Dragon Castle (27 page)

Paulek is readying himself to use the silver sword I handed him.

“STOV!”
I cry, loud enough to be heard over the echoing din of clanging armor and panicking soldiers. “Stand!”

Paulek lowers the sword, though his knuckles remain white from the tightness of his grasp on its hilt.

The long neck, the massive scaled body, the impressive, twitching tail—which I am also keeping one eye on—are all quite familiar. Sedem is just as I saw him when I looked down on his mountain through an eagle's eyes. There around his neck is the ring my ancestor placed there. The bracelet on my wrist throbs as I look at that silver neck ring and I feel the connection. As does Sedem, who gracefully lowers his head closer to study my bracelet. I note the bright rainbow sheen of the great dragon's scales.

What might be a smile curves up the monster's jaws. Did the creature hear my thought. Was he pleased by such praise?

Sedem's toothy grin definitely broadens. An impressive golden crest lifts on the top of his head.

“Nice master,” Sedem hisses. He flicks a long pink tongue down to caress—or taste—my cheek. I'm very glad that I'm wearing this bracelet. That warm wave of air redolent of old earth and sulfur in the dragon's breath suggests that without it I'd be bathed in flame.

I reach out to touch each of my companions in turn.

“Kamarat, kamarat, kamarat, kamarat.”
I pat Ucta and Odvaha, touch Black Yanosh and Paulek on their shoulders.
“Kamaratka,”
I add, taking the hands of Appollina and her sister. Close friends, all. “No hurt!”

Sedem nods his huge head twice. “No hurt,” he repeats, though he sounds a bit disappointed.

I make a wide gesture that takes in all the others in the hall from the disordered warriors to the two authors of all our woes who are standing with hunched shoulders on the dais.

“Zly!”
I say. “Bad!”

“Dobre,”
Sedem growls as he gapes his jaws wide in a pleased yawn. “Good.” He turns to look at the baron and his wife.

Poteshenie lifts up the rune sword in both hands. Her body quivers as she gathers herself.
“Blesky!”
she shrills.

An impressive green bolt leaps from the sword's tip. Sedem opens his mouth and swallows the lightning.

“Nice.” Sedem burps. “Taste good.”

Temny raises himself to his full height. He elevates both of his hands over his head. The dramatic effect is rather spoiled by the cloth that he wrapped around his wounded hand. It's come loose and is dangling in front of his face.

“I am Temny!” he screams in a high voice that sounds a bit hysterical. “None can stand against me. I am Lord of the Dark Ways!”

“I hungry,” Sedem replies.

Then he strikes—with incredible speed for one so huge.

Sedem starts at the podium, then makes a circuit of the room like a hungry guest circling a banquet table. When Sedem is done—our great hall is empty of all save my comrades, the great worm, and me.

Sedem turns toward us and begins to lower his head. There's still hunger in the dragon's eyes.

“Hold up your sword,” I say to my brother out of the side of my mouth. Then, as Paulek does just that, I lift my arm that bears the bracelet.

“Prestan!”
I command. Sedem stops.

Sedem settles back on his haunches. “I stop,” the great beast hisses. “See. No choke.” The dragon bears his teeth in what is probably meant to be a friendly grin. Then he lifts his right foot up to use a long middle claw to dislodge a piece of gold and black chain armor lodged between his front teeth.

“Dobre,”
Sedem adds with a satisfied burp.
“Spat znova?
Sleep again?”

“Ano,”
I agree, gesturing downward.
“Spat.
Sleep.”

Sedem turns. As he slithers toward the hole in the wall, his tail makes an absentminded swipe in our direction. I have already foreseen that and quickly herded our small party over to duck down on the other side of the dais. The dragon's tail swishes over us.

Sedem looks back over his shoulder, a bit hopefully, it seems.

I stand up, Paulek next to me.

“Sorry,” Sedem hisses. “Tail bad.”

I tap the bronze bracelet with one finger.

“Spat!”
I say, putting more iron into my words. “Now.”

Sedem eyes the bracelet and nods. “I go now. Sleep.”

The last we see of him is the tip of his glittering tail vanishing through the gaping hole in the wall.

Black Yanosh strokes his mustache as he looks at me and Paulek. “I would say that you both did rather well.”

It's the highest praise I've ever heard from his lips.

Paulek nods. Then, instead of hitting me in a bigbrotherly way, he reaches over and takes me by the hand.

“Brother,” he says, “I am proud of you.”

Tears come to my eyes. I squeeze his hand and nod to my good, brave brother, my true
kamarat.

Georgi comes through the doorway that leads to the back stairs as soon as the dragon disappears. He's followed by the three Graces, Charity, and most of our other retainers, including Zelezo, Jazda, and Hreben.

I'm a bit taken aback. How has Georgi managed to retrieve everyone so quickly? I thought all of them had taken refuge far from Hladka Hvorka. And why does Georgi put me in mind of a certain Gypsy juggler? What would he look like with a mustache on his face and a pillow stuffed under his shirt? I am going to have to have a long talk with him.

Grace, Grace, Grace, and Charity move to the sides of Appollina and Valentina.

“Come with us,” the oldest of our Graces says.

“You need to freshen up a bit,” says the second Grace.

“Wouldn't a bit of tea be lovely now?” Charity asks.

And just like that, as if they had not been engulfed in a storm of revenge and treachery, magic and bloodshed moments ago, the two martial sisters put down their weapons. They allow themselves to be led from the hall. They're actually giggling as they chatter about clean clothes and bathing and drinking tea. I do not understand women.

