The Prophecy Maker
The wanderer Baldirk helps a ‘chosen one’ kill a dragon to become king for a big payday, but prophecies and big paydays aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
This is a reprint of my story on Outside Art - make sure you subscribe there for some great stories by awesome people, it’s free!
I
Given a large enough world, any imaginable occurrence can happen. Given enough time, any prediction will prove itself right eventually.
On a certain day, at exactly midday, on a marshy little lane somewhere south of the Devil’s Hook, as these things usually play out, the squire-turned-mercenary Baldirk dragged himself out of the hedge with a bulky sigh, privet clinging to his clothes like fingers. Prophecy Maker, he called himself, and though that was a unionized, protected name, and he’d received some angry cease-and-desist letters in the post, he didn’t let that stop him.
Others called him vagabond, as they passed him on horseback, pelting heads of cabbage in his direction. Bastard, others still. As for himself, he had a firm opinion that he was a man who helped people, protecting the weak against the strong and the cruel. As long as the price was right.
And it was, this time. The nymph Jeremy handled all the Prophecy Notifying in the area. If Bal followed the nymph long enough, he had plenty of work. But Jeremy had tangled himself all up with bandits again, whether they wanted it or not.
The head bandit, as much as a group of antisocial flunkies could have a head, laughed, the bright scar across his cheek wrinkling. This was no ordinary scar. There was no tale of woe, nor of courage. Nor were there any beasts with any wickedly sharp claws. No, it was much more mundane than that. His barber had been a bit too aggressive with a razor.
“What’s this, then, eh Jeremy?” the head bandit asked, but it was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. Though if you asked him what rhetoric was, he’d probably think you were having a stroke. “Friends hiding in the bushes?”
The nymph made a gurgling sound as he looked at Bal, a nymph’s version of disgust. Baldirk tucked his thumbs into his belt and stood his ground. Standing his ground was what he was best at. If there was a prize for best ground-stander, Baldirk would stand a good chance.
“He’s not my friend,” the nymph said, the sound of crashing waves intermingled with his words.
Baldirk was slightly hurt by that. He’d saved Jeremy from enough scrapes that the perpetually wet bastard probably owed him the treasures of Atlantis by this point. “The nymph’s under my protection.”
The bandit scratched at his messy beard. That was how their beards usually ended up, despite best intentions. There was never much room for hygiene in the wilderness. “Yeah, and?”
“That means if you want him, you go through me.”
“This true, Jeremy?”
Another gurgle. “I guess. Let it be known I never really asked.”
Baldirk frowned at him.
“What? I’m not paying for your funeral.”
The bandits drew their bandit weapons and turned on Baldirk. “I see,” the leader muttered.
Bal had a moment of brief alarm when he realized that in his haste, he hadn’t counted how many there were. Four on one. Jeremy wouldn’t help. He didn’t rightly know if the nymph was a pacifist or just a coward. Jeremy was actually Orthodox Neptunian, but the effect was the same.
A knight once told Baldirk he was the sharpest fighter he’d ever known, but—
“Ye’ve got an attitude problem,” the knight had roared. “Too eager to fight instead a’ doin’ a bit a’ thunkin’ first!”
But to Baldirk, it didn’t seem like an attitude problem. More a self-preservation one. But then eating jams gave him a stomach ache.
“Get ‘im!”
The first one rushed right in, and made the first mistake when facing someone who knows more than a little swordplay. Don’t underestimate an unguarded opponent.
Bal twisted to the side as the leader swung his axe, and deposited his dagger behind the man’s ear. The leader made a jabbering noise, pirouetting as tried to grab onto Bal, but only clutched air and fell into the dust.
The next one charged with his fellow, and together they tried to jab at him with spears. The squire-turned-vagabond/prophecy-maker skipped backwards, and they were all too obliging to follow his lead, advancing until they came shoulder to shoulder with each other, their spears clattering together and getting each other’s way.
These men made the second mistake when facing someone who knows more than his fair share of swordplay. Don’t assume they need a sword to kill.
In the span of a skip, he had unbuckled his belt, swept it outwards, and twisted it all up with the spearheads. The bandits cried out in surprise. He gave a yank, and they pulled back, resisting.
Baldirk found endless appreciation for Aloysius’s idea that when you pulled a man one way, he always wanted to go the opposite. Something fundamental in there. But then Bal was no scholar, it was something he’d overheard a drunk say once. Bal’s parents were farmers, who’d sold him to a traveling salesman for his straight teeth.
Bal let go. The bandits lost their balance as the forces of the universe balanced themselves. He rushed in, swept past their surprise, planting his sword in one, smashing his elbow into the other’s mouth.
A bloody tooth went soaring, went plip as it bounced on the road (the traveling salesman that bought Baldirk as a child would pick that up in a few weeks and rejoice as if he’d found a gold coin. Strange fascination with teeth, that one).
Baldirk frowned up, flicked sweaty hair out of his face. Caught his breath. The last bandit gave him a pinched look, said, “Fuck off,” like it was too much of an effort to imagine even fighting, and ran.
For Bal, it wasn’t worth the chase. His stomach was already trying to eat itself from the last exertion. “When was the last time he’d eaten?” he asked himself. “At least a few days,” came the tired, grumbling answer.
“There you go, nymph,” Bal said. “You’re safe now.”
“Oh, great.” Jeremy rolled his eyes as his sarcasm was the trickle of a stream, and resumed his journey, going in precisely the same direction that he was going before he was interrupted by the bandits. Not that it was hard. He only had two choices. The road was only a two-way, not one of those fancy city intersections.
“You’re welcome.” Wet bastard. “Who were they, anyway? And why did they know you?”
The nymph shrugged fish-scale covered shoulders. Bal wondered if killing and skinning fish was some sort of cannibalism or the like for the sea creature. But then, humans killed and skinned each other all the time. Well, maybe not the last part.
He tossed a quick look over his shoulder at the bandits’ torn clothing and beaten, gaping mail. They’d been at it a long time, until Baldirk came along and ruined it. Bal’s own mail was hanging on by a thread as it was, so he knew exactly what sort of desperation would drive these men to waylay a single nymph on the road, and be willing to kill for whatever was in his pockets.
