5. Dragons Don't Talk
Astra has an encounter she never expected to have...
Escape from Ice Mountain marks the start of an epic tale, one where a middle-aged fish-out-of-water librarian (and necromancer!) navigates love, betrayal, and the complexities of power as she struggles to embrace her destiny and uncover the mysteries of her own origins. Yes, there are dragons too! And also magical dogs. It’s gonna be awesome!
Sneaking out of the barracks was simple, which was probably why so many young novitiates and even younger postulants were always caught doing it. Older nuns worked hard to keep young minds and hands from idleness in an effort to wear them down enough to sleep through the night, but it was an endless battle fought anew with each generation. The wing with the private cells was even less guarded than the large common sleeping rooms, since it was assumed that fully dedicated and (presumably) fully adult nuns would not be sneaking out like thieves in the night.
Yet, that was where Astra found herself, her heavy red winter cloak wrapped over her hastily donned thick day robe. She had also thrown on her under-breeches and slipped into her boots, but the cold of Ice Mountain was relentlessly harsh at night, especially during the tail end of winter. Astra assumed Traz would want to go to the nearest grounds exit, which would be the western cliffs, perhaps taking one of the narrow cut-rock stairways down. Instead, he led her up and over buildings until they were skirting the edge of the northern ward, heading further up the mountain. He had an uncanny way of knowing when a ranger nun was passing by or in their way, and after the first two near-misses at discovery, Astra stopped trying to help. She glared at him extra-hard for it, though.
They finally arrived at a narrow pass carved out of the mountain, used by the monastery's shepherds to lead flocks out to green pastures in the summer. Traz relaxed when they got there, but Astra stopped at the first stair. She had not left the physical grounds of the monastery since she had taken her full vows as a senior nun and been consecrated to Bu of the North Wind at twenty four years old. Over time she had become a senior nun and a head librarian, so there was no reason for her to leave and many reasons for her to remain well protected inside the official borders. She was happy with that security.
Or, if not happy, at least comforted by it.
Unlike the rangers, who were magically bound to the territory they protected and would experience agony if they tried to leave without a superior’s blessing, Astra would feel nothing simply by stepping over the threshold.
Yet, she stopped.
Traz turned and looked at her in confusion.
“Is something wrong?” He whispered.
She shook her head but still could not bring herself to make the step beyond.
“Come on, it’s not a big deal. We went off grounds plenty as kids.” Traz tugged at her hand. “Qordashi will still be here when we get back.” He pointed at the massive complex that sprawled out behind them.
Astra took a deep breath. “I don't have anywhere else. I have been nowhere else since before you left.”
He frowned, chewing on his lower lip in a way that was achingly familiar to her, before sighing heavily. “I promise to bring you back before third bell. Or, at least, close to it.”
Traz was the closest person she had to family next to Zochur or Naboch, though, and he had once been her confidant and friend (and, in their troublesome youth, co-conspirator). He had always been a trickster, but never cruel. She hoped that had not changed. Astra nodded at his metaphorical bow to her resistance, then stepped onto the trail. It still felt like a broken promise.
Of course, what any of thisl had to do with her fire horn, she had no idea. He was not wrong about the fact that carrying it would likely have gotten him quickly ensnared with the rangers, but there were so many other ways he could have had it delivered to her on his behalf. Instead, he came in person to drag her out of the only place that was safe for her live.
She thought about the family heirloom as they followed the shepherd's path. It was a huge, sharply curved horn, fading from dark gray to deep black at the tip, with a rich vein of red marbled throughout. As long as Astra's arm, it had once been used in far gone, ancient days by her mother’s family to carry burning coals as they traveled from hunting camp to hunting camp. No one at Qordashi recognized what kind of ox the horn had come from, and her memories of the time before she came to the monastery were vague at best. What Astra would never forget, though, was that on the night of her kidnapping, she was handed the horn and told to fill it with her belongings because that it was all she could take with her. She had thought the maid was helping her run away, like a game of hide-and-seek. She hated the game ever since.
They were far enough away from the monastery walls and the prying magic of the rangers for her to speak. “Are you sure it's my fire horn?”
“There can be none like it. I recognized it,” he said with a huff, which was fair enough. It was particularly unique in its drabness.
“But it went to that measly prince,” she complained as they clambered up the steep, rocky path.
He sighed, helping her over a set of boulders. “Yes, it did. We were twelve. I remember it.”
Astra had, with Naboch’s counsel, “gifted” the horn to her cadre’s barracks where it hung for years in the dining hall, its weird, foreign magic dripping softly and harmlessly off of it. Dzrezor, though, had hated the horn irrationally, and in a fit of pique only he understood, gave it away to a visiting prince who had simply stopped by to gain blessings for his upcoming marriage. It had been a petty thing to do, designed to upset Astra and thereby annoy her mentor, Naboch, while gaining some influence with the visiting prince for who knew what reason. Astra was sure Dzrezor had his fingers in many soup pots.
