Dragon Castle (19 page)

So Paulek and I have always tried to never miss a market fair—when such entertainers might appear. Jugglers and tumblers who visit our kingdom more than once learn to expect the eager faces of two tall, well-clad lads at the front of the crowd. Some know us well enough to bring us into their acts by hurling their clubs or balls our way, knowing we'll catch and return them as easily as another man lifts a hand to greet a friend.

The two jugglers we saw that day were new to us. Their faces were masked, their hair unusually long, their clothing loose and flowing. They raised their arms, spun around a few times, then backed off to face each other from a distance of a dozen paces.

“Now,” cried the bald, black-mustached leader of the little caravan of painted wagons that had brought the Gypsy entertainers into our midst, “my two talented offspring will amaze you!”

“Zacni!”
said the first slender youth, producing a handful of knives. “Begin!”

“Teraz,”
cried the second, pulling out a similar number of blades. “Now!”

Then, their hands moving as quickly as any I'd ever seen, they began hurling those knives back and forth. In most such acts, the blades are shiny but dull, their weight light. But these knives were different. For one they looked to be quite sharp and weighty. For another, each bore a wide twin, double-edged blade with a single hilt. That made catching them as they spun a more complicated feat.

I was fascinated—as was Paulek. Their skill and grace were impressive. My brother and I might match them, but it would take some practice. I found myself liking the way the two lads moved as they juggled. Soon I was hardly noticing their blades, but focusing more on the dance of their bodies. I was especially fascinated by the slender one who spoke second. I mentally identified him by the word he'd called out in a husky voice.
Teraz. What would Teraz look like if he raised his mask? What would he . . . ?

Nie. By the head of the dragon! Not he, she!
A strange feeling came to the pit of my stomach.

I opened my eyes and found myself back with Uncle Jozef and Baba Anya.

“Rashko,” a gentle voice says. “You liked?”

Baba Anya's hand is on my shoulder. She looks amused. She's not just talking about the food.

“Ano,”
I admit.

I liked very much. So much so that when their performance was done and those two jugglers had disappeared into the nearest wagon, Paulek and I sat outside waiting for them to re-emerge. Paulek wanted to talk with them about juggling. So, more or less, did I. Paulek seemed less aware than I that the two we'd watched so intently were young women.

To our mutual disappointment, the girls failed to re-emerge. Paulek finally dared to knock on the wall of that wagon. No answer. He peered tentatively inside, turned back to me crestfallen. “No one there.”

Baba Anya and Uncle Jozef are still looking at me, knowing smiles on both their faces.

I hold up my arm and study the long cut. It's rapidly healing—as my wounds always do when I come for help to Baba Anya. Soon all that will remain of the deep slash will be a faint scar down my forearm. Eventually, that wound may be forgotten.

I don't think I am going to forget the memory of those two sisters. In fact, now that I think of it, they exactly matched the jugglers pictured in Pavol's tapestry!

How do they fit into Pavol's story? Or is it that the tapestry portrays not just his tale but some part of my own?

I stand and tuck the parchment into my shirt. Uncle Jozef holds out something to me. It's a large, well-honed butcher knife.

“You need,” he says, slapping the heavy knife into my palm. “Cuts good.”

 

 

THAT KNIFE IS now in my belt as my two companions and I approach the rear of Hladka Hvorka castle through the forest. As we cautiously make our way up the hill I wonder what threat will next rear its head. Sentient stones rising up to crush us? Flying demons from the sky? The worst thing that happens is that a squirrel hurls down some twigs, accompanied by curses in rodent talk. We've passed a bit too closely under the two oak trees he considers his private fiefdom. We reach the wood's edge and look out at the back of the castle without having had a single new misadventure.

On the other side of the thirty-foot-wide moat rises the blank lower back wall of the castle. Eighty feet up are the first embrasures—recessed, wellreinforced windows from which an archer might shoot down at enemies attempting a rear assault. Those barred portholes are not manned. They never have been. Ours has been a realm at peace since Pavol assumed rule.