“Axes, spears, mail,” he said. “Not upset serfs, then. Deserters.”
The nymph made a cracking, wet noise, like seaweed being stepped on. “When the king returns, he’ll take care of them.”
“The king?”
In a move that ruffled precisely no feathers, a sorcerer had blown the king up on his turn to evil. He then summarily fled to a cave in the icy north to revive some ancient demon so he could and kill everyone on the continent. But everyone already had enough problems, like the next harvest—or in Bal’s case, where his next meal was going to come from—to worry about some genocidal sorcerer. That was the future’s problem. And the old king was never much loved.
“Hard to return from obliteration.”
Chattering like crabs.
“Not Fenix. The new one.”
“You’re saying there’s some heir lying around somewhere?”
“Oh, everywhere. Old Fenix’s problem wasn’t his balls.”
Baldirk didn’t really want to think about the dead king’s balls, so he just nodded his head.
“I suppose so.”
He lifted his chin.
“So, that’s what you’re doing? Delivering the prophecy?”
Jeremy flashed him a look of a rough sea.
“What? I’m a prophecy maker. How else do I feed myself?”
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth. You know the soothsayers have a D rating for you, right?”
“That’s improved. Last I heard, it was an F.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the Lord’s Mill.
II
Prophecy fulfilment was a cutthroat business. Beyond dragons, chimeras, minotaurs, and various other kill-happy beasts, there were mercenary guilds you had to look out for as well. And whiny, snot-nosed chosen ones who always pubescent children for gods knew what reason.
This one was a little stronger than most, though, much to Baldirk’s surprise. When he rounded the bend, he saw the kid carrying whole tree trunks over his shoulders.
Bal sighed, stopped, and crossed one arm over the other. He scratched his chin. Hygiene was also a lesser concern for an ex-squire. “Why are they always kids?” he said to no one in particular.
Jeremy thought the question was directed to him. He truly was desperate for some companionship. Envoy for the Soothsayers’ Guild involved a lot of frantic, solo hiking. And the dental plan left much to be desired.
“How else do you prove your lineage? Adults slaying dragons happens all the time. The winged beasts are not quite vermin. But a child with no training?”
The kid tossed the two trunks with one hand into a pile of similarly sized ex-trees. Bal looked at Jeremy.
“No training?”
“I just do what they tell me.”
“Hey, kid!”
The boy turned around. He did strike Baldirk as the son of a king; strong of jaw, ear-length flowing blond hair. Blue eyes the size of saucers, shining sapphires to match his future crown.
“The nymph’s got something to tell you.”
III
“You want to come with me?”
Baldirk sipped the sweetened milk the boy’s mother handed him. Turnip was his name, after some grandfather, and not the plant, he said. The prophecy maker didn’t hold it against him, because what kind of name was Baldirk, anyhow?
Bal smiled reassuringly, a smile that said I’m here to help, kid.
“How else are you supposed to stop the thralls? No one expects you to be able to stop them.”
“Thralls?”
“Hang on,” Turnip’s mother said. One could see her as pretty, once, but pastoral life had taken that from her. “I ain’t ever heard of no thralls.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he replied, knowing full well what he was doing. “It’s a black dragon, right Jeremy?”
The nymph rolled his eyes, rocks tumbling in a river.
“I’m not part of any of this.”
“That’s right,” Bal said, as though Jeremy had agreed with him. “So, black dragons, you see, they’re rarer than any other kind, and can hypnotize you. That’s the thralls. Gotta’ watch out for them. And the strong tail and the jaws that could swallow a horse whole. This dragon your son has to slay is a real killer. Anthrax?”
“Panumonthrax,” Jeremy corrected.
“Right. The other one sounds pretty bad, too. Anyway—”
“Hang on, there.” The mother’s three favorite words. “We don’t live near any mountains. Why should we be worryin’ ‘bout dragons?”
“It’s not like that—” Bal smiled, frustrated but trying to look on the bright side. At least he had something in his belly. “Your son has to prove himself the king’s rightful heir. We find the mountain from the prophecy, we go up there, find the dragon’s lair, sneak into it at night when he’s sleeping, take out the thralls, and there you go. Say hello to King Turnip. You send him with me, and I’ll take care of him. Easy as pie.” And I bill the Soothsayer’s Guild for services rendered, Baldirk thought. He leaned back, rather pleased with himself.
Jeremy stepped in close, sounding like a gurgling bathtub.
“There really isn’t such a thing as a thrall, is there?”
“Of course not,” Baldirk whispered back. “But they don’t know that.”
“You think it’s wise? If the kid dies, it goes on your rating.”
“He’s not gonna’ die. He’s the king’s son. The chosen one.”
“A chosen one. The first one I could find. The prophecy doesn’t specify by name.”
“Shit—”
“You know,” the mother piped up, “pie’s not that easy to make. You gotta’ think about the stuffing, the fineness of the flour, rolling the dough, making sure the butter don’t melt—”
“It’s just a saying.”
Turnip’s mother thought it good house manners to make clear the finer points of pie-making.
“And I’m saying it don’t make no sense.”
Baldirk smiled. “Turnip, what do you think?”
The boy grinned, gap-toothed and dimpled.
“All right,” he agreed, with all the eagerness of a boy incapable of imagining anything larger than a cow staring him down. Simple. Baldirk would get no trouble from him. All he had to do was keep him alive.
IV
Turnip’s mother was right. They did not live anywhere near a mountain. The nearest one was ten day’s hike from the little village, and on the third day of their journey, the two of them rolled into a roadside inn, brushing the dust off their cloaks.
Double-sided doors swung open as a drunk shoved past them, vomiting through his mouth and nose. Inside, a group of rowdy peasants threw up a cheer as the doors squeaked back and forth on their hinges. Baldirk paused at the door. He thought there must’ve been a festival on.
He was right in that people were here for a reason, but that reason wasn’t a festival. Not a single seat was empty, the big hall bursting with people singing songs, joined in mirth.
“Dant try the cod.”
Baldirk looked back. The drunk had said something.
“What?”
“I said, dant try—” He heaved again, and another cheer came up from inside.
