

Something rustled in the darkness between the trees. Paws or a tail raked through dry leaves and dead twigs. Mella jumped a little.

“What's that?” Roger asked. Finished with the horse, he'd come to stand at her elbow.

“I don't know.” It might be almost anything. A badger. A fox. Not big or heavy enough to be a bear. A snake, even. Mella's toes twitched in her shoes.

Then a breeze drifted across her face, and she
caught a hint of a familiar, dry, sulfury smell.

“Dragons,” she told Roger. “Wild dragons.”

“Oh?” Roger looked excited. “They're rare. Have you seen them before?”

“Not really,” Mella admitted. The wild common dragons were shy and came out to hunt at night, so she had only caught a glimpse or two, now and then, in the twilight forest—a scaled flank or snout behind shadowy leaves, a tail slithering through the grass.

Now she seemed to hear rustling from all sides. A hiss teased at her ears as she turned, with a shiver, to pile her firewood in a heap at the center of the clearing. It wasn't as if she was afraid of the little wild dragons. Of course not. Still, she felt better when Roger had struck a spark and, after much puffing and blowing, had a fire burning. She was glad as much for the cheerful light as for the warmth.

“Are they related?” Roger asked as Mella found her cloak and her dragonhide gloves inside the sack she'd brought from the Inn.

“Who?” Gloves on, Mella dug into the sack again and drew out the metal box her mother kept candles in. It now held the Egg. “Wild dragons and tame ones? Aye, they're practically the same.” She wondered, as she flipped up the catch and opened the lid of the box, who the first keeper had been. Who'd first coaxed a shy wild dragon out of a thicket or a cave, fed it, learned to rub behind its ears the way dragons liked? Who'd been the first to
know,
deep in her bones, when a herd was hungry or frightened or threatened with sickness?

“No, I meant—well, that's interesting too. But the true dragons. Like that one today. Are they related to the wild ones?”

How could Mella know something like that? She lifted the Egg out of the coals she had packed around it and settled it in the heat of Roger's fire, realizing as she did that Roger had not expected her to answer at all. He went on talking.

“It's hard to think so. But the true ones
look
like your farm dragons, you have to admit. The neck, and the tail with its spike, and the shape of the
head. The wings are larger in the big ones, of course….”

Mella stopped listening. Knees under her chin, she watched the Egg, wrapped in flame like a baby in a blanket. It had seemed dull as coal when she'd lifted it out of the box, but now, as it warmed, colors began to swirl again across its surface. Or underneath it, rather. It was as if the black shell grew translucent in the heat and let her catch a glimpse of the Egg's heart.

After a while she noticed that Roger had stopped talking. He was looking at her expectantly. “Have you always known?” he asked, and she realized that he was repeating the question.

“Known what?”

“That you wanted to be a keeper.”

Mella smiled. “Always. When I was barely old enough to walk, my parents found me asleep in the dragons' pen. They were afraid I'd be killed, but the dragons just curled up around me and watched over me. That's when Gran knew….”

“Knew what?”

“She said I had the touch. She taught me.”

“Your grandmother was a keeper?”

“The best in the kingdom,” Mella answered proudly, despite the tightness in her throat. Gran had been skinny and tough and gnarled like an old oak root, and she could make a dragon obey her at a look. “People came for miles around for her help if a herd was sick or if they wanted advice on breeding. Gran knew everything.”

Everything.

 

Even before Mella had opened her eyes, she'd known.

The herd was still asleep, huddled together as they always were, sharing the warmth of their scaly bodies. She'd felt them, a knot of limbs and tails and wings. It was not a dream, something that skimmed lightly over the surface of her sleeping mind. It was deeper than that; it lodged itself firmly under her breastbone, next to her beating heart. Her dragons would always be there.

You look after them now, girl.

“Yes, Gran,” Mella mumbled sleepily. She pushed back the heavy winter quilt and stuck her feet out of the bed. Lilla moaned as an icy draft snaked its way under the blankets.

“Mella, what
are
you doing?”

“Feed the dragons,” Mella muttered stupidly. The rag rug beside the bed was nearly as cold as the bare wooden floor.

“
What?
Mella, it's the middle of the night. You're dreaming.”

Indeed, it was dark. No moonlight came through the one window in the far wall. It seemed as if the floor, the dresses and shawls hanging on the wall and the shoes beneath them, Gran in her bed on the other side of the chimney, had all vanished.

“
Mella.
You're letting the cold in.”

Mella hesitated. “Gran?”

