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Chapter One

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The Dragon Reborn A Novel by
Kathleen H. Nelson

Chapter 1

The wagon train rolled through the meadow in single file, leaving a fragrant swath of crushed summer grasses in its wake. Despite the creaking of wooden wheels and the squeaking of leather harnesses and the muffled thud of hooves, it was a remarkably quiet procession. Most outsiders mistook this economy of sound for stealth, and stoked their prejudices with it. But to the people of the W andering Tribe, it was merely a way of life.

One of the wagons ran over a meadow-dog mound and then lurched as the tunnel collapsed. As fleeting as it was, the disturbance jostled Katya out of an uneasy doze.

“What is it, Raffi?” she asked, as she started awake.

“Nothing, Little Mother,” her driver replied, in that sweet, patient tone that some men take with old women and dogs. “We hit a bump in the road, is all.” He reached into the hamper that occupied the bench-space between them and pulled out a storage-gourd. “Would you like some water?”

“Thank you,” she said, as she took the gourd. “The air is very dry today.”

She drank deeply, then wet a corner of her sleeve and dabbed at her face. That cooled her down, but did little to refresh her. She was still so very tired. And MerryVale was still so very far away—another six days to the south and east. Her bones would hold every mile against her. Her ankles would swell and her backside would go numb. But as hard as the trip promised to be, she never considered not making it. The Wandering Tribe came together only once a year, and that was at MerryVale at midsummer’s eve. And oh, what a eventful gathering it was.

The dead would be mourned, lovers would be wed, new children would be introduced to the tribe. There would be food, gossip, and drink; music, dance, and games of chance; contests of might and wit and courage. She, The Wandering Queen, would preside over all of these happenings, and yet—

And yet the prospect did not gladden her heart as much as it should. That lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with being old and tired, although one condition seemed to make the other two worse. She had been as excited as a girl on her way to meet her betrothed up until two days ago. Then, in a summery little clearing much like this one, their caravan had happened upon the darkest of portents. The memory of it was so terrible, her mind’s eye refused to focus on anything beyond the golden blood and flies. And the threat of tears stung her eyes every time she recalled even that. The rest of her family had been traumatized, too.

The youngest ones suffered from night frights now. Their elders had a stunned, hollow-eyed look about them. Katya could almost hear them thinking: Who would do such a thing? For what possible reason? As if anyone capable of committing such an atrocity would need something so civilized as a reason. A better question was: What did such an omen mean? And
this morning, at last, she finally felt strong enough to scry out an answer. She drew her pack of fortune cards from a pocket in her skirts and shuffled it until her fingers went numb. Then, concentrating on that memory—golden blood and flies—she flipped over the first card and set it down on her lap.

The glyph was of a graveyard at night, its headstones gleaming pale white beneath a full, yellow moon. Katya was not surprised that the Cemetery Card had turned up, for it represented death, and death was certainly an element of this mystery. No, what surprised the Queen of the Wandering Tribe was that the card had turned up reversed. In all of her years as a scryer, she had never seen it that way. What could it signify—a death averted? A close call maybe? She dismissed the possibility with a shake of her head. A close call was good luck. A reversed Cemetery Card was not.

Stuck for an interpretation, she flipped the next card. Sometimes, meaning only came in threes.

The card bore the likeness of a swirling, black funnel-cloud on its face. This was Chaos, straight up, a symbol for upheaval. Yet by itself, it was vague as a halfwit’s smile. She set it down alongside the first card, then covered both with a third: the W arrior-K ing, reversed.

“Worse and worse,” she muttered, for a reversed warrior-king usually meant war. And wars were particularly hard on her people. She knew. She bore the scars.

“Are you unwell, Little Mother?” Raffi was quick to ask. “Shall I stop?”

“No, thank you,” she replied. “I’m as well as a woman of my years can be. But like most old things, I’m prone to odd sounds at odd moments. Be a dear and pay them no heed.”

“As you will, Little Mother,” he said, even though they both knew that they would be having this conversation all over again the next time she oohed or ahhed or sneezed.

He turned his attention back to the business of driving the wagon. She turned hers back to the scrying. In the presence of a warrior-king reversed, the other two cards made sudden sense. War bred chaos and near-mortal wounds. War was bad luck and upheaval. By everything that was sacred and sweet! Who was this would-be landwaster? And what need had he for
gypsy blood?

Hoping for clues if not outright answers to these questions, she started a new triad. The first card she turned up depicted an upraised hand with an open eye staring forth from the stylized lines of its palm. A groan welled within her like cabbage gas. The Sorcerer’s Hand? That meant there was some magical element to this mystery. That in and of itself did not daunt her, for unlike most outsiders, the clans of the wandering tribe held no blind prejudices against arcania. No, what vexed her was the hand’s proximity to the reversed warrior-king. That suggested corruption, or perhaps collusion. Neither possibility boded well for gypsies. She flipped the next card with a wish for clarification in her heart. But fortune chose to disappoint her.