“The cod? I’ll bear that in mind.”
The tavern hummed with excitement. Baldirk walked through it unremarkably, knowing better than to make a remark of himself, and up to the bar where a spare, exhausted barman ran drinks back and forth between barrel and patron, barrel and patron. In direct opposition to the rules of the world, this barman was inexplicably as narrow as a rake.
“You and the kid gonna’ order summit?” the barman asked. “Or just stare?”
“Popular here,” Baldirk replied.
“They’re all worked up into a lather about the chosen one. Gonna’ slay a dragon, I heard. Not so impressive, but word is, this dragon’s a big one.”
“Is that so?”
Bal looked back, saw the glint of something in the kid’s eye. He followed Turnip’s line, saw a strumpet with her bodice open down to her stomach flirting with a man’s lap. He pulled the kid’s jaw back and up.
“Aye, I was that age, once.”
“Huh?” Turnip raised his brows, as if he hadn’t heard a word.
“Don’t worry. Tell you what, Turnip. Don’t tell anyone who you are, and I’ll buy one for you.” He didn’t say when. When he had the coin, clearly. He did not have it right now.
“All right?”
Turnip nodded vigorously.
“Yeah.”
“Good. You still got that purse your mother gave you for safe-keeping?”
He nodded eagerly, yanked out a leather bag and tipped some of the coins into his hand. Eyes widened and Baldirk swore, covered the boy’s hand with his own, pushing the purse down into his lap. Over by one of the tables, a man looked at them. Baldirk laughed awkwardly, trying to pass the flash of wealth off as just an innocent mistake. Unfortunately, it was noted that, and innocent mistake or not, they had a bag of coins ripe for the taking. And a chosen one, but they didn’t know that someone knew that, yet.
“You can’t go showin’ off like that,” he hissed. “Not in a place like this. You wanna’ end up dead?”
Turnip shook his head.
“No, Mister.”
Bal turned, smiled politely at the barman, who could’ve cared less. “An ale and a stew for each of us. Tell me more about this dragon.”
V
Baldirk stumbled out behind the alehouse to relieve himself when he felt the prickle of danger up his neck. Troublesome prickle. He always had it when he was about to get beaten or robbed. Useful, sometimes. But now he ignored it. His urge to piss was too strong.
“This one yours?”
Bal looked up, still relieving himself.
“Buh?”
On the other side of the mucky yard, next to the hostlers hut, ten figures stood in the darkness, wreathed in night-black cloaks. The flash of something like a flame on their shoulders, an insignia, winked in the torchlight. The White Flame. In the middle, the bare, ruddy skin of a farmhand kid. Built like an ox.
“Turnip? What did you do?” Bal turned, unsteady on his feet.
The men laughed.
“You’re gonna’ poke an eye out, friend.”
Baldirk looked down, realized he was still on display. He tucked himself back in.
“Sorry. What’s this about?”
“We’re the Protectors of the White Flame.”
Bal played dumb.
“Wha? What’s a fire need protectin’ for?”
“We’re a mercenary outfit out of Acadia. We handle the prophecy fulfilment from the Hune River to the Devil’s Hook.” He jabbed a thumb to his chest. “Exclusively.”
“Prophecy filfulment? No, that’s not right.” He reached behind his back, still playing dumb, and felt around for his dagger. Then he realized he’d left it three days on the road back, behind the ear of that bandit, jammed into skull-plate. Fuck.
Ten against one were steeper odds than four against one. He laughed. That’s how counting works, you eejit. Always had the strangest reactions to pants-shitting fear.
The drunk act dropped.
“What did you tell them, kid?”
“Oh yeah,” he said excitedly. “That I’m the chosen one.”
Baldirk made his voice low, angry.
“I thought I told you not to tell anyone who you were.”
“Yeah, I didn’t tell them my name.” The kid did now anyway. “Turnip Blackroot.” Preempting their questions, he added, “Family name, not the plant.”
“Turnip Black—n-nine fucking hells,” Bal stuttered, his anger making it hard to get a word out. He spoke to the mercenaries. “I’m not letting you have him. I got him first.”
They laughed.
“You think anyone cares what some drunk sellsword who can’t piss up the side of a wall properly thinks?” The phrasing struck Bal. Would someone care if he did piss up the side of a wall properly? Or not at all?
“Don’t worry, though, we’re not going to kill you. Too much paperwork that way. Get ‘im!”
They rushed at him with the eagerness of hunting dogs on a rabbit. The first punch came quicker than he was ready for, and he stumbled backwards. He regained his balance, and twisted his body around the second blow, smashing his elbow into the leader’s head. The leader let out a whining noise as he grabbed the side of his face.
Baldirk fell back as they came for him again, put a leg behind him for leverage, and kneed one in the groin. He danced backwards, knowing it would be a few moments before the man reacted. But he did, and squealed, falling into a ball with his hands pressed into his lap.
His valiant effort proved futile. The next moment something hard lashed across his cheek and pain threaded up to his brain, turned his vision white. He appreciated he was now on his back, then appreciated the crunch of a rib as a boot went into his side. He slid sideways across the mud as they kicked him, again and again. Then a kick came down on his head, and he appreciated very little after that, just blackness.
Prophecy fulfilment was a cutthroat business.
VI
Baldirk woke feeling like he’d been in a joust. On the wrong end of a lance, without armor. “Fuck,” he muttered, holding his head. Heard the tinkle of the faintest pan flutes. Smelled the rotten vegetal stink of seaweed.
“Lay down.” A gentle wave lapping the shore.
The weight of a palm came down on his chest, cool and wet and webbed.
“Oh it’s you, Jeremy.” That explained where the seaweed stench came from.
“You’re lucky not to have anything worse than a concussion, my friend.”
The parlor of the inn he was revived in was common and unremarkable, known to everyone who travels. Varnished floors rubbed smooth with the friction of customers’ shoes, ceiling crusty with dust and dirt, equally crusty chairs and walls. In fact, the only thing worth remarking on was hanging on the opposite wall, a painting of a nymph possessing the largest breasts Bal had ever seen in his life.
