Scrapplings Children of the Dragons

Chapter 1: Darna’s Discovery-1

Chapter 1: Darna’s DiscoveryTheranis lies at the heart of the seas, a verdant land, a gem among nations. Its people were once our people. If we can persuade them to leave off their womanly superstitions, they will lead us to immeasurable wealth.

– A letter from a Cerean merchant

Darna looked out across the bay from the rise beside the root cellar. A square sail peeked over the white-capped waves beyond the watchtower, the first ship to approach since the winter weather had calmed. It was a foreign ship, with red and white stripes running up and down its sails, not like the plain red sails of the fishermen or the white and yellow sails of Anamat traders who brought baskets and cloth that nearly glowed with dragonlight in their beauty. Darna squinted at the foreign ship then opened her eyes to the sky, hoping to glimpse the dragon. She only saw Tiada when she was outside of the keep walls and alone.

Light danced around the edges of the scattering storm clouds, hinting at places where a dragon might fly. The sun lit a patch of farmland and a bit of the road to Anamat, then Darna looked back up just in time to glimpse the dragon’s wing cutting through the clouds. Perhaps it was a sign.

Tiada, the dragon of Tiadun, was all colors of the rainbow and of fire. She swooped low, churning the clouds in her wake, making a hard rain fall out over the bay. The sight of her warmed Darna, and though Tiada flew back behind the cloud cover, for a moment she felt that all was right with the world.

“Hey!”

Darna turned at the sound of the boy’s voice, but not soon enough. A clod of mud hit her on the shoulder.

“Gotcha!” the boy stuck out his tongue. Darna shook herself off and looked down at what was left of the clod of mud. It wasn’t enough to throw.

“What were you doing, staring at the sky?” he sneered.

“Nothing.”

“Oooh, like a priestess!” he teased. He had a sack in each hand and he waved them like scarves, swinging his hips and mooning his eyes.

Darna tightened her grip on her stick, but as soon as she took a step forward he stopped and sneered at her again. “Oh, I forgot. You can’t be a priestess ’cause you’re ugly and a cripple! Ha!”

“At least I’m not stupid like you,” Darna muttered. He wasn’t much bigger than she was, but he was a bully who thought that coming from the keep’s town made him more important that villagers like Darna.

“What did you say?” The boy dropped one of the sacks in the mud and picked up a hardened pat of cow turd and positioned himself to throw.

“Why are you here?” Darna said.

“Check up on you,” he said with a shrug. “Cook sent me. Said to tell you to get two more bags of parsnips.” He threw the bags at her.

Darna circled back around to the door of the root cellar. It was barred with a thick plank, too heavy for her to move. The boy had turned to watch the approaching ship and was picking his nose. She called to him to help her. Together, they opened the door just far enough for Darna to slip in, but he stayed outside, watching the ship. He was afraid of the dark.

She made her way down the steps by feel, one hand on the grimy rock wall, the other clutching her stick. At the bottom she straightened. If she stood tall, her head just reached the ceiling. Perhaps now she was old enough to make the journey to Anamat, where the last true priestesses lived, where even guildsmen saw the dragons, and where she might find an apprenticeship and learn to craft beauty out of stone and dragonfire. The ship’s arrival meant that it was spring, the traveling season. If only the city weren’t so far away.

The light from outside drifted dimly down, so that the shelves of earthenware jars and crates were only just visible. Darna filled the sacks with parsnips then stopped to listen. The boy was whistling, but no one else was coming, not that she could hear. She felt along the back of a shelf and shifted a loose stone aside. Her pouch was still there. She emptied the beads into her hand and counted them.

She rehearsed the value of each one, found on lucky days while sweeping the great hall or dropped by a careless guardsman in the kitchen yard. One small bead would buy a loaf of bread, another a half day’s journey in a farmer’s cart, or a bowl of stew. A tiny bead was worth less than that, but six of them were worth a small bead, and six small beads or a middling would get her halfway to Anamat. They said that it was five or six days’ journey to Anamat but it would probably take her twice as long, limping as she did. She had enough beads for four days’ food, but she could scavenge, or even stop at temples and hope that they wouldn’t try to draw her into the priestesshood before she’d even seen the city. She would wait one more year.

The door above shifted and Darna startled, dropping two of her beads to the floor, both small ones, not the tiny ones. She scrambled for them.

“Hurry up,” the boy said from up above. “It’s starting to rain again.”

“It’s dry down here,” Darna said, teasing him for his fear of the dark as she ran her hands across the floor, searching for the dropped beads.

“No thanks,” the boy said. “I’m going back inside.”

“Didn’t you say you were supposed to help me carry?” The bags were heavy. She’d have to go back to get the second one. Her hand touched a bead, and caught it before it rolled away.

“What are you doing down there?” he demanded. “You take half a day to get anything out of that cellar.”

“Nothing,” Darna said. She tucked the found bead into her pouch. She’d have to find the other one later. She was just reaching in behind the jars to hide the pouch when the boy stepped through the door above, blocking the last of the daylight.

“Hurry up!” he said.

