Avram Davidson: Rogue Dragon

They had seen him.

They kept on coming after him.

And, after them, came the dragon.

It was probably futile to try to escape them on foot.

They were fresh, he was weary. They were armed, he was not. And even if he could outrun them, there was still the dragon to contend with… not the chicken-witted wittold of the settled regions, but the murderously intelligent great beast of The Bosky. Various old bywords went rushing through his mind. If you can’t go across, you must go around. If you can’t go across, you must go across. No, not those. He tried to bring his buttocks even lower than they were, and dragged himself, face first, through something nasty. If you can’t go across, you must go up. Probably there was no such byword at all. Or hadn’t been… till now.

He went up and he went up the far side of the twisted old tree. Something had built a nest or a den there once, and it still smelled rotten. Not matter. Such things had ceased to count long ago. He pulled his legs up after him and used the stinging twig-work as a blind to peer through. The men had not seen him, yet. Neither, apparently, had the dragon. It came running along as he had never before seen dragons run: lightly, and on all fours, but as though it ran on its toes and not upon the pads of its feet at all. It made no sound. It made no sound at all that Jon-Joras could hear.

But the men below had heard something. Or had felt or scented or sensed something. One of them whirled around and cried out. The others on the instant did the same. They scattered. And Jon-Joras in the tree realized a few sudden things. For one, the dragon was not hunting him. For another, the dragon was not hunting for or with the men. And for a third and last, it was hunting against them. It was clear that they knew it, too.

This hunt was short-lived, for the weapons the men were carrying were not the local model hunt-guns. They had not come loaded for dragon; at least, he knew of no reason why they should have. And in any event this one was not marked and was not even running erect so that they might guess at where its vital spot, where the fatal shot, might be and might be placed. So far as Jon-Joras knew, they had only come loaded for Jon-Joras, and his body rattled in a sudden spasm of fear when he saw one of them level the thick and snub death-weapon and blow the dragon’s head into a mash of blood and brain and bone and pulp that flew all about. And then, then, oh, how horrible! to see the dying dragon, the dragon that should have been dead, still stumbling along, and groping and clutching for its prey while all the while fountains of blood spurted from its broken arteries and torrents of blood poured from its severed veins. It was as though the headless body still remembered what its eyes had seen and still knew where to go and what to do.

Pounding, now, pawing the stained grasses, it came on, came onward, still came on, while the man it approached scrambled backwards and stumbled backwards as though not daring to turn his head; and the other two retreated, took their stances again, and blew great chasms and abysses into it. Off in the woods another dragon called, briefly, abruptly, cut off in mid-cry. Were all the dragons of The Bosky being massacred? “… in the egg, and out…”? as, even now, this one, its spine exposed and smashed, fell at last to the ground, which shook to receive it. A short moment more the fore-limbs tore at the bloody turf and tried to pull the bleeding mountain of flesh further. There was a spasm, a flurry, and the ravaged hulk lay still.

The three, shaking their heads, came cautiously together and surveyed their kill. And the other dragon, walking fully erect— walking fully erect! — and again with that curious stride upon the tips of its toes — passed beneath Jon-Joras as he clung to the tree and peered in numbed more-than-fright through the soiled integuments of the abandoned nest. Beneath him, beyond him, nodules swollen in silent rage, and then it bellowed the rage that made the forest quake as it fell upon them. And ripped and tore. One died where he stood, one fired upwards and vanished into the giant, trap-like mouth even as the limb his shot had shattered dangled and spurted blood; and one fled, shrilling as he ran, and was almost immediately followed down and dragged and torn and trampled. And so ended the last dragon hunt that Jon-Joras was ever to see.

What happened next was less terrifying, but no less amazing. For the great beast, pushing aside the corpse at its feet, with one of its forepaws seized hold of a branch and transferred it to the wounded limb which grasped it convulsively but held it firm. Then it rooted out another. Then, turning around and around, and looking up and looking down and looking all about it, it began that beating together, that clicking and rustling, which could only have been a deliberate attempt at imitating the methods of the Old Man interpreter. It was capable of no other meaning than a desire to locate Jon-Joras. And a desire to indicate that its desire was not hostile.

Quaking and trembling, he came down from the tree. The faceted eyes flashed at him. It moved off, he followed, it turned and saw that he followed, and so it turned no more until at last they reached the castle. But he had not followed until, forcing his quivering stomach into obedience, he turned over one of the mangled bodies on the bloody forest floor. Only one, but that one was enough. Jetro Yi. No wonder his voice, his manner, had seemed familiar. Flunky Jetro. He would bow and scrape no more.

Thus far, the door onto the mysteries had opened. But up there in the castle, it had swung shut in a manner forbidding it should or could ever be opened in any near time again. The Old Man, his poor grimy forehead battered and blue where, presumably, the butt of a gun had struck it, lay face upwards and mouth open. He had been afraid and he had been rightfully afraid, but Jon-Joras was very glad that he did not seem to be afraid any longer. It was simply too bad that his release had been so long in coming.

The Kar-chee looked at him with huge dull eyes. It seemed, somehow, to be crooked. Jon-Joras looked more closely and saw that it, too, was hurt. The three “proper men,” with Jetro Yi one of them, had done a fine day’s work. It was possible to reconstruct it, almost as though the gaunt, hurt creature was able to tell him of it. They had appeared and spoken to the castle’s keeper. They knew that Jon-Joras must be here, or — perhaps — they had only guessed that he might. Perhaps the timorous Old Man had somehow given it away.

They had demanded him, the one who stole their flyer, had caused the death of the crew of the other, the crashed flyer. Of course it was not that alone or even mostly that which brought them after him. But—

Almost certainly the Kar-chee had confronted them with their perpetually broken promise. Had, likely enough, demanded that it be immediately fulfilled. Had refused to surrender someone else who had promised that promise to fulfil. Blows were struck. They left the castle looking still for Jon-Joras and certainly it had never been their intention to allow him to escape. He had a quick, over-vivid picture of his own head struck by the same shot which had killed the first dragon out there in the woods. The first dragon, the first and second dragons. Like minor players in an archaic play-drama… but their roles had not been minor, but their roles had been and still were things of the mystery. He thought that, finally, finally, he was beginning to understand. But with the Old Man dead (and perhaps, with his ruined mind, even if he had not been dead), he could never be fully sure that he had understood or ever would, entirely.

As for the Kar-chee — and he found it not hard to pity it now, wounded and alone, despite all that its kind had done so long ago to this the home of all man’s race — it understood this much, at any rate: that only in and through Jon-Joras it had hopes of survival and escape. Therefore it had sent the dragon, not only to save him, but to bring him back.