[A story from years ago, dug up in celebration of having finished a sequel last weekend. Content warning: some violence.]
Alexi was at the river, washing the clothes of a hundred miners, when Peter came with the dragon eggs. She saw her brother filthy not with the usual soot but with dirt and leaves. "What happened to you?" she asked, eyeing also the covered basket he hauled in both hands.
"Open the door," he huffed. Alexi stepped over to her shop and nudged open the door so he could dash inside, then followed him. Clothes, irons and scrubbing-boards were neatly arranged all over the sunny hut by the water. Peter shoved a kettle aside and set the basket down with a thump, making the wooden table creak.
"Are you taking iron from the forge?" she said, bewildered by his rush to lock the door.
Peter opened the basket to reveal a pair of grey oval things. "Heavier. These are from no ordinary bird." He lifted one with both hands and set it aside. "I saw a light from the forest last night, and it was so strange that I ran after it. I found these in a hole in a rock."
"And what brought you to the forest's edge at night?" she said, arms folded. Of course he'd been at the tavern again, spending his pay on vodka.
"Never mind that. Tell me what you think these are."
"Breakfast?"
Peter threw up his hands. "You're impossible. I've found the eggs of the Firebird!"
Alexi laughed. "Did you meet Baba Yaga on the way, or a Beast Czar?" Still, it was true that she'd never seen such eggs. She reached out and found that the grey egg by the basket felt as warm as a comfortable stovetop in the winter.
"I'm serious," said Peter. "With these we can be rich and famous and free from drudgery. I want you to have one."
"Rich and famous, how?" she said. She saw his excitement falter, and went over to hug him. "Thanks for thinking of me."
"The Firebird, it brings good luck. And with two of them --"
They turned at a noise from Alexi's egg. It was cracking. Alexi stared as the cracks spread over long minutes, and finally a creature's head emerged. Grey flesh, a grey snout, and a grey eye watching her. She stood there frightened and confused. "Peter," she whispered, "what is this?" But he was distracted now by the cracking of the second egg.
Peter murmured, "Not Firebirds. /Zmei/."
"What?" She knew the name, but it couldn't be; only fairy tales had --
He turned to her with a gleam in his eye. "Dragons."
The creature pushing its way out of the eggshell in front of her had faint scales and a serpentine neck. "I suppose you're right," said Alexi. "But what am I going to do with one? These things belong guarding a golden castle beyond the Glass Mountain, not keeping people from making off with the townsfolks' underwear." She had plenty of work to do, too, and couldn't devote attention to a pet.
"Exactly," said Peter. "We don't need this town anymore, sister. Leave with me and we'll find adventure and treasure. We'll conquer one of those golden castles."
The dragon on the table chirped pathetically, free of its shell. Alexi carefully swaddled it in a towel and held it, smiling down at the little lizard, but raised one eyebrow at Peter's words. "I suppose these creatures will be mighty enough to aid our conquest unless the enemy is defended by, say, kittens."
Peter tended to his own dragon, keeping it in the basket. "They'll be strong enough soon. They grow to be huge, don't they? I didn't mean leaving right this moment."
"You sounded like you did," she chided. "For now we'll have to content ourselves with being princess of the laundry and prince of the forge. In fact, does Master Bogatyr know where you are?"
Peter's eyes widened. "I was out all night! He'll kill me!" He started for the door but looked back at the dragons.
She said, "Take yours along, and you'll have an excuse."
He snatched the heavy basket. "Of course. Thank you!"
"And thank you." When Peter had dashed away she could forget for a moment that anything had changed. She turned to the dragon on her table and said, "What am I going to do with you?"
She did need to return to work, so she hoisted the dragon into a wooden tub and hauled it outside to a cool, sunny spring morning by the river. Alexi put a crust of bread in with the dragon, having little else, and returned to her pile of sooty shirts. She worked to the beat of the waterwheels that caught the stream again and again on its way from the mountains. Her own patch of the stream was flat and rocky, no good for the wheels but fine for a woman to sit and scrub and admire the town. Just downstream stood the bath-house, and below it the market, the Count's mansion, and the smoky forges. Alexi worked and hummed, tossing a wet shirt over her shoulder to the nearby tub.
