The Story of Owen (22 page)

“Aunt Hannah says we were meant for a quiet life,” Owen added. “And Aunt Lottie agrees—even if she misses the rush.”

“Well, this whole thing was her idea in the first place,” I said. “Did she plan to do it before her injury?”

“As much as Lottie plans anything,” Aodhan said. “Though in this case, I think she might have. She would have made an excellent figurehead. Better than me, for sure. But we make do.”

“I think you're doing very well,” I said. It was true. Lottie might have been a legend before her arrival, but Aodhan was slowly carving out a place of some stature in local folklore.

“Thank you, Siobhan,” Aodhan said.

We drove on in silence, but not an uncomfortable one. I took advantage of the daylight to get a good look around the inside of the minivan. Aodhan had cleared it out when Lottie announced that Owen and I would be joining him on weekend patrol, but there were still all sorts of interesting things
left behind. Aodhan had modified the back of the van so that the middle bench was gone and only the rear one remained. This meant that the bulk of our gear, aside from the two broadswords which were strapped in oiled cases to the roof rack, was packed into that space. I sat on the bench in the back, only slightly cramped on account of the luggage.

What drew my attention the most, though, was a picture taped on to the window behind Aodhan's seat. I had to lean forward to get a good look at it, so there was no way to disguise what I was doing. It was an oil rig in the desert, and the Aodhan in the picture was young and sunburnt almost beyond recognition. A woman with dark hair and a bright sword stood beside him. At first I thought she was very tanned, but then I realized that it was her natural skin color. His arm was around her shoulder and they were both smiling. I sat back with a guilty expression on my face and looked up at the rearview mirror. Aodhan looked at me in the glass and smiled, but the smile had more sadness in it than the smile in the picture did.

“That's Catalina,” he said. Owen sat up straight in the passenger seat. “Owen's mother.”

“You look very happy,” I said, because it was the first thing I thought of.

“We were,” he said. “It wasn't a happy time, particularly, but we found moments in it.”

I was saved from having to make a reply to that by Aodhan's phone ringing. He pulled over so he could answer it. It was the ringtone that indicated Hannah was calling, which could mean anything from a request to bring home milk to a dragon sighting. I could tell by Aodhan's voice as he spoke that it was the latter.

“Sighting,” he said after he hung up. “Owen, get the map and navigate. Siobhan, keep your eyes peeled. It's a soot-streaker, so you should be able to get eyes on it early.”

I glued my face to the window as Owen rustled the map open and began giving directions. Aodhan drove carefully, but with good speed, and the siren on the top of the van told other vehicles to get out of our way. Before long, I saw soot-stained snow in the fields we passed. We weren't going to have to track this dragon very long.

This is the story I told the
Hanover Post
.

When Aodhan got the call that the dragon had been spotted just south of Chesley, he drove full-tilt into the face of danger to protect those as-yet-unknown people who were in peril. With the siren blaring, the highway before him was emptied, as though he had been a dragon slayer on horseback with a trumpeting herald to clear his way. When we arrived at the small hobby farm the dragon was attacking, the scene that greeted us was terrifying to behold. The barn was already in flames, and the roof of the drive shed looked like it was going to be next. Only the direction of the wind, and the fact that the ground was covered with snow, was keeping the house unlit.

The family was already in the dragon shelter when we arrived, the small red flag waving bravely against the white snow and orange flame to let us know they were safely inside and out of harm's way. Aodhan leapt from the driver's seat almost before he turned the ignition off, with Owen just behind. I
stayed in the backseat and the relative safety that cover would provide once the dragon was engaged. I watched as they untied their broadswords from the roof rack and then moved to flank the dragon.

And what a beast it was! Nearly the size of the barn itself, and streaking soot everywhere between fire-laden breaths. The dragon didn't even notice the dragon slayers at first, so intent it was upon the unfortunate miniature ponies who called the benighted barn home. Their tiny screams filled the frosty air as the dragon picked them, one by one, out of their burning stalls.

Before the dragon could finish its horrible breakfast, Owen set upon its tail. Soot-streakers have spines there with nerves in them, and if you can break them you can distract the dragon without releasing any of the toxins contained in its gullet. When dragon slayers are fighting together, this is the preferred tactic. It certainly got the beast's attention, and it roared in pain, shattering the front windows of the tractor parked next to the garage with the force of its voice. It tried to turn on Owen, to defend itself against his sword, but by the time it turned, Owen had already danced out of its way.

Too late, the dragon realized the trap it had fallen into. By turning its head and extending its neck to protect its tail, it had exposed quite a bit of the opposite flank, leaving itself wide open for Aodhan's attack. The older dragon slayer rushed in, his heavy sword held aloft and glinting in the bright morning sunlight, and before the dragon knew what was happening, Aodhan's sword slid between its ribs, piercing its soft underbelly and slicing through both of its hearts at once.

Aodhan jumped back as the dragon flailed in the throes of death, its legs and tail slashing through the air beyond its
control. At last, the great beast lay still, and the two dragon slayers stood on opposite sides of its massive body, victorious, while the fire raged around them, until the local firefighters, who had arrived at about the same time, realized that it was finally safe to go put the fire out.

It fell to Owen to go to the dragon shelter and tell the family their house was safe, along with most of their garage and all but the windows of their tractor. They were relieved to be out of danger, surveying the wreckage of the barn with some sadness, but also with hope for the future.

