Zach Hughes: Killbird

clinging closely to me. And then, since I, too, felt the hovering spirits of the dead during the dark and chill night, we put it behind us and crossed a huge dragon's track. We had seen many tracks, all weed-grown, broken, rotting, but this was the largest. I thought that mates, two dragons, had beaten it down, for there were twin paths which ran side by side, up rise and down slope into the distance. There were no fresh tracks. Since the dragon path went east, I elected to follow it. I learned more about dragons, deciding that they were wondrous beasts, able to use white bones to span streams, their paths suspended high above the water below. We came, after two days of following the dragon's path, to an area of God's chaos and had to leave it with the warning of the spirits tickling my belly. I killed a small deer and dressed it, but upon doing the work which, at home, was done by the house of Yorerie the Butcher, I felt the warning tingle, very faint, and narrowed down its source to the bones of the stunted deer. It was my first experience of the kind, and it created wonder in my mind. That night, as an experiment, while cuddled close to Mar, I opened myself, making my skin its most sensitive, and pressed tightly against her. In the areas where her bones were near the surface, as on the wrists and ankles, I could feel it, ever so faint, the small tingle of warning. It caused me much alarm. I reasoned, however, that any contamination would have already been accomplished, and she, herself, seemed healthy enough. Indeed, in spite of our constant travel, with my provisions she had gained weight and was now more womanly, rounder, softer than ever. It was a puzzle, however. The next day proved to be one of the more eventful ones of my life. We set out eastward early, but skirting the large chaos on the dragon's path. We saw ahead a woodland which seemed out of keeping with the stunted and twisted trees of the region, and I made for it, thinking to kill an untainted deer, or at the least to add another deerskin—I had saved the other one, since there was no spirit warning in the hide—to our stock of bedclothes and apparel. It was a beautiful wood, with huge trees bearing the nuts eaten by the climber, trees which had trunks so huge that a hidehouse could have been hidden behind without showing. The ground was soft with the fall of seasons and seasons of leaves. There was game sign. I did kill another small deer, but it too had the warning spirit in its bones, so we ate none, much to Mar's disgust. Now, indeed, the rodents and hares had the spirit in their bones, and our diet was narrowed to nuts and to the climbers, tough and stringy as they were. I experimented, and the root things which grew in the ground gave me the tiny tingle of warning. I was concerned, but there was no tingle as long as I did not come near a buried root thing which had been unearthed, or if I did not break into the bones of the animals from which came the warning. «Look,» I said, «here we are not freaks, for even the trees have hair.» It was so. They were festooned with gray hair. It gave the woods a sober, secluded and lonely look. It was not true hair, of course, for upon examination it proved to be a tasteless thing of vegetable material, not strong enough to use for any purpose. «I like it here,» Mar said. «And I am tired of travel. Let us build a house and stay.» «We will explore the woodland first,» I said, leading her deeper into the darkness of the huge trees. I was teaching her to use the hunter's stalk, to walk silently. We crept ahead as quietly as two ghosts, and I saw up ahead something which caused my blood to soar and send me for cover, pulling Mar behind me. It was the glint of dragonskin. There was no mistaking it. Leaving Mar in safety, I crept from tree to tree until I could see the nature of the thing. It was a strangeness, webbed in regular patterns like a spider's nest. Three times my height, it extended to right and left. I threw a stick at it from a safe distance, and there was nothing. I threw another and hit it and there was a sound, but no spitting of teeth nor flash of deadly eyes. And then I began to notice that beyond the web was a greenness which was unlike anything I'd ever seen. I crept closer. There was an expanse of grass, but growing low and evenly. In patterns in the grassy field there were bushes, some with large white flowers which were totally out of place in the winter. After testing each step carefully, I stood beside the dragonskin web. I touched it with my hardax. Nothing. I tried to cut it. My hardax bounced off. There was no danger. I went back for Mar and showed her the wonders. Nothing would do but for her to have some of the white flowers. I touched the web. It was cold and hard, dragonskin. I tried to climb it. By putting my toes in the mesh I could. I gained the top and reached down for Mar and lifted her. Then we dropped to the other side, though with some painful cuts caused by sharp edges on the top of the web. The grass was soft and pliant under our feet. We walked toward the nearest bush with white flowers, I on the alert, listening for any sound, sensitive to spirits. Mar ran ahead and was plucking the white flowers. They smelled sweet. «It's beautiful here,» she said. «The grass is sick,» I said. «It grows thickly but directly atop the dirt.» I didn't like it. «Still, you feel none of what you call