Dragon In The Needles Read online

  “For glory!” Flynn shouted and lunged his sword at the Lump’s ample belly.

  The Lump felt the vibrations in his right hand as his sword met the attacker’s and deflected the charge. His heart pounded in his chest like a drum being beaten by an overly eager child. Everything around him slowed as he focused on his adversary.

  Flynn moved in a circle with short hopping steps.

  The Lump countered the man’s hops with his own slow, sideways strides.

  Flynn pulled his sword in against his body and raised the shiny weapon high in the air, a grimace on his face.

  The Lump saw the aggressor’s blade screaming toward his head in a wide, slashing arc, powerful but imprecise. He threw all of his weight back on his heels and leaned to avoid the blow. He raised his own sword to meet the oncoming steel and the metal rang through the room as swords collided. He moved another strike aside, and saw the man begin to pull his shiny sword upward into a furious backslash.

  Flynn allowed his weapon’s point to drop too low, leaving the hands that wielded it exposed. The Lump launched his meaty left hand at the challenger’s wrists and wrapped it around them. He squeezed his hand with all his strength, his grip around the man’s hands was as tight as a vise. His enemy struggled in futility to break free of his grasp.

  The Lump felt blood rush to his head and, by Instinct, raised his sword hand high in the air. The muscles in his shoulder were taut cords that brought his arm down with a mighty swing. The fist clutching his undersized sword crashed down on his enemy’s head. The hilt of the sword came to rest squarely in the center of the now defenseless man’s metal helm with a heavy thud. The weapon’s blade, however, never touched him.

  Flynn’s tiny helmet flew off, and he dropped his sword. The force of the blow caused his knees to buckle and his body fell to the ground. On his belly, the man pawed the floor blindly in search of his lost weapon.

  The Lump looked down at the man writhing on the floor. I need to end this foolishness. He placed his large foot on the man’s blade and pinned it to the ground.

  2: Meena

  The small figure in the corner jumped down from her chair and threw back the hood of her dark green cloak. “What have you done?” She had auburn hair, and freckles were sprinkled across her cheeks. “I needed him! I needed the Hero of Aardland!”

  The Lump felt his tongue become knotted in his mouth, unable to make words. She can’t be more than fourteen. He saw her mismatched eyes staring at him, unblinking. The right one was as blue as the Empty Sea, the left one green, like a shiny emerald. He managed to find his words. “I…I was just trying to eat stew when this man decided to see if he could dirty his new sword with my insides.”

  The girl took several long strides toward the Lump and placed her tiny finger a fraction of an inch from his nose. “He was trying to be a hero!” She pulled back her lips, speaking through gritted teeth. “And all you’re worried about is eating stew!”

  Martin came out from under the table. “It’s right good stew m’lady, you should try some.”

  Wendy marched out of the kitchen, holding her large, wooden stirring-spoon as if it were a war hammer. “Now what is all this!” She fixed her gaze on the Lump.

  The Lump felt his heart jump into his throat with Wendy’s entrance. He closed his eyes. He felt like he was twelve again and had been caught stealing sweets from the kitchen. “I told him you don’t allow no swords drawn here in the Bowl.” He opened his eyes wide and dropped the corners of his lips into a frown. He tried as best he could to look like a sad hound.

  The man lying on the floor began to stir, mumbling, “wha..wha..how..who..”

  Wendy walked toward the waking pile of a man. “Well, thank goodness you didn’t kill him.” She looked down at the man at her feet. “Shame on you! No swords drawn in the tavern, I’m half a mind to give you a couple more good whacks with my spoon.” She marched over to the girl who had now removed her finger from the Lump’s face. “Who are you young lady? And what stake do you have in all this?”

  The freckled girl’s eyebrows lifted and her teeth unclenched. “I’m Meena. I needed to find someone to fix the mess that the last Hero of Aardland made.” She dropped her head, looking at the dirt floor. “I’ve been following him to see if he is really a hero.”

  “Looks like there’s no heroes here, best go back to your turnips, then move on.” The Lump took his boot off of the sword, picked it up, and handed it hilt first to Wendy.

  Wendy tucked her spoon into her apron and took the sword.