“Thank you so much!” said the good farmer once Owen had delivered the news.

“You're welcome,” said Owen, polite even in the aftermath of a dragon slaying. “It is our job, after all.”

“I'm sorry about the barn and the ponies,” Aodhan said. “But you did the right thing by hiding in the dragon shelter as soon as you spotted the creature. And I think the house escaped without even getting singed.”

“All's well that ends well,” said the farmer's wife.

They all stood together and watched while the firefighters put out the fire in the barn, leaving a smoking hulk of blackened wood sticking out in contrast to the snowy background. There was soot everywhere, thanks to the fire and the dragon, but it would be cleaned away when this snow melted and probably covered by new snow before tomorrow. When the firefighters were done with the fire, they turned their attention to the dragon, though due to the size of carcass, it was quickly evident that a helicopter would probably be required to remove the body. It wasn't pretty, but the work was done efficiently, a sign of the practice and good effort on the part of everyone who was involved.

That is pretty much entirely not exactly what happened.

To start with, when we arrived on the scene, the entire family was standing on the front lawn in their pajamas, watching as their barn burned. Admittedly, the dragon was fairly well focussed on the ponies by that point, but those things were really small. I had a suspicion that the dragon would not be feeling full after eating them, at which point it would turn on the humans. Aodhan was really trying to encourage the locals to go straight to their dragon shelter and put up the signal flag as soon as they spotted a dragon, since he felt that it would increase safety for everyone involved, so I altered that detail when the friendly man with the tape recorder asked me what had gone on.

I also edited the length of the battle quite a bit. While Owen found it useful to be told every single detail of his encounters with dragons so that he could improve and catch any mistakes before they became potentially fatal habits, most people were not interested in the minutia. They wanted to hear that the fight was over quickly and with as little damage as possible, so that's the story I told. In truth, Owen had been required to harry the dragon's tail three times before Aodhan had a clear enough opening to get a shot at the dragon's chest, and in that time, the beast managed to eat three more ponies and irreparably damage the aboveground swimming pool in the backyard.

Aodhan hadn't been able to slay the dragon cleanly either. As was often the case, the dragon's soft underbelly was covered in harder callouses, which were strong enough to deflect
Aodhan's broadsword. His first blow had merely opened a wound on the dragon's chest, destroying any potential for a family vegetable garden in that part of the yard for at least two generations. It wasn't until the fourth time Owen harried the dragon's tail that Aodhan had been able to land his sword in the dragon's hearts.

Dragons also take a long time to die, even once the death blow has been landed, and even if the blow is clean. Owen and Aodhan did manage to jump clear of the dying dragon, but the playhouse that had once stood next to the similarly destroyed aboveground pool didn't have that option, and it was reduced to kindling underneath the dragon's flailing tail.

After the dragon died, the real chaos started. The firefighters went to extinguish what was left of the barn and see if they could save the drive shed, and the family ran out of the dragon shelter and started screaming about their miniature ponies, some of which were still alive in spite of the attack. It's against firefighter policy to risk the life of a person to save an animal that cannot be carried, so they refused to enter the barn. At that point the farmer tried to go in and had to be forcibly restrained by Aodhan, who didn't even put down his sword before grabbing him around the waist. Fortunately, no one was around to photograph that, or to record the very impolite things the farmer said about Aodhan's ancestry.

I was thinking that this would probably be one place where Aodhan would never be invited back for pie when the fire was finally extinguished and the farmer went to look at the extent of the damage.

“Pleasant types,” I said to Owen under my breath as he wiped his sword down with snow, dried it with a towel and
lifted it back on to the roof rack.

“They'll calm down,” he said. “They've had a scary morning. You take these things for granted, but this is their home.”

“Miniature ponies, though?” I said.

“Hey, people get attached to their animals,” Owen said.

My dad owned fish. I would leave them behind in a heartbeat if a dragon was closing in on the house. “I suppose,” I said.

“Just wait,” Owen said. “By the time the press shows up, they'll be over the worst of it and singing Dad's praises.”

“Yours too,” I reminded him. He turned a bit pink at that, but it might have just been the exertion.

“Make sure you talk to the reporter first, Siobhan,” Aodhan said, coming to join us by the van and cleaning his own sword. “Everyone else will follow your lead, and you can shape the story however you want.”

“Do you want me to make the dragon bigger so you look cooler?” I asked, only half kidding. It was a pretty big dragon. Making it bigger wouldn't be that hard.

“I think I'm cool enough, thanks,” he said with a smile. It wasn't quite the smile from the picture in the window of the van, but it was the most open expression I'd ever seen on his face. “Just make sure that everyone looks like they did the right thing. We can use the publicity to control what the public does in the face of a dragon attack.”

And that's why I altered the details of what I told the
Hanover Post
. I made everyone look like they had done exactly what they were supposed to do, and since I spoke first and with great authority, everyone else who was interviewed afterward matched their details to the story I'd told.

Once the cleanup was done and the helicopter arrived as hoped, making for some truly spectacular pictures, the reporter went back into town with the firefighters behind him. We saw the family off to their relatives for the time being and got back in the van. It was well after lunch by now, and we had nothing to eat except the chocolate chip cookies and some bottled water I found in the back, but we made do.

“So,” said Aodhan, as he put the van in gear and we headed back out onto the road. “Better than spending time in the library?”

Neither Owen nor I answered that, but then again, we didn't really have to.