Ironically, it was not as if fire horns were rare or precious in and of themselves. There were dozens throughout temples, libraries, and lodges in Qordashi, but they were all valuable because they were stupendously carved and bejeweled, displayed hanging from walls and statues, their information badges glittering with their name, their magic, their creator, their year of creation and the high-status family who donated it. By comparison, the horn Astra brought with her was merely oddly big and very plain. Astra always suspected that Dzrezor, as pretentious as he was, had hated it for those reasons alone.
Traz finally led them off the trail, although perhaps it was onto a lesser used one. The light of the half-moon was bright enough to walk by, but not enough for Astra to know much about where they were going.
“If you push me off a cliff, I will haunt you ruthlessly,” she sniped at him as they made their way down a short, tricky slope.
“I should be so lucky,” he replied, which was what he always said to her threats, and that very simple thing put Astra’s heart at ease. She grinned at him, causing him to do a double take and nearly miss his own footing. She tugged him back into line with a soft chuckle.
They ended up at a group of large rocks that were in the shadow of a massive outcropping. Traz stopped and grabbed her arm before letting out a short, strong whistle, not unlike those used by horse trainers to call their mounts. Astra looked around but could not see any horses in the dark of the nighttime shadows. But then, one of the dark boulders moved and flexed and—
“That is not a rock!” She hissed and pulled Traz back with her, angling to hurry away. They were several meters from the beast, but it was far too close.
Traz grabbed her and dragged her closer to the black dragon that was turning its massive head to look at her with its ink-black eyes. Its body was as big as a large hay cart, taller than Astra by half again, and it had back legs thick as tree trunks. Its wings were topped by vicious talons, and its head was wide and narrow, not unlike a horse's, if a horse were three times as big and had spikes running down its neck. It was stunningly black, although even in the dark Astra could see that its scaly hide had bright, thin markings of yellow running throughout.
“That is not a snow dragon,” Astra said without thinking.
The dragon blinked, then whistled.
“No kidding. What tipped you off?” Traz sighed.
“Why is a fire dragon here? Why did you bring a fire dragon this far south? It will freeze!” Astra stopped, the truth tripping out of her mouth. “Did you steal it too?” She hissed at him, hoping not to upset the wild beast.
He threw his arms up defensively, and the dragon rumbled. Astra moved far away from it again.
“Why do you have a dragon, Trazkhor?”
“Technically, I don't have a dragon. I just, sort of, ah, gave it some help when it asked.”
Astra eyeballed him. “Dragons don't talk.”
“True enough. For what it's worth, I think they do, but only in their own tongue. You'd have better luck with that, you with all your hoarded languages.” Traz came over and put his hand on Astra's shoulder. “It's taken me over a year to cover the same ground traders can traverse in two months. This is why.” He motioned at the dragon, holding his arms out wide. The dragon mimicked him by spreading its wings.
Astra gasped in horror. There were holes punched through the delicate skin, some more ragged than others, but none smaller than the size of a fist, most much larger. There was no way that the beast could ever fly with such damage.
“By Bu's talons!”
Traz nodded. “The lord I stole the horn from kept it as a curiosity.”
Astra turned on him, although she kept one eye on the dragon just in case. “So you admit you stole the horn?”
He shrugged. “No point in denying it.”
They stared at each other for a moment until the dragon huffed and folded up its wings.
“That is a horror, I admit. Poor thing! I understand you helping it get free, Traz, but why—”
“Could it fly home?” Traz held his hands out.
“It's a fire dragon. 'Home' is not here in the south. Its home is Firestate, surely.”
“Again: how can it get there? Firestate is a world away. Your own mythological homeland is probably closer. I felt it best to keep it with me.” Traz cringed at Astra's glare. “It, ah, it kept following me,” he admitted sheepishly.
“So you led it here?” She held her arms out to indicate her, the monastery, the mountain. “This is no place for a fire dragon!”
“Would you have had me go all the way to Firestate? I'd never make it back in my lifetime. We know that.”
Astra deflated, knowing that what he said was true. Some traders spent their whole lives making one traverse across the world from north to south. Most never lived that long.
“Once I found the horn, I knew I was coming back to you. I could not do otherwise, Astra. But I did not plan to bring the dragon! I swear I thought the dragon would flee as soon as I freed it from its cage, but it would not leave me alone! And so, here we are.” He crossed his arms, looking back at the dragon, his frustration clear on his face.
“What on Bu's horns did you think you were going to do with it once you got here?”
He uncrossed his arms and shifted on his feet, frowning at the ground. “I came here for you. To give you what is rightfully yours, and to say goodbye. It just followed me. Don’t you get it? It will follow me anywhere.”
