Dragon Castle Read online

  The blood-spurting neck of Jedna swung back and forth a few times in apparent confusion before being jerked back into the cave. Almost immediately another larger head on an even thicker neck thrust itself out from the cave mouth. This head was two-horned. Its eyes glowed red as the fires of Hades.

  “Ja som Dva!” it roared, its mouth gaped to display at least twice as many fangs as Jedna. “Your fate is sealed!”

  “Oh my,” Jedovaty sighed. “Here we go again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Still Watching

  I’M NO LONGER watching from far above, no longer sharing Pavol’s thoughts. A great mist as white as a sheet of parchment has swept in, obscuring Pavol and Jedovaty and the dragon from view. I’m back in Uncle Jozef and Baba Anya’s dom, sitting at the table staring at the blank space at the end of a parchment.

  “What happened next?” I ask.

  Uncle Jozef holds up another roll of parchment with a ribbon wrapped about it.

  “Here,” he says. “You read it later. Now go back.”

  Baba Anya nods.

  They’re both right. I’ve been away too long. But I have the distinct feeling, the foresight, that if I were to try to enter the way I always do, across the drawbridge and through the front gate, another ambush will be waiting for me.

  “What shall I do?” I ask. I don’t expect a direct answer and I don’t get one. Just another question, this time from Baba Anya.

  “What do you hear?” She taps her forehead with her little finger.

  However, it’s a question I understand. I need to search my mind.

  I close my eyes. And as soon as I do so I hear a voice. It sounds like the voice of Pavol that I’ve heard in my visions.

  “Our tapestry,” it says. “Look.”

  I look. In my mind’s eye I see the huge wall hanging that depicts our ancestor’s tale.

  I hold that image in my mind, study it. There’s the dragon and Hladka Hvorka. Strangely, our castle is not portrayed as the usual front view at the bottom of the hill where the road begins that leads up to the gate. Instead, it is shown from the back. Ah! The back way. Of course.

  And there, glowing in the midst of the tapestry, brighter than ever before, is Pavol’s pouch. And as I look at it, I realize that I’ve seen it in three places. Once in the tapestry, once with my great ancestor as I have been watching his tale unfold . . . and one other time.

  The first day when my mother took us down into the cavern I had felt something. A pull toward an object as plain and simple as a piece of homespun cloth. I had not known then what that power was, how that power felt. But now, after watching Pavol’s tale unfold, I do. I recognize its pull on me—and how it might draw one like Baron Temny, who would seek such power in the hopes of turning it to evil use.

  I know where Pavol’s pouch is! It’s the key to everything. Of course it’s what Temny has come to find. But if it still holds any of the objects of power that Pavol gathered, I may be able to turn them to our defense.

  I start to open my eyes, but then Pavol’s voice speaks again.

  “Look further.”

  Something else in my mental image of the tapestry begins to glow, to stand out. It catches my attention so strongly that I cannot look away. It’s the figures that have always seemed out of place in the tales, the shapes of those two agile jugglers.

  As soon as I take note of them, the tapestry vanishes and I find myself remembering something else. I remember the market day just last week.

  Paulek and I had gone there because we’d heard there were going to be jugglers. I suppose our initial interest in that deft art had been piqued by growing up playing next to that great wall tapestry. By the time I was nine and Paulek was ten, the jugglers in the great cloth hanging had so fascinated us that we began to try tossing balls back and forth between us.

  Then, and this may surprise you, juggling actually did become one of our shared skills.

  How did the sons of a king learn the skills of itinerant, minor entertainers? Blame Black Yanosh for that. Hired by our father to teach us martial ways, he arrived at our castle and entered our lives not long after Paulek and I had begun enjoying some success at tossing three balls back and forth. We were doing just that when someone suddenly was there between us. It was an elegant old man, all dressed in black, with a beard trimmed so precisely that its edges appeared sharp as a knife. But it was not just that neither of us had seen him approach that made our mouths gape open. It was also the way, without looking, that he snagged the balls we had just thrown out of the air with one hand. It made me think of a hawk catching pigeons on the wing.

