The Dragon Whisperer Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Map 1

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE The Battledragon Roosts

  CHAPTER TWO Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

  CHAPTER THREE The Stealth Dragon Services

  CHAPTER FOUR Homecoming

  CHAPTER FIVE Two Gulps and You're Gone

  CHAPTER SIX Lady Quenelda's Esquire

  CHAPTER SEVEN The Stoner Manoeuvre

  CHAPTER EIGHT Imagine ...

  CHAPTER NINE We Speak No Treason

  CHAPTER TEN A Long Day's Work

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Darcy's Devils

  CHAPTER TWELVE Ride the Rising Wind

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Grounded

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Hobgoblins

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Wooden Dragon

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Fledgling Flight

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Deadly Guild of Subtle and Cunning Assassins

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Flying High

  CHAPTER NINETEEN The Killing Caves

  CHAPTER TWENTY The Lady and the Tramp

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Winter Joust

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO DeWinter! DeWinter!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The Cauldron

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Maelstrom Magic

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Dragon Whisperer

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Dragon Isle

  Hours of the Day

  Months of the Year

  The Dragon

  Whisperer

  LUCINDA HARE

  Illustrated by David Wyatt

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407049687

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  THE DRAGON WHISPERER

  A BODLEY HEAD BOOK

  ISBN: 9781407049687

  Version 1.0

  Published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head,

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  This edition published 2009

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Lucinda Hare, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © David Wyatt, 2009

  The right of Lucinda Hare to be identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Set in 11/16pt Sabon by

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  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This book is dedicated to my husband, Paul.

  Also to Stephanie Ashby, who has enthusiastically read everything I've written.

  And my much-loved animal companions: Grumpy, Truffle, Chindit, Rufus and all the rest of the four-legged and feathered family who have shaped and shared my life.

  If you talk to the animals

  they will talk with you

  and you will know each other.

  If you do not talk to them,

  you will not know them.

  And what you do not know

  you will fear.

  What one fears, one destroys.

  Chief Dan George

  About the author

  Quenelda's passion for dragons is based on Lucinda Hare's own devotion to all creatures great and small. She and her family share their home near Edinburgh with an ever-changing number of rescue animals, ranging from cats, dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs to escaped battery hens on the run. She specializes in cruelty cases and animals with behavioural problems, and friends often comment that she can weave magic and talk to the animals – a real life 'whisperer'!

  THE DRAGON WHISPERER

  is Lucinda's debut novel.

  PROLOGUE

  The beacon on the castle's topmost tower, could barely be seen through the driving snow. The dwarf, shading his eyes against the storm, beat the gusting flames away from his frozen cloak and went back down into the courtyard to wait.

  Cocooned by his heavy bearskin, he was beginning to drowse when the snow falling about him suddenly danced and whirled. The wind howled, the blast almost forcing him from his feet. The dwarf blinked, brushing layers of snow from his heavy, beetled brows. He looked skyward. Within the high inner bailey walls, the air shimmered and sparkled like frost. The fallen snow in front of him was crunched flat, as if by a great weight.

  Towering above him, black against the blizzard, stood a great dragon; a chill mist rose from his heaving flanks. A young man, scaled and spiked in the same armour as his dragon, dismounted swiftly.

  'The time has come?' he demanded.

  'My Lord Earl' – the dwarf went down on bended knee – 'the midwives say it will be soon.'

  The Dragon Lord turned to his dragon, Stormcracker, whose great black nose was nuzzling against his shoulder. 'Wait for me, Stormcracker,' he said as he strode into the castle, followed by the dwarf.

  Outside, the wind veered round to the south, driving the heavy clouds from the sky to reveal the rising twin moons. As silence settled, a storm of wild dragons appeared overhead. Snow slid down the steep gabled roof of the ancient castle as one landed, its talons gripping a stone gargoyle. Soon it was joined by another, and yet another, until every roof and chimney, every tower and battlement was crowded with them. Then the dragons lifted their heads and sang.

  The unearthly sound shivered through the air, raising goose pimples on the flesh of the young man, who paced a dimly lit chamber below. Swiftly the song rose beyond the range of human hearing. In the Sorcerers Glen a pack of wolves hunting elk stopped in their tracks and turned towards the distant castle. A hibernating bear snuffled restlessly in its den; high above its cave on the lower slopes of the Sleeping Wizard Mountain, a sheet of snow broke away with a loud crack to tumble down the side.

  The bells tolled midnight and the day slipped into midwinter. Barely had the last chime died when a cry cut through the air; a child's cry, clear, robust, bursting with new life.

  The young man turned towards the opening door, the dwarf a few steps behind him. The midwife came out of the birthing chamber, a bundle wrapped in her arms. Beyond her the man could see a woman in the great four-poster bed, lying silent and unmoving against the damask pillows.

