Sydera granted them bunks in the dormitory where the settlement’s unmarried bachelors resided as work on the town proceeded. Those with mates and an egg or two on the way were given priority when it came to getting one of the houses that were being built. The day’s walk ensured that even in the unfamiliar space, all three slept well. That pleasant night’s sleep was ruined by a large, angry looking scaled fellow who served as the dormitory rooster. The big, surly male announced the morning shift with his hefty woodcutter’s axe, the flat of which he used to violently hit the ends of each bunk he passed by, striking them so hard it made the occupants jump and cry out in fright without a single exception.

  Martin slept at the end of one row, and so he was well awake by the time the male with the axe reached him. The big, fat fellow grinned at him with a mouth full of small, sharp teeth.

  “Do I scare you, pinky?”

  Martin shook his head.

  “Don’t you talk? You soft in the head or something?”

  “It’s not that, sir. I was always taught to not be rude to men with axes.”

  This amused the big male greatly. He let out a sharp, hearty laugh that woke what few males in the long, low room had not yet snapped out of their dreams of females and money.

  “Your boy’s got quite a mouth on him!” said he exclaimed with a laugh, looking down at Kurt, who was awake by now, lying in the cot opposite his son’s. “You layabouts ready to work?”

  “Yessir,” Kurt replied.

  “Good!” laughed the fat male. “Sydera will give you three your jobs after breakfast! Best get a move on! You’re gonna need all the strength you can muster. We’re gonna make you earn your bed and board here!”

  “What do you suppose scaled eat for breakfast?” Janus asked from the cot beside Kurt’s, after the fat fellow had moved on to annoy other males that weren’t waking up quickly enough.

  Neither Kurt nor Martin had any idea, and could only shrug in reply.

  The answer was meat, boiled eggs, and lots of coffee. After they had taken their turns at a row of bowls full of water to clean their hands and faces, they took their place outside in the growing queue for breakfast. The cooks had been up since God alone knew when, boiling eggs in metal pots that stood half as tall as a man. Thick strips of deer fried on black grills filled the air with a wonderful, greasy scent. A rickety looking roof made of the trunks of trees too thin and gangly to be used for timber in the shipyards of Hafenstrand demarcated the kitchen from the open-air jumble of benches and tables that marked the dining area. Families congregated and ate together, while the single males broke off into little cliques. The bachelors were the louder group, laughing and chatting as they devoured food piled high on their pewter plates, and drank their fill of hot, steaming black coffee from cheap wooden cups. Kurt, Martin and Janus sat together at the edge of one such table, conversing quietly between them, glancing now and then at the odd company they found themselves in.

  “How many of them are there?” Martin wondered aloud. He was eating a boiled egg slowly, watching a couple of the cooks who were trying to re-light one of the fires boiling the eggs. Stripped to the waist, they took turns spitting flames onto the fresh kindling they’d added, trying to get the fire to take again. He couldn’t help but remember Eckhart then. Eckhart had been a scaled boy just a little younger than he was. He and his family lived and worked on the orchard outside of Gozer, back when his father still had a business, and Martin a promising future. Eckhart’s breath had only been strong enough to light candles at his age. When he had died right in front of him, Martin had thought his friend had just fallen suddenly asleep.

  “Two hundred at least. Little under three hundred at most,” Janus said. He was happily devouring a second helping of deer steaks, after having massacred his way through half a dozen boiled eggs already. He looked dangerously like he might devour their breakfasts too, if they weren’t careful.

  “Do you think anyone from Eichen might find us here?” Kurt asked, keeping his voice low and his eyes fixed firmly on his breakfast.

  “Hard to say, Bauer,” Janus replied, shrugging as he looked around. “Don’t know how many died back there. We went west, but the town had other gates too. That’s why were walked through the woods beside the road. Much harder to track.”

  “The port was an obvious choice, though,” said Martin, weighing in, though in truth he was only half listening to the conversation. Sydera was not among his fellow scaled. That bothered the boy, though the dragon had seemed genuine enough when he promised to let them go in two days. Had he guessed that they’d come from Eichen? Would he send someone there to learn something of them? What would they find? Would they bring anyone back with them? Was his presence putting all these people in danger?

  “I think we should go,” Martin whispered. He looked back to his father and Janus, leaning in closer towards them to make sure that they were not heard.

  “But they won’t let us go,” sighed his father. “You heard that dragon’s terms, Martin.”