"Oops!" she said, seeing the dragon peeking from under it. She pulled the shirt away, but the dragon caught it in its muzzle. "Stop that," she said, and tugged. The dragon seemed to be enjoying itself. "Hmmph." She gave another tug and let the lizard win; she had other shirts to wash.
Tanya was the first of the townsfolk to see the dragon. "Hello, Alexi!" she called in her singsong voice. She had a cart of pants with her. "More work."
"Good," Alexi mumbled with a clothespin in her mouth. She hung shirts on a line and said, "Set them there," but Tanya had frozen.
"What is /that/?" Tanya said. The dragon chirped, resting its head on the tub.
Alexi shrugged. "My brother found it. Says it's a dragon." She realized that she wasn't sure whether she believed it herself.
At this Tanya relaxed. "What, is that all he said? He must've told you he won it in a drinking contest with a seven-headed Cossack."
Alexi smiled. "While he single-handedly saved the Tsar's daughter and refused any reward. Still, it's a strange beast, isn't it?"
Tanya knelt by the basin and peered at the dragon. It recoiled and scurried back. Alexi leaned down and scratched its muzzle; the creature leaned into it like a cat, then seemed reassured enough to do the same for Tanya.
#
Peter didn't visit her again that day. Alexi worried enough about the dragon wreaking havoc in her house that she was hesitant to leave. That evening she set up a pen of washtubs to give it space. Such a nuisance to think about what to feed it, how to clean up after it. "This is why I didn't get a cat," she groused, giving it bread and river water. She had bread for herself and shared a little of her supply of small beer, the safest thing to drink.
The next day she went to market, then let the well-behaved little dragon follow her to the stream to work. She was busy getting soot out of shirts when she found the dragon ducking its head beneath the water, watching what she did. "This is a shirt," she said, then let the lizard be her audience. "And here is the soap that cleans the shirt; and this is the stream, that fills the tub, that holds the soap, that cleans the shirt, that clothes the man, that dirties his shirt with coal-dust."
The dragon nibbled on the soap, sneezed, and went back to watching. Alexi lifted another shirt -- and the dragon reared back its head and spat at it. Alexi was startled. "It's not a spitting contest."
The dragon sneezed, and sent forth a jet of warm, soapy water that soaked Alexi. She sputtered, nearly toppling into the stream, and stood there glaring at the grinning little creature. It sat on its haunches, tail wagging.
"Fine!" she said. "If that's what you're going to do, then you can help me with the rest of these!"
The dragon proved enthusiastic, able to blast clothes with suds even without further soap-nibbling to recharge. Alexi was puzzled but willing to shrug at the oddity for the sake of getting her work done sooner. By afternoon she found the creature chewing on a pair of pants, but the cloth seemed unharmed. "Open," she said with her hands on the beast's jaws, and found inside a mouth of molars like a cow's. If anything the teeth seemed to have pounded the dirt from the pants.
"It seems dragons are useful after all. You can help me, little washer."
The dragon, Washer, beamed.
#
A soldier in a fine starched uniform came the next day. "So the rumor is true," he said, spotting Washer playing in the stream.
Alexi looked him over. "Ah, Ivan, did that stitching pass inspection?"
He seemed off-balance from being recognized. "Yes, ma'am. But I've come about the dragon. His Lordship wants to see it."
Alexi looked to Washer, thinking that its scales seemed lighter today and its body bigger despite a diet no better than her own. "When would he like to see us?"
"Not you," said Ivan, apologetic.
Alexi pictured the dragon nibbling at the Count's cape, and gave a rare giggle. "I'm not sure His Lordship would want Washer, here, running around unsupervised. It's best if I come along."
