Chapter Text
“Of course Sewan. Of course your turnips are doing horrible. You say that every year. And yet every year ends with your fields yielding more than any other in the whole damn village, so forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
Hob couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice entirely, even if he knew that old Sewan didn’t really deserve to be on the receiving end. It was not the man’s fault that Hob was bored out of his mind, just as he was in every growing season. Nor was it his fault that Hob couldn’t care less about turnips, his own or anyone else’s.
He swallowed down the last of his beer and ordered another, sipping at the lukewarm drink he was given. It was hot inside the tavern, almost as hot as it was outdoors. Sewan was probably right in his assessment of his crop for once. Nothing was doing well this year. Not with the drought that had been keeping the whole place in its grip.
It was one of the many reasons for Hob’s shitty mood. He’d worked his arse off to get everything growing, and now all he and everyone else could do was pray for rain so all that work wouldn’t go to waste and leave them all starving. It wasn’t like anyone in the village had the finances to make it through winter if their harvest failed.
He was halfway through his second beer when the door was opened with a bang.
“HELLO FOLKS!”
The voice that rang through the room was even louder than the sound of the door slamming into the table behind it, and one that Hob was not familiar with. He looked up, taking in the trio that stepped in, bringing a cloud of dust with them.
They were very obviously not from around. Not with the clothing they wore, not to mention the weapons that seemed to be more numerous than their limbs, of which at least one was visibly missing. A woman and two men, each of them dressed in tight-fitting trousers and sturdy leather jerkins, all walking with more swagger than anyone Hob had ever seen before.
They plopped themselves down on the bench next to Hob, calling for beer and food, draining the first cups they were given in one go before burping and asking for seconds.
They were nothing like anyone Hob had met before, new and fresh and other so he was quick to engage them in conversation. Whatever it was they had to say was bound to be more interesting than talk about turnips and sheep.
“So who are you then?” he asked, curious about who they were and how they ended up in Little Huddleton of all places. It wasn’t like they got a lot of traffic coming through the village.
“Just passing through on the way to the coronation. We need supplies and you folks happened to be on the route.”
“The coronation?” That would have been one of the last things Hob had expected them to say, only just above them expressing a desire to buy some land in the village, bury their weapons, and become farmers.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look like the sort of people to enjoy a posh party like a king’s crowning. No offence, but isn’t that more for city folk and the silks-and-velvets?”
“Hell yeah. But those fluffed up pricks aren’t going to do all the work though, are they? It’s not like they would know how to go about catching a dragon for the ceremony. No, that’s all us, and if we get some entertainment at the end of the ride, that’s just an added bonus.”
Dragon catchers? That would explain their looks, and the way they walked around like they owned the place. They probably could own it if they wanted to, either by simply buying the entire village or by killing everyone inside. It’s not like a bunch of farmers like Hob would be able to put up much of a fight against people whose job was hunting predators as big as the entire tavern he was sitting in, and those same bloody big predators were incredibly valuable. Dragon meat was worth it’s weight in silver, dragon leather twice that in gold. Just the scaled belt around the woman’s belly was probably worth more than the all of Little Huddleton.
“Speaking of bonuses…” One of the men took a quick swallow of his beer and stood up, climbing onto the bench and giving a shrill whistle to get everyone’s attention.
“I offer a job to any strong, able-bodied man or woman capable of riding and fighting and not afraid to get their hands dirty! Three weeks of decent pay, to be handed over once we reach the capital, with potential to join up permanently if you make it there in one piece. A horse will be provided, as will a weapon and provisions. Everything else is your own fucking problem, I’m not your mother.”
Silence fell, followed by snorts of laughter all around. “You go catch your dragons man. We’re decent folk here, we don’t do stuff like that.” someone called out from the corner, followed by jokes about how very indecent the speaker often was after a few drinks.
Old Sewan managed to talk loudly enough to be heard over the others, shaking his head as he did. “You won’t find anyone foolish enough to join you in here lad, except perhaps young Hob Gadling there.” He pointed a gnarled finger and a mostly toothless grin in Hob direction. “His da never managed to beat the dreams of being something greater than he is out of him, more’s the pity.”