It took her too long to put all the pieces together. She stepped backwards, her right hand holding the sign of grief over her heart. “You are going to take it to Firestate. After you leave, you will go north to take it home.”
He nodded slowly. “Had it not been for the horn, I would have headed north as soon as I figured out it was trailing after me. But Astra, listen. Listen! The winds drove me back here on purpose. The fire horn was a sign that I had to see you again.”
She squinted at him, willfully ignoring the dragon as it settled down a little ways away from them. “You were never one for following the winds the gods send you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I was a brat. I admit it!” Then he shrugged, his expression turning serious. “I have learned some hard lessons over the years, my friend.”
Astra had nothing to say to that. She was curious, but also not a fool, and knew that anything he did not want to tell her was likely something she did not want to hear.
“It just followed you here?” She asked instead.
He sighed heavily at the question. “Trust me, I did not make it do anything it did not want to do. Traveling in secret with this beast has been like trying to herd cats. Very slow moving cats.” He cast an annoyed glance over at the dragon, which flicked its ears as if it understood him. “Even without my desire to return the drinking horn to you, I could not have gone directly north, using the main roads or rivers. Disappearing into the Balashilar was our only option. It wasn’t happy about it, I could tell, but it kept following me anyway.”
“Maybe because it didn’t want to travel south? Into the nominal lands of the snow dragons, the mortal enemies of its kind?” Astra rubbed her hand over her face. The dragon, who had stayed a respectful distance from them, crept closer… if a beast that probably weighed as much as five horses put together could be said to creep. Watching it, Astra thought the answer was 'no.'
Traz ran his hands through his hair, which was cut short but still long enough to flop around into his face. “The damn thing just wouldn’t leave!” He flapped a hand at it. It flapped a wing back at him.
Astra took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. For all his flights of fancy and dreams of adventure, Traz had always been extremely loyal, especially to her and Zochur. That he freed an imprisoned galespring dragon and then felt obligated to lead it to other dragons was something the Traz she had known so many years ago would do. Nonetheless, she could not help the nagging suspicion that there was far more to the story that she was missing. Perhaps age and too much exposure to politics in Qordashi had made her paranoid, but she thought it was not without reason.
She turned away from him to face the dragon again.
“It's small. Are all fire dragons this small?”
“I can't say, since this is the only fire dragon I've ever seen. They don't even make it down to fly over Tox. From what I've heard, it's too far. But I don't think it’s very old. After all, galespring snow dragons are much smaller than the full-grown adults.”
Astra nodded in agreement. “True. I suppose they can’t be too different.”
The dragon was only a couple of meters away and staring intently at Astra, who stared back. She had never been so near to a dragon, had never seen one any closer than flying at a distance overhead. It eyed her, tipping its head one way, then another, then pawed lightly at the ground, seemingly agitated. With a deep huff, it plodded toward Astra, who took a step back.
“What. What?” She looked over at Traz.
“It wants to show you something. Probably food. It likes to eat.” He sounded pretty defeated about it, and Astra had to wonder how much such a beast needed to eat, especially if it was just an adolescent.
The head, which was as big as Astra's torso, bent down and tapped at Astra's shoulder, trying to get her to move.
“If it eats me, I will make sure you're next!” Astra hissed at him, although she let it prod her around the rocks. It moved more like an ox than a cat, swaying side to side with each step.
“I should be so lucky,” Traz drawled, following along, not the least bit worried about the gigantic beast pushing Astra around.
They were herded across the little pasture past the large boulders, and Astra figured out where the dragon wanted her to go. It was an old, decrepit, and nearly demolished shepherd's wind blind, probably set up decades or even centuries ago to protect some nameless nun who had guarded sheep grazing in the field. As soon as she got close to it, Astra knew what was there.
“No.” She turned to the dragon. “No,” she repeated, and walked a wide berth around the dragon to go back the way they had come.
“Astrakur?” Traz called out.
“It's a deathbed. I'm not going near it.” She marched as best she could in the moonlight toward the cluster of large boulders, leaving the curious ghost behind, poking her head out of the ramshackle hut she had died in, as if looking to see who was talking. She probably heard Astra, as ghosts seemed to do, so Astra kept her mouth shut as she marched off.
“Oh.” Traz sounded upset, but Astra did not turn around. He eventually followed her over.
“It did that on purpose,” Astra snapped, pulling her cloak closer around her. Behind Traz, the dragon was perched up on its hind legs, head high in the air so it could spy on them from a distance. Had it seen or heard the ghost too? Was that something dragons could do?
“Probably,” Traz said, sounding unhappy. “It knows things.”
Astra didn't ask. She refused. Behind them, the dragon huffed loudly and literally. Astra glanced back at it to see the smoke curling out its nostrils, drifting up over the boulders and across the face of the moon.
“Where is my fire horn?” She finally asked.
“Oh. Yeah.” He looked over his shoulder. “The dragon has it.”
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