Chapter One
Duke Bartholomew Augustus Labrigi, Ruler of Fermange, Keeper of the Flame of Trubridge, Grand Arbiter, and ninth-in-line of succession to King Aethelbard, was peeved. He hated the Small Hall, where he found it necessary to be this evening. He enjoyed the Grand Hall, on his elevated seat of authority so he could look down on the supplicants. He wanted to be in the stained-glass, brightly lit atmosphere of the high marbled arches and ivory statues of his ancestors. There he could be seen, make pronouncements, dispense justice, and display his magnanimity. The Small Hall was used for matters away from prying eyes and ears. It was dark and reeked of failure. The specific reek of the moment came from Sir Melman’s charred body, carried on a litter by two soldiers. Duke Labrigi, slouched in the high-backed, carved wooden chair, held a scented handkerchief to his nose. With sufficient humility and averted eyes, Melman’s squire had just finished the tale of his liege’s defeat by the dragon.
“How many does that make, now, Advisor?” the duke asked the tall, bearded man standing next to him.
“Seven, Your Grace,” he answered, his voice deep as if from inside a sepulcher.
“Physic, attend to Sir Melman’s wounds,” Duke Labrigi said, waving toward the exit with his handkerchief. He slumped further, resting a thin cheek against his hand, brown eyes troubled. As they bustled out, he turned back to his advisor. “How are we to kill this dragon? We seem to be running out of knights.”
The advisor was about to offer his guidance when a voice called out from the gallery.
“I can help rid you of this problem.”
They looked up as a man approached from the gloom, behind him a wide-eyed boy trailing like a reluctant mouse. The man was of medium height, slim, clothes barely above a peasant’s, sleeves carelessly, unevenly rolled-up, dark, mussed hair with a trimmed beard, an embroidered leather vest, and a large multi-pocketed pack slung over one shoulder. The boy hid behind him, only revealing one eye and a frizz of brown hair. They stopped a respectable distance from where the duke sat.
“And who are you?” the duke asked.
“I am Dr. James Wright. And I’m a veterinarian,” he stated, gesturing to the insignia depicting a snake curved around a winged staff that arose from a bowl with an engraved ‘V’.
“A what?” he exclaimed in response.
His advisor leaned down and intoned, “It is one who doesn’t eat meat for moral or religious reasons, Your Grace.”
The duke goggled at the man, raising a hand as a precursor to having his guards escort the deviant out.
“No, please, Your Grace. I’m not a vegetarian. I am a vet-er-in-ar-ian. I’m a physic to animals, and I believe I can help you with your dragon problem.”
This did little to alleviate the duke’s skepticism.
“Do you claim some unknown martial prowess? I see no sword, no bow. Are you a wizard with a bag of tricks?”
“I lay no claims of that nature, Your Grace. I…” he began.
Duke Labrigi sat up straighter, shrugging his cloak back, his mouth pulling down with disdain.
“Why are you wasting my time here?” he asked with the tone he reserved for the Grand Hall. He glanced with an imperious eyebrow to his advisor, who nodded gravely in assent.
“Please, Your Grace,” Dr. Wright said, putting his hand out, palm up. “While I am certain you would arrive at a brilliant solution to the problem, my sole intention is to offer what help I can as one of your loyal subjects.” He sketched a small bow.
The duke’s frown lessened, and after a moment, he waved his hand for the veterinarian to continue.
“I am a healer. I specialize in animals.” Duke Labrigi rolled his eyes and shifted as if to stand. Dr. Wright spoke faster. “A dragon, for all its fearsomeness, is just another animal. No different from the cows in King Aethelbard’s Royal Herd, I helped cure of a rampant upper respiratory epidemic.”
This got Duke Labrigi’s attention. He settled, leaning forward to rest his pointed chin in his hand. “You know my cousin?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, “He’s a fine man. Gave me a lovely medal and everything.”
The duke tapped his lip with one finger, eyes calculating. “You think you can rid us of this dragon? How do you propose to do that?”
“To be honest, right now, I don’t know. I’ll have to assess the situation, but I feel confident I can find a solution. Your knights haven’t been successful. What do you have to lose?”
Labrigi stared at this unassuming man. What did he care if he wanted to go off and get himself killed?
“Very well. I give you permission,” he said, fluttering his fingers in dismissal.
Wright cleared his throat, “And, um, the reward for getting rid of your dragon problem?”
Inwardly, the duke scoffed. “Yes, of course, the posted reward would be yours, just as it would have been for the knight.” He threw a dismissive wave toward the side exit. “If you’re successful.” If you’re alive to claim it.
“And please forgive me, Your Grace, but if I could request a ten-day forbearance in sending any more knights at the dragon?”
Color rose in the duke’s cheeks, fists clenching, knuckles white.