Hob felt himself redden as three more pairs of eyes turned to him.
Sewan had been a good mate of his father, and had been just as incapable of understanding Hob’s desire to do something else with his life as his old man had been.
The fact that Hob had done his duty as the only son, despite his own wishes, hadn’t been enough to endear him to either his father or Sewan, or make them forget and forgive his dreams of becoming a soldier or a huntsman. It seemed like the only thing that the man disliked more than underperforming crops was people who wanted to reach for more than they were born to.
“You know what? I think I might. It’s got to beat watching turnips grow. Or not grow, as is the case right now.”
Just getting to see the expression on old Sewan’s face was worth making a life-changing decision like that, even if he was going to end up eaten by a flying reptile on his first day. The bastard’s eyes were so wide that they seemed to consider following the example of his teeth and just leave his head entirely.
Sewan’s sputtering disappeared completely in the roar the dragon catchers let out at his words, and a hand landed on his shoulder with a heavy thump that vaguely resembled a friendly clap. “Good man! You won’t regret it a bit, I tell you. Go get your stuff, we’ll be leaving as soon as we’ve finished our meal and stocked up on supplies.”
Hob was finished with packing everything he needed for a three-week trip well before the catchers were done eating. It wasn’t like he had much to bring along, or much to choose from.
The set of clothes he’d set aside for parties and special occasions went on the bottom of his pack, all his socks dumped above them. He’d prefer to keep the clothes down there until they reached the capital, but he’d have the available if he ended up damaging his regular stuff too badly to be patched up again. A deep bowl, a plate and utensils went on top of the socks, along with a spare belt and the pouch of oiled leather that served as his tinderbox. Perishable goods he couldn’t leave behind took up the rest of the space, and a pair of blankets were bunched up in a lumpy roll he could dump on a horse or over his own shoulders. It wasn’t likely that it would get cold at night, but he’d still prefer to have something else than just yellowing grass between himself and the ground when he slept.
He left the longbow he was quite proficient with behind in its place on a shelf with a small pang of regret. It would be far too unwieldy on horseback though, and the catchers had mentioned weapons for him to borrow. It wasn’t like he was going to be poaching rabbits or deer this time, a longbow could very well be completely unsuitable for his new job. He’d have to come back for it if the gig did end up turning into something more permanent.
He did grab his whittling knife and the project he was working on at the moment after a moment of hesitation, tucking them into the pouch at his belt before stepping out and closing the door to his childhood home and his old life behind him.
The catchers were still inside the tavern by the time he made it back, but several horses that didn’t belong in little Huddleton were tied down in front of it, laden with sacks and two small barrels bearing Peve’s trademark. At least the drink would be good then. Peve Paddling’s cider was by far the best Hob had ever had, and he was a very experienced drinker. It wasn’t like there was much else to do in the village aside from drinking and playing dice.
He grinned a gave a cheery wave when the catchers did finally show up, the one-armed man looking slightly wobbly on his legs. He’d probably fallen to those very same forms of entertainment, and was now feeling the effects.
“Ready to go?” Hob asked, eager to get away from the prying eyes he could feel peering at him right through the walls of the tavern. He could imagine the rumour mill working overtime in there already, and he didn’t want to wait around until people worked up the nerve to try to make him stay.
“Yeah. We’ll have to walk until we can get all this shit on the cart, hope you don’t mind.”
“I’d happily crawl if it got me away from here. Lead the way.”
The walk to the rest of the party of dragon catchers wasn’t long, and it gave Hob a chance to get to know the three he was walking along with.
It felt a bit like meeting characters from the legends and histories he’d listened to as a child, back when his father hadn’t yet decided that that sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed to poison his impressionable mind any more. They were larger than life in a way, supernatural heroes come to earth, even one-armed Tristan who happened to be drunk enough to need a tight grip on a horse’s mane to stay upright and moving in the right direction.
The sun had hardly moved in the sky when they reached a point where the road curled around a copse of trees, and they were greeted with shouts and waves.
The rest of the troupe was no more than a grand total of five people, several of which were obviously injured. They were easy to miss despite their exotic looks, as the cause of those injuries was also present and drew the eye like dead fish drew flies.