Hardly anyone, except for Paulek and me, ever mounts the steep stairs to peer out at the pleasant view of the nearby forest and distant fields below.

The back wall is indeed formidable. Any enemy would be foolish to attempt to breach Hladka Hvorka from this direction. Scale a blank wall seven stories high? Try to break through the thirty feet of solid stone at its base?

But every castle has its ways for those within to slip out surreptitiously. When Hladka Hvorka rose, mystically shaped, it was provided with another egress. (An egress is an exit. Not, as my brother believes, a large sort of bird.) Only our family and our trusted retainers know the other secret way.

Baron Temny and his band do not. I am certain of that. Spellbound though he might be by the princess, my brother would never reveal the hidden passage to any outsider. Of course, that might be because he's forgotten all about it.

I walk back down to the twin oaks and sit beneath the one unoccupied by a chattering furry-tail seeking to repel invaders.

Ucta and Odvaha come to lay themselves down on either side of me, placing their large heads in my lap.

Impatient as I am, I'm again hearing Pavol's silent voice.

Wait, he is saying. Gather strength.

Whether his voice is real or merely in my imagination, it's good council. It's been a very long day. The sun, now close to the top of the hills, will soon set. I'm exhausted. The fighting, the healing, the worrying, have all taken a greater toll on me. Also—minus the worrying, which is more of a human trait—on my two faithful friends. We need all our strength to take the next step. If we hurry too much, we may make some fatal misstep. As Father says, the mouse that rushes out of its hole without looking is the best friend of the cat.

Ucta and Odvaha close their eyes. Just like that they are fast asleep.

I wish I could sleep. But I can't, not with all these uncertainties. What will we find inside the walls of Hladka Hvorka now? I sigh heavily. But only once before taking a deeper, more determined breath and straightening my shoulders. I can no longer allow myself the luxury of either uncertainty or self-pity. Pavol himself was not always certain that he was up to being a hero. That was an important lesson for me. Still he pressed on. It has to be the same for me. I need to find what is hidden there in the darkness beneath our castle. I need to find more of Pavol in me. I'll need it.

Though Paulek and I have used this secret way to sneak out of our home, we've never used it to enter. From what my parents told me, one who tries to come in this way from the outside will find the way is quite well and dangerously guarded.

I'm not sure I want to think about that right now. I shift my position and something under my shirt digs into my side. The scroll! I'd forgotten all about it. There's still light enough for me to read it. What better way to pass this time?

DESPITE THE FACT that Dva's head was larger and fangier, it loomed no farther above Pavol than had its brother Jedna.

Bigger does not mean smarter
, Pavol thought.

This time he ventured no reply. Instead he stood high in his stirrups to swing his sword in a second strong stroke.

Chonk!

Dva's head went bounding down the mountain slope after Jedna's.

The snake-like neck of Dva waved back and forth a few times much as Jedna's had done. It appeared, if it is possible for a headless neck to do so, not only confused, but also disappointed and even a bit betrayed. Then it too was yanked back into the darkness of the cave mouth.

“Jedna,” Pavol said musingly, repeating the name that meant “one,” and raising his sword at the ready.

“Dva, two” Jedovaty added, with yet another sigh. “Do you suppose that means the next one will be . . .”

“
Ja som
Tri!” roared the titanic three-horned head shot toward them, fangs dripping poison. “You perish here on this . . .”

Chonk!

Tri's head, rounder than its two predecessors, rolled a bit farther down the mountainside before lodging against a boulder.

“How high can dragons count?” Jedovaty said as Tri's resentful neck dragged itself unceremoniously back into the stygian depths.

Pavol studied the ominous glow beginning to emanate from the cave.

“At least up to four,” he said, raising his shield. “And four is for . . .”

Fire came shooting out of the cave mouth, a great searing wave meant to reduce them to cinders. It surely would have done so, had it not been for Pavol's shield. Somehow its surface caught those flames, sucking them in, absorbing them as thoroughly as if the shield had been a lake and the dragon's deadly breath no more than a burning brand dropped into its waters.

