Dragonfell Read online

  I don’t know what Flitch is up to. He and Gringolet—they want me for something, but I don’t know what.

  Dragon-touched.

  Someone touched by a dragon? But I’ve never even seen a dragon. I don’t believe for a second that the Dragonfell dragon was evil, or that its dragon-ness has somehow rubbed off on me just because I spend time up here.

  My heart yearns for Da, and I wish I could talk about this with him. But his bad leg means he can’t come up to the high fells. He doesn’t like me coming up here, either, so he’ll never sit with me in this warm spot and talk. No, Da’s working at his loom. There’s no better weaver in the world than my da. It’s what he loves, and the cloth he makes is beautiful and strong and far better than that flimsy cotton cloth they make in Mister Flitch’s factories.

  Even though I’m not bothered by the cold, I shiver and wrap my arms around my knees. I stay on the Dragonfell until the sun goes down and the valley below me falls into shadow. Slowly, stiffly, I get to my feet.

  Maaaaaah, I hear, and when I jerk around, our goat Poppy is standing on a nearby rock looking calmly at me. I must have left the gate open this morning, and she followed me up here. And what if she’d run away, or a wolf had gotten her? Without Poppy’s milk, Da and I would be in trouble.

  I head down the hill, and Poppy trots after me. It is full dark by the time we reach the village. I go into our yard and put Poppy into the shed with an armful of hay, and trying not to notice the burned thatch over the door, I slip into the house.

  Swath, whirr, thump-thump goes the loom.

  The door clicks shut behind me.

  The loom falls silent. Da straightens his shoulders and turns on the bench to face me. He never has many words, but I always know that he’s glad to see me. Tonight his face is grim.

  “Sorry I’m so late, Da,” I tell him.

  He nods. “You were up there again, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I tell him. “I needed to do some thinking.”

  He frowns. “John the Smith came to speak with me this afternoon.” He studies me carefully, as if he’s seeing me in a different way than usual. “He says Old Shar had some visitors, people from the city.” He takes a breath. “John Smithy says the village thinks you’re making trouble for us all.”

  My heart gives a hollow thump in my chest. “I’m not, Da. I’m only—”

  He raises a hand to stop me. “Go and get dinner,” he says.

  Feeling as twitchy and on edge as I’ve ever felt in my life, I collect eggs and cook them with some goat cheese, and slice some bread, and pour us each a cup of goat milk. Then I go to his bench and help Da to the table. He sits hunched over his plate, not looking at me while he eats.

  At last the silence gets so heavy that I can’t hold it up anymore. “Da?” I ask.

  He puts down his fork and rests his broad hands flat against the tabletop, almost as if he’s bracing himself.

  “Da—” I start, but it’s hard to put into words what I’ve been thinking about all afternoon. “I’m not making trouble, Da,” I say. “I’m not—I’m not what Mister Flitch said. I’m not dragon-touched.”

  When Da speaks, it’s without looking up at me. His voice is low, and it trembles. “Rafi.” There is a long silence. For a moment I’m half afraid that he’s going to get up from the table without saying anything more. Then he takes a shuddering breath. “The dragon . . .” With a shaking finger he points in the direction of the high fells. “That dragon.” There’s an edge in his voice that I’ve never heard before.

  He pulls his leg—the one that is withered and scarred—out from under the table and points at it. Then he points toward the high fells again.

  He can’t speak it, but I know what he’s saying. “The dragon burned you, Da?”

  His eyes are grim. He nods.

  My heart shivers in my chest. “The Dragonfell dragon?”

  “Yes.” The same edge is in his voice again, and I realize what it is. Hatred. He hates the dragon.

  “That can’t be right,” I blurt out. Not the dragon that collected teacups with blue flowers on them and watched over the village. “Da—”

  “You won’t remember,” he says heavily. “You were not even three years old. It was a winter night. Very late, I woke up and you were gone. I followed your tracks in the snow.” He points again, toward the Dragonfell. “No one had seen the dragon for a long time, but it was there. It was . . . it was huge, and you were so small, and . . .” He swallows down the words. “I picked you up and turned to run and it came after us, and it . . .” He nods at his leg, withered and burned.

