Tooth and Claw: A Short Dragon Tale Read online

TOOTH and CLAW

  A short dragon tale

  by Michael Wombat

  Copyright © 2015 Michael Wombat

  Cover photograph and design by Michael Wombat

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express permission of Michael Wombat (contact via Twitter @wombat37). You can lend it to your Mum, though.

  Michael Wombat has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is purely accidental.

  Contents

  1 Bryophyta

  2 Pterophyta

  3 Magnoliophyta

  4 Pinophyta

  Other books by Michael Wombat

  About the Author

  1 Bryophyta

  “Open a little wider, please,” Jena said. Her patient complied willingly, allowing her to reach the rearmost molar. She tapped the enamel with the sickle probe, then tilted the mirror slightly, the better to see behind the tooth. It was fine, although fully as much in need of a clean as the others. She counted the lower teeth out clearly as she checked them, so that her assistant Susi could make proper notes.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five missing, four-three-two-one,” she enumerated the right lower jaw. She moved on to the left side, beginning with the front teeth. “One-two-three, four slight occlusion, five, six, seven, eight missing, nine, ten,” she reported.

  “OK, I’ve got all that,” called Susi.

  “Then by the Ancestors help me to get out of here. It stinks to high heaven.”

  She handed out the probe and mirror first, which Susi leaned against the wall of the cavern before stretching out a hand. Jena took it, grateful for the support as she swung her legs over the double-row of huge teeth. As her feet gratefully settled on solid ground, there was a guttural rumble from above and the immense creature behind her let out a gust of breath that stank of ordure, decay and rot. Jena and Susi tensed for a moment, but thankfully there was no heat in that fetid wind.

  “Well?” an acid voice resonated from above their heads. The Dark Queen tilted her head to peer down at them from a massive, multi-faceted eye. She adjusted her mighty wings with a rustle like a shower of acorns on a windy day. In the dim light of the cavern her bark-like, brown-green skin looked almost black. The wings that were attached to her forelimbs were fringed with dark green needles that she could use to inflict deep cuts on those who displeased her. She was covered with imbricate woody scales that overlapped each other like those of a fish, and were spirally arranged about her body. As the Dark Queen heaved her bulk around, the individual scales rippled and rasped against each other.

  “Did you not hear your queen, hominid?” demanded the dragon. Susi nudged Jena urgently.

  “Yes,” Jena said, hastily. “My apologies, Queen Daf’q. I was merely catching my breath. There’s a slight malocclusion - erm, your bite does not quite meet correctly - on the left in the back row, but you don’t need to worry about it unless it worsens. All in all, there’s nothing amiss with your teeth that a good clean won’t fix. Your majesty might consider getting a hygienist in there to give everything a good clean.”

  “Your hygienist, it will do it now,” ordered the Dark Queen.

  “Majesty, Susi here is no hygenist. She is my assistant, here to take notes and to help me safely in and out of your impressive mouth. Neither she nor I have the skill to undertake a proper cleaning task. You may… you may remember eating my usual hygienist at our last appointment?”

  “Ah yes,” the dragon nodded. “It was crunchy, with a tang of peppermint. Very well. You will do it yourself.”

  “I do not have the necessary equipment with me. I—”

  “Do not test my patience, hominid!” bellowed the magnificent dragon, bathing them once again in the rich odour of rotting meat. “You will bring your equipment on the morrow, and you will clean my teeth.”

  “Yes, majesty,” Jena agreed quickly. Susi hid as best she could behind Jena.

  “Now you may leave me. Return to the wall, where a Bryo awaits to take you to your village. Warn it that you will return on the morrow.”

  “Yes, majesty.” Jena waited for a moment, but the dragon queen already seemed to have forgotten them, resting her massive head on her mighty-clawed feet before closing her eyes. Jena and Susi tiptoed out of the vast cavern into watery sunlight.