She couldn’t find the stone. She tucked the pouch under her belt and hoped that no one would notice it.

At the top of the steps, the boy took the cleaner bag of parsnips. He sprinted away through the rain while Darna struggled to push the door bar back into place, leaving her to limp through the downpour with her heavy, muddy sack.

At the corner by the back entrance to the stable yard, there was a little overhang. Darna paused to rest, catching a last breath of free air before she went back to the kitchen and more barked, never-ending orders. She sat down on the bag and closed her eyes, remembering the dragon’s flight through the clouds, the promise of the road to Anamat. She just didn’t have enough beads.

A jangle of metal on metal and the snort of a horse startled her. The prince and his men were coming in from the hunt, riding up the broad road into the stable yard. The horses picked their way nervously across the mud. Darna sat as still as she could, wishing she could be invisible to them, horses and men alike.

The prince was a man of middle years, still strong, but with graying hair, dark circles under his eyes, and pale skin. He rode a black horse which set him above his companions in height, though he wasn’t a tall man when he stood on his own. His brother, the taller of the two, rode a small brown mare. He was undefeated in the keep’s tournaments. The prince judged the tournaments, rather than joining in himself. The royal brothers were accompanied by the game warden, who rode a mule and carried a longbow across his back. His eyes flicked around the courtyard, wary of enemies or looking for quarry. Darna was too small to interest or threaten him.

“Tell the steward to be sure the chambers are prepared for our friends,” the prince said to his brother.

“Of course, brother.” The noblemen and the steward rode on and Darna edged closer to the wall. She’d been kicked by a horse two years before, when she’d first arrived at the keep. Since then, she’d kept her distance from the beasts, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by hurrying away.

“Shall I tell the priestesses to prepare themselves?” the game warden asked.

The prince frowned. “I think not,” he said. “It is not their custom.”

His brother laughed. “Nonsense! Who doesn’t enjoy a good romp?”

“Our Cerean philosopher says it is a blasphemy to all his countrymen.”

The game warden laughed. “I think the tutor prefers – ”

The prince’s horse shied, startling the beasts on either side of him and almost unseating the prince. A stable boy ran up and took the reins, glaring at Darna.

The prince, who had not seen her until then, glanced her way for a brief moment.

“Back to your work, idler!” the game warden said.

Darna scurried away as the three men dismounted, handing their mounts’ reins to the stable boy.



Back within the kitchen’s oppressive walls, the cook railed at her for getting the bag muddy, even though it hadn’t been her fault.

“I’d lash you but I don’t have time,” the cook said. “Peel these. I’ll lash you in the morning.”

Darna settled into her usual corner and began peeling, the sharp knife edging under the knobbly skin until it inevitably slipped and cut the root in half. She tried to concentrate. An unfamiliar woman’s voice sounded from the passage to the great hall.

“And why won’t he see me?” the woman demanded.

Darna couldn’t hear the mumbled reply.

“Tomorrow?” the woman said. “That will have to do, though he may regret it.”

Darna looked up just long enough to see a priestess enter, then bent back to her task, moving the knife slowly, trying not to let it slip. The blade did slip, it always did, but this time it was because someone moved her stick. The priestess who’d just come in sat down beside Darna. The kitchen stank of smoking grease and garlic but a cloud of incense followed the priestess, wrapping around her like a silken scarf.

“Darna, is it?” she said. “You remember me, don’t you?”

Darna didn’t look up. She shrugged noncommittally and picked up the next unpeeled root. She couldn’t remember the priestess. They were all the same to her, letting her know that she wasn’t fit to be one of them, crippled as she was. It was just as well, though. The last thing Darna wanted was to lie down for petitioners and preen for courtiers and guardsmen.

“We had not heard from your mother in a long time,” the priestess said, “not since she left our temple for the hills. We were preparing her funeral rites when a message came to us. I consider it to be her dying wish.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Darna said. “When she left me, that village couple became my family. Now I only have Tiada. The dragon is my parent. That’s what they all say.” Darna had been fostered by a childless couple in the village for a few years so that they would have an heir for their farm, but then they’d had a baby, and another and a third. Darna didn’t want to be a stupid farm wife anyway. She’d heard that her birth mother had gone into the hills, but how could it make any difference? Priestesses weren’t supposed to have babies.

The priestess sighed. “If you listened, you would learn something, something which might be very interesting to you.”

Darna shrugged. “I never knew my mother. I don’t see how it could make any difference if she’s alive or dead.” She dug her knife into the next bit of root and it stuck. When she pushed harder, it overshot its mark and tore a hole in the edge of her tunic.

The priestess waited.

“You have a father,” she said, after a while.

“My mother was a priestess. I have no father.”

The priestess took a moment to look around the kitchen. No one was paying much attention to the two of them.

“There are changes in the air,” she whispered. “If you were a boy, your father would surely recognize you, despite our traditions. He might do so even though you’re just a girl. He needs an heir, he needs to show that he can sire a child.”

“Just a girl? The chieftain of that village has three sons and two daughters,” Darna said. “I have to finish peeling these.”