A Keeper’s Tale: The Story of Tomkin and the Dragon Read online

  Tomkin’s mind cast about for a better plan, but there was nothing. He straightened his shoulders and raised the torch, sending the ceiling shadows scurrying away for cover.

  He wasn’t going to let his story end hiding in a hallway.

  He strode toward the door to the great hall, purposefully making his footsteps ring. With a yank he pulled the door open, expecting resistance. The hinges gave almost no protest at all and the door swung in, crashing against the wall.

  Tomkin flinched and froze as the sound echoed in the great hall.

  Nothing stirred in the darkness.

  You cannot cower in the servants’ hall after slamming the door open. The dragon’s voice rang out in his mind, somehow managing to echo, even though Tomkin knew it was only in his mind.

  Tomkin took a deep breath and stepped out into the room.

  The fires had burned out and the room was terribly dark. Tomkin’s torch lit a small circle of the floor at his feet, but barely reached to the nearest wall. The only other light in the room came from the moonlight dropping in through the gaping windows, outlining just the mound of the dragon’s back in flashes of pale light. The rest of the creature was sunken in blackness.

  Tomkin gripped the torch and stepped closer until the head of the dragon, resting on the floor, came into view. Unlike the moonlight, the torchlight set the dragon’s scales dancing with glints of flaming orange.

  Vorath’s yellow eyes glittered.

  Tomkin swallowed in an effort to banish the dryness in his mouth. His tongue felt huge and ill-formed.

  “I’ve come with an offer.” Tomkin’s voice was thin in the darkness, not even reaching the walls to echo off.

  You have nothing I desire, beyond your life.

  “You want sheep,” Tomkin pointed out, “and you don’t like them wooly.”

  The dragon looked at him with his flat reptilian eyes.

  This wasn’t going to work. Vorath didn’t want to live on an island in isolation. Tomkin clamped down on his thoughts, trying to keep them as quiet as possible so Vorath couldn’t hear them. Tomkin’s hand holding the torch shook, making the shadows shudder and the glimmers of light dance over Vorath’s scales. Tomkin forced the next words out.

  “There’s an island south of here. Past Coastal Baylon a half day’s row out to sea.”

  Vorath’s eyes stayed fixed on Tomkin and he tried not to shift under the gaze. “It’s not a small island, it’s quite big. It’s named—” He couldn’t call it the Isle of Bald Sheep. “It doesn’t have a name, but Marshwell owns it, so we’ll name it anything you’d like. The Island of Fire and Death? The Dread Isle?”

  Vorath didn’t move, so Tomkin’s mouth hurried to fill the silence.

  “It’s perfect for you. It’s covered with sheep that grow no wool. A few people have tried to domesticate them, to bring them to Marshwell and start a herd, but a bald sheep is only half as valuable as a regular one, so…really the sheep just live there undisturbed. And there are thousands of them.”

  Vorath was so still that Tomkin had the fleeting, irrational fear the creature had died. Which should have been a good thought, but instead, the idea of the dragon being only paces from him and dead made him feel as though it had been killed by long fingers of shadows, and surely they were coming for Tomkin next.

  “There’s a volcano at one end,” Tomkin said to break the silence, “which is bound to have caves.”

  The eyes did not blink.

  “Volcano caves are warm,” he said weakly. “And that sounds…dragony.”

  Silence stretched through the room. The weight of the dragon’s gaze settled on Tomkin until his body felt all gangly and unorganized. He shifted, trying to stand taller, and the movement of the torch sent ripples of light across Vorath’s scales. And amidst all the movement of the light, the dragon was perfectly still.

  Finally he blinked a long, bored blink.

  You want me to leave this castle, the castle I have desired since I was young, leave my revenge on your family untaken, and exile myself to an island in the sea?

  Tomkin’s throat felt awkward, as though he had no idea how to swallow. He nodded. The movement felt jerky.

  Why would I do this?

  A flicker of irritation flashed in Tomkin’s chest. It was a good idea. Just because the dragon was so consumed with vengeance that he couldn’t see it, Tomkin shouldn’t have to suffer.