  “So,” he said, “you like this game? I am Yanosh, I also juggle. Shall I show you?”

  I nodded for both of us.

  But balls were not what Black Yanosh used to demonstrate his ability. The grizzled old weapons master yanked our daggers out of their sheaths. Then, hurling them high up into the air with his own larger blade, he proceeded to catch and toss, catch and toss, catch and toss each in turn. The light that reflected from their razor edges was hypnotic, the exactitude of each catch and toss, the calm look on Black Yanosh’s face as he did it, natural as breathing.

  “I want to do that,” Paulek whispered.

  “Can you teach us?” I asked.

  “Can you learn?” Black Yanosh replied, turning his hooded eyes toward us. Then he caught each dagger in turn and flipped it—again without even looking—spinning through the air. Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! All three embedded themselves in the center of the wooden target thirty feet away.

  “We can try,” Paulek and I answered as one, something we did as children until my vocabulary outpaced his.

  “Good answer.” Black Yanosh nodded.

  We were good students. The best he’d ever had, he admitted in an unguarded moment.

  Juggling, our old weapons master believes, is not just an amusement. It tunes the senses, quickens the reflexes, makes more precise the movements of limbs that might bend a bow, swing a staff, thrust with a sword, block or evade a killing strike.

  The gymnastics that went with it were part of that same philosophy. Within a year the two of us could leap, cartwheel, and flip as well as any acrobats.

  Juggling is perhaps the only time when Paulek and I can do anything together that is neither competitive nor limited by his lack of comprehension. My brother may be a disaster as a classroom student, but he’s a brilliant juggler. The quick flurry of his hands as he passes back to me one, two, three, four clubs, from the front, from behind his back, between his legs, even blindfolded, is inspirational to watch. I can barely keep up with him. And when he handles a dozen balls and they blur into one continuous circle, the look on his face is so intense, so knowing, that I can hardly believe he is the same person who always seems to be amazed in the classroom that two and two never fail to make four.

  So Paulek and I have always tried to never miss a market fair—when such entertainers might appear. Jugglers and tumblers who visit our kingdom more than once learn to expect the eager faces of two tall, well-clad lads at the front of the crowd. Some know us well enough to bring us into their acts by hurling their clubs or balls our way, knowing we’ll catch and return them as easily as another man lifts a hand to greet a friend.

  The two jugglers we saw that day were new to us. Their faces were masked, their hair unusually long, their clothing loose and flowing. They raised their arms, spun around a few times, then backed off to face each other from a distance of a dozen paces.

  “Now,” cried the bald, black-mustached leader of the little caravan of painted wagons that had brought the Gypsy entertainers into our midst, “my two talented offspring will amaze you!”

  “Zacni!” said the first slender youth, producing a handful of knives. “Begin!”

  “Teraz,” cried the second, pulling out a similar number of blades. “Now!”

  Then, their hands moving as quickly as any I’d ever seen, they began hurling those knives back and forth. In most such acts
, the blades are shiny but dull, their weight light. But these knives were different. For one they looked to be quite sharp and weighty. For another, each bore a wide twin, double-edged blade with a single hilt. That made catching them as they spun a more complicated feat.

  I was fascinated—as was Paulek. Their skill and grace were impressive. My brother and I might match them, but it would take some practice. I found myself liking the way the two lads moved as they juggled. Soon I was hardly noticing their blades, but focusing more on the dance of their bodies. I was especially fascinated by the slender one who spoke second. I mentally identified him by the word he’d called out in a husky voice. Teraz. What would Teraz look like if he raised his mask? What would he . . . ?

  Nie. By the head of the dragon! Not he, she! A strange feeling came to the pit of my stomach.

  I opened my eyes and found myself back with Uncle Jozef and Baba Anya.

  “Rashko,” a gentle voice says. “You liked?”

  Baba Anya’s hand is on my shoulder. She looks amused. She’s not just talking about the food.

  “Ano,” I admit.