  “The dragon burned you,” I whisper. Goose bumps prickle over my skin. “And you never told anyone.”

  “Never,” Da says. There is a long silence. “I couldn’t . . . I told everyone that I’d spilled a kettle of boiling water down my leg. I couldn’t explain any more than that. And after . . .” He shakes his head. “After it happened, the dragon went away again. But listen, Rafi. Mister Flitch is right.” He pauses, and he says the next words like he’s choking on them. “You were in my arms when the dragon came after me. Its flames washed over me and burned me, but they washed over you, too, and you were not burned. You are what that Mister Flitch said. The dragon called you, Rafi, and you went to it. You are dragon-touched.”

  Chapter 6

  Flames are never still. They flicker. And so do I.

  After dinner I climb up to my sleep shelf and into bed, but I know that there won’t be any sleeping for me this night. I flicker with all the things I’ve learned today—about Da and his burned leg, and the dragon, and Mister Flitch wanting something from me. And me, being dragon-touched. It all boils and burns inside me until I have to sit up in bed and wrap my arms around my knees to keep myself from exploding.

  And then I hear something that distracts me.

  Our cottage is dark. The loom is silent; Da’s put out the candle and gone to bed. My ears prickle with listening.

  From the direction of the village I hear the creak and swoop of the weather vanes that are perched on top of every thatched roof. The wind is shifting.

  Then I hear it again, the sound that distracted me—a scream in the distance. Quickly I pull on my clothes and scramble down the ladder. A shuffle and the tap of his crutch, and Da emerges from the darkness.

  “Can you smell it?” he asks, his voice tense.

  And yes, I smell it—smoke.

  I help him out the door. It’s midnight, no moon, and dark, except off in the distance where the village clings to the hillside there’s the light of leaping flames.

  “Oh no,” Da breathes.

  “Stay here,” I tell him. “I’ll go.”

  “No.” He grips my shoulder to steady himself. “They’ll need all the help they can get.”

  Da lurches toward the fire, his face grim and pale, and I help him up the road and into the village. The air has turned sharply colder, with an edge of iron, the taste of snow. People are coming out of their cottages, shivering and blinking in the flickery orange light. As we pass, a thatched roof bursts into flame; sparks blow past in a growing wind. We round a corner, coming to the middle of the village, when a wave of heat blasts over our heads. It’s Old Shar’s house, the thatched roof alight with flames that leap high into the darkness. Sparks whirl up and the fire gives a deafening roar.

  From inside the house comes a high scream.

  “Old Shar,” Da says, staring at the cottage door. A gust of flames pants from it as if the doorway is a dragon’s mouth, breathing out fire. All the other villagers are busy putting out their own fires; there’s no one else to help. Da takes an unsteady step toward the cottage, leaning heavily on his crutch.

  “No, Da,” I gasp, and grab his arm. He’s big enough to shake me off, but I hold on. “No!” I shout.

  He glances down at me, his face like stone in the blurring orange light.

  “Let me go, Da,” I say. A glowing spark whirls past, and as he flinches I reach out to catch it,
then open my hand to show him that flames can’t burn my skin.

  “Ah no, Rafi,” he groans.

  “I know fire’s the one thing you’re most afraid of,” I tell him. “But it can’t hurt me. It’ll be all right.” And then I race away, stumbling over the doorstep and into the burning house.

  The roof overhead blazes and the heat of the fire pounds at me. Embers crumble under my bare feet. I push past the flames and step farther inside. The shelf where Old Shar keeps her books is boiling with flame; charred pages swirl through the air like black snow. Nothing I can do to save them. There’s no sign of Old Shar here. Leaving the main room, I hurry down a smoke-filled hallway to a door lined with licks of fire.

  “Help! Help!” cries a thin voice.

  With my shoulder I push open the door. By the light of the flames, through air made wavery by heat, I see Old Shar, her white hair in a braid over her shoulder, thin and frail in a white nightgown, crouched in a corner with her arms over her head, coughing.