He groaned to get up to a sitting position, ignoring Jeremy’s protests. He gestured to the painting.
“Do you find that offensive?”
The nymph looked over his shoulder.
“Humans have been inventing tales since the dawn of… well, the dawn of humans.” He shrugged. “At least it’s not a repulsive caricature.”
Baldirk rubbed the back of his neck, and the ‘hit by five hundred pounds of horse, lance, and knight’-feeling started to dissipate. A grey drizzle of rain fell outside the greasy window.
“How long has it been?”
Jeremy clacked, the chitter of crabs.
“You can’t be serious. Let it go, Bal.”
Anger zipped up the back of his neck, tingled his thighs.
“Let it— why did you bring me here, then! Just to patronize me? Kick a man when he’s down? I’d rather wake up face-down in the mud.”
“If you were face down in the mud, you probably wouldn’t wake up—”
“I know!” He threw his hands up in an impotent show of rage. He really wanted Jeremy to know how furious he was but didn’t really feel like he could do anything about it, and he sunk into a slump.
They were silent for a while. A gurgle.
“Why fight it?”
Bal lifted his head.
“What?”
“The mercs make it harder and harder every year for you. You ever thought of a different profession? Why not be a farmer, or a craftsman? Or hells, join the king’s army, become a squire. The gods know you can handle yourself in a fight.”
Bal frowned. “In case you haven’t noticed, I lost my quarry and I have a concussion, Jeremy.”
The nymph sighed.
“You know what I mean. In a fair fight, I doubt even a demon of blades could best you. Not without slight dismemberment, anyway.”
Baldirk lifted his head. The flattery was working to soothe his aching mood. “Army wouldn’t do. Never had much luck with authority. Sir Ryck was bad enough. And I already tried being a squire.”
“Well, whatever you decide. Prophecy making clearly isn’t working for you.”
“It’s like…”
Bal leaned on his hands.
“Like Aloysius says, ‘Pull on a man in one way, and he desires nothing more than to pull in the other.’”
“And the dragon? In case it has escaped your notice, he’s the innocent party in all this.”
“The dragon? I didn’t take you for such a bleeding heart. And besides, didn’t you say they were vermin?”
Jeremy sat down.
“No, I said they’re not quite vermin. That doesn’t mean I want them all killed. They’re intelligent, some of them more than you or I.”
“And Pneumothorax? What if he’s terrorizing poor nearby villages? Dragons just can’t help themselves. They’re like crows. Something shiny and they have to go after it, just to say they put it in their hoards.”
“Panumonthrax.”
“Whatever. Besides, I won’t be killing him. The kid will.”
“Mer-spawn,” he swore. “If you don’t—The god Neptune fucking knows if you don’t help, that clueless log-head is going to be eaten right up. That’s why the prophecy doesn’t specify by name, so it can never be wrong. One of Fenix’s sons would have to succeed, eventually, by the law of large numbers.”
Bal chuckled.
“Awfully dangerous talk for a man on their payroll.”
A shrug in reply, and the tumble of rocks at the shore.
“What can I say? I’m a sea-nymph who always stays at least a dozen days from the nearest body of water. Danger is relative.”
He went into no more detail.
Baldirk sidled off the bed as the barman entered the room, asking if they wanted sandwiches.
“No, thank you, good man.”
He snatched up the sword and scabbard leaning on the nightstand. He’d had the old girl since before Sir Ryck. She was like a dependable village wife. A few nicks and scuffs to mar her beauty, but she still did the job. He wondered with dismay what that phrasing said about his sex life.
As he put the sword in his belt, he turned on Jeremy.
“And that’ll be enough out of you about my profession. It’s starting to make me queasy.”
The nymph kicked a leg out, a slapping, wet noise, and got rapidly to his feet.
“If it can’t be helped, I’ll just have to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
Bal looked up. “Fine.” He adjusted scabbard straps, set the thing comfortably on his leg. Asked for a waterskin and an ale for the road.
The mercenaries had half a day on them, he figured, but they probably had horses. The kid likely had never ridden on a horse before, so he’d have to ride with someone else. Constantly complaining of soreness, so they’d have to stop often. That’s the trouble with chosen ones. Think the world revolves around them, and quite often they’re right.
On balance, if he left now, he might be able to catch them before they reached the summit, where the dragon almost certainly lived. It was wise to travel with someone else as well, especially a sea-nymph who plied many a road between the Hune river and the Devil’s Hook. Even just to pass the time. And, if it came to it, to have someone to hide behind from the dragon’s fire.
Baldirk poked his tongue into the wiggle of a loose tooth.
“But it goes equal, what you said earlier. I’m not paying for your funeral.”
VII
“Will you shut up?”
Baldirk dropped down into the niche of a boulder as he heard someone’s voice. A bit of scree went tumbling down, plinking as it landed fifty feet below. “Shit,” he swore quietly.
“What’s that?”
The crunch of boots on shingles came over. Baldirk tilted his head up, swore again as the jut of a chin stuck its way out, above the boulder.
“Must be some wind.” The mercenary spoke over his shoulder. “Can smell the ocean from here. But I can’t even…”—he narrowed his eyes—“See it…”
“Shuddup.” The leader’s voice. “Let’s go. Wanna get back to Acadia before we die of old age.”
As the mercenary removed his chin from the space and joined his fellows in walking up the path, Baldirk breathed for the first time in what seemed like an age. He looked at Jeremy.
“What?” The nymph gave him a plaintive look. “I can’t control how I smell. You try and scrub barnacles off.”
The Dragon’s Sawteeth, technically incorrectly—but all agreed, aptly—named, were a set of three jagged mountains in the north, near the Devil’s Hook. Bal’s assumption had been correct. He’d caught the mercenaries before they made it to the summit of the tallest of the three, where the dragon lived, according to Jeremy.
He eased himself up from the niche. A grey drizzle fell from the east, rolling a chilly fog across the rocky path, deepening the mood. Ahead, the White Flame edged their way along, forced to go single file in some parts. Baldirk swallowed a lump in his throat. More had joined on the road, and he counted them—nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, now. Twenty-one. Against two. And a dragon, who was an impartial third party, owing his allegiance to neither side. It was just as likely for Bal to get stabbed as burned, while neither were appealing prospects.