  “Because I would like to stay uneaten,” Tomkin snapped. “And I’m offering you a way to live in peace.” He gestured around the great hall. “To not end up with the same fate as your mother.”

  The dragon’s eyes narrowed to slits and a hiss of hot air blew out of his nostrils. Tomkin smelled hot metal as the breath washed over him. But, as though his chest had turned into some sort of forge, the air fanned his irritation into something stronger.

  “Do you really think men will leave you alone here? Do you think you can destroy Marshwell and the rest of the land will just let that pass? More and more men will come. Warriors, knights, assassins, armies.” Tomkin took a step forward. “If you kill me, you will begin a series of events that will leave you hunted until you are destroyed. You may be powerful. You may have scales of iron that protect you. But there is only one of you and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of us. And we will make it our goal to destroy you.”

  Vorath’s eyes flashed. People do not frighten me.

  “Did people frighten your mother?” Tomkin threw back at the dragon, wanting to see Vorath as angry as he was. “Because they should have. And they should frighten you.”

  The voice was back, the bearded one in Tomkin’s head, begging him to stop talking. To consider what he was saying. To consider the fact that he was baiting a dragon who already intended to kill him.

  Most of his mind was filled with the terror at what was about to happen, but there was also a thick, deep anger. Anger at everyone who had thought Tomkin incapable of difficult things. Anger at the fact that he was small and good at bargains instead of huge and good at wielding a sword. Anger at this dragon for not having the flaw that he should have. For forcing Tomkin to fail—and die failing.

  “You may be able to defeat me, but you won’t defeat them all. Someone will get past your fire and past your scales, and you will die, alone, in a gully in the mountains.”

  Vorath lifted his head until Tomkin had to crane his neck up to meet the monster’s furious gaze. Behind the creature light seeped over the eastern horizon, washing out the stars and dropping the land into a shadow that felt darker than the night.

  The dragon’s silhouette hung between Tomkin and the dawn. Air sucked past Tomkin as the dragon drew in a breath, and Tomkin knew the fire was coming.

  Tomkin thought of Mags running toward the Scale Mountains. At least he had rescued the girl. Not that anyone was going to know. Mags wasn’t going to stop by the holding to let them know.

  No, if Tomkin were remembered at all, it would only be as the first death among many.

  Tomkin saw the nostrils flare. Gripping his Granduncle’s sword, as though it would do anything against the coming destruction, he pulled his mind away from the approaching fire and closed his eyes

  He pictured Mags, getting farther and farther away from this place every moment. He let his mind run there with her, far away from this moment, from the coming fire.

  Run, Mags, he thought, willing any small bit of energy he had left to her.

  “If you burn that boy,” Mags’ imperious voice came cutting through the great hall, “I will destroy this castle.”

  Vorath’s gaze snapped to the back of the room and Tomkin spun around.

  There, glaring at the dragon and dirtier than ever, stood Mags.

  22

  Tomkin stared at her, everything in his body aghast at the sight of her.

  “What are you doing here?” Tomkin demanded.

  “Saving you.” Mags stepped up next to him and gave him a prim smile. “You’re welcome. I ran into Wink coming ba
ck because he didn’t want to leave me here, and we decided you would probably need help. Obviously, we were right.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Tomkin demanded. “I got you out! You were free! All you had to do was run and do something sensible for once!”

  Mags turned to him, her eyes furious. “You knew,” she hissed at him. “You knew you couldn’t fix the winch.”

  “You were free.” Tomkin stared at her, his mind slamming against the question of how she could be back.

  There was fury in her face, but also pain and confusion and more emotions than Tomkin could hope to sort out. “You lied to me.”

  Something snapped inside of him. He glared at her and then at Vorath. “Yes, I lied. It was my turn.”

  Vorath cocked his head and watched the two of them.

  “How did you get back in?” Tomkin demanded. “And why are you so filthy again?”

  “Because you sent me up a steep, muddy trail!” She put her hands on her hips. “Liar.”