Georgi casts a critical eye at the broken and no longer concealed doorway, the disarranged but undamaged tapestry, the floor, the walls, and the dais of the great hall. All bear reminders of Sedem's feast. Even the high ceiling has not escaped the occasional spray of blood and gout of torn flesh. Dragons are, I have discovered, decidedly messy eaters.

Georgi taps the ends of his fingers together, then nods and gestures to our other capable servants, who are carrying brushes, shovels, and pails of water.

“There is a bit of work to do,” Georgi says, “cleaning away these, ah, leftovers.”

MY PARENTS RETURNED just as the evening torches were being lit. When Georgi came to our chamber to tell us of their arrival, Paulek and I were engaging in conversation with the princesses. True princesses—that is what Appollina and Valentina are. Now that the sisters have bathed and dressed themselves in better clothing, my brother and I found it hard to believe that those two striking young women could ever have been taken for men or itinerant entertainers, good as they were at playing that role. When they first walked into the room where Paulek and I were waiting, their loveliness took our breaths away.

We bade them to sit, which they did quite gracefully and properly. Then there followed some awkward minutes while the four of us tried to find something to say. The fight we'd just survived had been so terrible that none of us wished to be the first to bring it up. Then Ucta walked over and put his head into Valentina's lap. That led to Paulek relating how our four-legged brothers came to us, followed by Valentina's tale of how the old sheepdog that was their childhood companion once saved her from drowning.

We soon discovered that royal blood and juggling were not all that we had in common. Appollina's wry sense of humor is much like my own. Valentina is, indeed, just as vigorous and fond of animals as my kind-hearted, athletic brother. Soon Valentina and my brother were wrestling on the floor with Ucta and Odvaha.

“At times I wish I could be like that,” Appollina whispered. “I spend far too much time thinking and worrying.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Look at them,” Appollina added. “They are so loyal. And all they ask to be happy is to be well fed and petted.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and that is also true of the dogs.”

We were both trying not to laugh out loud when Georgi came to tell us of my parents' return.

“Go,” Appollina said. Valentina nodded. “You will want time with them. You have much to tell. We wait here until you are ready to introduce us.”

IT TURNED OUT that Father and Mother had, indeed, heard my call for them to return and immediately left the grand affair.

“We are so sorry, but we must be going.”

“Lovely party, but the children need us.”

With amazing ease and no loss of time, they left the Silver Lands and rode straight home.

They might have been here sooner had they not been slowed by various groups of people who stopped them along the way. Some of them were merchants and landowners who'd fled the hall before the fighting and fervently wished to reassure my parents of their continued loyalty. Others were mercenaries who'd managed to escape out the doors before our scaly ally had his afternoon repast.

“Rather a bother,” Father says, “having to deal with one bruised and terrified armored man after another hurling himself on his belly to beg us for mercy.”

“Yes, yes, it's quite all right,” Father and Mother told each of them. “Just leave our land and never return again, that's a good fellow.”

The one who took the most of their time was the baron's no longer haughty herald, who'd watched from outside and seen through the open doors all the events that transpired. Truba's confession of guilt included a detailed account of what the plans of the late Temny and his consort had been. More detailed than necessary, according to my mother.

“The fellow could hardly stop talking long enough for us to pardon him,” Mother says. “Some people just seem to enjoy hearing themselves talk.”

I walk with them into the great hall. Already, there's now little to show of what occurred. Georgi and our servants have, with amazing speed, mopped up nearly all traces of the carnage. All that remains is the sword mark on the corner of the dais. The secret doorway has been repaired—or did it repair itself?

“Well done,” Father says, clapping Paulek and me on our shoulders. Then Mother enfolds us in an embrace.

“Now take us to our guests,” Mother says.

 

 

AS SOON AS my mother spies Appollina and Valentina, her smile lights up so brightly that it seems as if the sun has entered the room.

“You lovely young ladies must be the daughters of my dear old friend Katina! Welcome, dears! How are she and your father, King Karel?”

The sad looks that come over the faces of Appollina and her sister are more eloquent than any words.

Then, as she often does, despite her lack of intellectual brilliance, Mother knows what to do. She spreads her arms wide to the two orphaned girls.

“My poor dears, come here to me.”

And just like that, they do.

As my mother listens they sob out the story of their parents' murders. They tell how they made their escape with the help of the good Gypsies whom their father (like our own parents) had never treated with cruelty and disdain. Those Traveling People—from whom they had learned juggling years ago—rescued them, gave them shelter. Then, when the leader of those Gypsies returned, he agreed to help them plan their revenge against the evil man who killed their parents.

By the time their story is done it's so late that everyone needs to retire.

My parents go up to their own room, after we see Appollina and Valentina to the guest chamber prepared for them by our dutiful servants.

“We'll talk more tomorrow,” Appollina says, then leans forward to place a kiss on my cheek.

I can't think of a word to say as she smiles and then closes the door. But I am looking forward to tomorrow and I suspect the smile on my face is as broad as the one that Paulek is wearing as we go down the hall to our own room.

Soon Paulek is slumbering in our shared bedroom, but I am still wide awake. And if my guess is right, I am not the only one still awake. With Ucta and Odvaha by my side, I go down to the servants' quarters. There, just as expected, I find four chairs pulled up to the great kitchen table. Two are empty and two are occupied.