  I liked very much. So much so that when their performance was done and those two jugglers had disappeared into the nearest wagon, Paulek and I sat outside waiting for them to re-emerge. Paulek wanted to talk with them about juggling. So, more or less, did I. Paulek seemed less aware than I that the two we’d watched so intently were young women.

  To our mutual disappointment, the girls failed to re-emerge. Paulek finally dared to knock on the wall of that wagon. No answer. He peered tentatively inside, turned back to me crestfallen. “No one there.”

  Baba Anya and Uncle Jozef are still looking at me, knowing smiles on both their faces.

  I hold up my arm and study the long cut. It’s rapidly healing—as my wounds always do when I come for help to Baba Anya. Soon all that will remain of the deep slash will be a faint scar down my forearm. Eventually, that wound may be forgotten.

  I don’t think I am going to forget the memory of those two sisters. In fact, now that I think of it, they exactly matched the jugglers pictured in Pavol’s tapestry!

  How do they fit into Pavol’s story? Or is it that the tapestry portrays not just his tale but some part of my own?

  I stand and tuck the parchment into my shirt. Uncle Jozef holds out something to me. It’s a large, well-honed butcher knife.

  “You need,” he says, slapping the heavy knife into my palm. “Cuts good.”

  THAT KNIFE IS now in my belt as my two companions and I approach the rear of Hladka Hvorka castle through the forest. As we cautiously make our way up the hill I wonder what threat will next rear its head. Sentient stones rising up to crush us? Flying demons from the sky? The worst thing that happens is that a squirrel hurls down some twigs, accompanied by curses in rodent talk. We’ve passed a bit too closely under the two oak trees he considers his private fiefdom. We reach the wood’s edge and look out at the back of the castle without having had a single new misadventure.

  On the other side of the thirty-foot-wide moat rises the blank lower back wall of the castle. Eighty feet up are the first embrasures—recessed, wellreinforced windows from which an archer might shoot down at enemies attempting a rear assault. Those barred portholes are not manned. They never have been. Ours has been a realm at peace since Pavol assumed rule.

  Hardly anyone, except for Paulek and me, ever mounts the steep stairs to peer out at the pleasant view of the nearby forest and distant fields below.

  The back wall is indeed formidable. Any enemy would be foolish to attempt to breach Hladka Hvorka from this direction. Scale a blank wall seven stories high? Try to break through the thirty feet of solid stone at its base?

  But every castle has its ways for those within to slip out surreptitiously. When Hladka Hvorka rose, mystically shaped, it was provided with another egress. (An egress is an exit. Not, as my brother believes, a large sort of bird.) Only our family and our trusted retainers know the other secret way.

  Baron Temny and his band do not. I am certain of that. Spellbound though he might be by the princess, my brother would never reveal the hidden passage to any outsider. Of course, that might be because he’s forgotten all about it.

  I walk back down to the twin oaks and sit beneath the one unoccupied by a chattering furry-tail seeking to repel invaders.

  Ucta and Odvaha come to lay themselves down on either side of me, placing their large heads in my lap.

  Impatient as I am, I’m again hearing Pavol’s silent voice.

  Wait, he is saying. Gather strength.

  Whether his voice is real or merely in my imagination, it’s good council. It’s been a very long day. The sun, now close to the top of the hills, will soon set. I’m exhausted. The fighting, the healing, the worrying, have all taken a greater toll on me. Also—minus the worrying, which is more of a human trait—on my two faithful friends. We need all our strength to take the next step. If we hurry too much, we may make some fatal misstep. As Father says, the mouse that rushes out of its hole without looking is the best friend of the cat.

  Rest.

  Ucta and Odvaha close their eyes. Just like that they are fast asleep.

  I wish I could sleep. But I can’t, not with all these uncertainties. What will we find inside the walls of Hladka Hvorka now? I sigh heavily. But only once before taking a deeper, more determined breath and straightening my shoulders. I can no longer allow myself the luxury of either uncertainty or self-pity. Pavol himself was not always certain that he was up to being a hero. That was an important lesson for me. Still he pressed on. It has to be the same for me. I need to find what is hidden there in the darkness beneath our castle. I need to find more of Pavol in me. I’ll need it.