  From the floor, Flynn was finally able to construct a sentence. “Yes, there is a hero here.” He stood up slowly and rubbed his head. He listed to the side a couple of short, shuffling steps, then found his footing.

  Wendy produced a damp rag and offered it to Flynn. “Here, put this on your head. It might help you get your wits back.” She held up the sword. “You can have this back if you promise to keep it in its proper place.” Wendy’s plump cheeks rose as she grinned at the man. “Draw it out again and you’ll find my wooden spoon a sight less merciful than my nephew here.”

  “What do you mean, there’s a hero here?” Meena was standing with her hands on her hips, her bent elbows parted her cloak revealing a gold handled dagger fastened to her belt.

  All the pressure had left the Lump’s chest. He was breathing easily and the muscles in his jaws relaxed as he looked at Flynn. “I must have hit you too berry-popping hard, you seem to have forgotten what just happened.” The Lump let out a laugh from deep in his belly.

  “No, sir, I remember all too well.” Flynn held the rag over the spot on his head where the blow landed. He awkwardly placed his sword in its scabbard with his left hand. “Now, not only by right of birth, but also by right of combat, you, sir, are the Hero of Aardland.”

  The Lump felt the inside of his head growing too large for his skull again. “Where do these worm-eating rules come from?” The Lump turned his chair away from the table and dropped down onto it. “Heroes are fools, and I’m no fool. Listen, I’m a turnip digger, and a wood chopper, and a stone stacker…but I’m no hero.” He rubbed his head with both hands. I’m too tired. When is this foolishness going to end?

  “I think Flynn is right.” Meena turned her head to face the man holding a rag to his head. “Any of the father’s debts would pass to the son.”

  “Now hold on there, I don’t know who my pop owed money to, but he didn’t leave me so much as a copper!” The Lump wagged his finger in the air as he spoke.

  “It’s not coin.” Meena’s eye’s narrowed. “It’s that putrid dragon.”

  Wendy’s face lost all expression. “What does a young girl like you know about Old Red Line?” Wendy gripped the wooden spoon tucked in her apron. “You could have hardly been born when Silas died driving the beast from the land.” Wendy stared directly into the girl’s eyes. “I’m telling you, you better not lie to me girl.”

  Meena met Wendy’s gaze, her face stone. “He drove it from your land,” Meena paused, “but he drove it into mine.”

  “He wounded it something awful.” Wendy tilted her head to one side. “Surely it just went there to die.”

  “Where is there?” The Lump was confused by the words exchanged between Wendy and Meena.

  “The Common Lands,” Meena answered as she returned to her chair in the corner.

  Martin was back at the great table finishing what was left of his ale. “Common Lands is what you Needler folk call the Needles ain’t it?”

  The Lump craned his head around. “Probably best you stay out of this one, Marty.”

  “The Needles are the rocks, the Common Lands is the place…and we’re not Needlers, we’re Common Folk!” Meena answered in a voice loud enough to ensure that she was heard clearly from her corner. “The dragon was dormant the past twelve years, everyone believed it must be dead.” She looked at the remains of her mashed turnips and carrots, then looked back to the center of the room. “Something has stirred the nasty thing, no
w none of us are safe, there’s no peace in the Common Lands.” Her voice quieted a bit. “At first it just took a sheep or a pig, but we don’t keep much livestock.” Her head dropped. “Next it came for the people. It claims something, or now mostly someone, every day. There are so many places for it to hide in waiting, grabbing people unaware. There’s never any chance to flee.”

  “So you come all the way south, to our wide spot in the road?” The Lump scratched his broad thigh through his brown, cloth breeches. “I feel like you’re leaving something out.”

  “At first I went to Bleuderry, Common Folk don’t garner much attention there.” Meena tugged at her hood with one hand. “I kept my head down and listened, it’s funny how quickly a quiet girl becomes forgotten in Aardland.” She pointed to her right ear. “I heard people talk about their coming and going, mostly empty gossip, but some news.”

  The Lump shook his head from side to side. “Well, I doubt you heard any news of Windthorne up in Bleuderry.”