the warning,» she said. «No.» But there was a strangeness. And then I knew, for I heard it, a whining creak, not as loud as the wail of my slain dragon, but of the same texture of sound. I searched for a place to hide. There was only the bushes. They would offer no protection against a hail of dragon's teeth. Suddenly I understood. There were dragons and there were dragons, and this was a type of dragon which beat down grass for his path instead of dirt and stone. I pulled Mar into the bushes, and we crouched as the sound drew near, coming toward us from clumps of bushes and trees which hid the view. I held my breath. He came around a clump of bushes. He was a small dragon, about as wide at the ground as I was tall, but shorter than my body. He would come, I estimated, to my waist. He moved slowly, and he was eating, cropping the grass and spitting out the unused portions behind him. He made creaking and humming sounds. He came directly toward us. I would have to fight if he sensed us, hidden behind the useless bushes. He had only one eye, directly in front, and his head seemed to be a part of his body, unable to turn as had the head of my dragon. That gave me hope. I might be able to come up on his blind side. I readied myself. The dragon came directly toward us, and I tensed, ready to leap and die trying to blind him with an ax stroke to his one vulnerable spot, the eye. But just before he entered the bushes, seemingly bent on seeking us out, he turned and went away. Dragons, thank the gods of man, had no noses. What? Was I a little disappointed? Perhaps. I had traveled far and I had seen the dying place of the huge dragons, and this tiny dragon who had come so close seemed to me to be easy prey. In my pride, I leaped up, ran after the fleeing dragon lightly, leaped upon his back and with one crushing blow smashed his sensitive eye. He stopped. There was a dying hum from inside. He was dead. «Come and see,» I called. Mar came fearfully. I turned the dragon onto his back. He had teeth with sharp edges, huge teeth, stained by the grass which was his food. I beat upon him a bit with my ax, but did not want to ruin the edge, so we left him upturned, vanquished. «How can you be so brave?» Mar asked admiringly. My chest swelled. «Smaller dragons slain to order,» I said lightly. I didn't feel so brave when, walking along in the direction from which the dragon had come, there was a sudden hiss of sound and it rained from the ground. Water, rain, flew upward, wetting us. Mar screamed. I was frozen for only an instant. It was only rain, and if it came from the ground, what else could we expect in this strange land? Mar tried to run, and I grabbed her arm. We walked through the rain and rounded a clump of bushes, and there, face to face, we came upon another of the grass-eating dragons. He had us, eye on. I yelled and rushed, expecting an instant hail of spat teeth or a flash of burning eye, but the creature, instead of spitting or blazing, merely continued toward me, making a creak and a hum and I killed him head on, smashing his eye with one blow. A baby dragon? There was no blood, no signs of age. Was that why I lived? I examined him carefully, much more carefully than the first. There were no holes for spitting teeth. Did they develop with age? Had we found the birthplace of dragons? Did dragons breed, after all? But I was soon to have other worries, for Mar was tugging on my arm and pointing. «Look, oh, look.» I looked. Through the bushes, the trees, there was a gleam of pure white. My blood froze. So huge a dragon. The mother of all dragons. She would spit. She would burn. And I saw, reflected in the light of the afternoon sun, a dozen eyes of a hugeness which made me forget all my bravery. I ran. I ran and left Mar to follow. And I stopped running only when I reached the web. I was trying to climb it when she caught up. «Help me, help me,» she cried. We clambered over the web at the expense of more cuts. It was a full day before I had the courage to go back to the web. We walked along it. It was huge. We reached a place where it changed. I checked for danger and we started to walk past a different kind of web and suddenly there was movement. We ran to the trees and watched as the section of the web which had swung back slowly closed the gap left. I went back, stood there again, moved about. The web sprang open. «It's alive,» Mar gasped. No teeth holes. No eyes. It was more and more curious. «We will go in,» I said. «Oh, God, no.» «We went in before.» «There's the huge dragon.» «We will watch for him.» We went in. A different kind of dragon's path awaited us, surfaced with small, loose stones. There were no dragon's tracks on it, however, and, emboldened, I led the trembling Mar onward along an avenue of huge trees, until, once again, we caught the gleam of white through the trees. I left her and went forward, tree by tree. I could not get an overall view of the dragon, it was that huge. But I got closer and closer without incident. When I was near, I could see that the dragon extended upward, had a covering of long, regular pieces of bone which looked like stone, had eyes which were square-cornered, some tall, some short, eyes which reflected light. It was a puzzle. The dragon seemed to sit on a wall of stones of regular shape, as if anchored permanently. Experimentally, I showed myself. Nothing happened. I threw a small stone and it clanked off