Eska and the Dragon

Eska hunkered on the end of a crumbling log on the rocky bank of the stream, an empty game bag at her feet. Her parents wouldn’t let her fish alone and today they’d stuck her with Georg and Petra, the largest and, from her perspective, sneakiest of her many cousins. The morning was almost over and they looked as if they’d been competing for most muddy or perhaps least likely to catch anything. Their thrashing and rowdiness had scared away anything catchable. She wanted to beat some sense into them, or just beat them senseless, but she was not yet a skilled enough fighter for that.

Petra bounced on his end of the log, making Eska’s end jerk and almost throw her into the water. Georg snickered.

Eska glared at them both, then rolled her eyes and looked up at the sky. Her breath caught. “The dragon!” She sprang up. “Come on!”

She didn’t look back to see if her two cousins followed, but dashed along the stream bank toward Stoneborrow, looking up more often than down at the path.

Stoneborrow’s dragon, Fasurol, was a rare black sport, with russet covering his head and edging his wings. Eska loved watching him fly with a bright blue sky as backdrop. She didn’t pause to figure out what he carried in his large talons.

She swerved onto a game trail through the trees, her personal shortcut to the road leading into the village. She emerged on the road just as Fasurol swooped in and dropped the struggling prey into the large pen built for that purpose.

Eska kept her eyes on the dragon as he pivoted on a wing tip, glided back over the pen and took a hard look at what lay on the ground. She caught her breath as he landed not far from her. She heard the soft susurration when his wings furled and his body shivered.

A long black feather, dislodged in the process, fluttered into the meadow grass.

“Mine!” Georg shoved her down as he ran past.

Petra said nothing as he leaped over her and tackled Georg.

The two boys wrestled, rolling closer and closer to the dragon. Faserol watched them in the way of predators pretending to ignore their prey.

Eska moved toward the shed feather, avoiding her cousins. When the prize was within her reach, she looked to the dragon.

He’d swung his enormous head around so it was between her and the boys. He was looking at her, his mouth opened just enough to show his sharp teeth.

He winked.

She bowed low. Eska reached for the feather, as long as her arm, but hesitated. She raised up to find Faserol’s muzzle so close she could have touched it. But she didn’t dare. Didn’t move.

In a deep hiss, barely understandable, he said, “yourssss.”