Lilla was right. It was the heart of night. It was no time to bring scraps and fresh meat out to the dragons. But why had Gran spoken to her then?

“She's asleep. Honestly, Mella, I think you are too. Get back in bed.”

Mella did. She would have to check on Blackie's wing in the morning, she thought. Her own shoulder ached a little, and she rubbed it absently. He'd caught his wing on a nail, tearing the thin, tender skin. She'd have to make sure it didn't get infected. Keep it clean, that was the key. Gran would help her. Even a sick or injured dragon was patient under Gran's soothing hands.

But Gran didn't help her in the morning. Gran didn't wake again. Mella, trying to keep Blackie quiet while she smoothed salve over the cut on his wing, remembered the words she'd heard in the night.

“I will, Gran,” she whispered. “I promise.”

 

And now she'd left them. Run away with a knight's squire and a dragon's egg and left them behind.

And it wasn't the first time she'd broken her promise to Gran. Barely a week after Gran had gone, there had been Lady.

“What about you?” she asked Roger quickly.
“Why did you become a Defender? You didn't even believe in dragons.”

She saw a flash of white as Roger smiled. “I suppose I was wrong about that. But I thought there might be, when I first became a squire. Maybe not giant ones, fire-breathers. But something, some fact behind the legend. Some reason for all the old stories. And it was better than…”

Mella felt sleepiness creeping up on her. But she was curious too. “Better than what?” A yawn nearly swallowed the last word.

“Learning to fight. My brothers are all squires to military orders. My oldest brother died at the attack on Tyrene. Siege tactics and fortifications and hacking people to pieces…At least with the Defenders I got to be outdoors. They're always traveling the borderlands and the mountains, looking for signs of dragons. My father wasn't pleased.”

“Why not?”

“He thought it was foolishness, taking an oath to keep the kingdom safe from dragons. He says
the Defenders are a relic, out of date. He said I made the family look ridiculous and I should join a military order, too. Get myself killed, like Aliard.”

Mella felt another yawn forcing its way up her throat. Her eyelids were getting heavy. Roger's voice was gentle and sad.

Mella lay down on her side, wrapping herself in her cloak, staring into the fire, now settling itself into a small heap of red orange coals with the Egg glowing black at its heart. She was sorry about Roger's brother. She thought she should tell him so, but she fell asleep instead.

I
n her dreams, Mella was missing something.

Gran?

No, not her grandmother. Someone else. There was a gap, like an ache in the air, where something had been taken.

What was it? It was hard for her to say. It was as if someone had stolen her liver or her kidney, something that had always been inside her, so much a part of her that she never thought about it at all. Now it was gone and nothing would be right with her until whatever was gone had returned.

Restless, she squirmed in her sleep, twisting her cloak around herself. But the wrongness couldn't
be solved that way. With something other than her ears she heard a whimper and a long, low, hungry howl that shivered its way down into her bones.

When Mella woke, still tired, her cloak was damp with dew. Her nose felt like a frozen lump clinging to her face, and her tears made her cheeks even colder.

It had been no dream. She had felt her dragons missing her.

A herd was always restless without its keeper. Oh, Tilda would feed them and keep an eye out for injuries or sickness. But they'd pine for Mella the way Lady had pined for Gran.

Gran had never left the herd, not even for a day. Other keepers did, when trips to the market or the city had to be made. There were even itinerant keepers with no herds of their own who made their way from town to town, offering to care for dragons so that their keepers could rest or travel.

Poor, pitiful things, Gran had called those gypsy keepers. Wastrels and wanderers. She wouldn't trust her dragons to one of them for a day. A
keeper with no herd of her own was no true keeper.

But Gran had left her dragons after all. And now Mella had done the same. No. Not the same. She would be back. But how could you tell a dragon that? How could she have let her herd know that she was not abandoning them for good?

But what else could she have done, caught between a promise to her dying grandmother and a promise to a dying dragon?

The Egg!

The thought of it pulled Mella bolt upright. Careless, she reached a bare hand into the ashes of the fire and snatched it back a second later. Sucking her burned finger, she sighed with relief. The Egg had not cooled.

Roger was stirring. Before he could wake entirely, Mella retreated into the woods to take care of her own most pressing need. When she returned she found that Roger had gotten up too. Kneeling by the fire, he had a spruce twig thick with needles in his hand and had brushed away
the coals and ashes that Mella had heaped over the Egg. Now it was half exposed to the chilly morning air.

“What are you
doing
?”

Roger turned to look up at Mella, surprised. “Just…checking on it. It's all right, it hasn't cooled, see—”

“It'll get cold! What are you thinking?”