  I am not going to let her die. I hurry across the room to her.

  “Come on,” I shout.

  As I bend down, she gets a good look at my face and her eyes widen. She opens her mouth in a shrill, terrified scream that ends in a choked gasp for breath, as smoke billows around us. She tries to jerk away from me, but the smoke is too much and she collapses in a faint.

  Even though I’m not much bigger than she is, I’ll have to carry her out. One of her books is on the floor, as if she dropped it. I grab it and shove it into my pocket. Then, gritting my teeth, I scoop Old Shar into my arms and, my muscles quivering, I manage to stand and stagger toward the door.

  The main room is a wall of fire. Trying to protect Old Shar as much as I can, I place my feet carefully, peering through the wavering flames, until I crash out the front door in a whirl of smoke and ash and sparks, and stumble farther from the heat of the fire until I run into a crowd of villagers. They stare as I push through them, away from the burning cottage, and set Old Shar on the ground and kneel next to her. She’s still and limp. “Old Shar, Old Shar,” I say, patting her fire-reddened face, holding her hand.

  “Rafi,” Tam Baker’s-Son says, and points at me with a shaking finger.

  I stare up at him for a moment, blinking away the shadows in my eyes, and then I feel a warm spot over my ear and reach up and put out the bit of fire that’s burning in my hair. There’s a patch of flame on my shirt, and I pat that out, too.

  The villagers, all in their nightgowns, wide-eyed with fear, stare at me, backing away. Da’s not with them. The fire might’ve been too much for him and he’s gone home.

  Our neighbor Lah Finethread is here, though. “It happened again!” she screeches.

  “What?” I blink up at her, not understanding.

  Old Shar’s hand is still in mine; her eyes have opened. She struggles to sit up, coughing. “. . . set . . . fire,” she manages to get out.

  Lah Finethread gasps out a little scream, drawing everyone’s attention to herself. “Rafi did this!” she shrieks. “Old Shar just said that Rafi set her house on fire!”

  “No, she didn’t,” I protest. “I didn’t!”

  Then, from the flame-tinged shadows, Gringolet and Stubb stumble closer. “We saw him!” Gringolet shouts, pointing at me.

  Beside her, Stubb opens his mouth and eyes wide, as if he’s frightened. “Saw him!” he repeats, waving his long arms.

  “What?” John Smithy cries. “What did you see?”

  “That boy!” Gringolet says. Over the villagers’ screams and shouts, she adds, “That boy set the fire in Shar Up-Hill’s cottage!”

  “Dragon-touched!” Stubb bellows. “He’s infected with the dragon’s evil, and he set the fire. He wants to burn this entire village to the ground!”

  “No, I don’t,” I protest, but my voice is lost in the burning roar of the roof of Old Shar’s house collapsing. A wave of heat rolls out, and Lah and Tam Baker’s-Son and the other villagers flinch back.

  Old Shar is trying to say something else, but doubles over, coughing. There’s screaming and I hear Lah shriek my name again, and other angry, fearful voices, and all I can do is kneel there feeling like the ground is about to crumble away beneath me.

  Then Old Shar grabs my arm. “Rafi,” she gasps. “Not . . . you.” She coughs; her eyes are red and running with tears from the smoke. The flames from her house roar behind us. “Flitch . . . must have ordered them to set the fire.”

  I nod, quick to understand. “Gringolet burned your cottage. She knew they’d blame me for it.” I’m panting now, trying to get the words out. “Old Shar, I really am dragon-touched. My da told me. Flitch wants me for something. He’ll be coming after me next.” Then I have a horrible thought. I told Mister Flitch that my da is afraid of fire. He’s one to use that kind of knowledge. “I have to be sure my da is all right.” I start to get to my feet, but her bony hand grips my sleeve, holding me at her side.

  “Wait.” She coughs, her white hair straggling over her hunched shoulders. “Listen, Rafi.” Cough, cough.

  “What?” I am completely distracted. I can’t wait any longer to find my da. I look wildly around. Flames and billows of smoke are still swirling from Old Shar’s cottage; sparks fly on the wind like shooting stars; other thatched roofs are smoldering.

