James Maxey: Bitterwood

Zanzeroth took the leashes of the dogs and led them to the spot where the horse had stood. The dogs sniffed and snuffed, rooting through the damp debris of the forest. Suddenly, one froze. The second rushed to the same spot and pushed its nose to the ground. They lifted their barrel-sized heads and bayed with excitement.

“They’ve found the scent,” said Zanzeroth.

The dogs trotted back into the clearing, following the hoofprints through the mud. Zanzeroth unwrapped the leather leashes from his wrist and loosed the dogs. They charged past the king and smashed into the undergrowth, panting with excitement.

The hunt was on. The ox-dogs moved forward in fits and starts, racing when they had the scent, then stopping suddenly to sniff the wet ground where the trail was diluted by washouts. Zanzeroth and Albekizan followed with the soldiers rushing ahead of the king to chop away growth that might slow his progress.

Gadreel was half the size of the sun-dragons, but he still found the dense vegetation suffocating. He wished he could take to the sky to follow from above. As long as Zanzeroth remained earthbound, he must also. Walking through the forest like a common earth-dragon didn’t sit well with him.

He looked to the nearest earth-dragon and shuddered. The creature was as tall as a human male, broad-shouldered and muscle-bound, with a thick tail like an alligator’s that dragged the ground as it waddled forward on stocky hind legs. The creature was green as moss and dull-eyed. Yet, as a soldier, the earth-dragon had higher status than Gadreel, a slave. Not for the first time, he silently cursed the biologians that had betrayed him.

Gadreel knew better than to voice his indignation. He’d learned his lesson about showing weakness. Three years past he’d been ill and failed to attend the Council of Colleges, an annual gathering of sky-dragons representing the various accademies and libraries scattered about the kingdom. Albekizan had recently imposed a new tax that was to have been paid with human slaves. The elder sky-dragons had balked at the idea of parting with the slaves. Humans performed all the menial labor required to keep the colleges functioning on a day-to-day basis. The scholarly sky-dragons were too busy with their research and studies to be bothered by such things as cooking their own food or emptying their own chamber pots. However, there were always the occasional young sky-dragons at every college whose research was judged to be derivative or shallow. Thus, the elders had approached Metron to ask the king if, perhaps, the tax could be paid with sky-dragons instead. Metron’s powers of persuasion had led to Gadreel’s ill fate.

Most of the sky-dragons enslaved had been entrusted to the king’s aerial guard, an air-borne force that supported the king’s ground troops. Other’s had been pressed into duty as messengers. Gadreel had served as a messenger for a few weeks, and slowly begun to reconcile himself to his fate. Then, Zanzeroth, the only dragon who dared best the king on a hunt, had won a bet to be paid in slaves, and Gadreel had discovered that the king regarded him as his most expendable property. Yet in his humiliation, Gadreel could also see opportunity. As Zanzeroth was the king’s loyal companion, he found himself almost daily in the presence of Albekizan. One day, he vowed, he would impress the king so greatly that he would be rewarded with freedom.

The ox-dogs paused on the far side of a stream swollen with rain. Gadreel could tell they had lost the scent. Zanzeroth followed the muddy bank, his eyes shining in the darkness as he read the ground.

“Here,” Zanzeroth said, at last. The old dragon grabbed an ox-dog by its collar and tugged the beast back across the stream, shoving its head down to mossy stone. Zanzeroth’s great strength allowed him to move the giant dog as if it were no more than a puppy. The ox-dog sniffed and growled at the stone. In seconds the dog once more had the scent and bounded off into the forest with its brother quickly following. The dragons chased the dogs and moments later the forest gave way to a cornfield. Gadreel felt relieved to see open sky once more, with bright moonlight illuminating the few faint wisps of cloud. Free from the trees Albekizan beat his wings and took to the air. Zanzeroth followed, and Gadreel accompanied him at a respectful distance. It took considerable effort not to overtake the larger dragons. Sun-dragons, with their great bulk, weren’t particularly swift.

Moments later Zanzeroth veered and Gadreel could see a riderless horse at the edge of the grassy field. Zanzeroth dove, his rear claws extended. The horse broke into a gallop as the dragon’s shadow fell upon it but to no avail. Zanzeroth caught the fleeing horse by the neck, killing it instantly with a vicious twist.

“Damn,” the old hunter said as he landed.

“Where is he?” Albekizan said as he touched down nearby. “Where’s Bitterwood?”

“We’ve been tricked, Sire.” Zanzeroth said. “This is the horse we’ve been following. I can smell it. But Bitterwood must have dismounted early in the chase. I saw no sign. Perhaps he clung to an overhead branch.”

“Damn your incompetent hide,” the king shouted. “If we’ve lost my son’s murderer due to your carelessness, I’ll have your head!”

Gadreel flinched but his master seemed unperturbed.

“Of course, Sire,” said Zanzeroth with a slight bow. “The hunt’s more interesting if the stakes are high.”

By now the earth-dragons had caught up. The handlers grabbed the leashes of the ox-dogs and tugged them away from the steaming carcass of the horse.

Zanzeroth pulled the three spears from his quiver and handed them to Gadreel. “These are only going to get in my way,” he said. Gadreel struggled to hold the giant wooden shafts with their gleaming steel heads. Only sun-dragons could ever hope to use such massive weapons effectively.

All stood silently as Zanzeroth crouched down on all fours, his belly touching the wet grass. Though their normal stance was bipedal, both sun-dragons and sky-dragons had claws at the middle joints of their wings that could support their weight if they wished to crawl. The aged dragon moved over the ground with slow, sinuous, reptilian movements, pausing to study each hoofprint. He sniffed the ground carefully, tilted his head, then crawled forward, paused, and sniffed again. He continued his methodical examination, moving back toward the forest, taking nearly an hour to reach the stream where the trail had been momentarily lost. Gadreel’s muscles burned from the effort of lugging Zanzeroth’s spears all this time.

Zanzeroth stared at the tracks on each side of the stream with quiet intensity. Gadreel wondered how much sense his master could make of ground that had now been trampled by ox-dogs and a small army of dragons.

Zanzeroth rose, stretching his shoulders until his sinews popped. “The horse was a simple ruse, but effective,” he said. “Our quarry dismounted in the water, no doubt keeping to the streambed for some distance. If we run an ox-dog along each side we can discover the point where he leaves the water. We’ll have him yet.”

“Find him,” said the king. “I grow impatient.”

Zanzeroth snatched his spears back from Gadreel, placing them once more in his quiver. He took each ox-dog by the leash and led them upstream, wading in the water. He cast his watchful eyes on each branch that hung overhead. After a few hundred yards the ox-dog to his left stopped, sniffed the ground, and let out a low growl. Zanzeroth crouched to study the bank.

“Clever,” he said, looking back at the king. “But not clever enough. I have the trail once more.”

He loosed the ox-dogs and motioned for all to follow as he raced into the dark woods.