  Meena clinched her hand into a fist. “I don’t like being interrupted.” She shifted her gaze from the Lump to Flynn. “I heard some people speak of a man south of the river, in Silverport, aspiring to be a new hero for Aardland.”

  “Truly? They know about me in Bleuderry?” Flynn flashed a broad smile.

  The Lump looked at Flynn’s smiling face, dimples formed in the man’s cheeks where the corners of his mouth turned upward. He said, “If you make an impression like this on all the taverns you enter, I’d gamble that they are laughing about you in the northernmost mountains of Gallis.” The Lump felt a tinge of joy as the smile disappeared from Flynn’s face.

  Meena stomped her foot. “You can’t hear if you don’t listen!” She continued her tale. “There were peddlers from Silverport looking to sell coin for stone.” She brushed a strand of red hair that had fallen in her face back behind her ear. “The stone comes from the Needles, so there was none to be had, the quarrymen dare not collect it.”

  “You know you’re allowed to leave out the boring parts.” The Lump took a deep breath. “You can get straight to the heart of it.”

  Meena’s face wrinkled up from her nose to where her red hair swept back from her forehead. “The southern men heard about the dragon. They mentioned a rich lad who would probably love to be eaten by it.”

  The Lump let fly a short burst of laughter, part of which came through his nose in a snort.

  “I’m glad you find such joy in a tale of my suffering.” Meena closed her eyes a moment, then opened them. “They said he was brave enough. He was also said to be well armed and armored, thanks to his father’s deep purses.” She looked at Flynn, the corners of her eyes dropped. “They said your mettle had yet to be tested.”

  Meena took a drink from a cup on the table beside her bowl. “I made my way to the Oxhorn. I used a couple of coppers I earned brushing down horses in Bleuderry to pay a boatman to ferry me across the river.” She looked into her now empty cup. “I made it to Silverport just as Flynn was leaving. I followed behind him at a distance. I surmised his destination, and came here to wait for him.”

  “You stalk the man like a catamount stalking a deer?” The Lump felt a ball of anger in his gullet. “A spy, what a wicked little devil you are!”

  “I had to know if he was really a hero.” Meena dropped her head, looking at the floor. “I had to know I could trust him. A girl traveling alone, so far from home, must be cunning.”

  “And brave.” Flynn smiled at her.

  “So you’ve come here to find a hero?” The Lump leaned back in his chair. “Why don’t one of you Common Folk deal with it?”

  “Some have tried. We make the sharpest arrows in all three lands, but they can’t penetrate the beast’s hide.” The corners of Meena’s mouth dropped into a frown. “It was an Aard that drove him there, it should be the responsibility of you selfish lot to deal with it.”

  The Lump was unsettled by the uneven gaze Meena gave him. “I’m sorry for your peril, but I’m not a fool like my father.” He snorted. “I’m not going abroad in search of monsters to slay.”

  Flynn folded the damp rag Wendy had given him into a tidy square. “It’s true, I’m not yet the hero I’d hoped to be…” He dropped to one knee in front of Meena. “…but I will swear my sword to your cause, and seek my glory in your defense.”

  “Thank you, Flynn,” Meena answered, “but this is a labor that would be best served by a group.” Meena shifted her gaze from Flynn back to the Lump. “And you, will you try to help? Will you accept responsibility? Will you endeavor to finish what your father started?”

  Flynn turned his face to the Lump. “What she says is true, and, well…I’ve never been north of Molgadon. Maybe you would know the best way?”

  “I’m no hero, and I’m not a fool.” The Lump stood up from his chair. “And those are just two words for the same thing by my accounting.” He walked toward the door. “I’m certainly no guide. I’m happy with my quiet life here, where people leave me alone.”

  Meena spoke in a loud voice, “You are the hero, you defeated your challenger.” She looked around the room, then back to the Lump. “It’s not your choice. Try as you might to deny it, you have to accept it. You have to help.”

  The Lump felt exhausted. “Why are you the one who decides that?”

  “Because I felt something needed to be done.” Meena crossed her arms in front of her. “When you feel that way, it means that you do something.”