the side of the dragon. Still nothing. I threw a larger stone, aiming for an eye. The stone shattered the eye, and I waited for the dragon to roar, but there was only silence until I saw movement from a part of the huge thing and a plate opened and out came a small dragon which carried an eye in the form of a large sheet of the type of bone which I'd scavenged from the dead dragon in the field of the dead. I could see through it. I watched in amazement as the little dragon sprouted legs, grew upward, carrying the eye, and, after clearing the socket of shatters, replaced the eye. I shattered another, and the same thing happened, and as the little dragon worked I stood in the clear. I went unnoticed. I edged closer and as the dragon finished his job and came down, folding his legs inside his body, I leaped forward and smashed his eye with my ax. He died, the hum fading slowly. Feeling very brave and not a little foolhardy, I explored, being so close to the huge thing without being dead. The skin was not dragonskin, but seemed to be wood—I made little dents with my ax and had to leap quickly as a small dragon came out and sprayed the white stuff which covered the wood over the dents I'd made. You see, by that time, not being stupid, I had figured out that these small dragons had no teeth and that their eyes were not deadly. To prove it, I walked directly in front of the little dragon which spit out the white stuff and he ignored me. I smashed his eye and he died. So, I thought, what treasures are here, unprotected? I went back for Mar. She was frightened of coming with me but more frightened of staying. We approached the huge white thing and found stone, formed as layers which led upward like the exposed rocks of a hillside, only neat and in lines. We stood on the thing, under a part of it, nervous, admittedly, but more and more confident that there was no danger. As we came close to the side of it a plate opened. It took a little while to decide to go into the thing's maw. But go we did, and there was softness underfoot. In a place like a cave, the plate closed behind us. I panicked. I ran and started to cut my way out, but the plate swung open. I experimented. Any time I wanted to go out, the plate opened. We moved forward. Mar and I both still dripped water from being wet in the rain which came from the ground, and it was staining the strange, soft thing under our feet. I heard a sound, saw a small plate open in the wall and a tiny dragon came purring out. I raised my ax. The dragon went to the water stains, made a purring sound, and the water stains disappeared, eaten. The dragon moved toward us and then halted, waiting for us to move. We moved, and he ate the water stains. I felt a little nervous, even if he did seem harmless, so I smashed his little eye. He died. Immediately another plate opened and another dragon of a different sort came out, picked up the dead one, and went away. «You should have killed him, too,» Mar said. «He'll tell others that we're here.» I said nothing. I looked around. There were plates all around the cavelike place. I stood in front of one, and it opened. Another cave, much larger, was before us. I stepped in. The sun came out suddenly in the form of a glow which lit the cave brightly, and I looked wildly around for a dragon, finding none. I suppose when you feel fear so often, you grow immune. Heart pounding with the suddenness of the light, I waited. I looked around. There were things, huge things, colored and soft-looking. They reminded me of chairs and couches. But they were huge. And my blood went cold. «There were giants in those days,» the old storytellers said. «Gods of man,» I said. «We are in the house of the giants.» «Eban, let's go,» Mar said, clinging to my arm. «The treasures here!» I said. I walked to one of the eyes, saw outside the close-growing grass, the bushes with white flowers. The eye was partially covered with a sort of skin which went to the top, and, when touched, was wondrously soft and thin, unlike any skin, however well scraped, I'd ever seen. Thinner than the membrane of guts, white, delicate. I ripped down a huge piece of it. I draped it around Mar's shoulders. «Gods, it's so beautiful,» she said. «Treasures,» I said. «We are so rich.» «And if the giants come home?» «The giants are dead. They are as old as the dragons.» I sat in a chair thing. It dwarfed me. It was soft and yielding. Mar, seeing my bravery, tried a couch thing, and ended up bouncing on it, yelling happily as she sprang into the air. I tried another. I heard a small click and leaped, but not soon enough. A plate opened on the wall and an eye of big and white horror glared at us, and there was a sizzling, grinding sound and white flashes in the eye and then a sound like rushing water and flickers of light in the eye, but we were looking back on it from the first cave. When nothing happened and the eye went out and the plate closed we went back, but soon tired of the couch things and the chair things. Another cave had a bottom of stone and was nearly empty, but when we walked in and stepped onto the cold stone a hideous sound broke out and continued as long as we stood on the stone. It was a sound which I cannot describe, consisting of many things, some like the screech of a dragon, some soft like the wind in the trees, and under it all a rhythm which reminded me of old Seer of Things Unseen beating on her treedrum. But