Chapter Sixteen

 

Prince Josiah awoke to find that the campfire had gone out. The night was still dark. An icy wind howled through the glen, chilling his face and hands and swirling the powdery snow about him in tight little circles. He shivered. He sat up, wrapping the pallet around himself in a futile attempt to stay warm.

He glanced upward. Pale tints of pink and orange were just beginning to glow in the eastern sky, indicating that dawn was not far behind. He yawned and stretched. If sunrise is less than an hour away I might as well resume my journey rather than staying here and freezing. He stood and stamped his sabotons in the snow in an effort to warm his cold feet.

Half an hour later the eastern sky had brightened considerably as Josiah found himself passing a quiet farm on the outskirts of a peaceful little village. The baying of a deep-voiced hound announced his passing, and the sound echoed across the hillside. Hearing the flutter of wings overhead, he glanced upward just in time to see an owl alight in a tree and he felt a pang of regret as he thought about his falcon. That wretched dragon destroyed my beloved pet. If I had not hatched the egg, Lightning would still be alive. He pushed the thought from his mind and hurried on.

The sun managed to peek over the hills to the east just as Josiah entered the village. He heard a dog yelping in distress and hurried toward the sound. As he rounded the corner of a small shop, a small yelping puppy ran between his feet, nearly knocking him down. A rock struck the cobblestones just behind the puppy, to be followed an instant later by another.

Josiah leaned over and scooped up the puppy. “Whoa, little fellow,” he said in a crooning voice. “Where are you going so fast?”

Just then a gang of young peasant boys dashed around the corner of the building with hands raised to hurl more rocks. They skidded to an abrupt halt when they saw Josiah. The young prince took in the situation at a glance. “Are you lads tormenting this poor puppy?” he asked sternly, taking a step toward the boys. The puppy trembled in his arms.

As one, the boys moved backwards. “She’s just a worthless stray, my lord,” one young lad answered defensively. “We were just having a bit of sport with her.”

“Throwing stones at a helpless puppy is your idea of sport?” Josiah retorted angrily. “You ought to be ashamed! Off with you now before I take a notion to thrash the lot of you.” The boys scattered like ashes in a stiff wind.

“You’ll be all right now,” Josiah reassured the puppy. Holding the trembling animal to his chest, he stroked it gently as he strolled down the narrow street.

“Aye, that’s a fine puppy, my lord,” a voice called to Josiah as the young prince passed an apothecary shop. Josiah looked over to see a tall merchant unlocking the door of the shop. He hurried over.

“Would you like to have her?” Josiah asked the man. “I just rescued her from a band of boys who were tormenting her.”

The merchant looked the puppy over and then smiled broadly. “Certainly, my lord. My children would love a puppy such as this.” He took the animal from Josiah’s arms. “You must be a lover of animals, my lord, to care this much about one small, insignificant dog.”

Josiah shrugged. “I am, though I have never had a pet of my own.” He paused. “Well, I did have a pet briefly, but I’m afraid it ended rather badly.”

The man looked concerned. “What happened, my lord?”

“I had a peregrine falcon for a few weeks, sire, but it was killed suddenly.”

“Killed, my lord? How?”

“A dragon destroyed it.” Josiah said the words in a whisper.

“A dragon, my lord? Are you certain?”

“I saw it happen, sire. I was hunting the falcon when the dragon dived from the clouds and killed my falcon before my eyes.” The young prince let out his breath in a long sigh. “Someday I shall kill this dragon, though it is a Cararian Greatwing.”

The merchant looked at Josiah with a hint of misgiving in his eyes. “How will you find this dragon, my lord? That might prove quite a difficult task, you know.” He stroked the puppy’s ears.

Josiah shrugged. “The dragon will one day come to me. I—I hatched it from an egg.”

The merchant raised his eyebrows. “You hatched a Cararian Greatwing?”

Josiah nodded without answering.

“Then why would you desire to destroy it, my lord? You said that you are a lover of animals, yet you have no pets. Think what a magnificent pet a Cararian Greatwing dragon would make!”

Josiah was shocked. “Possession of a dragon is a violation of royal law, sire. And the dragon is dangerous, for a Cararian Greatwing is the fiercest of dragons. This beast has already attacked my castle on two occasions. I tried to do battle with it and it nearly killed me, though it is only half-grown.”

The merchant held his hand out and the puppy began licking his fingers. “Your words tell me that you are afraid of this dragon, my lord. May I suggest that instead of attempting to destroy the creature, you must assert yourself as its master; then train it to do your bidding.”

Josiah shook his head. “This is a Cararian Greatwing, sire.”

“Cararian Greatwings train as readily as any other dragon, my lord.” The man looked Josiah in the eye. “There is no need to destroy the dragon. Once you have it trained and under your control, it will become your servant.”