He squinted, trying to pick out detail. The kid had his hands tied behind his back, a gag around his mouth. So much for the importance of the chosen ones. It was a recent development, as otherwise Baldirk would’ve caught them on the way down, dragon’s head slumped over a shoulder.
“Keep low. We’ll advance in the cover of the fog.”
Jeremy nodded. “Your plan?”
Bal didn’t have one, but Jeremy didn’t need to know that. He looked back as they snuck out of the niche, kept their heads low. “Hm? Quiet, they’ll hear us.”
Near nightfall, Baldirk settled himself in the hollow of an old, dead tree that had been strangled by the biting wind, adjusting his sword so it didn’t poke him in the leg. Cover from the weather was thinning now, and Bal suspected they were only half a day or so from the summit. Jeremy crouched in front.
“I have an idea,” the prophecy maker said. Better be a good one, he thought.
The nymph passed his glassy, damp, black eyes ahead, as the troop of mercenaries spread out across a small, bare plateau, looking for firewood and a good spot to camp.
The rumble of a stormy sea. “Yes?”
“There’s no chance we can fight them head on. But if we wait until they’re asleep, we could sneak the kid out and get up to the summit before dawn. Turnip dusts the dragon, and we go home. Bob’s your uncle. I’ll even give you a cut of the payment, just ‘cause I like you that much.”
“One problem. How do we get off the mountain once the White Flame discover they’ve been tricked? If you haven’t noticed, there’s only one way off, and it’s the way we came.”
Bal chuckled.
“See, I thought that was a problem too, but no one would dare harm the new king. If Turnip places us under his protection, the Acadians can do nothing. They go home empty handed.” And Baldirk would bill the Soothsayer’s Guild for emotional damage as well, for the strife the White Flame gave him. He would be looking at a small fortune, very soon. He leaned back in satisfaction. A good plan, if a good plan involved a wagonload of luck to go with it.
“You’re saying all we have to do is wait until they fall asleep?”
“Yep.” Bal bounced his eyebrows, smirk on his face.
VIII
“Wake up.”
Baldirk jabbed the toe of his boot into the kid’s side. He jerked up suddenly, a strained, wild look in his eyes. Two days of forced march up a mountain range would do that. Bal almost felt pity for him, then remembered he had a fight with a dragon coming, and kept his feelings to himself. The kid made some muffled noise. Bal forced his hand to his mouth, then considered that he was already gagged.
“Shuddup,” he hissed.
The kid fell silent.
The prophecy maker looked up. Tents stood quietly against a starry night, solitary watchers against a spotty sky. No one lingered too long as night fell, yawning, uncaring and dreaming of sleep. It was considered a remote possibility to be pursued, and unnoticed at that. Mercenaries never did consider much, in Baldirk’s experience. Mercenaries and knights. Something about the formality of things, that there were rules and order to life. Paperwork. Anything unexpected just didn’t have a form assigned to it yet. These men would come to rule the world, Baldirk knew, but he himself had always preferred to rebel.
With Jeremy’s help, they got Turnip up to a seated position, and untied his hands. “Now—” He pushed the kid’s hands down, but he kept slipping free. “Stop fussing. Ah. Stop. Just. Be very”—he drew the words out—“very, very, quiet. Don’t even breathe.”
He took the gag off. Nothing. The kid peered at him, big blue eyes turned pools of black in the dark.
“Good man. Now, if we go now, we’ll make it to the summit by dawn, and be back down by the end of the day. All right?”
The kid nodded in silence, his lips pressed together. A few moments passed and he started to turn a bit pale, or was it just the light?
“Neptune, you can breathe if you want,” Jeremy muttered.
Turnip took a huge breath, snatching for air as his chest heaved. “Oh, good. Thought I was gonna’ die for a moment.”
Bal slapped the kid’s leg. “Good man. Now, do you know much about dragon mating habits?”
IX
In the summer, Aloysius wrote, dragons hunt. They hunt and hunt until they build up their hoards, of both food and gold, and work up a furious lather. Then all autumn they get busy, horizontally. A dozen eggs are birthed in the winter, and the dragons hibernate, keeping the eggs warm through the cold months. In the spring, each egg hatches a bright young dragonling to grow up and repeat the whole process.
Vermin. Intelligent vermin the size of cows, but all the same.
It was summer, pointedly from the lack of snow, Jeremy and Turnip agreed. That meant the dragon would be out scorching the landscape, befuddling knights, terrorizing maidens, and burning down villages.
“But all the villages along the road were fine,” Turnip said, understandably confused.
“Well observed.” Baldirk yawned. Stealing off a captive child in the middle of the night really took the wind out of you. “Nnnnot even a singed sheep. Mm. So, where’s the dragon, then?”
Turnip shrugged. His shoulders were so big other muscles had to move out of the way to make room for those muscles. Bal imagined them shrugging a long, purple cape, trimmed with something expensive like ermine, and saw he had a bright future of shrugging ahead of him as king. To vassals and nobles. Mistresses. Wife.
“Exactly. I figure…”
Baldirk leaned over a boulder, peered out to the dry little meadow in the lee of the summit. Half a ring of grey rock on one side, a pocket of evergreens clinging desperately to the trickle of a creek on the other. Beyond the evergreens was the smooth, shadowy mouth of the cave, where the dragon made its roost. Wound into the summit’s jagged face by water, most likely, when the snowdrifts melted in the spring.
“I figure someone’s finished him already, or he’s sick. Either way…” He looked over his shoulder. “We’ve got this in the bag.”
Turnip scratched the side of his face. Kid had stubble already. Nine Hells, Bal was surprised someone hadn’t put him on the throne already.
“We don’t have a bag.”
Dumb as rocks, though.
“Your family really don’t do sayings, do you?”
The kid shrugged.
Jeremy stopped Baldirk as they left the outcropping. Turnip scrambled ahead, skated down into a gully. The nymph flashed with worry.
“You forgot one thing, Baldirk. What if he’s not there?”
Baldirk smiled.
“Then I’ll die having the satisfaction of knowing that the soothsayers were wrong for once.”
