Realm of Dragons

He sat there at the center of attention, telling whatever stories he felt like, listening to the news that people brought him. People often brought him news, because they’d worked out that it was the one thing that Bern did pay for, and paid well. People assumed he didn’t think, but he’d found that thinking paid almost as well as hurting people.

He spotted the peasant boy instantly, because this wasn’t the kind of place where young boys came in safely. One of Bern’s men moved to intercept him, but Bern pushed past, shouldering his man out of the way casually, because it wasn’t like he mattered.

“You’ve something to tell me,” he said, his voice rumbling.

The boy nodded. Bern produced a coin, holding it just out of reach.

“Tell me then.”

“It’s about Princess Nerra,” the boy said.

“How would you know a princess when you see one?” Bern shot back. “If you’re wasting my time…”

“She goes into the woods a lot,” the boy said. “And I’ve seen her coming out of the castle, it’s her.”

It might be her or not. Probably the boy didn’t know the difference between a princess and a scullery maid.

“What about her?” Bern demanded.

“There’s… two things,” the boy tried.

Bern grabbed the front of his tunic then. “Trying to weasel a second coin? Tell me, and then I’ll decide if it’s worth it.”

“She has the scale-mark!” the boy blurted.

That was enough to make Bern pause. If true, it could cause a lot of trouble for the royals. It could also earn him a lot of coin. There were those who paid even better than him for the right information.

“And I’m to believe that?” he said.

“I saw it,” the boy replied. “All over her arm. I promise.”

“You know what I’ll do if you’re lying?” Bern said.

“I’m not!” He could see the fear there. More than enough to say that this was true.

“All right,” Bern said. “What’s the second thing?”

“It’s… what she found out there,” the boy said. “You… you won’t believe me.”

“I’ll believe what’s true,” Bern said.

“She found… she found a dragon’s egg!”

For a moment, Bern considered hitting the boy for saying something so stupid. Then he saw the fear in the lad’s face. He was serious, and even if it wasn’t something Bern had heard about in his lifetime, he believed him.

“A dragon’s egg?” one of the men around him said. “Do you think we’re…”

Bern hit him without looking, and the man went sprawling to the floor. “Shut up. I’m listening. What makes you think it was a dragon’s egg?”

“It was bigger than any egg I’ve seen,” the boy said, holding out his arms to indicate the size. “It had all golden veins over it too, just like in the stories.”

Bern hesitated. He’d heard the same stories. He’d even had people offer him petrified eggs before, when they couldn’t fence them elsewhere. It sounded right, even though it couldn’t be.

“Where’s this egg?”

Something like that… well, it might not be real, but if it was, then how much would someone pay for it? How much would some rich man give to have the only fresh dragon’s egg in living memory?

“It’s in the forest,” the boy said. “There’s a clearing. I can show you.”

“You will,” Bern said. He snapped his fingers at another of those there. “Run to the castle. Bring the news of the princess’s… condition to one of the ones who pays for these things. I expect gold for it, not silver.”

“Yes, Bern,” the man said.

“You cheat me and I’ll know.” Bern turned his attention back to the boy. “Now, show me where I can find this egg, and we’ll see if you’ve found an impossible thing. And if you’ve lied to me…”

***

“It’s not here!” Bern shouted, his roar echoing out over the silence of the forest. He struck out at a nearby tree, and his strength was enough to splinter the trunk. “Where is it? Where’s that boy?”

He looked around for the peasant boy and found him in the middle of quickly scaling a tree. Smart lad. Bern might have smacked him one otherwise, and a small thing like that would only have broken.

“You, you lied to me!” Bern called out, stalking up to the tree. Half a dozen men came with him, surrounding it. They were the ones out of his crew who had been nearest when he called, hard men, the lot of them. None would think anything of putting this boy in the ground if he’d lied to them.

“Didn’t!” the boy called down. He was shaking so hard that the whole tree seemed to tremble with it.

“Then where’s the egg?” Bern demanded.

“This is where she found it,” the boy replied, “I promise this is the spot.”

“Then where is it?” Bern demanded.

“She spotted me and I had to run. Maybe… she took it somewhere?”

Bern growled to himself. “Do you think?”

“So it’s probably somewhere in the castle,” one of the others said.

Bern shook his head. “If it were, I’d have heard. Think that runt’s the only one who tells me things? No, it’s hidden somewhere. We’ll find it.”

“And if we can’t?” the man said. Bern silenced him with a look.

“Then we’ll wait until this girl comes back for it, and we’ll ask her where it is.”

“Hurt a princess?”

Bern laughed. “Think she’s actually a princess?”

The others laughed with him. It was what they were best at.