A team of twelve massive draft horses stood swishing their tails and stamping their feet, hitched to a wagon as big as the tavern Hob had just left. The entire thing was no more than a cage on wheels, at least twice as big as the house he’d grown up in, and even that was barely big enough to fit the creature curled up inside.
A mountain of shimmering black scales and leathery wings was pressed against the bars on all sides, the space between the steel bars too narrow to allow more than a hand to be pushed between them. Hob couldn’t imagine going up against something that big. How had they managed to force it into the cage at all without ending up as dragon dung? And how had they got it all the way to Little Huddleton?
“You’re taking this thing all the way to the capital? Like this? In three weeks?!”
It wasn’t like the roads were all that great around here. Just a bit of missing paving or a muddy spot and they’d be stuck. Even the dozen heavy horses they had to pull the wagon wouldn’t be able to get it out of a moderately deep puddle, let alone a ditch. They were bloody lucky that it hadn’t rained in weeks.
“WE are mate. You’re as invested in it as we are now. We won’t get paid if we’re not there in time for the ceremony, and I think that’d be the least of our problems.” the woman who’d introduced herself as ‘Grunts’ said, her voice a low rumble that explained her nickname. “This big boy is to be the main event and the main course, if you catch my drift. Wouldn’t want to end up in his place if we fail to deliver what we promised.”
It suddenly felt like old Sewan wasn’t all that wrong in his opinions.
This whole endeavour seemed impossible now that Hob saw what he was supposed to be guarding. Three weeks to get all the way to the capitol hadn’t sounded like all that much of a stretch, he’d managed it on foot in a little over two, but it seemed laughable now.
Hob didn’t have time to answer though, as he was introduced to the others and told to help unload the horses at the same time.
He tried his best to memorize the names he was given as he dumped bags of wrinkly old turnips and last-year’s grain in between things that looked like an assortment of very small siege engines. The barrels of Peve Paddling’s cider fitted nicely between a pile of dusty blankets and a rack of wicked looking arrows as big as his leg. The serrated edges of the heads glistened in the bright sunlight, looking as beautiful as they did deadly.
The pile of more common weapons that lay at the bottom of the cart looked almost tiny in comparison.
“Soooo” Hob said to Grunts as he dusted himself off. “There’s you, along with Tristan and Enki. Then there’s Margaret with the mitella, Sigfried with the brilliant moustache, Inanna who seems to be the only one around without any injuries to speak of, Piers who’s sitting on top of the cage and Rostam over there with the horses, right?”
“Yep. Though Siegfried generally answers better to ‘boss’ than he does to his name. He predecessor was the same.”
The whole group got itself moving again as soon as the supplies had been stowed away, and Hob found himself astride a slender little mare that seemed to rock worse than a rowing boat on the river. He’d only ever ridden the single horse in the village, and that had been a gentle old beast that hadn’t ever moved faster than he absolutely had to, which was perfectly fine if he was to pull a plough or a cart. The horse that was between his legs right now felt like a twig of willow that was going to spring back into place as soon as it was released, and Hob was not quite sure whether he was going to stay on her back if she was to move any faster than a walk right now.
She did seem content to just walk along with the group though, following the heavy cage as it rolled down the road at a snail’s pace, giving Hob the time to get used to the motions.
“So you’re the new blood?”
The woman called Margaret manoeuvred her own horse to fall in beside him, a crossbow across her lap. The critical once-over she gave him made him feel incredibly small and very much aware of his very obvious low status. The worn linen and wool he wore were nothing compared to the dragonskin vest that wrapped around her rump like a glove, the scales shining in the sunlight like diamond studs. She seemed to like what she saw well enough though, as she gave him a short nod of approval.
“At least you’ve got some muscle on you.” she said before patting the weapon in front of her. “Ever shot one of these?”
“Never even held one. I’m a good shot with a longbow though, this can’t be that much harder.”
“They’re easier really. And pack a bigger punch as well. Lovely little tools, even if I prefer their big brothers.” She nodded to the massive bolts that Hob had admired before. “Not that I can do anything with them right now. Not with my arm in the mess it is.”
“What happened?” Hob asked, before realizing that it might come across as rude. “If you’re willing to tell of course.”