The cave smelled of soot and naphtha and death. Like all good dragon lairs, Bal supposed. His torch cast gloomy shadows over grey-black walls, fat fingers of light reaching over jagged up-juts of rock. In the blackness something rumbled slowly. Initially he thought he had the misfortune of being in the epicenter of a subterranean earthquake. But no. It came every breath. Well, it came like breathing.
Had to be the dragon. Had to be a great big gods-cursed dragon. The innkeeper had told him as much, but Bal hadn’t believed him. Dragons, gods-cursed things that they were, didn’t get much bigger than a cow or an elephant, even the females. This one had to be bigger than that. The walls trembled, rocks shook and fell from the roof. Sensible, he realized, to be very frightened in that moment.
“Here.” He drew his sword and pressed the trusty old girl’s hilt into the farmboy’s hands. “Hold it pointy side out.”
Turnip nodded, wordlessly. Grey lips and pupils the size of pinheads, paler than usual. Baldirk sympathized.
They reached a dead end. A boulder in their way swept upwards, jagged, and black, run with veins of copper. It was strange. Didn’t look like any rock he’d ever seen before. Here, the rumbling was louder than ever, and they had to cover their ears. Baldirk’s thoughts had to shout just to get a word in.
Then a sliver of rock rolled backwards, like an eyelid, and a huge, yellow, cat-like eye narrowed in the light. The boulder drew upwards, flashing a set of bright, smooth incisors like pickets as it did.
“Halt!” The floor rumbled and in the darkness above their heads, two jets of bright orange flame curled. A snort, from a dragon.
Bal felt sweat rush to his skin as a lance of fire stabbed out, lighting a huge brazier hung by chains from the roof, the roof of a huge cavern.
And what a dragon. His brain fizzled and popped as he tried to gain the entire bulk of the creature, its craning, black neck, enormous bat-like wings folded behind its back, a belly of gold as big as a horse. A mound of treasures was piled high under four clawed feet. Trunks bursting with coin, cups, and precious gems glittered in the soft light.
“That’s…”
Jeremy made a flopping, wet noise with his mouth. “Apupupu… uh… we should run.”
“Dragon!” It was a challenge.
Baldirk looked over, mouth agape with horror. It was Turnip. He was beckoning the bloody thing, waving his sword at it. How did Bal ever think the kid was going to kill a dragon? It looked like the dragon might use the blade as a toothpick.
“I beseech you!”
“What do you want?”
The voice boomed in the narrow space, rocked the ground. They had to cover their ears.
“Neptune…”
“You are here to kill me?”
“I must fulfil my destiny,” Turnip shouted. “And you must die.”
Another snort.
“If you must. But I beseech you first. I am not what I appear to be. There is no destiny to be had here.”
They looked at each other in confusion.
“What?” Baldirk muttered.
“You are here for a prophecy, correct?”
They nodded slowly, not wanting to make any sudden movements.
The beast lifted its head, stretching its neck. It made a soft noise, something like pleasure.
“All too eager…” It muttered to itself. Then it looked down again. “Are you familiar with the Soothsayers’ Guild?”
“I’m not,” Turnip replied when they nodded.
“You’ll pick it up as we go. Needless to say, I am a fair bit larger than the usual dragon, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find one who can say more than a few utterances like ‘Ma-ma’, or ‘Sheep’.”
Bal sat down on the ground. He was getting dizzy from looking up so high. “What are you, then?”
“I was once human. Still am… well, the jury’s still out on that. What is a human, really?” Whatever it was, it really loved the sound of its own voice. “Anyway, I digress. It was my fault. I tried an ancient transformation spell, but was a little heavy-handed with the reagents. Hence my current countenance. However, my troubles began when I tried to leave the Guild. See, I was a soothsayer, once. Still am. There’s no rule against dragons being sooth—”
“Yes, yes. The point?”
“They never let you leave. I knew they would come after me, and what better way than to make those fulfilment lackeys work as assassins without them even realizing it?”
“Huh?”
The dragon lifted a clawed hand to its face, making something like a sighing noise.
“Ever notice how most prophecies are something like ‘Skinflint the Tanner will bring a bottle of wine to the corner of Elm and Goodwood’ or ‘The Acadian chancellor will lower guild taxes this year, or Acadia will suffer pox’?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you see? It’s all a scam. That’s why they want to get rid of me. Because I know, and they can’t control me anymore.”
Bal lifted his head in appreciation.
“Huh.” That did answer a few questions he had about the whole scheme. Didn’t make him feel good that he was basically a tool, a blunt object for the Soothsayers’ Guild. One question still lingered though.
“Why tell us all this?”
“Because you are only the first to arrive here. I could flee, but I quite like it here. It’s cool in summer, and you’d be surprised at how vigorous dragons can be as lovers. And… I cannot easily transport the treasures I took with me when I fled. Not in such a rush. So… if you fight for me, defend my cave, I will pay you.”
Turnip held the sword tight to himself. “But… what about my destiny? I am to be king!”
“He’s not smart, is he? As I said, young man, I am not truly a—”
The farmboy hefted the sword into the air and charged in. “I will be king!”
Turnip sliced down, cutting nastily across the dragon’s belly. The dragon roared, and this turned into a reluctant groan as with impossibly fluid, quick movements, the dragon coiled its neck and swept downwards. Turnip was swallowed whole, only a clipped yelp escaping his mouth. A lump formed in the dragon’s gullet as it lifted its neck into the air. Then it disappeared. It had only taken a moment.
Baldirk made a stunned noise. Jeremy’s face turned as pale as the sea in a sleet rain, and he turned to the side and vomited. “Ooogh.”
A belch, fire forking from its horrible mouth. “The folly of youth.”
“What in the shitting gods!”
Bal looked behind, then jumped to his feet. Went for his sword, then realized it was being dissolved by dragon stomach acid as they stood there.
“Shitting hells,” he muttered.
The mercenaries had awoken, and had come rushing after their prize.
“That’s a big dragon!” He observed astutely. The merc looked down. “You!”
Baldirk stared at them flatly. “Me.”