  “If Volkard figures out where we are, then that dragon doesn’t matter. He killed everyone at the farm, father.”

  Kurt ‘s faced paled at the mention of their old home, and lives. “You don’t have to tell me, son. I was there. We both were.”

  “And you don’t think Volkard won’t do the same to them?” His boy pressed, leaning closer, his tone betraying a growing anxiety.

  “I don’t doubt he will, Martin. But he has to find us first. We came here by accident, and that’s only because we were staying so far away from the road.”

  “There are more people in the port,” Janus interjected with an indifferent shrug. His clawed hands snatched at one of Martin’s uneaten deer steaks. The boy barely noticed this as the runner went on. He began to munch the steak, pausing only to gobble up an egg. “Thousands, maybe ten thousand, yes pup? You worry about these people, but we’re going towards more. The black bull won’t stop, if he still lives. He thought you were worth risk of being chased by hunters like me.”

  “What are you saying?” Martin’s father demanded. He seemed truly awake at last, his scruffy face becoming hard.

  “The only way Volkard’s never getting your boy is if we kill him, or take him to the Sanctum,” answered the runner with a shrug. Kurt looked horrified, but Janus seemed to have expected this, given his rapid follow up. “Don’t look at me like that, Bauer. If I wanted that, it’d be done by now. I’m just saying we risk people wherever we go. Nothing to be done about that. We run and we risk others. Just accept it. Why’d the black bull want you anyway, pup? He tell you?”

  “No,” Martin said with a shake of his head. He pushed his remaining food towards the greedy runner, his appetite fully lost. “He didn’t really tell me anything.”

  “Only way to find out then is let him catch you again, and take you to the Dead Lands,” Janus exclaimed, his grin widening at the extra food. “You want that, pup?”

  Martin shook his head, and looked away before Janus began to feast. Had it been fifty, or sixty people who had lived and worked at their farm? In truth he had never counted, having left much of that part of the organisation to Bader, their old minotaur accountant. Martin felt terrible for not knowing the exact number, though he understood well enough how useless such information would be. The runner was right, and it bothered Martin that he hated Janus a little for it.

  “Then we do what we can,” the wolf man said. “We stay here. We earn some money, and then take their boat down to the coast. This is not a bad place. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Who knows? Your father and I have been lucky so far.”

  “Luck runs out,” sighed Martin.

  “So does time,” replied the savage with a shrug.

  *

  Sydera assigned Kurt to the team of woodcutters, as much because of the axe Janus had given him in Eichen as because of his size. He would also have the privilege of helping haul the cut timber down to the barge moored in the shallows of the river. The dragon allowed Janus to accompany the little town’s hunters, after he’d made several detailed promises to behave himself, and only after being assigned a pair of guards. His escorts gave him a bow and a quiver of arrows, as well as orders to check their traps and, if possible, bring down some game for the kitchen. Their chickens were for eggs and emergencies.

  “You are staying with me,” Sydera declared once the two adults had gone off to their new jobs, looking at Martin. He had finally appeared as the plates and cups were being collected by the cooks and scullions. “You are most erudite for your age, son. Did your father have scholarly ambitions for you?”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Martin shook his head. “My mother wanted me educated, sir,” he explained. “My father hired tutors for me from the money the farm made. Mother believed that if I were educated, I could make any life I wanted when I was ready.”

  “Your mother was a most sensible person,” the dragon man nodded solemnly. He took the boy gently by the shoulder, steering him towards the office they’d met in the night before. “Has she left this world, too?”

  Martin nodded.

  “I am sorry for your loss, son.”

  “It hurt papa worse,” Martin replied with a helpless shrug. “He loved her so much he never married again after. I never knew her. She was gone before I could remember. All I know about her is what papa, or some of the workers that knew her could tell me.”

  “And what they remember will be imperfect,” Sydera said with an understanding nod. “They will never tell you bad memories that they have, and they might lie about the good ones to make the dead seem better than they really were. It is frustrating, but it is wrong to blame those people. What is done in those moments is never done with ill intent. Do you understand?”

  Martin nodded. What Sydera said made perfect sense to him. They reached the front of the Director’s house.

  “Tell me, my small friend: has your education extended to numbers?”

  “Yes,” Martin nodded. “I had a tutor for that, and I helped with our farm’s accounts.”

  “How is your penmanship?”

  “I did a lot of the paperwork my father needed done. I can write.”

  “Can you take dictation?”