Ivan said, "All right, ma'am; I'll try to get you in."
The mansion was hardly worth abandoning her work for. The grounds were always sooty on one side, and the gardens scraggly. Washer padded along like a dog at her side, through the doors and past staring guards. At the hall's end sat the Count, a frowning man in a uniform choked with crimson and yellow braids. It was a nuisance to clean that. The Count heaved himself up from his desk, eyebrows raised, and muttered, "Remarkable."
Washer peered up at him, tail curled.
"I'm informed," the Count said, "that you and your brother have found dragons."
"Yes, my lord. I didn't know this was widely known."
The Count laughed. "There's such gossip in this town that I heard tell of everything from this" -- he nodded to Washer -- "to a nine-headed monster. Where are this creature's wings?"
Alexi looked at her lizard-pet again. True, those seemed an omission. Maybe Peter really had been too quick in his flights of fancy. "I don't know, my lord," she said with embarrassment.
The Count stroked his chin. "The Tsar himself would want to see these, for his menagerie. I'm sure we'll be rewarded for finding these beasts."
"Finding them?" Alexi said. "Are they lost from his palace? There were only eggs."
The Count said, "Silly girl. Everything and everyone in the kingdom is the Tsar's. He has a right to such a beast as yours, so I'll send it and your brother's along. What would you ask of me as a reward?"
Alexi's tongue knotted up like a soaked towel. She could have money, better equipment, firewood for this winter. The dragon rubbed against her leg and she glanced down, not wanting to part with the thing. /Nonsense!/ she thought. What use was her little soap-dispenser versus a good wringer and other valuable things? Still, in a moment of silly girlish whimsy she found herself saying, "My lord, I will keep my dragon, if you please."
"I do not please," the Count said, with a glare that frightened her. "Guards, take the creature and send the girl away."
Ivan was the first of the six guards to move. He put himself in front of her, blocking her view, and said, "Sir, perhaps we can petition the Tsar about this." The others paused, uncertain.
The Count slapped his desk. "What are you waiting for? Take it!"
The guards but for Ivan moved in towards the dragon that hid behind Alexi. She herself was too scared to move. These same men had sent their clothes to her and the town's other wash-women. This town had taken her and Peter in years ago, and now --
Now the hall's door slammed open, to show Peter with a sword and dragon.
Alexi called out to him. Washer hissed at the guards. Storming into the room, Peter pointed his sword at the Count and said, "Leave my sister alone!"
The Count drew a gleaming ceremonial saber from his belt and made a clumsy slash at the air. "Little rat, how dare you barge in here? Drop that sword and kneel or I'll have your head."
Peter's hand trembled but he met the Count's eyes. "My lord, you sent men to my master's forge to fetch my dragon. Well, I've brought it to you."
Alexi saw that the dragon beside him was the size of a dog, with feet grey as ash and a body of dull red like heated iron. "Please, everyone, just stop fighting!"
Ivan said, "She's right, my lord."
The Count chuckled. Eyeing Peter he said, "You have spirit, boy. Leave the dragons to me, and you and your sister can go in dignity. You've proven your bravery."
Peter hesitated, gulping at the sight of the guardsmen in their bright uniforms and the Count who'd ruled him for so long. "Alexi, tell me what you want."
Alexi felt a weight on her shoulders. "I want to keep Washer, but if it'll stop you from fighting --"
"She doesn't want to!" said Peter.
"No, wait!" But Peter had already grabbed her arm painfully and was backing away with her. The stupid little dragons weren't worth this!
The Count stepped forward, sword in hand. "I can't abide a snake in my house. Block the doors. Leave the girl and kill the boy."
The guards split up and slammed Peter away from Alexi, sending them sprawling in opposite directions. Alexi yelped as she landed. The doors shut, darkening the hall and leaving Peter trapped by a semicircle of guards.