The idea appealed to Josiah, but he frowned in bewilderment. “How would I train a dragon?”

The merchant smiled. “I can show you, my lord.” He turned toward his shop. “Give me a moment or two to present this puppy to my children, and then I shall show you just how easily a Cararian Greatwing is trained.”

Fifteen minutes later Josiah and the merchant stood on a hillside six or eight furlongs from the village. “Why did we come out here?” the young prince asked.

“The other villagers must not see the dragon,” the merchant replied, without further explanation. “Call it to you, my lord.”

“Call it?” Josiah repeated. “How does one call a dragon?”

“Simply clap your hands together six times. The dragon will respond.”

The young prince scanned the skies above the hillside. “But the dragon is nowhere to be seen, sire. How will it hear if I simply clap?”

“Call it, my lord,” the other insisted. “The dragon will come.”

Feeling just a bit foolish, Josiah raised his hands and clapped six times. Almost immediately the thunder of mighty wings resounded across the hillside. He looked up in amazement. High above him, a Cararian Greatwing dragon swooped toward the earth in a swift dive toward the hillside. The young prince felt his heart constrict with fear. “Sire,” he called, “this dragon is vicious! What if it—”

“Assert yourself as its master,” the merchant replied calmly.

“How?” Josiah asked frantically.

“Simply stand up to it. Tell it that you are the master. Give it commands and expect it to obey.”

The dragon came in hard and fast, plunging straight for the young prince in a reckless dive. Josiah’s heart pounded with fear as he stood facing the diving Cararian Greatwing. When the beast was barely a hundred feet above the ground, Josiah abruptly held up one hand and called, “Stop! Stop where you are!”

To his amazement, the huge beast immediately flared its wings and came to an abrupt halt. The enormous wings beat the air in thunderous strokes as the dragon hovered above the hillside.

“I am your master,” the young prince asserted. “You are in my power and will follow my every command.”

“Yes, Master,” the dragon said meekly. “What do you wish from me, Master?”

“Alight at once,” Josiah ordered.

The great beast obediently dropped to the ground and folded its wings.

The young prince stared at the dragon. The creature was now gigantic, fully sixty feet long with enormous, powerful wings that measured nearly fifty feet across. The scaly green hide now bristled with thick scales, each of which was larger than Josiah’s hand. The dragon’s cavernous mouth held row after row of teeth nearly two feet long. Josiah realized that the dragon, a fierce Cararian Greatwing, was now nearly fully grown. Such a magnificent creature, and now it was under his control.

“Breathe fire,” Josiah ordered, pointing to a stately elm some forty yards away. “Destroy that tree.”

With a mighty roar, the beast obediently sent a blast of flame across the hillside to strike the elm. The tree burst into flames.

“You see, my lord,” the merchant said grandly, “there is no need to destroy the dragon, though it is a Cararian Greatwing. You have the creature completely under your control; it is now your servant. As long as you continue to assert yourself as its master, it will do you no harm, nor will it bring harm to others. As I said, there is no reason to destroy it.”

“I thank you, sir,” Josiah replied with delight. “Of a truth, I had no desire to destroy the dragon, though Sir Wisdom had told me that I must. Now that the dragon is my servant, I have nothing to fear from it.”

The young prince studied the enormous beast. “I shall name you,” he decided. “I think I shall call you ‘Thunder’, for your wings sound like thunder when you fly.”

“That is fine with me, Master,” the dragon replied meekly, bowing its mighty head slightly to show submission. “From henceforth I shall be called ‘Thunder’. The name pleases me, Master.”

Thunder spread his mighty wings and gracefully took to the air while peals of thunder resounded across the countryside. Prince Josiah stood looking upward, watching the dragon as it climbed higher and higher, finally leveling off several hundred feet above the treetops. It began to glide in circles on motionless wings, and Josiah noticed that the thunderous sound stopped immediately. When gliding, the enormous dragon made no sound at all.

“It’s a magnificent sight, isn’t it, my lord?” the merchant said quietly. “There’s nothing quite so majestic as a Cararian Greatwing in flight.”

Josiah nodded. “It’s incredible to think that he belongs to me.”

“Finest pet in the entire kingdom of Terrestria, if I may say so,” the other replied.

“I thank you for teaching me how to control him, sir.”

“I’m grateful that I could be of service, my lord,” the merchant said, bowing slightly. “Shall we head back to town? I simply must get back to work.”

 

 

Hours later, Josiah sat basking in the warmth of a flickering campfire as he enjoyed a grilled steak. He had dropped the hart with one shot from his longbow. Fifteen yards away, at the edge of the clearing, Thunder noisily devoured the rest of the deer’s carcass, snarling and gulping and drooling huge volumes of slimy fluid as he ate. Josiah could not watch.

“A mighty hunter you are, my lord,” Thunder said, between gulps. “One would have thought the hart beyond the range of an arrow, yet you took it with one shot.”

