Dragon Castle (4 page)

And what sort of visitors lure your parents away with false and ensorcelled invitations?

AS THE BOY fell he caught a glimpse of the shining lands whose borders changed from day to day and moment to moment. For the land of the Fair Folk occupies the fifth direction—that one other than the usual east, south, west, and north. Now, though, its silver light flickered and then vanished.

The Fair Folk, he thought, have seen the destruction of my family. They will show themselves no longer to our conquered land. They are sad.

His body struck a branch so cushioned with needles that it stopped his fall for an instant, almost like a wide green hand trying to catch him. However, he did not grasp at it with his own hands. Instead he allowed himself to slip limply from its embrace.

Let me join my family, he thought, falling again.

But the arms that caught him before he struck the ground were not green nor those of a tree. They were human and as heavily muscled as the chest that he thudded into. It knocked the wind from him and for a moment he gasped like a fish out of water, his traitorous body still struggling to breathe despite his wish to let his life end here.

“Child,” a deep voice said. “It is not your time to die yet.”

THE FIRST THING I think when I reach the ramparts and discern the size of the cloud coming across the valley toward our tall hill is that “invited guests” may not be the right words for a body of riders large enough to throw up so much dust.

Army of invaders is more like it.

The second thing that comes to my mind is to wonder about the whereabouts of our dogs, Ucta and Odvaha. A party of men that large may have a pack of dogs with them. Great vicious wolfhounds, perhaps, loping beside their destriers. If such dogs should encounter my two faithful friends, it would not bode well.

For the wolfhounds.

Where are you?
I think.

Their minds answer me from the direction of Stary Les, the forest of great trees that begins near the foot of our hill and to the left of the main road.

I look over at Paulek. He's bouncing up and down in excitement as the ominous cloud of dust grows closer. As always, only I can hear Ucta's and Odvaha's silent voices. He loves them as much as I do. There's no doubt their devotion to him is just as strong. They'd give their lives to protect Paulek. But his relationship is different and has been from the start.

I remember the day we first met them. I was ten years old and Paulek was eleven. Both of us were certain that nothing in the world could ever harm us. Each of us was well-armed with bows and arrows over our shoulders and short sword at our sides. We were already accomplished horsemen. Our mounts were fine, spirited steeds. We thought ourselves two knights out to do great deeds. Perhaps we'd find a dragon to fight as our great ancestor did long ago.

To be honest, I was not that eager to find a real dragon. It wasn't as if we were carrying Pavol's legendary pouch. I knew my older brother and I were playing at being knights. Paulek, though, really thought he was one.

Still, each of us had been well enough trained by then to shoot an arrow through the knothole in a piece of wood sixty paces away. The sword training we'd received from our father and Black Yanosh had made each of us—big for our ages and strong as we already were—a match for most grown men.

Before we left, Georgi came out with something wrapped in cloth.

“Young sir,” he said, knuckling his forehead and holding the bundle up, “you and your fine brother might have need of this.”

“Come along, Rashko,” Paulek said, pacing his horse back and forth. He was impatient to set out on our valorous quest. “No time to waste. Remember Father's words. The arrow not fired never strikes a target.”

I reined my horse in to take what Georgi handed me. It was warm and the good smell that came from within was familiar.

“Bread and bacon, young sir,” Georgi said.

“Dakujem,”
I said. “Thank you.”

A knowing smile came to his face as he placed his finger alongside his nose. “Meant to be shared,” Georgi replied.

I placed the bundle into my saddlebag and then forgot about it as we rode along. It was a beautiful day. A balmy breeze came down from the Tatras. A golden eagle described great circles in the sky above us. The warm spring light shimmered from the leaves of alders along the small singing streams.

Despite the lovely day, finding great deeds to accomplish proved harder than we had expected. Our parents' reputation combined with their light-handed rule of our diminutive dukedom had done little to improve the opportunities for knight errantry. There was no obvious iniquity. Not a single maiden in distress being kidnapped by dark villains. No huge, bloodthirsty monsters threatening the lives of the peasants diligently working their fields.

In Mesto, the small town at the center of our land, all was equally and boringly at peace. People went about their business unmolested by ogres, trolls, or evil beings of any sort. Merchants smiled, waved for us to stop. I was tempted. Some sort of fair was going on. I saw bright-colored wagons and the painted shapes of an eye and a hand on a flag—the sure sign of a fortune-teller. A troupe of entertainers was just setting up near the blacksmith. I especially wanted to stay and watch the Gypsy jugglers, but Paulek was impatient.

A thought had come to him. Undoubtedly it was a bit lonely after wandering companionless through my brother's mind.

“I have an idea!” he said, slapping his palm to his forehead.

I almost fell off my horse. Even at ten I knew how rare a statement that was from Paulek.

“I know just where we can go,” he continued.

That was when I got worried. “Just where we can go” could only mean the one place that we should not go. It was...

“Cierny Les,” he said. “That's where we'll find some excitement.”

How right he was. I groaned inwardly. Cierny Les, the Black Forest, in the north of our dukedom, was nothing like Stary Les, the Old Forest. Stary Les, close to our castle, had once, before the arrival of our famous ancestor Pavol the Good, been a place of deadly peril. Now, though, it was as safe as an old family friend.

“Our parents told us that those who are wise always avoid Black Forest.”

Wrong thing to say. I bit my tongue as soon as I uttered those words. I'd forgotten what passed for logic with my brother.

“Of course,” Paulek said, a pleased grin on his handsome, innocent face. “But not those who are brave! As Father says, ‘Wisdom and adventure seldom travel together.' Thus there must be some sort of adventure there. Let's go!”