  'My lord' – the midwife curtsied, holding out the crying babe – 'you have a daughter.'

  'Her mother?' Anxiety made his voice rough. 'Is her mother well?'

  'She is well, my lord, but she is sleeping. It was a difficult birth. She will need to rest. The apothecary attends her.'

  The tension seemed to slide from the man's broad sh
oulders. Taking the child, he looked down into tawny eyes that mirrored his own. He smiled, puckering the edge of the newly healed scar that ran ragged from forehead to chin.

  The midwife hesitated. 'You are taking the babe to safety, my lord?'

  The man nodded. 'To Dragonsdome. None must learn the child's true heritage.'

  'We are all sworn in service to our lady, my lord. You need not fear. None here will betray her or the babe.'

  In a moment the young man was gone, the fur-wrapped baby in his arms, the dwarf following in his footsteps.

  Out in the courtyard he stopped abruptly in his tracks. The wild dragons perched around the castle battlements were all looking down intently. Neither man nor dwarf had ever witnessed such a thing. All was eerily silent, as if the whole world were holding its breath.

  The dwarf looked down at the child and gasped. Eyes that had been tawny in candlelight now glowed in the near dark, a bright inhuman gold. 'My Lord Earl!' There was superstitious awe in his voice.

  Curious, the man bent over the child and drew a ragged breath that stung the back of his throat. He raised his head to look up to where great golden eyes considered them and their tiny burden.

  Then Stormcracker's armoured head reached down to inspect the infant girl. Her crying fell silent and she gurgled with pleasure, her tiny fists brushing against the velvety muzzle of the giant above her.

  Greetings, little one ...

  The dragon's deep singsong cadence rumbled in the babe's head as she held out her arms to embrace the dazzling creature – utterly strange and yet strangely familiar.

  Greetings, Dancing with Dragons ... His blue tongue rasped across her skin like hot sandpaper. Come, little one ...

  Slowly the great spiked tail that had dealt death to countless hobgoblins uncoiled and slid forwards to twine around the tiny child, lifting her gently from her father's unresisting arms. The man stood, stunned, for a moment, before a rare smile lit his handsome face. Running lightly between his dragon's great spinal plates, the black-armoured Earl mounted swiftly and settled into his pilot's chair, taking his daughter back into his arms. The dwarf settled into his familiar position behind him, buckled against one of the dragon's spine plates, his double-headed axe resting between his boots.

  'Come, now.' Wrapping cloak and arms around his daughter, the man gathered up the reins of his stallion. 'To Dragonsdome.'

  The Imperial Black dragon rose silently into the night sky. Barely had they crested the castle battlements when the dragon's outline rippled and they were gone, the downdraught from the wings obliterating their tracks in the snow as if they had never existed.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Battledragon Roosts

  This is going to hurt ... Quenelda warned as the dragon's head gently butted against her, his hot breath licking around her. She spoke in her head, where only dragons could hear.

  Pain is nothing, Dancing with Dragons, the Sabretooth dragon boasted, baring his yellowing fangs. I am strong ... Have I not survived more battles than you have years?

  Yes – Quenelda smiled – you have ... From her perch on the dragon's scaled foreleg, the skinny girl jumped lightly down and stepped onto the circular metal gantry outside the roost. Sweeping the mane of blonde hair from her face, she called out confidently to the dwarf who straddled the dragon's broken tail.

  'He's ready.'

  'Hmmm ...' Tangnost Bearhugger, dwarf dragonmaster to the Earl Rufus DeWinter, grunted doubtfully as he took the strain. 'Now!' he bellowed over his shoulder, his deep gravelly voice muffled by his helmet visor. 'By the One Earth, pull!'

  Behind him, a nervous apprentice obediently pulled down on the pulley chains for all he was worth. The greased wheels creaked, the links rattled, the chain was cranked upwards tooth by tooth. Slowly, inch by grudging inch, the winch that cradled the Sabretooth dragon's stubby tail lifted it from the ground, exposing the compound fracture.

  The dwarf gritted his teeth. His sweating hands were slipping inside his heavy gauntlets. Shifting his grip, he grunted, then heaved with all his considerable strength. There was a loud crack as the broken bone slid into place, followed immediately by the dragon's bellow of pain.

  Tangnost ducked instinctively as white-hot fire licked around him, searching hungrily for a chink in his sootstreaked roost armour. Dragonfire from the angry Sabretooth, known as Two Gulps and You're Gone, blazed around the roost, and then, with a roar and a rattle, escaped through a series of pipes and chimneys into the cold dawn air. As the flame died, the walls of the battleroost glowed cherry-red in the gloom. Glazed bricks pinked as they started to cool.

  The job was finally done. Tangnost sucked in an incautious breath of relief – and immediately wished he hadn't. Even filtered through his heavy mask, the supercharged air seared the back of his throat and made his one eye water. He coughed and shook his head at his own folly.