“Me stole—” He shook his head. “You stole our contract!”
“Your contract is sitting in the dragon’s belly right now, slowly digesting.”
“Huh?”
“It is true. I ate him.”
“It talks?”
“Well enough.”
“I see. Now move nicely out of our way, friends.” He waggled a hand at Baldirk and Jeremy. “And you, dragon, whether you can recite a monologue or sling a sonnet makes no difference to us. We won’t be going home empty-handed. We’ll be taking what we can carry, seeing as there’s no prophecy to be billed for anymore. Thank’ya very much.” He folded his arms, seeing no error in his reasoning.
“Dragon,” Baldirk said. “You’re saying you’ll pay us if we defend your hoard?” He craned his neck up. “How much?”
“As much as you can carry.”
“Good to know.” He hunched back, coiled short, and pitched the rock he’d snatched up as he rose. It whizzed through the air and nailed a White Flame directly in the forehead. He screamed as it made a conking noise and he fell to the ground, dead.
The mercenaries were stunned, but only for a moment, returning to their faculties when the leader turned the distinct color of beets and bellowed, “NO MERCY!”
Baldirk sprang backwards as the dragon roared, the sound reverberating throughout the space and sending scree falling from the roof and walls. He covered his head, turning a baleful look on the overgrown lizard. If it didn’t shut up, the whole place was liable to come down.
In the hoard he found what he was looking for. In all the world it was natural to find among kings, knights, merchantmen, and soldiers a framed sword, or a pair of swords, over a mantelpiece or a dining table. Family heirloom, plunder, or just for the aesthetic; if a man didn’t have a sword hanging from two nails over his fireplace, he was probably no man at all. Soothsayers proved no different from anyone else in that regard.
Baldirk pried a sword glittering with jewels out as he heard the beats of fast approach. The air whooshed as he ducked under a nasty-looking axe. He turned the jeweled sword outwards and thrust between the Flame’s shoulder and rib. The man howled in pain, snatching at the wound. Bal finished the job, turning a pirouette and separating the man’s head from his body.
A quick prickle up his spine. He ducked. Turned out to be prudent, as above his head a great whoosh came and the tail of the dragon swept across the cavern, knocking a bunch of mercs over. The tail whirred, moving as quick as a whip, lashing out again, dashing a charging pair into the wall, breaking their bodies instantly.
Ahead Jeremy ran from a merc trying to give him a new set of gills, shrieking as the stout man lunged after him, but the nymph was as slippery as his skin.
Bal ran forward to help him, then tumbled backwards as the ground slipped out underneath him. He landed with a cough on his numb back. A clawed foot the size of a large dog came out from under him as the dragon climbed off its mound. It moved oddly, stumbling. It seemed the boy had hurt it more than they’d realized. The dragon roared as some bastard stabbed its foot. He let out a clipped shout as he was stepped on.
An enterprising mercenary thought to get him while he was on the ground, stabbing wildly. He splayed his legs open, dodging the first blow, then turned aside the next with a parry. He wriggled backwards in the dirt, and used the side of a golden trunk to shoot up to a fighting stance.
His opponent grinned. Yellow, with not one but two snaggleteeth. So much for the glowing dental plans the guilders were rumored to have.
They faced each other tensely. Coins crunched underfoot. The dragon roared again, a noise not unlike putting your ear next to a thundercloud, which took on a life of its own as it shook the cave. A sound challenging everyone around to hear it, one which its opponent didn’t measure up to.
The man groaned, blocking his ears.
Bal wasn’t going to ask for another opportunity. He stepped in, swept downwards with the narrow edge of his sword, and split his opponent from temple to collarbone.
Baldirk lost his balance as something thumped him in the ankle from behind. In the chaos, he hadn’t seen anything approach. His sense for danger was at a constant tingle now, so largely he ignored it. Mistakenly.
A thorny rose of pain bloomed, and he wondered why roses were so goddamn thorny to begin with. He looked back to see whodunnit. As he turned, something else, distinctly sharper, caught him savagely in the rib. If the ankle was a five, the rib was an eleven.
He let out a puff, unable to scream. White spots danced across the bottom of his vision, and he stumbled backwards cringing, seething for breath as his lungs decided they had been through enough shit, and it was high time to go on strike.
He meant to say, “Stop, give me a fucking second, I can’t fucking breathe,” but all he managed was “Stbooobghoboboogooooo.” Though he would count his lucky stars later that his mail had stopped the merc from giving him impromptu lung surgery.
There was a whistling noise, like a kettle boiling. Then it stopped, leaving only silence. He realized what it was—a dragon taking in air. The pressure of the room seemed to drop, the air suddenly cold.
A bright flash blinded him as the world erupted with searing heat. Baldirk snapped his eyes shut, but it was like closing your eyes while facing the sun, on the inside bright orange. Someone was screaming. Was it him? No, he still couldn’t manage more than a whimper. Was he dead? Fifty-fifty.
The heat died and the brightness faded as his eyes adjusted to the brazier’s light, the light that was left, a small candle by comparison. Staining the ground in front of him were two smears of ash—his attackers, reduced to dust in less than an instant.
Until that moment, he figured being a dragon was a massive pain in the ass. Dealing with dragon hunters, glory-hungry knights, looters, chosen ones… everyone wanting a piece of you. Baldirk was no exception.
But the sheer majesty of it, the ability to reduce someone who had hopes, dreams, a wife, and children… to atoms. That was power, and it was terrifying. Gave him the distinct impression of a cosmic switch. The same feeling he had when he read Aloysius the first time, when the philosopher said all life depended on the giant ball of fire in the sky. Baldirk had nightmares that something, someday, would turn it off.
If anything was capable of it, it was this dragon.
Did he really want to fight for such a thing? Bloody thing used to be a human. What else had changed? But he also had the distinct impression that if he didn’t fight for it, he’d join the other smears—and real quick.
He flipped his sword over, jumped back into the fight.
The mercs didn’t take much persuading once they saw the stains that used to be two of their companions. Their numbers were dwindling, too. The leader yelled something about piles of paperwork and fled screaming out of the cave with the rest of them. They would not be back.