  “So long as you don’t speak too fast, sir.”

  “Then our interview is concluded,” Sydera said with an oddly theatrical flourish as he opened the door to his house and ushered the boy in. “You are now my secretary. It is an important position, for which I am in desperate need of an educated candidate. Come along now, we’ll test your handwriting first. I have letters to important people in Hafenstrand that need writing. Then we’ll see if you can understand how beautiful numbers can be.”

  *

  Martin wrote out several sentences on a sheet of paper as Sydera dictated to him. They were random nonsense mostly. The dragon picked up the page then and examined the neat scrawl that the human boy had left in the wake of his words.

  “Excellent.”

  And so work began.

  Letters came first: to the Governor of Hafenstrand, to the owner of the shipyard in the city, to some investors and a couple of old friends who were visiting from a faraway place Sydera would not name. Orders followed for supplies of every kind from groceries to tools and a surprising amount of things in between that were necessary for this growing community. They worked through lunch, eating yet more boiled eggs washed down with black coffee Sydera kept hot in its samovar by occasionally snorting at it. Martin rediscovered his appetite after scribbling non-stop for hours on end. His fingers were sore and his eyes stung, and yet they had not even had a chance to examine the accounts of the business.

  “We’ll proceed with those next,” Sydera acknowledged when the boy pointed this out to him. “After that I’ll need you to redo the drafts of the letters so they don’t have any mistakes in them. I’ll need copies of the orders placed, to make sure I have a proper account of everything. Will you be able to do that tonight?”

  What choice did he really have? Martin could only nod.

  As they worked people would occasionally come to the door to give messages to Sydera, which the purple scaled male mostly dealt with then and there at the front door. It was always the same knock that summoned him: three fearless taps in rapid succession. Sydera would always rise immediately and go to the door. Such interruptions gave Martin a chance to rest his hands and mind, or take a break to relieve himself out the back. These interruptions were the only way that Martin had of keeping time as they worked and as such, time blurred. Martin felt weariness creeping over him. The Director, in contrast, seemed possessed of a boundless sort of energy. It became clear soon after they had begun that this sort of work, with all its myriad responsibilities, not only failed to intimidate the scaled, but also seemed to invigorate him. Martin became curious as they worked, despite his growing tiredness. He had so many questions he wanted to ask this powerful, perceptive scaled, yet he dared not, for fear of a break in the flow of the work they were doing. He didn’t dare miss something, lest he have to begin again.

  Another knock came at the door, and Martin could not help but sigh a little in relief as he put his quill back in its ink pot. He cracked the knuckles of his hands, and gratefully wiggled hiss sore fingers as he waited for the dragon man to rise and get the door.

  But Sydera did not move. The knock came again, quicker, urgently this time. Two knocks, followed by a pause, and then three more. It was not until Martin looked up to ask what was wrong, and saw the look on Sydera’s face did it dawn on him that this had been a pre-arranged signal.

  “Go in there,” the dragon said then, his voice low but brooking no argument. His clawed hand gestured to another room just to Martin’s left where the door was already lying ajar. “Don’t make a sound.”

  Martin did as he was told, or did it as best as he could. Cold fear gripped him, made him nearly fall from his chair. His heart was hammering in his fragile chest as he staggered over to the over room and slipped quickly into it. Who was it out there, on the other side of that door? Was it the hunters, come to take him away to the Sanctum? Was it Volkard, here to slay everyone until he got the boy that escaped him?

  There was a scrape of a chair being pushed back at last. The knocks were repeated a third time. Martin had somehow retained enough forethought to leave the door ajar. He pressed his back against the wall behind it, jammed between the door and a tightly packed bookshelf. He heard paper rustling as he waited, astounded he could hear anything at all over all the noise he was convinced he must be making. He’s putting the papers right, he realised then as he listened to the dragon man putter about for a minute before his heavy footsteps thudded their way across the floor. There was a loud creak as a door was opened. Hushed conversation followed.

  “Please, come in.”

  “Thank you, friend.”

  Martin recognised the voice at once, and his blood ran cold. Rahm…

  Two heavy sets of footsteps thudded their way slowly back into the room. There was a pause. Martin held his breath.

  “I understand you’re here looking for someone?”

  “Yes sir, I am. He’s a human boy, of about twelve years. Blonde hair and green eyes. He’s smart, perhaps a little too smart for his own good. Doesn’t say much. Have you seen anyone like that in the last day or so?”