Off he went, me trailing behind him and hoping I had learned enough of Cesta from Uncle Jozef to save my reckless brother from his own eagerness.

“Cesta” means the Road. I suppose I should tell you a little about it, since Cesta—and Georgi's parting gift—was so important that day. So here is a bit of what old Uncle Jozef taught us about the way.

The Road teaches us to give one thing for another.

That, as I said, is a little about Cesta.

That is how Uncle Jozef has always taught the way. He answers questions with simple sayings. Simpler than even one of my father's proverbs.

Or Uncle Jozef gives even less than words. Only a gesture. Such as pointing to his nose or knocking his knuckles against a water jug. Then he leaves me stewing in my own juices for days and weeks, trying to figure it out.

Until suddenly, in the most obvious way, Cesta becomes clear to me. I see the path to follow. For a moment, at least.

Then I think about it and it becomes even more complicated.

Suffice it to say, my foolhardy brother and I stayed on the path Paulek had chosen. We rode on over hill and dale, across brook and stream, down valley and up, until we came to the edge of the Black Forest. We'd left all ways but one behind. Before us the narrow twisting path that dove down beneath the old, ominous branches of the oaks into the dark silence where no birds sang and the shadows grew strong.

“Dobre, dobre,”
Paulek chortled. “This is perfect. There has to be adventure here.”

“Ano,”
I replied.

How else could I have answered him? Other than we are doomed as doomed can be?

We did not have to venture far. We rounded the first corner in the wood and suddenly there they were. They stood in the center of the path. They were huge and menacing. Each of them was twice as large as a bull mastiff. Their coats were black as coal and their eyes red as flame. Their sharp, gleaming teeth were bared. The tense muscles in their shoulders rippled as they crouched, ready to spring. Their deep-throated growls made the air seem to throb.

My right hand began to slide slowly down toward the side where my short sword hung.

Although he has never been imaginative enough to be terrified—he always leaves that up to me—Paulek was impressed enough to rein in his horse. He looked over at me—as he always does when he gets us into trouble.

“What now, Rashko?” he asked in a calm voice. As if I would know?

Surprisingly, I did. My hand continued past my sword hilt to the saddlebag with Georgi's package in it. I pulled it out, unfolded the cloth.

“Tu,”
I said. “Here.”

Then I tossed each of the wolves a piece of bacon wrapped in bread. One thing for another.

Each of them caught their bread and bacon in midair and gulped it down. Then they began to wag their tails.

“Oh,” Paulek said. “Nice doggies.”

My brother, as I have mentioned earlier, has always loved animals. It was Paulek and not me who was always bringing home little bunnies or fawns from the woods. I was the one who returned them to the places where he found them after my mother explained that their parents would be worried about them. Having two puppies to pet—even ones big enough to rip his throat out with one bite—was much more fun than playing at being a knight errant. Before I could say a word, Paulek had hopped off his horse. By the time I climbed down both giant wolves were on their backs, their tongues hanging out as he rubbed their stomachs.

“What shall we name them, Rashko?” he said.

“Ucta,” I said without hesitation, not knowing why but knowing it was right as I caught the eye of the one with the white marks on his chest and front paws. “Honor.”

Ano,
I heard back, a low growling voice in my mind.

“And you,” I said, looking at the one who was sable dark as night, as deep an ebony as the thought of blackness itself, “you are Odvaha. Courage.”

Ano, kamarat
. Yes, friend, it answered.

All plans for adventure vanished from Paulek's mind. He couldn't wait to get back to share our new friends with my parents.

“Will they come with us?” he asked me.

“Yes, they will.”

Tails wagging like the big dogs we would tell everyone they were, they followed us home.

We soon learned that not only would my parents accept them without question as two lost doggies looking for a pair of boys to be their masters, but that Ucta and Odvaha would be our most faithful friends. They were always ready to go anywhere with us and, if necessary, to risk their lives for ours. All that in exchange for a gift of bread and bacon—or something a bit more than that. Cesta being Cesta.

 

 

THE CLOUD OF dust has reached the bottom of our hill. I see banners and figures emerging from it. The insignias on the two flags are not ones I've seen before. The first one pictures a black cloud beneath which a red-mailed fist holds a twisting yellow serpent in its grasp. The second banner features the grim image of a black sword thrust through a bleeding heart. My guess is that their owner is not a proponent of gentle debate. That guess is strengthened by the fact that those flags are flying from the glistening steel tips of two long lances. Also the two broad-shouldered men holding those lances have the cold faces of killers. Plus there are at least thirty other armed and just as hard-bitten mounted troopers behind them.

How lovely.

They all seem a bit disappointed that our drawbridge has been ratcheted up since their messenger's departure. Georgi and I made sure of that. It's a good thing we did. I see no friendly intent in the scarred and helmeted faces below—as well as sufficient weaponry to wage a small war or two. There are crossbows and bundles of quarrels, bows and quivers of arrows, long swords, lances, balls and chains, pikes, and enough knives to supply a bevy of butcher shops.

The lanky herald who visited us a few hours ago impatiently kicks his heels into the side of his mount and makes his way to the front of the mob that is glaring up at Georgi and me on the battlements.

“Hello, the castle,” he calls, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Lower the drawbridge. We are friends. We come in peace.”

Now, why do I doubt that?

THE BOY LOOKED up at the broad face of the bearded and burly man who had saved him from having his brains dashed out by the rocks of the hillside. The boy was used to kindness, having seen it all his life in the faces and actions of his parents. He saw a similar kindness, marked by sorrow, in the rough features of his savior. And there was something else here that the boy had never seen before.

Grimness, the boy thought. Kind though those eyes might be, somehow the boy knew that the one who held him as easily as the boy could hold a feather would make a formidable foe.