“It’s crushed, that’s what happened. I shot that big bastard over there right in the wing just as intended. He took a swipe at me in return as he crashed down, sent me flying down the mountainside. Woke up three days later, with a dent in my skull, my arm a mess, and half our crew already in the ground.”
“You lost people catching it?”
“Seven in total. We all know it’s a risky job, but we’ve never had one this bad.” She shrugged. “No use crying over lost blood eh? Let’s just make sure we get all the way to the capital and get paid without anyone trying to steal our cargo.
She proceeded to explain how the crossbow worked, as much as she could with just one functional arm, and then handed it over.
“Point that thing on anyone who doesn’t give us a wide berth, and shoot when they don’t back the fuck off when you holler at them to do so. Don’t bother trying to give a warning shot, you’ll be dead by the time you're ready to shoot again. We’re transporting cargo worth a king’s ransom and lost seven of our own to capture it, don’t give anyone a chance to take it from us.”
Hob nodded and tried to crank the thing up to get it usable, only to find it practically impossible on horseback. He just hoped they wouldn’t meet anyone who thought bothering a bunch of people dragging around a live dragon was a smart choice.
They rode until the sun was only just peeking out above the horizon, the blood-red glow of it washing over the flat grasslands that surrounded them. Siegfried had wanted to continue until they found a copse of trees or something else to hide away in for the night, but had to admit that Hob had been right in his claim that there wasn’t anything like that around for miles. There had been forests in the area once, a long time ago, but that had been before there was a city. Most of the trees had been used to build the houses and temples and guild-halls, and the few that survived the axes back then had ended up as firewood at some later point as the city dwellers went out further and further afield to find fuel.
Now they couldn’t do anything better than simply block the road with their carts and set the horses grazing in the fields. Hob, being the newest and most able-bodied at the moment, was sent off to find something to burn so they could have a hot meal.
There were young trees here and there, dying due to the drought, and masses of grass so dry and brittle that it fell apart in his hands. Still, it was the best that was available, so he gathered as many saplings and small shrubs as he could carry and dumped it all in a pile in the middle of the camp that had sprung up whilst he was gone.
“Think we’ll be burning grass for most of the journey.” he said as he sorted the whole mess into something that would hopefully not burn down the entire area, right in the middle of the collection of stools and benches that sat in a rough circle in the middle of the road. “Better than nothing I suppose. We wouldn’t have had anything at all if it hadn’t been so horribly dry for so long.”
A fire was burning quickly enough, and soon had pots bubbling away above it.
Everyone seemed to have tasks of their own to do as they waited for the food to cook, mending and crafting and sorting, and Hob felt rather awkward, just sitting there and doing nothing but listen to the chattering around him. He just stared at the dragon, watching as it twisted around to stare back.
It seemed like the group was quite a merry bunch, as the talking and joking hardly paused when the food was passed around. Hob had to admit that Piers was at least as good a cook as dear old Bertha who’d run the tavern back home and had cooked the greater majority of Hob’s meals since his mother died. There were herbs and spices in the stew that he hadn’t tasted before, and his questions about them led to stories about all the strange and faraway places the catchers had seen over the years.
“Catching all those exotic beasties has been good for business, even if it was a lot of travelling. It’s what got us the assignment to catch the dragon for the king’s crowning ceremony in the first place. Don’t think they would have believed any old fool who claimed they could bag a pure black one. But if Siegfried’s crew claim they can get one, everyone listens, and the king-to-be has to have a better one than his father did, right? Them lordships like to feel special. His dad had a piebald for his ceremony, this one has to be even better and more magnificent to prove that he’s the bigger man.”
‘What if we don’t get there in time? We have three weeks right?”
They’d made less than six miles in the hours Hob had travelled with them, and that didn’t seem like all that much. Not if the entire thing rested on the timing of their arrival.
“Then the value of that big lump of scales and meat over there goes down faster than a whore on a client, and the king-to-be won’t have anything to offer the gods to bless his rule. Can’t be good for our business either.”
“Here’s to making good speed then.”