  “Of course I lied! I wanted you to go. To get away from here and stop putting yourself in danger over a stupid plan to live in this castle, which besides being inhabited by a dragon,”—He flung one arm at the enormous creature in front of him— “belongs to me.”

  “It belongs to your father,” Lissa pointed out.

  “Why didn’t you kill me before she showed up?” Tomkin yelled at Vorath. “At least then I would have died thinking I had saved her useless hide.”

  “It’s not your job to save me.” Mags stomped one dirty foot on the floor. “I don’t need you to rescue me, or think you know better than me.”

  Mags turned away from him and stepped toward the dragon. “You”—she leveled a tiny finger at the dragon’s enormous snout— “lied to me, too. We had a deal. I help you fix the castle, you and I live here together. But you didn’t plan on doing that, did you?”

  She was so small standing there, one hand on her hip, glaring at the creature in front of her. Tomkin knew it was coming. The fire was coming and it would burn both of them now. She looked so brave and so foolish standing there.

  “You think you’re so indestructible because of your big teeth and your shiny scales,” she waved a dismissive hand at the dragon’s enormous body. “But I’ve had Wink shrink the foundation stones of this castle. And if you don’t give me your word—your actual word that you will honor your promises—I’ll have him shrink every stone in this ruin and send the rubble rolling down into the river.”

  Tomkin stared at Mags. That was a decent bargaining chip. Tomkin glanced around and saw Wink standing near the back of the room.

  “And if anything happens to me,” Mags continued, “he’ll destroy this place.”

  If you destroy this castle, Vorath’s voice was unconcerned, I will fly out of it and you will fall with it into the river. Then I will go and lay waste to not only Marshwell, I will destroy Greentree as well. I will raze your home and burn your fields. The people of your land will run in terror and I will hunt them down, one by one.

  An image slammed into Tomkin’s head of Vorath soaring over a town of people, destroying and burning at will. Weapons would be powerless. Maybe someday, someone would hurt the creature. But until then, he would destroy everything he found.

  Swords could not hurt him. Arrows would bounce harmlessly off the orange scales.

  The scales.

  Tomkin’s mind latched on to the idea and he shoved his hand into his pocket. His fingers ran over the tiny ridges on the scale.

  There it was. There was the leverage. Nothing as complicated as revenge. Just pure, animal survival.

  Trying to ignore the pictures of destruction being shoved at his mind, he motioned for Wink to come closer and held out the scale to him. “Does this have enough iron that you could shrink it?”

  The kobold took the scale with two knobby fingers. “Yes, but I’m not wasting energy on something as useless as a single scale.”

  Tomkin tipped his head toward the dragon. “Is it connected enough to all of those, that you can shrink them all?”

  Wink’s eyes widened, and a vicious grin flashed across the kobold’s face. He reached out and took the scale from Tomkin.

  “Not yet,” Tomkin whispered.

  The images of Vorath destroying things ran in his mind, but he pushed them aside again. Mags was still standing before the onslaught of the vision, but she was wilting. Tomkin stepped up beside her, placing his shoulder against hers. She was blinking back tears, but at his touch she lifted her chin slightly.

  “You’re right,” Tomkin said loudly, into the silence of the great hall. The sound of it faded the images as Vorath’s attention moved to Tomkin. “You’re right. You can come to our homes and destroy us and there is very little we can do. We cannot hope to defeat a dragon as well-protected as you.”

  Vorath’s eyes narrowed.

  “The way things stand, you would overpower us.” Tomkin stepped forward again. “So let’s adjust the scales a bit, shall we?”

  Tomkin looked pointedly at the scales on Vorath’s chest.

  Nothing happened. The scales remained, rising and falling with the dragon’s breath, perfect and impenetrable.

  Tomkin glanced behind him at Wink. The kobold was holding the dragon’s scale between two knobby fingers and spinning it with the other hand.

  “Really?” Tomkin demanded. “No story in history has had that good of a setup, and you’re not paying attention?”

  The kobold looked at him blankly.

  “Adjust the scales!” Tomkin hissed at the creature.

  Wink scowled at Tomkin before narrowing his eyes at the dragon.

