“I know dragons. I have seen them. What does this one know of the biggest dragons? Nothing. Come and listen. Sit and I shall tell you of glorious lands and magical weapons and…” Kennick, after giving the old man a glance of amused contempt, had turned away. No one else paid Wyatt any attention. The old man spat, the spittle hissing as it struck the ground.
“Why can’t you see what a liar Kennick is?” Trav muttered as he, too, backed away, bumping into Wyatt and almost knocking the one-legged man into the mud. No one else heard his mumbled retort. The village of Slake was as short on dreams as Merrow Gorman, and dreams were what Kennick offered with his wild tales. Trav ran through the village, passing no great houses, no fine stores brimming with merchandise such as in Westering and other big towns. Worst of all, he passed too many deserted homes, miserable sod huts left empty by the withering sickness that had held Slake hostage for three long months.
Tears welled in the corners of Trav’s eyes as he thought of his lost mother and three brothers. He brushed the wetness away. There was work to do, and standing about lionizing a stranger who had come to Slake only a week before accomplished nothing. Trav could only wish his sister saw with clearer vision. He didn’t want her hurt. She and his father were the only family he had left.
“A braggart, that’s all he is. Well fed because foolish people listen to his stories and believe them and give him food to be lied to again!” Why was he the only one who heard the hollowness of Kennick’s tales?
Trav knew the answer and it burned inside him like a festering wound. The people needed a hero to take their minds off their dreary, dangerous lives, and even Wyatt’s wild tales had turned stale and predictable over the years. The withering fever and poor crops and the demon that had ravaged Slake a year earlier, all had broken spirits and made any diversion welcome. And Trav knew his father wanted Juliana to marry well. No man under the age of forty remaining in Slake qualified. Those unmarried were all dim, dirt poor, or crippled. A wandering paladin expertly swinging one of the Twelve Swords-the Sword of Heroes! — seemed a miraculous opportunity.
“But he lies,” moaned Trav, going over the conflicting tales Kennick had spun. The braggart had a story-teller’s knack, all right. With each repetition the tales grew like tumors, and always so that the teller fought greater battles and triumphed more heroically.
Trav slowed his run and turned toward the chain of S-shaped lakes that gave the village its name. Half a hundred streams fed the lakes, and he had found his special place along a streamlet ignored by others in the village. Leaves were turning into a rainbow of shimmering colors, and a sharpness hung in the air from dying summer and birthing winter.
Walking along his special stream, he found the black- and red-striped berries that would supplement their meals for months after the snows came. Trav gathered slowly, picking with care, trying to forget his father and sister and Kennick and the entire village. Surrounded by the forest, he dared to imagine life being better.
Movement at the edge of his vision caused him to stop his work and whirl about. The gnarled, black-barked limbs of a walnut tree vibrated and a few dead leaves fluttered softly to the ground.
“Who’s there?” he called. Trav put down his capful of berries when he heard a distant crashing sound, as if something heavy had fallen through the leafless tree limbs. Investigating, he moved forward warily through brambles, soon reaching the edge of a small clearing, where a streamlet came wandering through to form a glade of beauty.
And amid the beauty stalked death. Not thirty meters distant, its back fortunately to Trav, its long barbed tail twitching nervously, there lumbered a dragon of such immense size that Trav turned white with fear.
Shaken, he backed away for several meters, then turned and ran. How long he ran, Trav couldn’t say, but he eventually stumbled onto the Slake-Westering Road. He knew where help lay. With legs rubbery from fear and long exertion, he rushed into his village and found Kennick sitting with Juliana beside the public watering trough.
“Dragon!” he blurted, gasping. Kennick turned, gave him a sour look and continued his witty discussion with Juliana.
Trav’s sister turned and gestured angrily at him. “Go away, Trav. You’re bothering us. I must tell Kennick of available lodging. He intends to stay in Slake!”
Trav saw Dragonslicer in its hand-tooled leather sheath leaning against the trough and started to reach for the weapon. Kennick snatched up the magical sword and laid the long blade across his lap.
“Don’t go telling stories, boy,” Kennick chided. “There aren’t any dragons in these woods. I’ve already killed them all.” He laughed and returned to romancing Juliana.
Trav backed off, not knowing what to do, where to go. But some dark instinct drew him dragonward. He ran hard back into the woods, braving the gathering darkness and chill rising wind. He found the streamlet and worked his way up it. The closer he got to the meadow, the slower he crept and the harder his heart pounded.
At the edge of the clearing Trav looked around warily, suspicious of the silence. The huge dragon had departed. A milky whiteness in the sluggishly flowing stream caught his eye. Trav dropped to his knees and cupped his hands, scooping at the water’s surface and coming away with dozens of small, slick-coated spheres. In the darkness, they shone with a cool opalescence that Trav had never seen before. Holding one up, he fancied he could see shadows drifting within. Opening his palm, he let one egg rest there, only to have it dance and roll about, impelled by inner magic.
Trav scooped more tiny globes from the streamlet and broke open a few. A pungent yellow-and-white fluid gushed forth.
“Dragon eggs,” he whispered. He had never seen one before, but he had heard the tales, the fearful warnings. “The she-dragon was laying eggs in the stream.” Fish were feasting on them already.
He looked at the slick of millions of dragon eggs and saw not untold misery and destruction but opportunity. Trav carefully gathered a select small handful of the eggs and went looking for a cool, wet, hidden nest.
Winter wind whined past the tumble of rocks Trav had pulled into the mouth of the cave. Small sweeps of crystalline snow blew past the rock and stopped a few feet from the nest Trav had built. Cave mice had eaten most of the eggs, but he had saved a few. Keeping them damp had been easy for the first few weeks. Small drips running down the cave walls formed puddles deep enough to cover the eggs, but Trav had worried when, after a month, the eggs began drying out in spite of his care. The shells had turned a mottled brown and hardened-and a few weeks earlier, just before the first heavy storm brought blankets of clinging wet snow, the shells began cracking.
Trav sat on the cold floor and poked at the four dragons weakly tumbling over each other, looking more like bugs than the land behemoth that Trav knew had laid the eggs. He picked up the smallest of the clutch, a dragon hardly larger than the end of his thumb.
Holding it aloft, he peered into the unfocused yellow-slit eyes. Trav stroked over the dragon’s head, marvelling at brown scales softer than fleece covering the miniature body. A tiny black tongue flicked out of a mouth too small for Trav to insert even his little finger.
“You’re so tiny, you’re a nothing,” he said, cradling the dragonlet in one hand. With more bitterness, he added, “You’re just like me. Piddling. Nothing more. The runt of the clutch.” Trav smiled slowly and said, “That’s your name. Piddling.” He laughed with delight and allowed himself to imagine that the yellow eyes had fixed on him with childlike adoration.