The next day saw them riding at the break of dawn, and saw Hob regretting his choices in life. Mainly the ones that had led to him sitting on a horse for hours on end. His thighs and arse were killing him, and he doubted if his legs were ever going to straighten out again. It’d be his own bloody fault if he had to spend the rest of his life hobbling about bow-legged. At least he didn’t feel like he was going to fall off at the slightest misstep anymore. That was progress.
He was slightly jealous of Enki, who was riding on the wagon with the dragon. There was always at least one of them in the front to steer the horses, and one on top or behind the cage to keep an eye on their living cargo, and he would very much love to take Enki’s place. The man either didn’t see or ignored Hob’s pleading looks, making himself as comfortable as one could be whilst riding along a fairly rough stretch of road. A long pike was in his hands, and he seemed to enjoy poking the dragon awake with it every now and then.
The dragon took the prodding with more grace than Hob would have expected.
It didn’t do more than growl and bare its teeth the first few times the sharp metal scraped along its hide. It was only when they hit a bump in the road that made Enki lose his balance that the creature reacted, lifting its head to follow the man’s descent to the dusty ground.
“You might want to mind your footing.” it said, the voice deep and smooth. “You wouldn’t want to end up like your colleague, would you?”
Hob nearly chocked on his own tongue.
“Did it just… Talk?” He said, already feeling rather foolish for asking.
It was a dragon, of course it couldn’t talk. No more than the horse between Hob’s legs could, or the flies that seemed to follow them around all day. He really needed to make sure to get a few hours of sleep more tonight is this was what happened with a double shift of night-watch.
“Hmmm?” Enki said, dusting himself off. “Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know about that.” He looked from Hob to the cart and back again.
“Don’t worry. We’ll cut out its tongue just before we get there. Can’t do it any sooner though, not with the wounds it already has. Too much risk of infection if we’d do it now.” He shrugged. “Just ignore it or give it a good poke with the pike, that usually shuts them up.”
The man clambered back up onto the cart as it rolled on before digging the butt of the weapon into the dragon’s hindquarters, right against a filthy looking wound until the animal whined and turned its head away without saying a word.
“See? It knows to keep its mouth shut. Just need to remind it sometimes.”
Hob swallowed and gave a shaky nod, saved from having to answer by Margaret calling him over.
The rest of the day saw Hob lost in thought. He felt unsettled and uncomfortable, and neither had anything to do with the fact that he was still sitting astride a horse.
The people around him acted no different than they had the day before either. It was just that Hob’s perception of them had changed.
The dragon had spoken several times more as they moved up the road in a rumble of slow, steady hoofbeats. It sounded odd, the accent very different from anything Hob had ever heard before, but perfectly understandable nonetheless.
At first he’d thought the speech was similar to something like a hand-raised crow or starling that spoke. Just sounds it had learned to imitate in order to get something it wanted, words without true meaning.
That conviction lasted all of two hours.
By then he’d watched in silence as first Enki and then Siegfried rode along with the cage, taking the time to torment the dragon inside it.
Hob couldn’t call it anything else. There was no point to the way they randomly woke it from the fitful slumber it seemed to spent most of its time in with the pike and shouts, other than plain and simple enjoyment.
Dinner that night was just as rowdy as it had been last time, and none of the others seemed to notice Hob’s distraction. He found himself fiddling with his whittling knife, shaving away tiny slivers of wood from the chunk that should, at some point, start looking like a horse.
He only grumbled a bit when he was given the graveyard shift again, that horrid part of the night watch that didn’t allow much time to sleep either before or after. It wasn’t like he expected to fall asleep anyway, not with the way his mind was churning.
He was indeed still staring at the back of his eyelids when Rostam walked over to shake him awake. “Your turn mate. Haven’t seen or heard anything all night, so I guess you’re in for some really boring hours. Grunt’s up next.”
Hob nodded and wormed his way out of his blankets.
The night was pleasantly cool, almost cold compared to the dry heat of the daylight hours, and he didn’t mind walking around with the crossbow and the pike that was always close to the dragon’s cage for company.
He circled the camp a few times, getting to know the blurry shapes around him and the quiet rustling of dry grass that was moved around by the wind.