Dr. Wright hastened into a bow. “I make this request with all deference to your authority. A dragon that’s continued to be provoked may expand its ire to the rest of the province. I wouldn’t want you to be further burdened, but I leave it to your wisdom.”
The advisor leaned down, voice like stones rubbing together but too low for Wright to hear. The duke’s face softened.
“Fine. Ten days. But no more,” he yelled at the end for emphasis. Shifting forward, agitated, he pointed his finger, “And let me tell you this, physic to animals, any cataclysm caused by your meddling will be met with harsh and dark punishment. You’ll wish the dragon had eaten you.”
Wright maintained a neutral expression on his face. “Fair enough, Your Grace. Come, Stephen,” he said to the boy, and they left the Small Hall. The duke and his advisor’s soft laughter followed them out.
As they walked down the echoing hallway, Stephen, bouncing with each step, finally burst, “We’re going to see a dragon?”
Wright looked at him and smiled. “Yes, yes. It’s all very exciting. But we have a couple of things to do first.” He turned right into another corridor that led to stairs leading upward, their boots producing hollow clopping sound on the stones. After several more turns, they were in a more spacious hallway, Melman’s squire sitting outside a door, looking forlorn.
“What is your name, lad?” Wright asked as they approached.
The boy jumped out of his chair, wringing his cap in his hands, glanced at Stephen, and stammered, “B-b-b-Bron, sir.”
“It’s okay, Bron. You’re fine.” He laid a calming hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I believe your master will be fine as well, but I’m going to need you to do something to aid in his recuperation.”
Bron nodded, uncertain.
Wright slung his pack on the ground, squatted down, and rooted through it, pulling out three clear jars that contained a thick white substance streaked with green. He placed them at Bron’s feet. Then he leaned a sturdy paper packet against them.
As he did this he said, “The physic is a good man. However, he has some old-fashioned notions about medicine. These jars contain an unguent, a medicine, made from the glands of a Pungipine. Apply it to the worst of Sir Melman’s burns twice daily. They will aid in healing but will also relieve his pain. In the packet is a powder that will help stave off infection. Mix a tablespoon into his water twice a day. It’s bitter, but make sure he drinks it all. Do you have that?”
Bron agreed.
“And this next part is very important. You’re going to have to be strong. Don’t let Physic Tomante leech your master.”
Bron’s eyes grew. “But, but…”
Wright raised a finger. “No ‘buts’, Bron. Tell him…,” he cast about in his mind, “Tell him it’s against Sir Melman’s religion or idiom. Be creative. But don’t let him leech him.”
“So, lie? Sir?”
Wright sighed. “Yes, lie. If you want to help your master. Trust me.”
Bron nodded again, then smiled.
“Good, lad.” He patted him on the back. “I’ll send more of the unguent. It’s going to take several weeks for him to get better. Be there for him.”
After they took their leave and headed to the stable yard to collect their cart, Stephen asked, “Wouldn’t the physic have been able to heal him?”
Wright frowned. “Well, yes, most likely. But it would take longer, and poor Sir Melman would be in greater pain under his care. While I don’t directly treat people, human medicine lags behind veterinary. We have a greater latitude to try things in animals, and, unfortunately, rigid thinking interferes in progressing medicine in people. We are elevated as a holy creation,” he said, spreading his arms wide, palms up, “and therefore physics are restrained in their ministrations, much healing and recovery left to divine will. There’s a resistance in human medicine, as well, to things we’ve learned on our side, dismissed as only relevant to animals.”
Stephen thought about this. “That doesn’t seem right. You’d think they’d be trying to do everything to help people.”
“Yes, you’d think,” he mused.
Wright and his apprentice had been purchasing supplies at the apothecary when they heard news of the dragon in the southern part of the Fermange province that Duke Labrigi oversaw. Some locals stumbled upon its lair, and the mayors of the towns forwarded the problem to the duke. The duke was not known for his subtlety; he wielded a blunt instrument in every situation. In this case, hammer met nail, but this nail fought back, and the townships suffered. Stephen had seen the mixture of frustration and anger in Dr. Wright’s face as they proceeded to the Small Hall in the wake of Sir Melman’s entourage.
Stephen had been apprenticed to Wright, Doctor Wright as he thought of him, for only a few weeks. He was the ninth child in a family of twelve. Two older brothers and two older sisters were married with children on adjacent farms. A combination of disinterest on Stephen’s part in the sowing, reaping, sweating, and praying that comprised farm life and the fact that there were more than enough hands to do the work had forced his parents to seek alternatives to his idleness. He only showed genuine enthusiasm with animals, so they met with Dr. Wright, who took Stephen in as an apprentice. Talk of a dragon was the first exciting thing to happen since.
The journey from the duke’s capital, Ballenburgh, to their little village of Elleshandra was but a few hours by carthorse. Stephen peppered Dr. Wright with questions.