  Silence. It dragged on, and on. Martin waited, holding his breath, his throat arid. He pressed himself tighter against the wall, for it to come: Sydera telling the monster in the room with him that his prey was just on the other side of that door. What was taking him so long? Why was he not saying anything? Was he just pointing to the door? How could Rahm not already know he was hear? Could he not hear the noises the boy could as he made them? Could the bull not hear the pounding heart that felt like it might crack his ribs at any second?

  “Can’t say I have, friend.”

  Martin shut his eyes. It took him a great deal of effort not to sink down to the floor and cry.

  “What about your people?” Rahm asked. There was something strange in his tone that Martin did not like. Did he not believe Sydera? He did his best to keep silent, as he waited to find out what might happen next.

  “They have orders to report to me about any visitors we might have. They are all to be taken immediately and directly to me, as you were.”

  “Indeed,” said Rahm. There were several slow, deliberately heavy steps. It seemed to Martin then that the very earth itself trembled as the huge minotaur, that could bring this whole house down quite easily with his bare hands, strolled about. “This is a fascinating place. A good place to hide.”

  “I’m here to build, friend, not hide.”

  “How about runners?” Rahm asked, then. “See any of them around? I’m interested in one in particular. I think his fur’s grey. He’s thin, gangly, and carries a hatchet.”

  “Are these people you are looking for travelling together?”

  “Couldn’t say, sir, but I’m interested in both of them. Very interested. The boy is business. The other is more personal, honestly. I mean to find them, and I can pay generously to those who will aid me.”

  “What a lost opportunity then,” Sydera replied with a weary sigh. “I’ll have the word spread about these two fellows, then. If we find either, we’ll be sure to let you know. Where might you be heading?”

  “Elsewhere,” answered the bull, his voice deep, ruthless, the stuff of nightmares.

  “Well then, best not keep you.”

  Martin heard footsteps then, and easily identified them as Sydera’s. They crossed the room at a steady, carefree pace before they stopped not too far away from where Martin imagined Rahm was standing. He could swear, madly he hoped, that if he strained he could just hear the bull’s furious breathing.

  The wooden floor creaked. Was Rahm turning?

  “What brings a scaled of your age out of the mountains?” Asked the bull.

  “I seek my fortune.”

  “Strange, that. Whatever happened to the days of old, when your kind was content enough to gather your gold in a great big pile and sit on it?”

  “This is my pile of gold now, friend. Gold does nothing if you leave it, even if it is in a great big pile. It’s just dead metal. Looking at it gets boring after long enough. But this place here is alive. It changes. It grows. Perhaps it will die? I don’t know yet, but it’s an infinitely more interesting thing to do with my gold, than just have it sit in a pile and gather dust.”

  “You’re lying to me,” Rahm said then, suddenly, his voice dropping to a deadly, threatening whisper. “You have seen that boy, and you’ve seen the runner, too.”

  “Yes,” was the immediate, shocking answer. Martin felt fear trickle icily down his back. Sydera’s confession terrified him, and yet something about it did not sit right. There was not the slightest hint of fear in that voice. If anything, the dragon sounded almost pleased, amused even. “I have lied to you, cow. Are you going to do something about it? Well…are you? You are more than welcome to try. I like my beef steaks very well done, practically crispy the whole way through, and I haven’t had one in a very long time.”

  There was a low, enraged growl. The floorboards creaked as something heavy pressed its booted feet down against them.

  “Get out,” Sydera said then, his voice tipped with terrible authority. “Never return. These woods and everything in them belong to me.”

  “You’ll live to regret this,” said Rahm.

  Silence. Martin pressed tight against the wall, though what he waited for, he could not guess. Was this about to become violent? Were they all going to die?

  Heavy footsteps brought him back out of his thoughts. Big booted feet slammed so hard against the floorboards it seemed a miracle that they did not break. He heard the door torn open. A couple of males let out a surprised cry, but nothing more. The heavy footfalls faded away.

  “Come out, son. He’s gone.”

  Martin slowly poked his head from around the door. Sydera was standing in the centre of the room, his bulging throat shrinking as lazy strings of smoke curled their way up to the ceiling.

  “Could you have beaten him?” the boy asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered the dragon, “and neither did he.”

  “He might come back,” Martin warned.

  “No son, he won’t.”

  “Thank you, Sydera.”

  Smiling, the dragon walked over to his front door and closed it.

  “You can thank me with the truth, son. Tell me everything.”