The moon was nearly at its smallest, just a fingernail of light among the thousands of pinprick stars, and the darkness swallowed up everything further than a few dozen feet in front of him. He could barely see the cage from the other side of the camp, let alone the dragon inside it. Its scales blended into the darkness even when Hob went closer, a void of blackness even deeper than just the dark of night.
The urge to take a closer look crept up in his mind. He had ridden at the back of the group for most of the day, keeping an eye out on the fields beside the road, relatively far away from the cage. He probably wouldn’t have given it more than furtive looks even if he hadn’t, too afraid of being made fun of by his new colleagues. They all treated the dragon much like one treated a rooster in a chicken coop, easy to ignore unless he made too much noise, in which case they encouraged him to shut up again. It wouldn’t do to stare at the beast like some awestruck boy seeing a knight for the first time.
“Hello?” he whispered, feeling slightly foolish.
The dragon didn’t answer, but the cage rattled slightly, the sound of scales sliding across steel a quiet rasp in the night.
“Are you awake?” Hob asked, deciding to ignore his brain shouting at him to just stop talking and walk on.
“I am now.” The annoyance was easy to hear, but Hob soldiered on regardless.
“Oh. Wow.” I didn’t know if you could really speak or if you just repeated stuff like the crow a mate of mine once had did.”
“Corvids are quite intelligent and have a rich language of their own. You humans simply never bother learning to understand it.”
That was… both very interesting and very unpleasant to know. Not just the fact that the dragon truly commanded language just fine and was therefore an intelligent being, but also that crows apparently were as well.
He didn’t even know how many of them he’d killed over the years. Some he had eaten, others he’d tied to poles dotted around his little plot of land, their corpses swinging in the wind to serve as a warning to their still breathing brethren. It was an effective way to encourage them to find their food elsewhere, and now he understood why. He’d probably avoid the place where his fellow humans were strung about like gruesome flags too.
“I doubt we can.”
“True. Your minds are quite small compared to most other thinking beings. Though you make up for it in cruelty and inventiveness.”
Hob didn’t think a creature belonging to a species known for eating whole flocks of sheep, including their shepherd, had any right to talk but didn’t voice that opinion. He was far too occupied trying to wrap his mind around the knowledge he had just been given to risk hearing even more life-altering things.
“Humans are not just cruel or inventive. We can be kind too. And funny and smart and brave.”
“And what are you then, little human? What would define you, if not your cruelty in keeping one such as I captive?”
“Curiosity.” Hob said without having to think. “There’s so much to see in the world. So many places to visit, so many lands to explore. I could see something new every day of my life, and it still wouldn’t be enough to see everything. Not by a long shot.”
The dragon was silent for a moment, peering at him from behind the bars, and Hob thought he could see tiny pinpricks of light in what had to be the creature’s eyes.
“Curiosity need not lead to cruelty or evil.” it said eventually, sounding thoughtful. “And yet here you are.”
It didn’t speak again, and Hob didn’t feel like trying to make it. He returned to his rounds, stepping quietly in endless circles until he was sure his shift was well and truly done. He prodded Grunt’s shoulder until her snores turned into curses.
“Your turn to stare into the darkness.” he whispered, suddenly eager to curl up into his blankets and hide away from the world for a while. He handed over the crossbow and gave her a pat on the shoulder as she mumbled something quite rude. “Good luck.”
The following days went on much the same.
Hob forced his legs to wrap around a horse in the morning, remained there for until the sun started to set, ate, talked and joked along with the rest of them with a cup of cider in his hands, and then waited for his shift of staring into the darkness to start. The most exciting thing to happen in all that time was a group of rather unsavoury looking people riding up to them and then following for a while, until Grunts and Hob went over to them to show the sort of weaponry they had available. The robbers-to-be had fallen back after that, turning down another path to find some easier prey when they hit a crossroads.
He was grateful to finally be getting some sleep again, a blessing after those first few broken nights, too exhausted for anything to keep him from drifting off into dreams.
All in all, life as a dragoncatcher was starting to feel almost normal. There was almost as much routine to life on the road as there was to life on a farm, just a different one. And at least there was something new to see whenever they rode around a bend in the road, instead of the same tired old trees and ramshackle houses.