“How many dragons have you fought?”
“Fought? Who said anything about fighting? I said I would get rid of the dragon problem.”
Stephen frowned in thought. “Doesn’t that mean fighting?”
Wright chuckled. “Only if you lack imagination. Look, Stephen. A dragon, for all its exotic nature, is an animal. It eats, sleeps, interacts with its environment, has little baby dragons, and generally lives its life as you or I do. The duke sees a problem to eradicate. I see an animal under pressure that needs help. By helping it, we should also solve the duke’s problem.”
“So, we’re going to help the dragon?” he asked, dubiously, his thoughts trying to grasp such an alternative.
“Yes. To better answer your first question, I’ll admit to having more of a book knowledge about dragons than direct experience. My mentor, Doctor Kilkenny, now, he had more experience with them. But they’re a lot less common these days than they were, and that’s why it’s important for us to get involved. These beautiful creatures have found their territory more and more restricted by the expansion of humans.”
He paused to make sure Stephen was listening, who nodded vigorously in affirmation.
“Let’s take what we know so far. The first thing is this dragon is too far south for this time of year. Also, we aren’t on their migration route, which is farther to the east. Something happened to cause it to take shelter in the mountains. Perhaps it would have gotten better and moved on without anyone being the wiser. However, once discovered, it hasn’t been allowed any respite, being constantly badgered by little men in iron suits trying to prove themselves. I blame St. George for that. It is only responding with aggression because it has been provoked. Dragons try to avoid humans for obvious reasons. We’re more of a danger to them than the other way around.”
Stephen wondered over that assertion. In the many tales he read, the danger and aggression were firmly placed at the clawed feet of dragons with the knights as heroes. The dragons were presented as having all the advantages, which made the stories so exciting. It took all the skill, bravery, and training for the knight to overcome the fearsomeness of the fire-breathing threat. While ultimately defeated, the dragons typically wrought great destruction. He didn’t see what they could bring to help against a dragon.
They arrived at Wright’s cottage, a modest, two-story stone structure with a peaked tile roof. Inside, his housekeeper, Mrs. Toodlebaum, greeted them with a lot of fuss, her hands covered in flour, as they unloaded the cart into the main room. She lived but a few parcels over, and as far as Stephen knew, there was no Mr. Toodlebaum. Dr. Wright employed her after the passing of his predecessor, Dr. Kilkenny. She was a short, stout woman who embroidered little extravagances of ladybugs and papplebees onto her clothes. Her hair was streaked with grey and always up in a bun at the back of her head. She had a habit of leaving her reading spectacles in random places, and Stephen was always returning them to her.
Iggy, the laziest dog in the world, lay like a round yellow rug on his side in the main room and wagged his tail exactly once in greeting. As broad and silent as a tree, Tom came around the side of the house to help them unload. Stephen had feared Tom at first, the tallest person he had ever met, but discovered him to be the gentlest of people. Dr. Wright told him how Tom just showed up one day about two years back, attracted to the cows and pigs under their care, in their enclosures behind the house. They still didn’t know where he came from and called him Tom because that was the name he was inclined to answer. He was so attuned with the animals Dr. Wright had kept him on to tend them. His strength and size had proved helpful as well.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to be heading right back out tomorrow, Mrs. Toodlebaum. Time isn’t on our side,” Wright said after explaining the circumstances.
She put one hand up to her mouth, upset. “I need to get these meat pies done then, so you can have something to eat on your trip. All the way to Paversham, then? Oh, my, my.” She hurried back into the kitchen.
Dr. Wright leaned down to Stephen and whispered, “Mrs. Toodlebaum doesn’t believe there’s any food to be had between here and there unless she provides it.” This made them both grin.
That night, Iggy next to him on the narrow, wood-framed bed, Stephen could barely sleep. Not only would he get to see a dragon, but he had never traveled so far. Dr. Wright’s work had taken them to the nearby larger town of Brekkin and a couple of hamlets. He had been to Ballenburgh before, the Royal county seat, with his father, so that hadn’t been a novelty. But, this. It would take them a little over two days to cross the entire county of Fermange.
He ran his hands through Iggy’s thick coat. They joked that they never saw him move, but he would show up in different spots, still lying flat-out on his side. The only activity he exhibited was when food was involved. He would perform his front-pawed Iggy-dance, gulp down his food, then flop back on his side until the next meal.
Stephen’s room was on the first floor, having previously been used for storage. They had cleared it and packed it into the attic to make a room for him. Dr. Wright had the larger bedroom across the short hall. Tom ascended to his room earlier, his heavy tread making the wooden steps protest. During Stephen’s first night, those sounds had scared him, a giant creeping about. Now, in the blue-glow of moonlight through his window, he took comfort and fell asleep.