  A low growl began deep in the dragon’s chest and it fixed an annoyed look at Tomkin. Mags took a half step backwards.

  Tomkin focused on the large scales covering the curve of the dragon’s chest.

  They began to shrink.

  The scale he was watching drew back, growing smaller, separating from the ones next to it. A sliver of white flesh appeared at the edge of it.

  Vorath twisted and snapped his jaw at his chest as every scale shrank, revealing thin snakes of white flesh, which gradually grew until each scale was surrounded by exposed skin.

  Vorath roared, twisting and thrashing.

  STOP! The dragon’s voice crashed into Tomkin’s mind, dropping him to his knees. Beside him he heard Mags cry out.

  Tomkin met Wink’s questioning gaze and nodded. The scales on the dragon stopped shrinking.

  Vorath sat curled up, backed up against the wall, his body coiled to attack. He let out a long, vicious hiss.

  Tomkin stood slowly, warily. Vorath’s eyes followed the movement, burning with hatred. The creature began to draw in a deep breath.

  “If anything happens to us,” Tomkin said quickly, “Wink will shrink every scale off your body.”

  Next to him, Wink blinked invisible.

  “He has your scale, and you see what he can do….”

  Vorath held his breath for a moment. When he let it out, there was no fire, but scorching hot air rushed into Tomkin’s face, and he ducked his face away from it.

  “Your scales will grow back,” Tomkin said when it stopped. “Right, Wink?”

  Wink’s voice came out of the darkness. “There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just smaller.”

  Tomkin nodded. “But now, if you go to Marshwell or Greentree, you won’t overpower us. Instead of a million impenetrable scales, you have a million chinks in your armor. Every arrow, every sword, every spear will have a million targets.

  “You may destroy some of us, but you will destroy yourself as well.”

  Vorath clenched his claws, scraping deep grooves into the flagstones. He threw his head back and let out a roar that shook the castle. Tomkin stumbled back into Mags, who grabbed his arm.

  “I’ve given you a good option,” Tomkin said. “The island is a good place. It gives you what you want, it gives us what we want. You go to a land you can rule without contest, a plac
e providing everything you need. And we get to live and not have our homes destroyed.” He thrust an image of a map to the island at the dragon, as loudly as his thoughts could manage.

  Vorath’s head came down until his jaw hung right in front of Tomkin, his fangs within easy reach.

  Tomkin forced himself to stand still, forced himself not to back away from the nostrils that were covered now in pallid skin with a sparse scattering of tiny scales across it. The skin looked raw and exposed.

  I will destroy you.

  “I don’t think so,” Tomkin said, holding Vorath’s gaze and forcing his words to sound brave. “Wink is going to keep your scale. If you decide that revenge would taste better than bald sheep, the kobold will shrink your scales until they disappear altogether.” He stared at one tiny, perfect scale at the end of Vorath’s nose, surrounded by white skin. “I’m not positive, but I think there’s a fair chance that if he does, the scales will not grow back.”

  A deep growl rumbled in Vorath’s chest. Tomkin fought to not back away.

  Mags stepped up next to Tomkin. “It’s time you left, Vorath. If we hear you are anywhere in Queensland, we will come find you.”

  The dragon’s gaze flicked between the two of them. Tomkin reached over and gripped Mags’ hand. It was shaking, but she stood tall.

  Air sucked past Tomkin into the dragon. Vorath lifted his head and his wings unfurled. A noise like thundering water rushed out of the monster. Tomkin dropped the sword and grabbed Mags, pulling her to the floor as a river of flame shot out above them.

  Vorath thrashed his head around, spraying fire across the room. Tomkin ducked behind his arm and watched the flames above him until the heat became unbearable, and he pushed himself and Mags lower against the floor. The cool stones beneath him shook with the dragon’s fury.

  Claw scraped against stone and cold air rushed back over him.

  Tomkin looked up to see the pale shape of Vorath slithering toward the gaping windows. With a scramble and a scattering of stones, the dragon flung himself out the window, spread his pale orange wings until they blocked the rising sun, then banked south and disappeared down the Great River.