  Though Paulek and I have used this secret way to sneak out of our home, we’ve never used it to enter. From what my parents told me, one who tries to come in this way from the outside will find the way is quite well and dangerously guarded.

  I’m not sure I want to think about that right now. I shift my position and something under my shirt digs into my side. The scroll! I’d forgotten all about it. There’s still light enough for me to read it. What better way to pass this time?

  PAVOL’S LEGEND

  Strnast

  DESPITE THE FACT that Dva’s head was larger and fangier, it loomed no farther above Pavol than had its brother Jedna.

  Bigger does not mean smarter, Pavol thought.

  This time he ventured no reply. Instead he stood high in his stirrups to swing his sword in a second strong stroke.

  Chonk!

  Dva’s head went bounding down the mountain slope after Jedna’s.

  The snake-like neck of Dva waved back and forth a few times much as Jedna’s had done. It appeared, if it is possible for a headless neck to do so, not only confused, but also disappointed and even a bit betrayed. Then it too was yanked back into the darkness of the cave mouth.

  “Jedna,” Pavol said musingly, repeating the name that meant “one,” and raising his sword at the ready.

  “Dva, two” Jedovaty added, with yet another sigh. “Do you suppose that means the next one will be . . .”

  “Ja som Tri!” roared the titanic three-horned head shot toward them, fangs dripping poison. “You perish here on this . . .”

  Chonk!

  Tri’s head, rounder than its two predecessors, rolled a bit farther down the mountainside before lodging against a boulder.

  “How high can dragons count?” Jedovaty said as Tri’s resentful neck dragged itself unceremoniously back into the stygian depths.

  Pavol studied the ominous glow beginning to emanate from the cave.

  “At least up to four,” he said, raising his shield. “And four is for . . .”

  Fire came shooting out of the cave mouth, a great searing wave meant to reduce them to cinders. It surely would have done so, had it not been for Pavol’s shield. Somehow its surface caught those flames, sucking them in, absorbing them as thoroughly as if the shield had b
een a lake and the dragon’s deadly breath no more than a burning brand dropped into its waters.

  As it was, the ends of Jedovaty’s mane and tail were singed and Pavol’s right eyebrow quite burned off.

  “Ja som Shtyri!” howled the triumphant fourhorned head that fast followed the flames. “Burned to ashes your bones!”

  It looked down, a smile on its befanged countenance, expecting to see nothing more than charred flesh. Then it paused, quite taken aback by the sight of horse and rider still standing. A bit blackened, but nonetheless intact.

  Shtyri lowered its grim head toward them. “Hunh,” it growled, “how . . .”

  Chonk!

  Peht was next, a five-horned horror just as dense—and speedily dispatched—as the dragon heads before it.

  Silently and somewhat more tentatively, six-horned Sest came snaking out to make its quick acquaintance with the edge of Pavol’s sword—Chonk!—and the force of gravity.

  Jedovaty peered down the slope. “Plenty of room down there for more,” he observed.

  “Let’s hope that one was the last,” Pavol replied. “Or that any remaining ones are as stupid and slow to learn as were those first six.”

  “Ahoj,” a high voice came trilling out of the cave. “Hello. Prepacte? Excuse me, human with long, sharp sword.”

  “What now?” Jedovaty said.

  “Csakaj,” said Pavol, raising both sword and shield. “Wait.”

  “Ahoj!” the high voice repeated, breaking just a bit into roughness. “I lovely young human woman who was prisoner of bad monster. Is safe now to put down sword and shield and come rescue me. I not dragon trying to trick you.”

  Jedovaty looked up at Pavol with one eye. “Seven heads,” the former donkey observed, “and not a working brain in any one of them?”

  Pavol nodded. “Sedem,” he shouted. “Come out.”

  A moment of silence followed. Then the high trilling voice spoke again, “How you know my name Sedem?”