“I should’ve known you were involved, Old Fool,” she grumbled, as she eyed the Dancing Beggar’s glyph. The picture portrayed a grinning, rag-tag old m an with a lumpy sack slung across his back. Blind Luck, some called him. Others knew him as Random, or The Dreamer’s Consort. Whatever name you assigned him, though, he had the power to reshape the outcome of events that would have been predictable otherwise. Outsiders associated him w ith gypsies, but while Katya’s people welcomed his patronage, they were as often his victims as his beneficiaries. She could not count on him to take their side.

“Babchi! Look!”

The childish cry scuttled Katya’s train of thought. She glanced up from the cards to see a slight, black-haired forest sylph with a exultant, gaptoothed smile waving at her from the lead wagon. This was her granddaughter, Mim—her protegee and her favorite, although she would never admit the latter aloud. But where she might have scowled at someone else for interrupting her during a reading, she now responded with an indulgent smile.

“What is it, little one?” she wondered, deftly planting the thought in Mim’s mind.

“See what Maman gave me?” the child replied aloud.

She thrust an outstretched fist in her grandmother’s direction. Katya squinted, trying to squeeze more sight into her once-sharp eyes, but all she discerned was a faint glimmer of gold and so gave her head a small, sorry shake.

“They’re earrings,” Mim explained. “For the piercing ceremony. Maman says I am old enough this year.”

Katya’s smile took a wistful half-turn. She could not remember the last time she had been just ‘old enough’ for something. These days, she was invariably ‘too old’. But she did not share that thought with Mim. Most of life’s lessons had to be experienced to be understood. Instead, she replied, “That’s nice, little one. But now you must excuse me so I can return to my scrying.”

“As you wish, Babchi.”

Katya took another drink from the gourd, then turned the next card.

At the sight of it, the water that she had just swallowed acquired a greasy feel. The Dragon Rampant represented strength and consistency. To gypsies, it was also a symbol of good luck. But how was she supposed to interpret a dragon reversed? Reversals usually portended some sort of corruption or evil. But the skyfolk esteemed truth above all else; they could not be corrupted. And to proclaim a dragon evil was to prove yourself a fool. Evil was a human vice. Evil preyed on men.

As she stared at the second triad, straining for insights that were slow to come, her frustration spiraled. She needed answers, not half-cooked guesses. She needed to know what sort of trouble was afoot before it descended upon her people. In bygone days, she might’ve taken a horse and gone questing for those answers without so much as a by your leave to her sons. These days, however, that option was beyond her. A horse’s back, no matter how well-padded, was more than a match for a crone’s brittle bones. And even if it were otherwise, her sons would hold her back.

They’d say she was too important to her people, too precious. Which were just alternative ways of saying ‘too old’. She glanced at Mim, who was still perched atop of the lead wagon. In the innermost compartment of her heart, a place where she alone had ears, she indulged a moment of mostly benign envy and regret: oh, to be that strong and healthy again. Oh, to be that
young.

She snorted then, scorning herself for mooncalfing after the impossible. Old or not, she was still The Wandering Queen; and old or not, the welfare of the tribe was in her hands. She needed answers. She needed them now. And since she could not go a-questing for them, she must perforce send someone in her stead.

But who?

She could not ask her eldest son, Santana, for he was still nursing the arm that he had snapped in a fall from a green-broke horse. And she would not ask her younger son, Yorgi, for he was not good with outsiders.

Her proxy must be nimble of mind and body, capable of surviving regardless of the circumstances. He must also be blessed with good luck, because it was clear by the cards that many circumstances were aligned against him already.

A sign, she thought, fingering the deck again. Give me a sign.

The tail-end of that wish was shattered by shrill double whistle— Santana’s signal to go-to-ground. Out of life-long habit, she glanced skyward for low-flying shadows. As she did so, Raffi whisked her down from her seat as if she were a child and deposited her beneath the wagon.

“What goes on?” she asked.

“Luke returns from the hunt,” Raffi replied in fits and starts, as he and one of her many nephews drew a roll of sturdy, camouflaged netting over her wagon and the horses. “He is running.”

“Why?”

“I do not know,” Raffi said. “It does not look like he is being chased.”

Katya hissed. W hat was the young fool thinking? These hills were famous as a hunting-grounds for dragons. And running one’s horse out in the open like that was like ringing a dinner bell. If a dragon did show up in the skies overhead, it would not see the caravan thanks to the netting that was now in place. But Luke could lead it right to them, and then the wagons would be as picnic baskets. Fool, she thought again. He had been taught much better.

The drumming of a horse’s hooves thundered its way into her hearing.

Moments later, she heard a lathered wheeze as well. He must’ve run the animal for miles without a break, she thought, and added that to his list of crimes. Punishments came to mind: hard labor, a shaming; maybe some time in exile to make him appreciate how much he had put to risk. But before she could decide on the proper course, an anguished shout distracted her.

“Uncle Santana, come quick! I’ve found another one.”

Katya’s anger turned to ash in her mouth. At the same time, her stomach knotted, becoming a tangle of grief and dread. She had no doubt as to what it was that her nephew had discovered the grief in his voice was so palpable, and so distinctive, even little Mim would grasp its meaning. She crawled out from her hiding place and then hobbled toward Luke with
a thousand apologies in her mouth. He was no fool, sim ply a soul in shock.

Golden blood and flies.

For what he had found could only be another murdered dragon.

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