Dragons of the Watch by Donita K. Paul
Ellie struggled to look behind her, but still another child appeared, fell at her feet, and locked its arms and legs around her.
“He ran in the castle,” said one of the boys holding her arm.
“Old One’ll get ’im.”
Ellie closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of resignation. She’d been caught. Tak was captured. For some reason Bealomondore had deserted them. She’d welcome Old One appearing on the scene and roaring at the naughty boys and girls.
“You look funny,” said one of the children in a nasty voice.
“I am a tumanhofer. You are a urohm.”
“You don’t have a stink,” said the child wrapped around her legs.
Ellie frowned down at the top of its head. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected the child was female. “I would assume no stink is a good thing.”
“Nah,” said the tallest child as he got off the top of the Tak pile. “We’ll stink you up some before we take you into our secret fort.”
“You don’t need to do that on my account,” said Ellie. “I’m perfectly content to be at odds with your traditions.”
Several children said, “What?”
To Ellie’s ears it sounded like a perfectly natural response from small children.
Small children? These children were taller than she was.
She made her face stern and used the voice that made her younger siblings cringe. “You will let me go. You will let Tak go.”
“Why?” The tall one sneered.
“Because you are a child. I am an adult. Your behavior is unacceptable. You will treat me with respect.”
Ellie didn’t like the tone of the laugh that spread through the captors.
“Maybe we’ll respect you,” said the tall one. “After we eat you.”
That pronouncement raised a round of snickering and wicked giggles.
“We gonna eat the dog?” asked the child at her feet.
“No, dummy. You’re supposed to play with a dog.”
“Tak is not a dog,” said Ellie. “He is a goat.”
Tall One looked at her with squinty eyes. “He better be a dog, or we’ll eat ’im. And if you give us trouble, we’ll eat you twice.”
“We could eat the bird,” said the vocal child now sitting on her toes.
“Stupid, we didn’t catch the bird.”
Ellie refused to inform them that the bird was a dragon.
The child below sniffed. “I wanted to hold the bird.”
Tall One threw a disgusted look at the whiny child, but answered with unexpected compassion. “You can hold the dog.”
Ellie felt the clamp of arms and legs loosen, and the child darted off to join the pile on Tak.
Ellie wondered if Tak would come through this encounter with wild children without harm.
“You be nice to Tak,” she admonished the children in general.
One of the boys pinched her.
“Ouch!”
“You shut up.” He glared at her from just an inch away. “We’re going to wrap you up in ropes and drag you to our fort. Then we’re going to hang you. Then we’re going to eat you.”
“Can we do all of that before bedtime?” asked a familiar voice from the Tak pile.
“Sure we can,” said the boy, twisting the bit of Ellie’s flesh he held between two fingers. “We’re the bad guys.”
Ellie put on her most intimidating big sister face and growled at the six-year-old. “You need someone with a stiff brush to scrub the dirt off of you. And that same someone might put a bar of soap in your mouth if you aren’t careful. I don’t like your tone of voice. I might just be the one to teach you some manners.”
“Are you going to do that before or after we eat you?” he asked with a sneer.
Ellie pasted a sweet smile on her lips. “Before.”
The children tied Ellie’s hands together with one of her own stockings. After several attempts, they had another stocking, hers, tied around her head as a blindfold. She could look down and see through a gap in their handiwork, but she didn’t feel any obligation to tell them.
The boys pushed and shoved her through the street. She recognized some of the planters where Tak had nibbled a snack, which clarified which street they marched her down. She could hear higher voices, and she assumed they were girls, talking baby talk to the goat. She could just imagine the disgusted looks Tak was bestowing on the silly children.
She became aware of Airon’s presence and received the reassurance that the dragon followed and would return to tell Bealomondore her exact location.
Where is he? she asked.
The image of Bealomondore swashbuckling with an impressive sword came to her mind.
He went to get a sword? That’s insane. These are children. He can’t spring on them and dispatch six-year-olds at the point of his sword like soldiers from an enemy army.
She listened. The thought formed in her mind.
You tell him he is not to scare these little children with a sword.
“There’s the bird,” yelled one of the children. “We’ll catch you, bird! You’re doomed to be bird stew.”
Ellie wondered why the children always threatened to eat whatever they caught. “Are you children hungry?”
“Nah.” Ellie recognized the voice of Tall One. “We get food, but we never eat anything fun.”
The statement made Ellie smile. Maybe daggarts would work in softening the attitude of her captors. Of course, a few obstacles stood in her way. She’d have to escape. She and Bealomondore would have to find the ingredients and an oven.
She got pinched again. “Don’t you smile!” She recognized this voice too. The pincher shoved her forward. She stumbled, but so many hands held on to her that she didn’t fall.
“You don’t smile when you’re a prisoner.”
“I’m sorry.” Ellie tilted her head toward the one she’d offended. “I forgot the rules.”