It was only when it was his turn to create a meal out of their rations that he realized that he hadn’t noticed anyone actually feeding their cargo in all the time he’d been part of the team. He couldn’t imagine a beast that size would be satisfied with anything less than two whole horses and a sheep for dessert, but he hadn’t seen anything of the sort going into the cage, nor anything going out now that he thought about it.
Siegfried just laughed when he questioned the other man about it.
“Why would we spend money on feeding it when it’s only going to look fiercer when it’s hungry? It’s not like it is going to make any difference, there’ll be plenty of meat still on his bones when we get to the city, and we don’t get paid by weight this time. There’s no point in keeping it fed.”
That didn’t sound quite right to Hob’s ears. Horses could go for a good long while without food as well, but the group still made sure each and every one of them had a good deal of grass to munch on every time they stopped for the night. Heck, even humans could survive without regular meals for much longer than they themselves thought possible, he was living proof of that.
“How about water then? We stop to let the horses drink whenever we cross a pond or a stream, we could just as easily offer it some as well.”
Siegfried just scoffed. “Feel free to offer it a bucket if it helps you sleep at night. Just make sure it doesn’t take your hands along with the drink. It was hard enough to keep Tristan alive when he lost just the one, a man can’t lose both at the same time and live to tell the tale.”
Hob put that to the test the next day.
The road crossed a river with the help of a wide bridge, built in a time when the kings still cared about the subjects that lived beyond their own great city.
The water had been a wild mess of foam and waves the last time Hob’d crossed it, some years ago when the harvest had been so good that he had accompanied some other men of the village to sell their surplus in the great markets in the capital.
It was only a shallow stream now, bubbling merrily as it flowed around the rocks that dotted the bedding.
The horses were unhitched and led to the water to drink, and Hob hopped up onto the wagon to dig around for one of the buckets that were there in the mess of weapons and food. He’d help with filling the barrels later, he had a dragon to bother first.
He could feel the big black eyes following him as he walked up to the cage, sloshing water over his feet with every step.
“Hey.” he said, feeling a bit awkward. What did you say to a creature you held captive? ‘Sorry I’m keeping you in a cage without any food or shelter, but here’s a bit of water?’ He’d probably spit in his face if their places were reversed. He settled for a simple “Would you like something to drink?”
The dragon lifted its head from where it had been resting against the steel bars that formed the floor, tilting it in a way that reminded Hob of a dog that heard something very interesting.
“I would, yes.” it said eventually, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Just don’t chew off my hands please. I’d hate to have to admit that the boss was right.”
“I will promise to refrain from consuming any part of you if that makes you more comfortable.”
It did, strangely enough, and Hob approached the cage until he could set the bucket against the bars. “Can you drink like this?” he asked, looking from the dragon’s snout to the bars and back. It was never going to be able to get it through the gaps in between the steel rods, let alone its mouth into the bucket, and neither could Hob push the bucket through.
“Just one more indignity to suffer will not harm me any more than I already have been. Just tilt it over a bit more.”
Hob did as he was asked, and the dragon lowered its head and stuck out its tongue, lapping at the water like a dog. It was obviously not how it was supposed to drink, more water spilling over the dusty road than ending up in its belly, but Hob supposed it was better than nothing. He went back to the stream three times more before the dragon was finished, and had amassed an audience by then. “You want to wipe its nose as well Hobsie?” Piers asked with a grin. “You could sacrifice one of your blankets.”
Hob just raised his hand behind him with a rude gesture, preferring to use the time he so close to the creature to take a good look.
He could understand why a black dragon was seen as something worthy of a king. Rainbows danced over the shiny scales when the sunlight hit them just right wherever they weren’t caked with dirt and blood and pus, every curved scale a tiny jewel in its own right. Its eyes were enormous pits of darkness, but Hob could see pinpricks of light deep within them from this close, like stars in a moonless night sky. He wondered if Siegfried, who’d walked up to him as he just stood there being useless, saw the same thing he did, or if the other man just imagined what the skin that grew those scales would look like when it had been turned into clothing.
He was so busy staring that he startled when the dragon spoke again.
“Thank you.” it said, managing to look solely at Hob despite the fact that Siegfried was right beside him, the ever-present pike in hand. “I did not expect such a kindness from your species.”
