The Dragon's Son Read Free Page B

the capital,
Ramsgate-upon-the-Aston, was noted for the faire held yearly on the vast piece
of level ground that gave the town its name. Every other day of the year, the
town’s eight hundred residents went about their business in a somnambulant
state, rousing for births and deaths, weddings and the occasional war, but mostly
sleepwalking their way through life. On the week of the faire, the townspeople
opened their eyes, sat up, and looked around at the world.
    People from all over their kingdom and surrounding realms poured into
Fairfield, swelling its population by a thousand, filling every inn and the
abbey guesthouse, and spilling out into a colorful, temporary city of tents.
Booths and stalls blossomed on the newly rolled green, their colors outdoing
the spring flowers, their dealers tempting children with sticky treats and
gentlemen with sticky games of chance. Merchants traveled with their goods by
barge down the river Aston or journeyed overland, their pack mules laden with
everything from silk gloves to pet monkeys.
    Ven and Bellona did not keep a mule—a luxury too dear for them to afford.
They loaded up the fur pelts in a pushcart to make the fourteen-day journey to
Fairfield on foot. The trip was slow and tedious, especially at the beginning,
for they had to haul the cart through the woods where they made their home,
dragging it over a trail that Bellona had hacked out of the wilderness. No one
else ever ventured on this trail, for Bellona did not tolerate visitors and,
indeed, she had built their dwelling so deep in the forest that only the most
dogged visitor could have found them. Since they used this trail just twice a
year—for the spring faire and the fall—the trail was overgrown with weeds and
brush and difficult to navigate.
    Sometimes they found that a tree had fallen across it and then, if they
couldn’t move the tree, they had to either haul the heavily laden cart over the
obstruction or drag the cart through the brush. This arduous task required both
of them, one pulling and one pushing. Ven was unusually strong for a child of
six and he did his share of the hard labor. That was why when Bellona had said
she needed his help, he could not argue with her.
    Leaving the forest, they struck the King’s Highway, and the going was
easier, for the road was well maintained. Bellona could pull the cart herself
and she ordered Ven to ride in the cart, perched among the furs, where his
deformity would not be so noticeable. Ven could walk fast and run faster on his
beast’s legs, but he had a strange gait, a loping spring, that brought
strangers up short, evoked rude stares or ruder remarks. And if Ven spent too
much time walking, the sharp claws on his scaled feet would pierce through the
soles of his boots. Any of their fellow travelers who saw shining white claws
instead of pretty pink toes would do more than stop and stare. They would
descry Ven as a demon and slay him on the spot, or so Bellona told him.
    Ven helped Bellona push and shove and wrestle the cart through the forest, a
laborious task that cost them two full days. They made the journey in silence
for the most part, except when Bellona would bark an order or swear savagely
beneath her breath. Ven was used to the silence. He had come to prefer it, for
it allowed him to retreat to his “mind-cave.” He was leery about going there
now, however, after the awful experience of yesterday when his cave had been
invaded. He avoided it, and, with nothing to occupy him, he found the journey
through the forest long and dull.
    He was glad when they struck the King’s Highway, for it at least provided
diversion. If people stopped and stared at him during those times when he
walked alongside the cart, he could stare back and sometimes have the pleasure
of seeing them flush in embarrassment and quickly avert their eyes. There was
lots to see and think about. Bears with iron collars and chains about their
necks lumbered alongside their handlers. Noble