He grunted. Her little brothers would have said, “That’s all right. Just don’t do it again.” These children didn’t know the customs that made playtime fun. If she and Bealomondore were stuck here forever, she would make sure these overgrown six-year-olds learned some manners and rules.
The small procession of captors and two captives came to a building, and Ellie spotted the raised threshold she would have to step over. None of the children warned her, and none noticed that she did not trip. Inside, the cool air smelled musty.
Her handlers took her through several rooms and then made her sit on a box. They untied her hands, then retied each hand to two posts beside the seat.
“Take off the blindfold,” ordered Tall One.
The stocking was yanked off the top of her head, pulling her hair. She blinked and studied the dirty faces surrounding her. It seemed to her that they were trying to outdo each other in a fierce glowering contest. Several got bored and wandered off. Others followed. It didn’t surprise her that Tall One and the pincher tied for last-to-give-up at looking mean. Ellie stopped watching the contest and surveyed her surroundings.
A dozen children still surrounded Tak. They petted him and cooed and talked nonstop. No one listened to anyone else, and poor Tak closed his eyes.
“The dog wants to go to sleep,” said the girl with curly hair and a permanent pout. She started jostling the others, making them surrender their positions next to Tak. The others gave way, proving to Ellie that this girl had earned her place of boss by being tough.
“We should give him a name,” said the child who previously clung to Ellie’s legs.
They turned in unison to their captive.
“What’s his name?” demanded Pouter.
Ellie used her calmest, kindest, most nonthreatening voice. She would not give them the satisfaction of losing control. She would speak like an adult, even if doing so tied a twist in her tongue. “His name is Tak.”
“That’s no good.” Pouter turned back to contemplate the goat. “If he’s going to go to sleep, he has to lie down. Make him lie down.”
Six children rushed forward to obey the command. They grabbed Tak’s legs and pulled them out from under the frightened animal.
“Stop!” Ellie fumed. “You’re going to hurt him.”
Tak hit the floor on his side with a thud and a grunt.
“You don’t know much,” said Tall One. “He’s not hurt.”
The announcement from their male leader ended the contest. Pincher plodded across the floor, making as loud a noise as he could. His footfalls sounded like he weighed three hundred pounds. He threw himself down on a pile of dirty blankets.
Tak lay still. Ellie figured pretending to be docile was a good strategy. With a little difficulty, she scooted back on the wooden box so she could relax against the wall.
Tall One and Pouter left the room together, whispering and looking very much like they were conspiring to do evil. Ellie reminded herself that children didn’t plot with much efficiency. Even the knots that bound her to the pillars failed to totally restrain her movements. She could probably loosen them and escape if no one was watching. Only a dozen children remained in the room. But each and every one of them kept sneaking peeks at her while they pretended to be absorbed in their games.
She studied them as much as they watched her. For the most part, they behaved much like her younger siblings and their friends. But the urohms’ simple games erupted into slapping and shoving fights for no apparent reason. The matches consisted of moving objects like stones and sticks in a pattern she could not discern.
Leg Clinger came to sit close to her but twisted a cloth in her hands and did not speak. The rag represented something. The child wadded the material into several shapes and finally clasped it tight in her arms and cuddled it, rocking slightly.
Ellie spoke very softly. “My name is Ellicinderpart.”
Leg Clinger stopped all movement.
“What’s your name?” Ellie asked.
The child’s head dropped closer to the rag she embraced.
Ellie tried again. “I have little brothers and sisters.”
Leg Clinger’s head tilted slightly, and Ellie got a brief glimpse of one eye.
“How long have you lived here?”
The child shrugged, and Ellie felt she’d made one step closer to reaching her. “I come from a place outside the bottle.”
“There isn’t a bottle.” The girl shifted so she faced Ellie. “That’s a fairy tale.”
“I see.” Ellie searched for a topic that wouldn’t shut off the flow of conversation. “Who gives you your food?”
A shrug and the head dropped, leaving Ellie to stare at matted hair. Mud caked the child’s shoes, and stains covered her skirt, blouse, and apron. But in contrast, none of her belongings looked old.
Ellie decided to try one more topic. “You have nice shoes.”
Leg Clinger straightened out her legs and looked at her feet. She nodded.
“Where did you get them?”
Another shrug.
“Do you have a name?”
The look she got from the urchin said Ellie was incredibly dumb.
“Yeah.”
“Mine is Ellicinderpart. What’s yours?”
“Gardie. Yours is too long.”
“You can call me Ellie.” She waited, but Gardie didn’t comment. “Who takes care of you?”
Another disgusted look. “Me.”
“When I was six, I had a mother and father to take care of me. What happened to all the mothers and fathers?”
A shrug. A sigh. “Old One took care of us, but he got mean.”
Another child lifted her head from a pile of stones he played with. “That’s another fairy tale, Gardie. You know it is. He never was anything but mean.” He glared at Ellie. “We aren’t supposed to talk about it.”
Gardie ducked her head.
The stone-piling child motioned to Gardie. “You come over here and leave the prisoner alone. You probably aren’t supposed to talk to her.”