There came a blast of flame. The air rippled and the guards -- but for Ivan, who was helping Alexi up -- yelled, trying to extinguish their clothes. Peter himself fought back now, snatching up his sword and one of the guards' to slash wildly as he stood. He found the Count's blade beneath his chin.
Alexi shouted, and Washer rammed the Count's legs out from under him while Peter's dragon menaced the other guards, blasting one with flame and biting another's leg. Peter stabbed and the blade found its mark, surprising even him. The Count cut him across the cheek but Peter parried the next blow, kicked, and attacked with both swords. The Count grunted. Peter dropped one blade and snatched the one in the Count's hands to disarm him, but the Count slid gradually back and thumped to the floor.
Alexi saw Peter standing with wild hair, holding one sword bright and gleaming and another dark and bloody. At his side the dragon seemed made of blood and iron.
The guards hurried to the Count's side -- too late -- and to confront Peter again. "It's over," Peter said. One of the guards had fallen too. Alexi huddled in a corner with Washer protecting her. "What do we do?" the guards asked each other.
Peter tried to catch his breath, holding off the men. "He threatened my sister. I had to do it."
One of the guards said, "If we tell the Tsar he'll send some mad outsider." Another said, "Or even the Black Riders, if he thinks there's disorder. And the boy has a dragon."
"Should we...?" said Ivan.
As one, the guards lowered their swords and looked at Peter. "Sir, be our Count!"
Peter's jaw hung open.
#
They toured the lonely mansion. Its fireplaces and tapestries stood neglected, with the Count having been alone for years. "The former Count," Peter muttered. Alexi marveled at the work that had been wasted on the empty rooms, and how much it would take to revive them.
"Move your things to this room," Peter told her. The bedroom was the size of her whole house by the stream. "I'll take the smaller room over there."
Alexi was flustered from watching Peter kill. Washer curled around her legs and she absently reached down to scratch the creature. "I don't want to live here," she said. "It's impractical."
Peter grinned. "You'll get used to it. We're nobles now. We deserve some reward."
Alexi turned and shoved open a long-sealed window. Heavy drapes tickled her. A mountain wind blew into the dead Count's room. "For now, I'm going back to work."
She hurried away, glad to return to what she knew. Washer followed, seeming just as eager. She reached the stream and saw Bogatyr. The master smith was running towards her, with a massive hammer in hand, saying, "Ma'am, are you all right?"
She stared up at him. "Yes. So is Peter."
"Thank God. What happened? Is this about the dragons?"
"The Count is dead. Peter -- the guards tried to kill him, and he wouldn't back down. I could have stopped it! I could have just said to take Washer." The dragon sniffed curiously at Bogatyr.
The smith's hand whitened on the hammer, but he made no other move. "No Count. The Tsar will send us a madman."
"No. Peter is the new Count." She shivered. Bogatyr reached out with his big free arm, but stopped. She looked at the ground and said, "What now?""
The smith rumbled in thought. "There could be better men, but there could be much worse. What happens to us now depends on the boy."
#
For Alexi a few days passed peacefully. Peter was in consultation with merchants, priests, smiths, farmers and scholars, hardly leaving his new mansion. Then came the day when trumpets sounded and the guards came as heralds, summoning a crowd to the market square. At a request relayed by Ivan, Alexi took her dragon along.
The square hummed with rumors. The noise grew once Alexi was in sight, giving many their first glimpse of Washer. The dragon sniffed around, tail wagging, but Alexi only felt uneasy at what her brother might be doing.
"Welcome, friends!" said Peter from a dais, drawing eyes reluctantly from Washer. He wore a retailored uniform the Count had owned, with a flame-red cape and the Count's sword. "I wish to quell any rumors. The old Count is dead, God rest his soul, and has chosen me to succeed him. Many of you know me, and word has spread of my dragon. Behold: Cinder!" At this he pulled away a sheet to reveal his dragon. It reared up and sprayed fire on the white cloth, destroying it. Alexi winced. The crowd gasped.
