( A Work in Progress)
Gerald thought he was having a nightmare as he felt a hand press over his mouth.
He prayed it was a nightmare as his eyes snapped open to see his stepbrother grinning down at him.
“You’ve been a bad boy,” the nightmare whispered. “Time for you to confess!”
Gerald tried to scream for help, but his stepbrother just pinched his nose closed until he felt darkness crowding back in. His stepbrother almost crushed his jaw as he whispered in the smaller boy’s ear. “Silence, wretch, or I’ll pound you ’til you wish you were dead! The archbishop has determined you are to be punished for shunning your confessions and the services. I’m going to enjoy every moment of it. He has promised I can wield the whip for part of it.”
His victim fell limp, too terrified to resist any longer. There was no help to be found. He didn’t even bother praying. God had abandoned him when his father died.
Hugo dragged his stepbrother outside through the open window. He paused and looked around. “Thomas! Henry? Where did you go? Cowards! They probably ran back to the archbishop, afraid of the dragons. As if they were any threat to a real man! Hah!”
He shoved Gerald before him, his big calloused hand still crushing Gerald’s jaw. “Move, piglet! There’s plenty of pain for you before dawn!”
Gerald struggled to breathe through the nostrils quickly swelling from Hugo’s pinch. His eyes were blurry and barely noticed a shadow on the flagstone beneath him before his ears registered a splash and he felt hot liquid on his bare feet.
Hugo jerked him to a halt as his expensive boots splashed in the dark puddle. “What the -? That had better not be dragon piss, or I’ll make you lick it off my boots!”
Gerald stumbled sideways as Hugo stepped back onto dry pavement. His tormentor paused again as a wet thump sounded behind them. Spinning them both around, he and Gerald both stared at the bloody head slowly rolling to a halt. There was another wet splash, and the body once attached to the head landed beside it. A whimper sounded above them. They both looked up.
Hugo’s hand shook as it fell away from Gerald’s mouth. “Thomas?” he whispered.
Thomas whimpered again as he swung slowly in the air, upside down at rooftop height, the Hordemaster’s tail tightly coiled around him, covering his mouth with the triangular tip. Sulfur tainted the air around them as the huge dragon bared his fangs and exhaled over them.
“The Hordemaster does not approve of kidnappers of children.” Gerald’s eyes finally moved from the Hordemaster’s giant fangs and focused on Hannah perched on the dragon’s head, silhouetted by moonlight. She leaned forward. “Henry tried to hit me. The dragons don’t like that. They don’t like to see any child hurt. Thomas hasn’t done anything, but he shouldn’t be here at all. Neither should you. You’ve hurt Gerald. You’re young, so the Hordemaster hasn’t decided what to do with you, but you will be punished. If you ever come back here, he might decide to eat you!”
Hugo screamed and shoved Gerald away as he ran. But he only managed a few feet before a scaly tail coiled around his feet, yanking him upside down and swinging him through the air. He screamed again and thrashed, but the tail did not loosen. Instead, it swung him with a loud thud against the rock wall of the dragons’ den. He fell silent and hung limply, unconscious.
Gerald tracked the tail to the dragon it was attached to. The Hordemaster’s mate Caldea was gazing at his stepbrother as if wondering if he would make a decent meal. “Don’t eat him,” Gerald croaked. “He’d probably poison you.”
Torches and alarmed men swarmed the courtyard. “What is going on out here?” Frederick bellowed at the front of the crowd. “What – who is that? Who are those two? Why are the dragons holding them?” He grabbed the loose head by the hair and held it up away from him as it dripped. “Gerald! Hannah! Explain this!” But before they could, he waved the head at the men holding torches and swords. “Get this mess cleaned up before the flies descend!”