  The Lump shook his head, he wanted no further conversation. “May the dragon take the lot of you! I’m going to bed, please be gone by morning.” He walked out of the tavern.

  His bowl of stew remained on the high table.

  3: Old Red Line

  The Lump’s head felt like something was swimming around inside of it when he opened the stable door. I can finally go to bed.

  He grabbed a handful of dried oats from an old pail hanging on the rusty hook by the door. “Here you go, Tilley, old girl.” He raised his open palm to the mule’s mouth, letting her eat the oats. “That’s a good girl, you won’t go and try to drag me off on some fool’s errand.” His hand felt a tickle as the mule’s tongue gathered up the last of the grain. “You’re the only friend a man needs.” He watched one of the mule’s ears twitch. “If I’m being honest with you, I think you’re the only friend I got.” He ran his hand down the side of the animal’s neck. The gray coat felt dry and soft. “Alright Tilley, it’s time for some shut eye. Try not to snore tonight.”

  The Lump sat on his straw bed in the stall next to the mule. He took off each of his boots and his leather cap and sat them in a pile beside his bed. He began unfastening the leather buckles on his vest when he heard the handle being raised on the stable door. “Wendy, is that you?”

  Wendy entered carrying the bowl of stew. “Yes Ollie, I thought you might want to eat that stew before you go to sleep.” Wendy raised the bowl a few inches higher in the Lump’s direction. “If you don’t want it I’m sure Tilley would make good use of it.”

  The Lump felt his stomach wake up. “My thanks. In here I can eat in peace.”

  Wendy turned an old turnip crate on its side and placed the stew on it. “You were only eleven when you came to me here, I promised my sister that I would keep you safe until you had grown.” She placed a spoon in the stew and stirred it. “You were so much like her as a child, you know.” She handed him the spoon.

  “Is that right?” The Lump raised a spoonful of stew to his mouth and swallowed it. “You’ve never told me that before.” He grinned and took another bite of stew.

  “Yes, you’re like Meri, so big she was. The children always called her Big Merigola.” Wendy found another empty crate to use as a chair, and sat on it. “Thank Sol that you got her disposition. If you had your father’s temper, big as you are? Well, people would likely have something worse than a dragon to worry about.”

  Wendy crossed her arms on her lap. “The way the other children called you the Lump, I was wor
ried I would see the Silas in you come out.”

  “I still remember him. His temper didn’t seem so bad.” The Lump saw that his bowl was almost empty.

  “Oh, but before you were born…” Wendy looked upward with her eyes and shook her head side to side. “He was feisty. Everyone was grateful that he was a hero and not a brigand.” Wendy shifted on the crate. “When he fell in love with your mother he was only an inch past five feet tall.” Wendy paused and smiled. “It was like a cat had married a bear… but if he was a cat, he was a stable cat, brave enough to fight a mule twice Tilley’s size.” Wendy raised her finger and waved it side to side. “No one dared call my sister Big Merigola once Silas was courting her.”

  “Maybe if he was a brigand, he wouldn’t have gotten himself and my mum killed.” The Lump raised the bowl to his mouth and drank the last drops of broth.

  “You are so much like your mother, but maybe you’ve got a touch of hero in you as well.” Wendy extended her open hand to receive the empty bowl.

  “Well, if I got a touch of hero it’s going to remain untouched.” He passed the bowl to Wendy. “I haven’t ever done anything to be mistaken for some chip-flipping hero, and I’m sure not starting with this dragon business.”

  “You know, it was only three days ago when you chased off a bear, out by Rose’s place.” Wendy wiped the inside of the bowl with the corner of her apron, and placed it on her lap.

  “What? That was barely more than a cub! I only clapped my hands and shouted. Anyone could have done that.” The Lump noticed that his mouth was agape and closed it.

  “But anyone didn’t do it, you did.” Wendy tilted her head down slightly and rolled here eyes upward at him. “So, you don’t want to be a hero. What do you want to do?”

  The Lump searched his head for a moment. “Run the tavern, let you retire, and…” The Lump felt a long deep breath enter his lungs, he hesitated, then finished his answer. “…maybe grow potatoes in the patch instead of turnips.” He raised his chin and held it high.