Dragon’s Mercy

By Edward Sand

I sat stooped at the edge of the castle fountain, waiting patiently to die. The hum of humanity inundated me. It filled the outer bailey—travelers swapping rumors, merchants shooing children from their tents. I was surrounded by people, yet alone. I had no offspring, no kin, not a soul who knew my name.

My tales of adventure used to draw hordes of children to rapt attention. I still brimmed with life in those days of storytelling glory, still looked the part of a former adventurer. Now I looked like an apple shriveling in the sun. Children have mighty imaginations, but even they have their limits. My stories now sounded like the ramblings of an ancient madwoman.

I huddled the layers of blankets around myself. They were never enough, and winter drew nigh. My final spring certainly lay behind me.

A cry split the burbling of the masses. “Dragon!” Others echoed the warning. Like ants scattering from a crushed hill, every living thing rushed for cover, leaving their worldly goods behind.

Everyone except for me. I neither reached for my cane nor spared an upward glance. I knew, deep in my bones, that my hunter had found me. My heart stirred as if struggling to emerge from a cocoon of cobwebs and moss. I longed to see her, but I also prayed my death would be swift.

Packed in coves and under archways along the castle walls, the people spectated my doom. Silence poured into the bailey, followed immediately by the dragon.

Her iridescence painted the illusion of a thousand swarming bluebirds. The clatter of her scales sounded like rain. A tremor spread through the castle at her landing. She towered a dagger’s swipe from me, muscles rippling and proud. Four clawed paws, tail as thick as an ox, and wings that blotted the sun.

It was her. After all these years, she found me. I felt small as a squirrel before this magnificent creature.

She eyed me with a hunger my frail body would not satisfy. With a huff, she rose on hind legs.

I smiled. Though my voice had dwindled from neglect and my lungs lacked strength, my words carried easily in the quiet. “Druidora.” Breathlessly, I reached out, wanting nothing more in the world than to embrace her. My voice cracked. “You’re all grown. My, how beautiful you are.”

Druidora narrowed her eyes and tossed her head. She dropped to four paws and paced, her gaze locked on me.

I folded my hands in my lap. “Even as you hunted me, I cared for you in secret. Always hidden from your wrath, but never far.”

She flooded my mind with a vivid image, the memory of her wing shattering in my hands.

The memory stung. “I had to break your wing in order to set it straight. That was for your good.”

In response, fire streamed from Druidora’s mouth, setting a wide swath of cobblestone aglow near my feet. Then she turned her snout skyward. The blaze dwarfed the fountain, and the snowfall of drifting ash continued long after her fire subsided.

She filled my mind with another memory—poison darkening her vision as I strode toward her.

“When you drank from the poisoned pond, I was there,” I admitted. “But I didn’t poison you. I held your limp body and gave you the antidote.”

Druidora huffed, smoke leaking from her nostrils. Another of her memories entered my mind—a clan of nomadic scale harvesters approaching her cave in the dead of winter hibernation.

“I joined their clan to sabotage them. I set their sleds aflame and cut their horses loose.”

Druidora crouched low. Through bared teeth her growl rumbled so deep it resonated in my ribs.

“I watched you learn to fly from the cliffs of Anthem’s Mountain.” With a shock of stiff pain, I struggled to my feet, ignoring my cane. “You were so reckless.” I chuckled. “I didn’t sleep for a week.” My fountain-wet sandals sizzled on the hot stone.

Druidora arched her back, opened her maw wide, and blasted me with a screeching roar.

I leaned forward and struggled to maintain my footing as the scorching wind ripped at my blankets and unbundled my hair. For the first time in years, I felt truly warm.

More visions invaded my mind, an assortment of gruesome deaths—my body crumpling in her mouth, splattering against the earth from a great height, withering into charcoal beneath a torrent of flame.

I pushed visions back at her, memories of her dragonling days. Peaceful days. Watching her skitter under the garden fence after a mouse. Gathering firewood together for a campfire of irresponsible proportions.

Druidora’s eyes widened. Her roar faded to a growl. Another memory slipped from her mind to mine, so softly I wondered if she shared it by accident: her tiny body in my arms, nestled against my heart as she licked soot from her scales.

“I never left you, little Dru. And don’t think for a moment your hesitance to kill me escapes my notice.” A tear streamed down my cheek. “One narrow escape is a blessing, two is a miracle, but three? You can’t fool me.” I brushed Druidora’s chin with my fingers. “Three is a dragon’s mercy.”

Druidora’s growl caught, leaving only silence.

“I’m too old to feign a fourth,” I said. “You must decide now. Forgive me… or eat me.”

We remained still, watching one another. The sun climbed and the children fidgeted. I basked in the beauty of my fully grown dragonling.

Without warning, Druidora lunged at me and snapped me up in her mouth. Cries of anguish rained from the crowd. With a rush of wind, we burst into the sky, higher and higher.

Then she released me.

The castle spun far below. Then Druidora’s glinting, spread-wing silhouette floated between me and the distant ground. I settled onto her back like a feather onto the surface of a lake.

We never returned for my cane.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edward Sand is the award-winning author of several short stories. His body lives among the mountains of north Idaho, where he was born and raised. His mind occupies a higher elevation, wandering the clouds in search of ideas worthy to be typed. Currently, he is working on a sci-fi suspense novel titled The Mortal Witness.

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