As it was, the ends of Jedovaty's mane and tail were singed and Pavol's right eyebrow quite burned off.

“
Ja som
Shtyri!” howled the triumphant fourhorned head that fast followed the flames. “Burned to ashes your bones!”

It looked down, a smile on its befanged countenance, expecting to see nothing more than charred flesh. Then it paused, quite taken aback by the sight of horse and rider still standing. A bit blackened, but nonetheless intact.

Shtyri lowered its grim head toward them. “Hunh,” it growled, “how . . .”

Chonk!

Peht was next, a five-horned horror just as dense—and speedily dispatched—as the dragon heads before it.

Silently and somewhat more tentatively, six-horned Sest came snaking out to make its quick acquaintance with the edge of Pavol's sword—Chonk!—and the force of gravity.

Jedovaty peered down the slope. “Plenty of room down there for more,” he observed.

“Let's hope that one was the last,” Pavol replied. “Or that any remaining ones are as stupid and slow to learn as were those first six.”

“Ahoj,”
a high voice came trilling out of the cave. “Hello.
Prepacte?
Excuse me, human with long, sharp sword.”

“What now?” Jedovaty said.

“Csakaj,”
said Pavol, raising both sword and shield. “Wait.”

“Ahoj!”
the high voice repeated, breaking just a bit into roughness. “I lovely young human woman who was prisoner of bad monster. Is safe now to put down sword and shield and come rescue me. I not dragon trying to trick you.”

Jedovaty looked up at Pavol with one eye. “Seven heads,” the former donkey observed, “and not a working brain in any one of them?”

Pavol nodded. “Sedem,” he shouted. “Come out.”

A moment of silence followed. Then the high trilling voice spoke again, “How you know my name Sedem?”

“Because we can count,” Jedovaty said. “Because you are stupider than the stones of this mountain. Because one wise man is better than a thousand morons. Because—”

“Shh,” Pavol said, trying not to smile. “Sedem,” he shouted again. “Come out. If you do not try to harm us, we will not hurt you.”

There was a longer pause and then the dragon answered, its voice no longer a falsetto.

“
Ano.
I come out. I no try harm you.”

The voice was followed by the sound of heavy scales rasping along the rough stones deep within the cave. As that sound came closer and closer, Pavol chucked Jedovaty in the side with his heels, quietly urging him farther back from the cave mouth and behind a very large boulder as the dragon began to emerge.

But not headfirst. First slid out a sharp ridged tail, as long and stout as the main beam of a great hall. As soon as it emerged, that mighty tail swished back and forth, crushing rocks and sending sprays of dust into the air as it scraped the surface of the ledge where the young man and his steed had stood. The tail's intention might have been lethal, but it was ineffectual. Pavol and Jedovaty were safely sheltered by the cottage-size stone.

“Oh no,” said Sedem as he turned around, raising up a crested head that was surprisingly small and deficient in dentition compared to its deceased brothers, whose snaky necks were even now being absorbed back into the dragon's massive body. Sedem looked left and then right, slanted yellow eyes hooded in a clever expression. “What my stupid tail do by accident? I no try harm poor human and horse.” His voice was tinged with theatrical regret.

“No harm done,” Pavol said as he and his steed stepped out from behind the stone.

“Not yet,” Jedovaty added.

It would be an understatement to say that Sedem the dragon was abashed by his lack of success in accidentally dispatching his enemies with his tail. Rather like saying that the razor-edged sword Pavol swung high in his strong right hand was slightly sharp.

The dragon closed his eyes and cowered, certain that the last sounds he would remember would be the quick snick of a brilliant blade through scale, muscle and bone.

Instead, Sedem heard no more than his own rather labored breathing. Dragons are prone to asthmatic attacks when upset, a not uncommon ailment among those whose throats must intermittently bear the force of fire.