A huff from Hob’s right side made it very clear what Siegfried thought of showing kindness to dragons. “Go do something worth the pay you’re going to get when we deliver your new buddy to the priests. There are barrels to fill and horses to hitch. We still have a couple of miles to go today, and the sun isn’t going to wait for anyone.”
The man didn’t sound particularly happy with him or the situation, so Hob made sure to force some speed out of his aching legs, off to fill the bucket again and get out of sight for a bit, muttering “Yes boss.” as he left.
He still wasn’t quick enough to escape the howl of pain that came from behind him as Siegfried made sure the dragon wasn’t going to talk about kindness or their species again any time soon.
Hob’s simple offer of water changed things. Far more so than basic decency should.
The dragon became more willing to talk during Hob’s shifts of night watch for example. In fact, it seemed almost eager to do so, asking Hob questions about his life and the village he’d grown up in, fishing for tales and half remembered stories he’d heard in his youth.
Hob wondered if it was a way for the creature to escape from reality for a while. He couldn’t imagine what it was like, to lie curled in a cage too small to stretch one’s limbs for weeks on end, with the best thing to hope for was to die of your wounds before reaching the destination you were dragged off to. Siegfried didn’t seem to think there was any risk of that, but Hob couldn’t help but worry about the festering cuts that looked like they were getting worse rather than better. Flies had been following them around for days now, drawn by the puss and fluids that oozed down the dragon’s hind leg and shoulder.
“Now…” Hob said after finishing a circle around the camp. It wouldn’t do to get too distracted and fail to do the thing he was actually hired and going to be paid to do. He was the only one awake, aside from the dragon and the horses, and those wouldn’t sound the alarm if someone crept up to the others to kill them in their sleep. “You know all about my childhood mishaps and the legends and histories I can recall. Your turn to share something now.”
The dragon seemed to consider that, staring at Hob with those odd light-specked eyes.
“Share? What would a human wish to know about one of my kind?”
“Everything?” Hob answered easily. “But let’s start with something simple. Do you have a name?”
“Of course I have a name.” it huffed, and Hob felt a strange stab of some feeling he was not going to consider in his chest when he realized he could hear the amusement in its voice. Reaching their destination was sounding less and less appealing the more time he spent with the dragon, a fact that Hob was not going to examine any more closely.
“Well? Are you going to share it? You already know mine, it’s only fair if I know yours as well.” Hob would very much like to have something to call the creature he spent a good chunk of every night with other than its species.
“You insist on using wrong pronouns when speaking of me with your fellow humans, but wish to know my name?”
“Pronouns?”
“You call your own kind and even your horses by their proper genders, yet call me by something I am not.”
The words took Hob aback for a moment. He hadn’t really thought about the fact that the dragon could hear whatever he and his fellow catchers said, or how they said it. Hell, he hadn’t even considered if being called ‘it’ would be something the creature cared about, and the rest of them sure as hell didn’t care one way or another. The dragon was simply a commodity they traded in, nothing more.
“Well, I don’t really know what to call you, hence the asking for a name. Hell, you’re the first real dragon I’ve ever seen at all, you could be male or female or something else entirely, and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. So I just… followed the other’s example.”
“You might have asked.”
He could have. Just as he could have asked for a name during one of their previous meetings. But they were just so different that Hob hadn’t given a thought at all about the dragon’s gender or name or anything like that. Hell, he didn’t even know if it, no he, was old or young or something in between.
“Yeah. That would have been the decent thing to do eh?”
That was obviously not the response the dragon had expected. He grunted, twisting a bit inside the cage to be able to look Hob over.
“It would. But you did ask another thing, and I suppose I owe you an answer. My name is Morpheus. It would translate to something like ‘Dream’ in your language.”
“Dream? It fits you.” It did, now that Hob knew it. He couldn’t imagine any other name for the magnificent being he was speaking with. “Pleased to make your acquaintance then mister Dream.”
Dream huffed out something that could perhaps be called a laugh, a sound like stones grinding against each other, or a plough cutting through bone dry soil.
“I would like to say the same Hob Gadling, but considering the circumstances, I would much have preferred never to have met you at all.”