Blackie twisted his long serpentine neck and examined the sky all around. His eyes saw nothing of the other black dragon that was linked with his father, The Gareth.
His adopted father and Cinder shared the same relationship as Gareth and Blackie, only their union had existed for centuries instead of thirty years. Gareth again watched the ground through Blackie’s eyes and spotted a herd of wild mountain goats grazing on a hillside. Blackie saw them as well, and changed course minutely, flying directly for the goats. Gareth did nothing to interfere or hold him back. The dragon had barely eaten in more than a full day of intense flying and its stomach twisted in hunger.
Blackie flew low over the treetops and was in the midst of the goats before any knew of his existence. A swipe of a hind leg and talons wrapped around one, while Blackie’s slashing teeth found another and he carried it in his mouth. Gareth suggested Blackie watch the sky while grounded and eating, hoping to see Cinder flying nearby.
Blackie naturally kept a watchful eye all around while eating. A dragon on the ground presented a target of sorts if tackling a behemoth can be considered an easy target. A pack of wolves might try, and there had been bears that tried. The cumbersome dragons were slow on the ground, and taking wing quickly was not an easy task. But anything attacking a dragon also faced snapping teeth, raking claws, and dragon spit. Dragons could spit it with remarkable accuracy, much like some snakes.
Gareth pulled his mind away from Blackie. He never enjoyed the crunching of bones or the feel of warm blood running down his chin and neck. Gareth’s hand fumbled for the mug of water Sara left at his side. His eyes focused on the island for an instant and then found his brother calmly sitting nearby, but observing him closely. He lifted the mug and drained it. “Thanks for watching me.”
“Did you find your father?” Sara asked.
“No. We just arrived. Blackie’s eating a couple of goats, so I came back.”
“I’ve seen that monster eat, so I understand why you left, and I only have to watch him do it,” Sara said, climbing the stairs to the porch to check on Gareth, a distasteful expression turning into a gaggle.
“It’s just his way,” Gareth muttered.
“It’s disgusting. You know I adore Blackie. Our family’s safe when he is here to protect us, but I wish he had better manners when eating. He also stinks lately. You should bathe him more often,” Sara said.
Gareth shook his head. “Bathing’s a job for a full day, anymore, and he isn’t yet full grown. He doesn’t mind his own smell. I suspect he’ll range further and further in the days to come. We’ll only see him now and then.”
“Won’t that make it more likely someone will see him and report it to the king?”
“Of course. My father sometimes used Cinder to help keep his mountain valley safe by attacking intruders, but at other times, his dragon was off on his own, far away. I can’t hold Blackie here forever.”
“Besides, in a few months there would be no cows, horses, or sheep on the island with two of them,” Paul quipped. One of Paul’s jobs was looking out for the herds and flocks.
Gareth sensed the dragon was finished eating and touched his mind again. Blackie eyed another nervous goat that tried hiding in a stand of brush, but Blackie had him spotted. Gareth made a mental suggestion he takes wing and eat again later. Once back into the air, Blackie was far easier to control now that the hunger problem was resolved, but he would need to feed again, soon. The long flight had taken a lot out.
Blackie flew higher and higher, then circled wide around the green valley that was his father’s home for hundreds of years. The valley was larger than Gareth remembered, and grazing animals of all sorts wandered the meadows. At the far end stood a cream-colored building, the old homestead. Gareth urged his dragon in that direction.
The building was bigger than it first appeared, or than he remembered. Built into the side of a sloping hill, it stood two full stories tall, made of tan-colored stones cut square, with tall, narrow windows on all sides, and a slate roof. It was as much a fortress as a house. It wouldn’t burn, arrow ports rimmed the edges of the roof, and the massive doors were sheathed in iron. The windows were too narrow for a man to slip through but arrows could be fired out with the archer in perfect safety.
Thirty or more people had lived comfortably in the building at the same time in decades past. In front of the house sloped the hillside to spreading meadows for grazing, and beyond a lake surrounded by orchards and vineyards.
Beyond the lake were more meadows, pastures, for all of his father’s animals when the population of this valley had exceeded a hundred. The impression the valley presented was one of peace and wealth, both of which were accurate. However, the building was little more than a fort, even if it appeared to be a house.
Blackie flew closer while becoming more and more agitated. In one meadow, larger than the others, a great mass of black sprawled in the green grasses. Gareth nudged Blackie to fly closer and look, but the dragon resisted. Then just turn your head and look at it so I can see.
Blackie refused. The resistance to fly closer or look was almost palatable, almost physical. The great dragon shuddered. Look down there. We won’t go closer, but we have to see what it is.
Blackie hesitated, and it seemed he would fly on without looking, but then he slowly turned his head. His eyes focused on the black object in the meadow. It was Cinder, his father’s black dragon, dead, head and neck twisted back as if still in agony. Blackie emitted a scream so loud and so long Gareth wondered if it could be heard all the way back on Bitters Island.
Blackie had seldom refused to obey Gareth unless it concerned food when the dragon was a chick, and then it ate anything that moved and some things that didn’t. He remembered the yellow pollen on his black nose after eating a flower when Blackie was no bigger than a small chicken. The dragon had refused to give up the yellow flower.
The incident had been funny then, but it was a completely different situation now that he wanted the dragon to do something that it instinctually refused. Gareth tried to think of a solution to get it closer to the ground and examine the dead dragon, but none came. He didn’t believe he could force Blackie, and wouldn’t even if he could. Finally, he directed his dragon to fly over the buildings at the upper end of the valley again.
Blackie veered wide to fly will around the black object in the meadow without ever turning an eye to it again. It flew directly over the house across the lake, nestled where the valley narrowed and started to rise up the slope of the volcano. From there the entire valley could be seen. As it neared the house, Gareth spotted the gazebo on the shore, and the finger of a pier extending into the lake. His father had often fished from that pier while they mentally discussed the good and evil of the world.
His father had no servants, workers, or friends living in the valley. Once there had been many people working and living there. There had been hordes of people to build and shape everything into the garden spot the valley was today. He suspected there had once been a large family, perhaps his father had dozens of children playing in the valley much like Gareth had on Bitters Island, but on a much smaller scale. There may have been servants and gardeners. People to care for the stock and repair the fences. But for the last thirty years at least, his father had lived alone with his dragon and performed help for people wherever he could.
Gareth had discussed those things often. A king who ruled ruthlessly had been replaced. During a famine food had arrived in time to help thousands, although it had been purchased far away and shipped before the famine began. There had been a hundred similar stories, many on a very small scale and often only helping a single person. Gareth remembered another about a farmer who helped so many of his neighbors his own crops failed. His father arraigned for a mule to fall into his hands.