Peter said, "You can see also my sister Alexi and her own dragon, with the power of water." He pointed, making Alexi look down to avoid the weight of the people's gaze. "They may not be huge and mighty yet, but they're already dangerous -- to anyone who threatens our home."
"This county will be in good hands, and safe as long as it's clear we've made an orderly transition. I've been talking with men from town and the surrounding villages on everything from rhetoric" -- he grinned and nodded to a scholar -- "to farming. This place is prosperous already, but it can be even better. We'll expand the mine and build new waterwheels. A school! A theater! This land will be the gem of the kingdom!"
A man from the crowd laughed. "All these grand plans from a little apprentice and his pet."
Peter slashed a hand dismissively through the air, but his face was flushed. "Apprentice, nothing! Besides being the man chosen by His Lordship the Count, and a loyal member of the community, I -- this morning I became a master smith! That makes me eligible for guild membership, able to hold my own in trade dealings with other cities."
Alexi blinked. Peter, a master already? It seemed unlikely. She felt overwhelmed by the proclamations, and barely paid attention as Peter brought priests of the old and new faiths to bless his reign. The people prayed dutifully, though for what she couldn't say.
Afterward, she approached him at the mansion's garden. "What is this about you being a master?"
Peter ran hands through his hair in agitation. "Don't you start too. Boggy already yelled at me, nearly called me a liar in public. We'll make it true. I'll forge a masterpiece, starting today, and Bogatyr will give me the stupid title. It's not like I need it now anyway."
"But you've put in all those years --"
"Making horse-shoes! I was lucky if I got to mend a sword or sharpen an axe. I did smithing because it put a roof over my head and helped you buy your own."
"That's all?" Alexi thought back to visiting him at the forge, seeing the grin of a boy with flame and steel at his command.
Peter leaned against a tree, looking to the clouds. "I liked being able to shape things, to hammer a block of metal into something new and better. But now the county is my raw material! I can pound it into anything I want! What good are fairy-tales compared to that?" He shook himself from his reverie and grinned. "Leave everything to me. Quit your washing and move to our mansion."
Alexi said, "Quit? I can't do that. The clothes need washing."
Peter laughed. "There are other washer-women, and I'm sure your Washer can find other work. Where is that thing, anyway?"
Alexi looked around, then remembered, "I took him home." But suddenly the air rippled and Washer was at her feet, looking puzzled. Alexi hopped in fright,then scratched Washer's muzzle to reassure herself he was really there.
Peter was wide-eyed. "Magic, from a dragon! I shouldn't be surprised. Here -- Cinder!" He raised an arm theatrically and his own dragon appeared from nowhere, claws digging into the dirt. "A nice trick! All right, sister, I'm off to the forge to earn my title." He hurried away.
#
A week later, when Alexi checked in on him at the forge, Peter looked haggard and overjoyed. "You're just in time."
Even from the doorway Alexi felt the furnace wind. "The masterpiece?" Washer peeked behind her, having grown to wolf-size already.
Peter led her to the smithy's main room. His dragon, Cinder, puffed steam form its nostrils, curled up with its segmented tail of iron-black scales. Peter adjusted his gloves and reached into a barrel, drawing something up from the quenching water. A sword of gleaming steel, with a blade that snaked back and forth along its length like flame or a wave. "It's called a flamberge," he said.
"Is it usable?" Alexi asked, finding herself staring at how firelight flickered on the brilliant wet metal.
"Of course. Wake old Boggy for me."
She smiled. "Good luck." She went to the master smith's door and said, "Sir, he's ready!"
Bogatyr stepped into the room, nodding to Alexi, and stood by the forge. "After all these years, do you think you're ready?"
Peter gave a huge smile and presented the flamberge as an offering. Bogatyr peered at it, then took it in one hand, dangled the massive thing between two fingers, tapped it with a nail and listened to it ring. He shut his eyes, feeling each surface. Peter waited with gritted teeth, Alexi on tiptoe. Finally Bogatyr rumbled and said, "It's a fine sword."