Jeremy was doubled over, vomiting, when Bal walked up to him, gave him a pat on the back.
“S’all right,” the prophecy maker said. Could he call himself that anymore? Seemed that he failed to fulfil prophecies more. ‘Prophecy un-maker’, perhaps. Though ‘failure’ was a little snappier, and more accurate.
The dragon lowered its head in something approaching a bow, and muttered, “I am eternally grateful, Fighter and Friend. Please, take—”
It was cut off mid-sentence as the ground rumbled, a sound like a draining sink coming from the dragon’s stomach. Then bright light—white, not the red and orange of dragonfire—spilled from its skin. Somewhere far off a trumpet blew a chord, which was quite a feat, if Baldirk knew anything about trumpets. Which admittedly wasn’t much.
The light faded, leaving a stain on the eyes. As it faded, a figure in a purple cape and gold crown strolled up to him, and the dragon was nowhere to be seen.
“Who knew, eh?” The figure had the voice of a mousy woman.
“Are you…”
Realization hit him like a fast rider. A horse ridden by a particularly surly bastard who decided to stop and trample over his body for good measure.
“You’re the dragon?”
She gestured to the crown sitting fashionably skewwhiff.
“Queen, now, it would appear.” She burst into hysterical laughter, tears streaming from her eyes. “I seriously…” She gasped. “Did not think…”
Baldirk turned on Jeremy, grabbed him by his fish-scale vest and shook him.
“What the hell did you do? What the hell is this? What kind of prophecy is this?” And a million other questions that Jeremy just gapped his pale lips to, like a trout trying to breathe out of water.
Bal let him go, and sat cross-legged, numb. He was also stunned by half that the dragon he thought might be male was apparently female. Just thinking about the logistics made his head hurt.
“Fucking soothsayers,” he muttered.
“Tell me,” the apparent queen said. She was a small woman, not young but not old either. Nothing particularly special. But she spoke the words with such weight that even Baldirk was inclined to snap to attention. “What was the exact wording of the prophecy?”
Jeremy cleared his throat, clearly as bewildered as everyone else apart from apparently, the soothsayer turned queen.
“So shall the new ruler have the old king’s blood inside them, and so shall they purge the dragon from the cave at the summit of the tallest mountain of the Dragon’s Sawteeth.”
“That does sound very… contract killer-y, in hindsight,” Baldirk commented. “But I don’t get it. How did you—” The rider gave his horse the spurs and rode him into the dust, making his head explode like an overripe melon. He laughed, because if he didn’t, he might’ve cried. “Fu-huh-uhcking soothsayers.”
The queen nodded.
“The dragon has been purged, just not in the way they expected.”
Jeremy stared.
“But… king’s blood?”
She patted her belly. The kid. In the usual ways of magic, the kid slowly digesting in the dragon’s stomach was still digesting but had shrunk to a suitable size. To Baldirk, it just looked like she’d gone hard on the all-you-can-eat at the local tavern.
“Oh. Well.”
“Come on.” She waved them up, out of the cave. “Grab your prizes and let us leave.”
“Where? What about your treasure?”
She chuckled, as if the point was exceedingly obvious to everyone else but him.
“Why, to rule over my kingdom, of course.”
She was lapping it up. The soothsayers got royally screwed, quite literally, and the exceedingly wealthy woman was about to get even richer. The royal treasuries were the biggest hoard around.
Well, Baldirk wasn’t about to wait for her to change her mind. He filled his cloak, shoving the pockets stitched into the lining full of gold coins and cups and jewels until the thing pulled on his neck and nearly choked him. His pants he stuffed until he had to hold them up with one hand.
He waddled over to the woman, clanking.
The queen raised a regal eyebrow.
“At last? Well, come on, then. I’ve got a throne waiting for me to sit on, and some witnesses to prove it.”
“Who?”
“You two, of course.”
X
Baldirk muttered a curse when he saw mercenaries in green approach from the slope.
“Here we go, lads,” one said, arching an eyebrow over at them. “You fellers seen a dragon?”
They looked at him as if waiting for something. The queen knew better than to open her mouth, and said nothing. Bal thought it best to play dumb.
“You happen to see a dragon?”
“Eh?” The merc blinked. “We’re asking you.”
“No, then.”
“But—”
“Yeah, there’s nothin’ up there.” He shrugged. “Soothsayers got it wrong, I suppose.”
“That’s…”
“Not possible? Yeah, we thought so too.”
He turned to a teenager in the back. The kid had a patchy beard and a weaker jaw than Turnip, but the resemblance to old Fenix was unmistakable. “Sorry, young feller. Don’t know what to tell you.”
As Baldirk shambled off, a coin came rolling out of his pocket. He tried to ignore it, but turned when a mercenary made a shocked sigh.
“Drop this?”
The man held it up, between his index and thumb.
“Eh—”
Baldirk gave a winning smile, hoped it would make an impression, so he didn’t look as in over his head as he felt.
“You keep it. In fact,” he said, plunging his hands in his pockets, “Here.” Hand over fist of it, he gave his gains over. Still enough left enough for a hot meal. Or a few.
It was something he realized then. He never had much love of money, otherwise why did he always find himself in perpetual shortage of it? Too much of a good thing was bad for him, he reckoned. They looked at him as if he were a god, and he enjoyed that more than a little. They muttered hushed thanks, misbelieving their luck, and were counting their newfound wealth when they continued down the mountain.
The queen exhaled softly. “You’re a strange man, Fighter.”
“Baldirk. And there’s naught wrong in your observation. But why should you think so?”
“Why did you give everything away?”
“They looked like they needed it more than me.” He looked back, suddenly remembering the prophecy’s stipulations. “Wait… you don’t think you need to eat all the heirs?”
She laughed.
“I bloody well hope not. One teenager was enough for one day.”
She made a queasy face, placed her hand on her stomach.
“I… keep tasting him.”
At last, they reached the road that would take them to Acadia.
Jeremy raised a point, a concerned gurgle. A good one—the point, not the gurgle—that neither Baldirk nor the queen had considered.
“What should we do if we come across bandits?”
Baldirk made a humming noise, considering this for a moment.
“Guess we’ll find out.”