  Badly injured battledragons were, as a rule, put down immediately. And quite right too, the dwarf thought ruefully. Healing any injured animal was fraught with difficulties, but nursing a bad-tempered carnivorous battledragon that was trained to flame, disembowel or decapitate wasn't good for the nerves. Even nerves like his, tempered by eighty years of experience, sixty-five of them on the battlefield before a hobgoblin cleaver invalided him out. It was downright madness, even if that battledragon cost five thousand golden guineas and had taken five long years to train.

  Everyone knew that; everyone except a certain young lady dressed in an oversized leather jerkin, patched boy's breeches and heavy flying boots, with a stubborn set to her jaw and determination in her tawny eyes. Already back in the baking-hot roost, Quenelda was now casually scratching the battledragon under the chin as if he were a kitten! Tangnost wondered briefly if she had any idea what they had just achieved and how dangerous it had been.

  How does your tail feel, Two Gulps and You're Gone? Quenelda asked politely, completely ignoring the terrified apprentice, who was quaking in his boots.

  It throbs, Dancing with Dragons ... Two Gulps admitted, milky smoke still curling indignantly from his nostrils.

  But the sharp pain in your tail ... ?

  It lessens – but it feels hot, and it itches so.

  I will tell One-Eye. Keep the weight off your injuries

  while we tend you.

  The battledragon breathed out in soft acknowledgement and turned his scaled head back towards the dwarf and the apprentice tending his tail. His tri-forked red tongue flicked out to taste the air.

  I am hungry, Dancing with Dragons, he complained. As if in response, his third stomach grumbled. It sounded like a volcano about to erupt ... or a dragon preparing to flame. The dwarf took an involuntary step backwards, and with a shriek his young apprentice fled the roost.

  Tangnost found himself gazing into two flared nostrils the size of furnace doors. Wisps of steam curled lazily up with the threat of worse things to come. Beyond them, the Sabretooth's reptilian red eyes watched the dwarf's every move with unhealthy interest. A gobbet of corrosive saliva dripped from between yellowed teeth and onto the metal decking, where it sizzled.

  Tangnost froze. Sabretooths were notoriously highly strung. They killed at the slightest provocation, and usually could only be handled by the master with whom they had bonded, or by those esquires who had raised them from the egg. An injured Sabretooth was twice as dangerous.

  Unaware of Tangnost's dark thoughts, Quenelda slid off the dragon's foreleg and fondly slapped an armoured scale.

  No! No! You are not to eat them! she scolded as she moved round to join her father's dragonmaster. Or any other Wingless Ones who care for you here at Dragonsdome. We have to bind your tail now and splint it to keep the break in place, but the worst is over. We'll feed you again before we go. Rest well, Two Gulps and You're Gone.

  Rest well, Dancing with Dragons.

  The battledragon settled into his stony nest, massive shoulder scales reverberating as he started to purr contentedly.

  Judging it safe to re
move his helmet, Tangnost wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his gauntlet and looked into eyes that held a depth of knowledge far in excess of their eleven years.

  Quenelda grinned back at his sticky discomfort, at the craggy face dominated by a patch where a hobgoblin arrow had stolen an eye. The strong jaw and broken nose were framed by shoulder-length hair, bound at the right temple in a single warrior's braid after the fashion of his clan. Of all her father's retainers, Quenelda loved the near-legendary dragonmaster best. With the Earl constantly away at war, commanding the elite Stealth Dragon Services, or SDS, Tangnost was the closest she had to a parent. No matter how busy he was, the dragonmaster always made time for her, answering her endless questions with patience and humour, listening with keen interest to her views as if a young child's opinion truly mattered to him.

  As she grew older he often allowed her to accompany him when doing his rounds, especially on difficult cases like this one. And if he was a tough, demanding teacher, he was always fair, and had a gruff heart buried somewhere beneath his armour. The apprentices and even the esquires might be frightened by the one-eyed dwarf, but Tangnost was nonetheless a hero-figure to them; his exploits during his years in the SDS Bonecracker commandos the stuff of fireside tales. And like Quenelda and her father, the Earl Rufus, Tangnost passionately loved the dragons and other creatures in his care.

  'I think that's the worst of it over, but the wound ...' Quenelda shrugged off her heavy, sweat-soaked jerkin, letting it fall to the floor. 'Two Gulps says it is burning him, Tangnost! What does that mean?' She rolled up the sleeves of her finely embroidered shirt, leaving sooty fingerprints on it.

  'That is the poison beginning to spread.' Tangnost effortlessly slipped into his familiar role as tutor to the Earl's young daughter. 'We need to ensure the wound doesn't fester. See this streak of darker blue, threading beneath the scales, then fanning out from the break like the tendrils of a tree root?'

  Quenelda nodded, listening to his every word.

  'Smell it,' the dwarf ordered.