Josiah said nothing.

“So we are not to return to the castle tonight, my lord?”

The young prince looked up from his meal. “You are never to return there,” he said sharply. “You are far too large to enter my solar, so there is no reason to visit the castle. Ever.”

The dragon lowered his head slightly, as if acknowledging his master’s order. “Aye, my lord.”

“When I want you I will call for you.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“But never at the Castle of Faith, do you understand? The castle residents must never see you again.”

Thunder seemed to nod. “But will you return to the castle tonight, Master?”

“I may never return to the Castle of Faith,” Prince Josiah cried bitterly. “I have been banished from the great hall until further word from Sir Faithful. Why should I return when I am not wanted?”

“I would heartily agree, Master.”

Josiah leaned back and looked upward toward the starry heavens, sighing as he thought of the many wondrous times he had experienced at the castle. A great, cold emptiness seemed to sweep over his soul as he pondered the fact that he had been banished from the great hall, that he could no longer enjoy fellowship with the other residents of the castle, that his presence was not wanted. “What point is there in returning to the Castle of Faith?” he whispered bitterly. “Sir Faithful has told me that I am not wanted…”

A twig snapped on the hillside below the clearing, interrupting his melancholy and snapping him back to the present. “Someone approaches our campfire.” Thunder’s voice was a whisper, barely audible.

“Be still,” Josiah ordered. “This visitor must not be aware of your presence.”

At that moment a familiar figure strode into the light of the campfire.

“Sir Wisdom!” Josiah was startled. He threw a quick glance in Thunder’s direction, but the dragon was not to be seen. The only indication that he had ever been there was the bloody, half-eaten carcass of the hart.

The old nobleman stepped close to Josiah and gripped him by the shoulders. “Josiah, my son, I must warn you again that you must destroy the dragon immediately. Delay will prove costly.”

The young prince felt a flare of resentment at Sir Wisdom’s words. “We have already discussed this,” he said hotly. “Why must you tell me again?”

“You make no plans for the dragon’s destruction,” Sir Wisdom said quietly. He glanced at the carcass of the hart. “Even now you entertain thoughts of allowing the dragon to remain, though this beast threatens the safety of the castle.”

“Thunder poses no threat to the Castle of Faith,” Josiah said evenly.

“Thunder?” The old man tilted his head to one side as though perplexed and troubled. “You have chosen a name for this beast?”

“His name is Thunder. As I said, sire, he poses no threat to the castle, nor to its inhabitants.”

Sir Wisdom smiled sadly. “What brought you to that conclusion, lad?”

“I am his master.”

“His master?”

“Thunder is now in my power,” Prince Josiah said proudly. “Though he is a mighty dragon, I now have him completely under my control.”

The old man laughed out loud. Josiah’s anger flared again. “Why do you laugh at me, sire?”

“You deceive yourself, lad,” Sir Wisdom said sadly, shaking his head. “Cararian Greatwings cannot be controlled.”

“I have Thunder in my control,” Josiah insisted. “He now answers to my bidding, and therefore, he no longer poses a threat to the castle, to me, or to anyone else.”

“So you make no plans to destroy this beast?”

The young prince said nothing.

“Josiah, Josiah.”

Feeling uncomfortable under the steady gaze of the nobleman, Josiah picked up a stick and stepped close to the fire, stirring the ashes. Sparks leaped upward to swirl around his head like angry bees. A tense silence hung heavy in the air.

“The dragon must be destroyed,” Sir Wisdom told Josiah. “If you think you have him under your control, you deceive yourself. This beast will destroy you if you do not destroy him first.”

Josiah said nothing. He continued to stir the ashes.

Sir Wisdom stepped between him and the fire. “Give me your book.”

Josiah looked up at him in bewilderment. “Sire?”

“Give me your book. I want you to see something.”

The young prince complied, reaching within his doublet and drawing forth the book. He handed it to Sir Wisdom, who opened it, turned to a particular page, and handed it back.

“My prince, I want you to travel once again to the Castle of Knowledge. Enter the first volume in the New Wing of the castle with your book open to this page. The things that you see and experience will prepare you for the battle with this vile beast that you have chosen to call Thunder.”

Josiah glanced at the page in his book. He sighed as he recognized the passage. “And suppose that I have no desire to battle my dragon, sire?” He tried to keep his voice from betraying him, but a note of sarcasm crept in.

The old man regarded him with sad eyes. “This beast is not under your control, my prince, though at present you may think that it is. You are deceiving yourself. If you do not destroy the dragon, it will destroy you, and it will hurt others in the process.” He stepped closer. “Your King, Emmanuel, would have you destroy this beast. To fail to do so is disobedience.” He moved away.

Josiah’s heart cried out at these words. He turned toward Sir Wisdom but saw only the blackness of the night. The nobleman was gone.