  They stood on a high ledge overlooking a flat plain. The rock face from which they had emerged stretched to left, right, and above as far as they could see. Scores of openings, of various sizes, spattered the cliff face, though none were as large as the one that they had just left. Dragons of various sizes left or entered these apertures, cleaving the air above their heads. Dark green Pteros and yellow Bryo dragons swept to and fro, while amongst them darted the small, bright poppy-red Mags. To either side of the entrance to the Dark Queen’s cavern sat a stern guard dragon. Roughly four times the height of a human, these were nevertheless about half the size of their queen. They were a sickly yellow colour; their hides waxy, shaggy carpets of tiny leaf-like scales, matted like unkempt hair. Rags of this material trailed from their wings, looking like yellow cobweb curtains.

  For a moment Jena considered asking one of the Bryos to give them a lift to the wall, but decided against it. They would only sneer at Jena’s request, their slavish obedience to the will of the Dark Queen obliterating any trace of consideration that might once have nestled inside their heartless chests.

  From the cavern entrance a narrow, precariously winding path meandered down to the foot of the mountain. From there they had perhaps a thirty-minute walk through the dragon fields to the wall. As they descended the slope a Ptero descended onto the ledge behind them, the wind from its wings cooling the back of Jena’s neck. The dragon clutched a squirming calf in its taloned grasp. Food for the Dark Queen. She preferred her food to be alive when she ate it.

  “I can’t wait to get out of these damned coveralls,” Jena cursed.

  “You do smell a bit funky.”

  “Of course I do! Do you realise how hot it gets inside a dragon’s mouth?”

  “Well—”

  “No. You don’t. You weren’t the one chosen for the signal honour of bathing in wyrm spit.”

  “Jena, I—”

  “Oh no, it was decreed that you were lacking any skill other than standing about writing stuff down, so I suggest that you shut your damned mouth instead of flapping it about spouting things of which you know nothing.”

  The two walked in silence for a while.

  “When does Lizzie leave for the Fringe?” asked Susi, softly, inferring the true reason for her friend’s anger.

  “She was fifteen yesterday. They’re coming to get her in three days,” Jena told her, looking downcast. “It’s not right. She’s so young. By the Ancestors, I’d go with her myself but for James. He’s only four, and I won’t leave him an orphan. Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s not your fault. This is not an easy time for me.”

  “I understand that. You’re a good mother. I’d offer to have James, you know, but if…” Susi trailed off.

  “If I never returned you wouldn’t want to be stuck with him permanently? It’s true, he can be a handful.”

  “Look on the bright side. Maybe Lizzie’ll come back after her tour of duty. I heard of a boy—”

  “No-one comes back,” said Jena, sourly. “Have you ever seen anyone return from the Fringe, personally? With your
own eyes? No, I thought not. It’s always a friend of a friend. No one really ever returns. People invent such things to comfort themselves that they are not sending their children away to die fighting the Euks. The dragons are the cruel masters of humanity. Life should not be this way.”

  “Be careful, Jena,” Susi warned, glancing nervously to the fields through which they walked. The field to their left was empty but for tiny fern-like plants just poking through the rich soil. To their right the plants were more advanced, small dragon shapes depending from sturdy moss-covered stems. A red Mag tending the infant Bryos was fortunately too far away to hear Jena’s rebellious words.

  “Careful, my arse. They enslave us to serve their needs, to provide them with food - sometimes to be food - and to die in huge numbers on the Fringe battling savage Euks to keep themselves safe from harm, and from having to get their precious wyrm-hands dirty. If only I had the courage to fight against this tyranny, I—”

  “Your husband tried fighting. Your husband died fighting. The dragons are too powerful, and too well protected behind the wall for us ever to hold any hope of victory.”

  “And I am too frightened, like most,” Jena admitted. The walk to the wall was helping her to regain her composure. “I am not a brave person, Susi. I could never actually be a hero.”

  They were nearing the wall now. The fields here were more mature. Mags flitted about, helping green Pteros, yellow Bryos and red Mags to free themselves from their stems. Once free, the new-grown