"Then I pass the test!"
"But," said the smith, "you overreached. It reaches too far, and too heavily."
"I'm plenty strong, and I'll get stronger. Having as long a reach as possible is important."
"Yet you put weight into this tricky twisted blade. Is it to scare people, to inflict more pain, or to cripple?"
Peter had panic in his eyes. "It's a good enough sword!"
Bogatyr clapped him on the shoulder. "It is a good sword, and I'm proud of the skill you've shown. But you are not a master yet. Take your time and try again."
"Time?" said Peter, shaking him off. Peter bristled. "Do you know how busy I am, how little sleep I've had?"
"Yes." The smith turned to Alexi. "Girl: leave."
Alexi backed away but Peter said, "No! I want her to hear you declare me a master." When Bogatyr said nothing, Peter seemed to relax, staring into the fire and speaking calmly. "I am the Count of Iron Crag now, and it wouldn't do to have me be a mere apprentice at the same time. You can fix that."
Bogatyr said, "Then I can dismiss you from your apprenticeship."
"That's not what I'm looking to hear."
"Boy --" said the smith.
"Count."
"Boy, a smith's work is sacred. I thought you knew. If you don't then it's not just the sword that keeps you from being a master."
Steel scraped along an anvil, and Peter sprang at Bogatyr to hold the sword to his throat. Alexi gasped. Peter said, "Say it! I am a master! Tht's all you need to do!"
The smith glared into Peter's eyes, while Alexi trembled. After a few seconds Bogatyr said, "I will tell anyone who asks that you are a master smith." The blade bumped his Adam's apple.
Peter scowled and drew the blade away. "Fine." Alexi saw his hand trembling as he turned aside. When he spoke again he sounded calm again. "Thank you. Really. I've learned a lot from you." He hurried outside, keeping his face averted.
Alexi was left there stunned. "Why? Master Bogatyr, why did you say it?" The blade had nicked him, drawing a tiny bead of blood.
"Because it wasn't worth dying over."
#
Men came from the nearby villages to build waterwheels. Alexi and Washer paused from their own work to watch the newcomers. Over the weeks, big wooden wheels spun up, bringing a merry creaking to the stream and making possible new smithies, new smelters for dragon-forged steel. Alexi worried for Peter but was proud at least of the change he brought -- until the day when pipes belched smoke in her face.
Alexi sputtered. Wind blew downstream from the mountains as the new smithies came to life. Grey haze made her choke and flee from the stream with a tub of laundry that was already stained again. Washer sprayed her down with soap and water, then found a new trick of warm-air breath that dried her. Alexi shivered anyway, gaping at the smoke plumes engulding her home.
She marched down to the Count's mansion and found more workmen crawling over it. Guards stopped her at the door.
"What's the meaning of this?" she said. "Where's Peter?"
"This is going to be the new medical college," one guard said. He saw Alexi's bewildered look, and smiled. "Doctors from all over the kingdom, and students, and their money."
The other guard said, "The Count isn't here. He's up by the mine."
Alexi stood with hands on hips. "Now what? I can't do my work with the smoke in my face."
The mansion's door opened, and Tanya appeared. "Ah, Alexi -- my lady, rather! Come inside."
"And do what?"
"Aren't you here to start training? A doctor is already her to teach us about ill vapors."
"I've had enough vapors already, and I'm not a nurse."
Tanya laughed loudly enough to startle the guards beside her. "We both are, now. The Count decided it this morning."
"Then who will do the laundry?"
Tanya shrugged. "Peasant women."
"And what am I?"
"You're a noble, milady. You're a better sort of person. Please, come in so we can study."
The mansion reminded her of death, and now it would be full of outsiders and sickness. Alexi stepped back, thinking. She needed a clean, well-lighted place to work, and for the moment that meant getting her brother's attention. She started walking away, towards the mine.
Tanya objected. "Milady?"
"I'm not a nurse." Tanya kept pace, annoying Alexi.