Gardie stood and shuffled over to stone-piling child.
Ellie looked at the one with the stones. “Do you have a name?”
“I won’t talk to you.”
“What is the game you play with your stones?”
A pause. “Trickery.”
“I don’t know how to play Trickery. Will you show me?”
“Long as I don’t have to talk to you. I bet we aren’t supposed to talk to you.”
“Who will tell you if you aren’t allowed to talk to me?”
“Yawn,” said Gardie.
The boy was moving his stone pile closer to Ellie. “Yawn’s top bad guy.”
“Are you all bad guys?”
Both children nodded.
“Why? Why not be good guys?”
Both children shrugged. Ellie despaired of ever getting information out of these two. She watched as they played with the stones and could not make any sense of the game. If she asked questions, they shrugged. The game went on and on until the boy who would not speak to her scooped up all the stones and crammed them in his pockets. Gardie didn’t seem to care.
With no cue that Ellie could detect, the children sprang to their feet and bolted from the room. Tak raised his head, looked around, and stood.
“Maa.”
“I don’t know where they went. Oh! I bet it’s dinnertime.”
Gardie ran back into the room and halted just inside the door. “I can’t bring you anything to eat.”
“That’s all right.”
“I gotta go, or it’ll all be gone.”
“That’s all right. Go ahead.”
“We’ll come back. We have to be inside before the sun goes down.”
“Why?”
“If we don’t go to bed, there’s no food in the morning. Everyone has to wait until noonmeal, and if they figure out who wasn’t in bed …” Her eyes grew wider. “I gotta go.”
She dashed away.
“Maa.”
Ellie twisted her wrists against the stockings binding her to the posts. “Just a minute, Tak, and I’ll go with you.”
“Would you like some help?” Bealomondore stood in the doorway, looking very dapper, a sword strapped to his waist.
“Yes, I would. I don’t want to be here when they come back. And I certainly don’t want you brandishing that sword at them.”
He came across the room and quickly undid one knotted stocking. “I wouldn’t hurt a child.”
He untied the other stocking, and Ellie took it. She stuffed the unmatched pair into her pocket.
Her voice broke in the middle of her next declaration. “I know you wouldn’t hurt them.” She stood rubbing her wrists.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s one named Yawn that I could very well hurt if given the chance. He’s a bully.”
Bealomondore put his arm around her shoulder and guided her toward the door. “You don’t think munching on daggarts will bend Yawn to your will?”
She giggled. “I think it would take plum pudding, birthday cake, daggarts, and iced parnot slush to even get his attention.”
“Sounds like a hard case. We’ll start with daggarts.”
“Thank you for rescuing me. What took so long?”
“You told Airon I couldn’t use my sword. I had to wait until the children cleared the building.”
“Thank you for that too.”
He smiled, stopped, and bowed to her. “Miss Ellicinderpart Clarenbessipawl, would you do me the honor of going to dinner with me?”
She smiled back and felt tears well up. She batted them away. “Yes, I will. Your kindness overwhelms me.”
He gave her a quizzical look and merely exclaimed, “Ha!”
Bealomondore and Ellicinderpart pored over the journals the next morning. They waited for Det to come back with news of a house that might supply their daggart-making needs.
Bealomondore cast glances up to the balcony where they had seen the shadow of Old One. He didn’t appear to be watching them today, or he was being care
Ellicinderpart had on an unusual combination of blouse, skirt, and vest. Obviously parts of the original outfits were still held hostage by the horde. She didn’t complain, and that made her very special in his eyes.
His mother would have hid in a closet. Even his more sensible sisters would not have gone out of the house. But the young tumanhofer lady took it in stride and wore what she had available without a fuss. In fact, he was impressed with her relaxed attitude about almost everything that came their way. He had been more irritable when he first bumbled into Rumbard City.
If she’d get over this crazy scheme to tame the wild ones, he’d be happier. Mixing with that immature gang could lead to disastrous misadventures.
Right now, her intent gaze fixed to the pages of a book, she showed him a profile of innocence and determination. He reached for a pencil and stopped, remembering his duty to find information about anything. That goal superseded all other considerations. They knew practically nothing, so anything ranked as valuable information. He would have years to sketch her likeness.
Bealomondore looked back at his book, a history, The Migration of Urohms. He flipped through the pages until he came to a chapter titled “Transformation.” He read the first sentence and then read more rapidly, his attention caught. When he finished, he called Ellicinderpart to take note.
“This is remarkable. Listen. The urohm race is exclusive to the land of Amara. Those who came to Chiril came as diplomats. But their origin is in Amara, where they unselfishly stepped up to help defend a group of kimens who were under threat of annihilation.
“The account is stunning. They went to bed determined to fight the overwhelming odds and knowing it was probably a lost cause. In the morning, they awoke to find that Wulder had enlarged their bodies to match the bigness of their hearts. Their clothing and horses and weapons were also large, but they kept their houses and furniture on the small side to keep themselves humble.”