“It's still in the fire.”

“It needs to be covered!” Snatching up her gloves, Mella hurriedly packed the Egg away in the metal box, cushioning it with ashes that would hold in its natural heat until she could put it in a fire once more.

“I only wanted—” Roger started to say.

“Well, don't,” Mella answered tartly as she latched the lid of the box. “I'm the keeper. I'll look after the Egg. You just—”

Mella didn't finish the sentence because she couldn't think, exactly, of what Roger should do. This was
her
quest. She may have left her dragons behind, and she may have been unable to save
Lady, but she
would
take care of the Egg. The dragon had laid it on her to do so. Roger had just…happened to be there.

He might be useful enough in one way or another. But he shouldn't meddle with the Egg. That was her concern, not his.

Packing the box away in her sack, Mella refused to feel remorse for her sharp words or for the slump in Roger's shoulders. They shared the food Mella had brought from the Inn's kitchen: hard traveler's bread, some apples, a chunk of cheese. It was a quiet meal.

“We should go,” Roger said after they had finished. He seemed willing to forget that they had more or less quarreled. “If they come searching for us…” He didn't finish the sentence but tossed the core of his apple away into the woods and rose to saddle the mare.

“I hope Damien's all right,” he muttered anxiously as he tightened the girth. “I'm supposed to look after him.”

“My parents will take care of him.” Mella tried
to make her voice gentle, to show that as long as Roger did not interfere with the Egg she could be as civil as anyone. And then she wished she could stop thinking about her parents, waking to find her gone. At first they would think she was out with the dragons. How long before they realized she was truly missing, and Roger too?

“My father always says once you've decided what you must do, nothing else matters.” Roger looked a little doubtful of this wisdom. “And we have to do this. Don't we?”

Mella felt the weight of the Egg in the sack over her shoulder. She felt the weight of the promise she had made.

Roger's father was right. They had decided to take the Egg where it belonged. There was no sense in regrets now, and no thought of turning around. The only thing to do was to get the job done as quickly as possible.

 

They didn't talk much as they rode and as other travelers began to pass them by—a merchant with
a loaded wagon; a farmer's wife with a cart full of onions to sell; a family on their way for an outing, the children in their cleanest clothes running ahead, the parents calling to them to wait. After a while Roger began to hum. Then to whistle. Then to sing under his breath to the rhythm of the horse's steady jogging pace.

“That's not how it goes,” Mella objected, forgetting that she had planned to be polite.

“What?”

“The song. Those aren't the right words.”

“Of course they are.” Roger twisted to look over his shoulder, a little offended. “I've known that song since I was in the nursery. Everybody knows it.”

Of course everybody knew it. Little children played a game with it, holding hands, spinning in
a ring, faster and faster, until the end when they let go and everyone fell staggering and giggling to the ground. But Roger had gotten the words wrong. Mella chanted,

“That's not right,” Roger said when she'd finished.

“Of course it's right. Gran taught it to me.”

“But it's—Coel
didn't
make the dragons. He fought them. Everybody knows that.”

“It's just a game song,” Mella answered. “It's not
history
. Like the nonsense words at the beginning. It's not supposed to mean anything.” She pointed ahead. “Look, there's the ford.”

There was no bridge over the river at Dragonsford. The spring floods, when snow melted in the mountains, would sweep any such structure away.
Instead, at a shallow place, broad flat stones had been laid in the water so that horses and carts and humans could cross easily, wetting their feet but doing themselves no other harm.

The mare delicately picked her way across the river, and they were in the market town. All the old buildings in Dragonsford were stone built, with slate roofs, close to the river. But a ring of thatched, wooden buildings had sprung up around them.

Mella had known all her life that all the old buildings in the mountains were stone. It hadn't occurred to her to think why. Now, as the mare stepped onto the cobbled main street, she found herself thinking of the scorched trees and smoldering turf where Damien had fought the dragon.

How long had it been since a dragon had been seen near Dragonsford? Long enough for people to forget how fast a straw roof burned.

Over brown thatch and shingles of dark gray slate she could see the Dragontooth Mountains. Mella found she was holding her breath. The
lower slopes were closely covered with dark green spruce, and above were hills of yellow green grass, and then mounds of bare gray rock that rose higher and higher, until her eye reached the peaks splashed white with snow.

Mella had seen those mountains every day of her life. But she hadn't quite realized until now just what she had promised to do. To carry the Egg into that wilderness?

