The Pygmy Dragon Read Free

Islands never became that cold. The jungle was a Pygmy’s mother and father. What parent would let their child freeze?
    Thinking of her parents made her weep again. She knew she might never see her tribe again. In her grief, Pip tore her face with her fingernails until blood dripped onto her chest.
    She lost all sense of time. The rajal roared mightily a few times every day, but nobody came to give him meat. Pip was glad her cage was out of the massive feline’s reach. Somewhere, she heard the vast snuffling of an Oraial and the mewling of its baby. Even a baby Oraial was bigger than a full-grown Pygmy. She heard the sleepy singing of parakeets and once, a vast hiss that reminded her of an emerald python she had once tangled with as a child. A Pygmy warrior had rescued her, stabbing his dagger savagely into the snake’s brain. The tribe had feasted on python meat for a week thereafter. Later, a storm whistled outside the Dragonship and rain raised a steady roar somewhere outside. Thankfully, the vessel seemed to be moored somewhere, because although the winds buffeted the vessel severely, nothing bad happened. The rajal hated it. He snarled and roared and threw himself against the bars of his cage, over and over again. The crashing thunder and the steady roar of the rain reminded her sharply of her village. Pip chewed pensively on her knuckles. When would she see them again? Had everyone remained safe in the cave of warriors? Did they think she had burned to death?
    Pip realised she was growing weak from hunger. She had not had a drink in days.
    She had to escape.
    That afternoon, bars of light suddenly flooded the hold. Big people moved between the cages, feeding the animals and sliding bowls of water into the cages. A chorus of crazed screeching, bellowing and roaring rose from the animals. Shortly, a ripe green tinker banana smacked Pip on the cheek, followed by a hunk of bread so hard it bounced out of the cage and almost out of reach. She hissed at the flying vervet monkeys opposite, scrabbling desperately to beat their paws. Thieves!
    Pip blinked at the light. She realised she was in a large room. It held many cages. She saw a male rajal snarling and clawing at a big, bearded man, who tossed a haunch of spiral-horn buck at him from a safe distance. Next to her, a great golden python slept, coiled up. No, the eyes were slightly slit. The reptile was alert, observing, probably considering her value as dinner. She saw bright parakeets and monkeys stacked in piles of cages. Across the room a sturdy metal cage dominated the entire space from floor to ceiling. It held a female Oraial, judging by the turquoise blazes of colour on her cheeks, but even in that space she could only crouch down at best. Her massive, shaggy head was matted with blood. She must have suffered a terrible wound, for her eyes seemed glazed and her movements were slow. She held a baby Ape to her chest, suckling. The Oraial reached for the tinker bananas a man thrust into her cage, and crammed the entire two-foot bunch into her mouth at once.
    A gourd landed next to her foot. She snatched it up before a monkey stole it. A welcome gurgle suggested that it held water.
    Pip uncorked the gourd and drank greedily before realising, too late, that she should eke out her water. There was no telling when she would be fed again. She bolted a quarter of the banana and nibbled glumly at the bread, torn between her need for food and the musty, stale taste filling her mouth.
    Her belly’s shouting won.
    A Pygmy warrior’s ears took in the Dragonship’s sounds, that day. Pip tried to imagine where she was being taken. She taught herself to recognise the different sounds of night and day. Too soon, hunger robbed her senses of their acuity. She lapsed into a deeper torpor than before.
    She roused to the deep groaning of overstressed ropes. Shouts sounded faintly through the hull. The low throbbing of the Dragonship fell silent. New noises. A change to the everlasting