  “Listen,” she insists, and I push away my worry to focus on her. “It would suit Flitch well to have this village burned and gone, and all of us working in his factories. I have done everything I can to keep us all safe, but it’s not enough.” She coughs and rubs tears from her smoke-reddened eyes. “Rafi, you must go.”

  I stare at her. Is she casting me out?

  She’s racked with another cough. “We need . . . our protector.”

  “Protector,” I repeat, and my voice shakes.

  “It’s out there somewhere,” she rasps out. “You are dragon-touched because you’re the only one who can find it.”

  I shake my head, not understanding. “Old Shar, I can’t—”

  “Pay attention, Rafi,” she interrupts, and takes my chin in her hand and makes me look right into her eyes. “You were right. Dragons are not evil. Our dragon left long ago, but we need it to come back.” She lets me go as she’s shaken by another cough. “You must go. Leave here. Find our protector. Find . . . our . . . dragon.”

  Chapter 7

  Old Shar’s words echo in my ears, but I can’t think about them right now. I have to find my da before Gringolet and Stubb do.

  Quickly I jump to my feet and run from the village, leaving behind the shouting and the rush of footsteps as people hurry to fill buckets with water that they fling onto the smoldering thatch of their roofs. After racing down an empty stretch of road, I catch up to Da just as he’s hobbling through our front gate. He lets me help him inside our cottage, then he slams our front door and latches it. I watch him fumble in the darkness and then light a candle. Without speaking, he shuffles to the cupboard and sweeps everything from the shelf into a sack.

  A pounding at our front door startles me, and I jerk around.

  “We know you’re in there!” Stubb shouts from outside.

  Da shoves the bulging sack into my arms and pushes me toward the back door. Limping past me, he opens it and peers out into the darkness. Then he takes me by the shoulders. “They’re going to see that you’re blamed for the fire, Rafi. You have to get away.”

  “Da, no,” I protest. “You know it wasn’t me. I can’t—” leave you, I’m going to say, but I’m interrupted by another pounding at the front door.

  “We’ve come for your boy, Weaver!” Stubb shouts. “Mister Flitch wants him. Give him to us, or we’ll burn you both out.”

  Da shudders with fright. “You have to go, Rafi.”

  And I see what I have to do. “It’ll be all right, Da,” I say quickly. “I’ll lead them away.”

  The front door rattles in its frame as they start trying to kick it down.

  Da pulls me close and gives me a quick,
hard hug. “There is one thing I fear more than fire, Rafi.” He kisses the top of my head, then shoves me outside. “You have to go. Run!” The door slams.

  I stand there for a dazed moment, smelling smoke from the fire, hearing the angry shouts of Gringolet and Stubb at the front door. Then I move, peering around the corner of the cottage, and I see them—two hulking black shapes holding torches with flames like flickering tongues that lick the night. They’re about to touch the torches to the thatch of our cottage roof. They’re going to burn Da alive in there.

  “Hey!” I shout at them.

  Gringolet points. “There he is!” They both start after me.

  I race away from the cottage, through the back gate.

  They follow, the flames of their torches streaming behind them.

  I run up the path that crosses the lower hills and leads toward the Dragonfell. It grows steeper. Panting, I check over my shoulder. Their torches are bright against the night—they’re still coming. My leg muscles burn and I gasp for breath.

  From behind me I hear a shout—glancing back, I see them, twice as big as I am, and twice as strong, too. They’re driving me on, waiting until I get too tired, and then they’ll have me.

  Come on, Rafi. Think!

  I can see in the dark—they can’t.

  Swerving, I leave the path, stumbling over the grass and rocks and heather, climbing higher and higher. From behind I hear curses, but they keep coming. Feeling almost as if I can fly, I leap from one rocky outcrop to the next, and Gringolet and Stubb fall farther behind.

  Then I leap for a rock that is like a gray island sticking out of the low bushes, and my foot slips, and I tumble into a clump of prickly furze. Seeing me fall, Gringolet shouts, and they plow through the bushes, coming closer. I pick myself up and scramble away.