Roger didn't seem troubled by the sight of the mountains like jagged teeth gnawing at the sky. “Do you know this town?” he asked her, raising his voice so she could hear him over the noise ahead.

“I've been here once,” Mella answered. “For the market. Father always stays at the Red Hart when he comes.” She pointed to the right.

Roger turned the mare off to the left. “Then we should stay elsewhere,” he called. “In case they're looking for us.”

He had to speak loudly because the main street of Dragonsford, running along the river, was
thronged with loaded wagons, horses, oxen, donkeys, and people on foot. A shepherd urged his herd along, whistling at a black-eared dog who nipped flanks and nudged shoulders until the sheep turned the right way. Mella saw a tinker's caravan, red and green and yellow. A wagon passed by, loaded with dragons in cages; one of them hissed and beat its stubby wings. And over all the bleats and curses and shouts and laughter, the river itself hissed and churned among stones as it rushed down from the steep slopes of the mountains.

The inn they finally chose was far back from the river, a flimsy wooden structure that seemed to sag to one side. To Mella's mind, the innkeeper should have been ashamed of his dirty yard, his unpainted doorway, and the rank smell that wafted out from his stables. Her father would never have stood for such slovenliness. But surely no one would think to look for them here.

Beside them in the yard, a merchant had thrown back the cover over his wagon and was checking
the goods inside. Mella glimpsed bolts of cloth, small barrels and chests, a case of small, dark bottles, before the man gave her an angry look and moved to block her view.

There was no evidence of other guests. Clearly this was not one of Dragonsford's more popular inns.

“I brought this,” Mella said, and she pulled a bracelet over her wrist to show Roger. The chain was only brass, but there were three beads of red coral to match the five that hung from her necklace, tucked deep inside her sack for safekeeping. “It will pay for a night's lodging, don't you think?”

Roger shook his head.

Dismayed, Mella looked down at her treasured bit of jewelry. Da had taken it in trade from a merchant a year ago and given it, along with the necklace, to her. “But it's—”

“I meant, no, don't sell your bracelet. I have a little money. Enough for this.”

Mella thought she should object. “It's my journey. The dragon laid it on me. I ought—”

“Save it in case we're in real need later,” Roger said practically. “While I have coins, why not spend them?” He finished tying the mare to a hitching post, gave her a quick pat, and headed for the door of the inn. Mella slipped the chain back over her wrist and followed him.

When the innkeeper asked double what Mella's father would have charged for a room, she nearly objected. But Roger caught her eye and shook his head, warning her not to call attention to herself. So Mella just snorted in disapproval as Roger handed over five silver coins.

“And we'll need a fire in the room,” Roger added. The innkeeper, his clothes and hair greasy and his fingernails edged with black, frowned.

“'Tis full spring. We only burn firewood in the winter.”

“My sister's ill,” Roger improvised. Mella took her cue and coughed, trying to look pale. “She needs the warmth.” The man still looked unwilling, and Roger reached into his purse for another coin.

“Don't be such a skinflint, Han.” The merchant
from the yard stood in the doorway, listening to the conversation. “Can't you see that these are not the quality of travelers you ordinarily entertain?”

The man's voice was mocking, but Mella could not tell who he was making fun of, herself or Roger or the innkeeper.

“If you take my advice,” the man continued, eyeing the innkeeper hard, “you'll treat these two guests well indeed.”

The innkeeper gave the merchant a puzzled, resentful look but muttered, “Well enough, well enough.” Roger drew his hand back out of his purse.

The merchant gave Roger and Mella a friendly smile. He was handsome, with eyes of a keen blue and long fair hair braided smoothly down his back, and prosperous as well. A gold ring shone on his finger; his vest was fine green wool, dark to contrast with the long, narrow red silk scarf around his neck. Still, Mella found herself a little uneasy. She wanted to turn aside from his attention.

But the man had helped them, after all, and she
didn't want to act like a stupid peasant girl, frightened of everything in the city. And what was she afraid of? It was not as if they had anything to steal—the few coins in Roger's purse, her two bits of jewelry, and a dragon's egg. Hardly enough to tempt a rogue or a thief. She gave the man a nod of thanks before the innkeeper led them upstairs to their room.

The floor needed scrubbing, and the bedding could have used a good airing, Mella thought fastidiously. But at least the room had a fireplace and a door that shut and latched.

Mella took the metal box out of her sack and opened it to check on the Egg. It was still hot enough to redden the fingers she held nearly an inch above the black surface.

“You stay and wait for the fire,” Roger said. “I'll go to the marketplace. We'll need food to travel into the mountains.”