The One That Controls the Skies

If It Were Only A Dragon [Chapter 23]

The elf took up a seat beside Eriques on the cart, pushing Farvin to the back compartment with the Gnoll and the Druid.

“I’d bet that Greep and that thick, matted fur of his is fireproof,” Nemona admitted to me out of the blue, the both of us at the front of the formation.

Nariza leaned forward through the flaps of the wagon. “Is that so? And did he volunteer to test that theory? Or are you just going to throw him unknowingly into the fray and see how it goes?”

Nemona waved her hand back into the druid’s face. “I don’t need permission from some stinky mud-rolling druid. Just because he’s simple doesn’t mean he can’t think for himself. I’ve not heard you nagging Gladius about this nice Gnoll here after all.”

“Prince can properly articulate his thoughts and feelings, and he’s joined us willingly,” Nariza rebutted. “Isn’t that right my little fluffy man?”

I almost heard a purr from under the cover of the wagon.

The druid strained her neck to watch the troll plodding along with us. All of my men and their horses were giving him his distance. “Look at him. Greep here is like a human toddler who is apt to throw fits. He needs to be protected from the big feelings he’s experiencing, and suddenly homeless he is as well.”

Nemona shrugged. “So you say, but recall that you too are like a toddler compared to my five-hundred-plus years in this realm. All humans are. And yet, young Gladius here is our royally ordained party leader.”

The druid poked at my shoulder. “You hear that, castle human? She’s deferring to you, so tell her that we’d best leave the troll be.”

I glanced back and gave the troll another look. It was impossible to tell if he was happy or sad or even capable of any such complex emotion. “I can tell Nemona, but… I’d fathom neither of us could tell a toddler nor a troll what to do when it finds the thing that burned its home down.”

“For the record,” Nemona butted in, glancing back at the druid, “In the blink of an eye that an elf is at the age of toddling, it has already learned to communicate and regulate itself quite well.”

Nariza huffed and slumped back behind the flaps of the cart’s covering, ending the debate, at least for that moment.

The flatlands blew with a cooling and refreshing breeze. It would have been nice should something foul not had caught the wind. I kept my composure and said nothing, only double-checking that the troll was not upwind of us.

“Something stinks like hell,” Eriques spoke up, reminding me of the teachings of etiquette I had yet to offer him.

I sighed loudly to direct the blame from myself. “And this is after I told every one of them to bathe themselves properly in the river the previous night.”

Nemona lifted her nose to the air. “It is not simply body odor. What’s that in the distance I see? Guide us there.”

What lay before my eyes was something like a mirage, akin to seeing the heat distort the air above the street on a summer’s day. It was much darker though, like a dark cloud, hugging the ground. A low buzzing accompanied it. Breaching the hill, we found the epicenter, an odoriferous ridged mound about the size of two horses, buzzing with flies. The horses immediately began swatting at the air with their tails. The pests made attempts at my nose and ears.

Nemona jumped down from the cart’s bench before it was fully stopped. Even the troll refused to move it any closer, but the elf acted as if it was a tome to open up and study. Despite my better judgment, I felt the impetus to approach with her.

“Do you know what this is?” She mumbled and glanced back.

The odoriferous mound was being attacked over and over by the cloud of flies. I was already holding my nose. I would have held my breath if I did not need to breathe in the foul air to respond. “It’s shit. And going off the size, it’s from our dragon. Can we go now?”

Nariza joined the steamy, buzzing fray. “No maggots squirming quite yet. Going off the insect activity, no older than a day.”

“Indeed,” said the elf, swatting flies from about her face. “Do you know much about reptiles, Gladius? Lizards and snakes and the like?”

I forced another breath in and then out. “Does a gecko count? I used to find and catch geckos on the stone walls of my basement when I was a child. I would scare my younger sister with them, perfectly harmless as they are. They mostly just liked to sit about all the time.”

Nemona nodded. “A gecko hiding out in a cold, dark basement eating little bugs is one thing. A massive dragon who has recently flown over mountains, scouting out unfamiliar territory? It’s bound to be starving.”

Nariza clicked her tongue smugly. “I have heard that certain reptiles have no sense of being full.”

“Eat and eat and eat, they will,” said the elf with a reluctant nod of admission to the druid. “And all that activity will heighten the thing’s metabolism and digestion.”

“Ah, so just the opposite of your average noble,” Eriques noted from his seat on the wagon.

“Faster digestion means more shits like this one,” I added, attempting to shift myself to a position upwind of the stinking pile. “We might even find a path of them, like fecal breadcrumbs.”

I noticed suddenly the druid closing in on the mass with far too much intention. Her fingers suddenly grazed the molted mass, dragging out a boxy object that was hard and slightly metallic, were it not covered in filth.

“Oh dears,” she mumbled, nearly cradling it in her arms. “Do you recognize what this is?”

“Something to keep your hands off of,” I huffed, ready to leave.

“I know what it is,” said Farvin suddenly, jumping out around the wagon’s bench.

“A bell for a cow,” said the druid.

Surely, it was a sort of bell, one so packed so densely with filth that it would likely never make a sound ever again.

Nariza rolled it around in her hands. “A man-made object to restrain an animal to always be in earshot of its human slave-masters. No doubt, the dragon also heard the sounding of this bell and learned it to be the sound of a ready, helpless meal.”

“Give it here,” Farvin asked as if it were an infant belonging to him. He held his hands out expectantly.

I watched as the filthy instrument went into another pair of hands. “Oh, so we’re all going to touch it now? Both of you better keep to yourselves there in the back of the wagon. Until we find clean water once again, you shall not touch a single thing. Especially my bedding!”

“I recognize this,” the easterner said, wiping down the coating of muck from the rough metal surface. “It comes from my village. My uncle is the blacksmith there. He made these. They almost gave me one to put around my neck to prevent my wandering off once again.”

I blew a stray fly away from my lips and shook my head. “Great, can we put it down, then? Once this is all taken care of, your uncle can make more.”

Farvin looked up suddenly. He looked at me, then the surroundings. The forested river was a good ways behind us. The flatlands continued on for some ways, dotted with collections of dark stands of trees. “We’re near my home village.”

“And about how many cows and bigger livestock did your village have?” Nemona asked.

“Yes, how many did you enslave?” said the druid with heavy judgment in her voice.

Farvin shrugged. “A couple dozen cows, I’d say. Some families had a horse, there was a pair of oxen, too.”

Nemona scanned the sky. “This dragon of ours has been out about, patrolling, but returning to where it knows there is food.”

I would have kept scanning the sky with her if a fly hadn’t decided at that moment to seek out my tonsils, a victim to my open-mouthed breathing to save my nose. Between spitting and hacking to free the bug from my throat, I was able to mutter my orders. “Let’s get a move on. Somewhere we won’t be seen from the sky.”

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