"But the Count --"
Washer nudged Alexi, making her realize that he was nearly the size of a pony. How had she missed the extent of his growth? A thought struck her, and she tried hoisting herself onto the dragon's back. Alexi glared upstream at the forges, and tapped Washer's sides with her heels until the dragon squawked, uncoiled, and bounded forward. Alexi whooped and tried desperately to hang onto his shoulders, but it was all right; together they swerved around the gardens, plunged into the stream, and with a splashing leap went back out to the sunlight, past startled townsfolk.
Alexi caught a grin on her face as she hung on, seeing her town flash by, and feeling the wind whip through her hair. It would be great to see the place prosper and to know she'd been part of that growth. She rode past the forges' smoke-plumes -- she'd work out something with Peter -- and upstream to the red mountains spearing the sky.
Something was making thunder in the peaks.
Alexi slowed Washer, patting his neck. Explosions in the mine? Her heart sped for the miners until she heard that the booms came from past the mine entrance. Now she was more puzzled than afraid, letting Washer trot ahead along the steep trail. After a while, a chunk of sizzling-hot rock fell into their path.
Alexi yelped and Washer reared back, blasting it with water so that steam flew up. Another boom sounded, and then the noise stopped and Peter hurried into view, looking down from a ledge. "You! Are you all right?"
"What's happening?"
He brought her to the ledge, where Cinder rested in a pit of slag and red-hot stone. "We're laying the foundations for my castle." Cinder had grown, and his iron-dark scales and ash-grey legs smouldered from effort. "Isn't she amazing? More impressive than your laundry-beast."
Alexi's eyes narrowed and she curtseyed. "I freely acknowledge that my brother has the larger dragon. Now, what is all this about building forges upwind of my shop and telling me to be a nurse?"
Peter said, "It's all part of my plan. Here, look." He took her hand and pointed far below, to the growing town and the distant sight of villages, dots on a green plain. "Everything you see here is mine. I have a duty now to improve people's lives, and that means a lot of work." Peter turned to her with a smile on his face. "Cinder and I can't do everything that must be done. I need your help and everyone else's."
"To do what?" said Alexi.
Peter waved vaguely at the valley. "Everything! With Cinder we can expand the mine and forge more and better steel. Steel means wealth. Wealth means more things for the people -- doctors, teachers, more food, better houses. The old Count sat on his ass and did nothing but keep the peace. I'm better. I aim to do more."
Alexi felt torn between the thought of so much useful work getting done -- of her brother singlehandedly turning her home into the jewel of the kingdom -- and of the question she'd asked Tanya. "Who will do the laundry?"
Peter laughed. "That's what peasants are for! Your washing days are over. Everyone's got their role to play in my plan, and yours is better than that." He smiled at her, looking into her eyes. "You'll help people. Save lives."
"It would have been nice if you'd asked," she groused, admitting to herself that medicine was as useful a trade as washing.
"It doesn't matter. You'll love it." He pulled a scroll from his cloak and tapped it against his leg. "I heard from the Tsar. I informed him of the peaceful transition, sent him presents, and told him of the dragons."
Alexi gaped. "He won't let us keep them! He'll send the Black Riders, to take them and kill us all for sport!"
"Only this scroll came," said Peter. "It names me Count of Iron Crag, and of Blade Forest." He pointed to the western horizon, where the mountains continued amid forest. "Baron, in total."
"I don't understand. Did the Count there die?"
"Not yet. The Tsar hates him, but some of the Black Riders are from there and he's hesitant to use them there." Peter shrugged. "Even the Tsar isn't all-powerful."
"Not yet? Are you suggesting murder?" What a waste that would be.
"We'll ride there on dragon-back, and suggest that he leave. He won't be stupid enough to fight."
"What if he does? Peter, you could die out there!"
Peter put the scroll away and looked to his dragon, seeming to take comfort in its obvious power. "I have a duty to improve things, and that means having more than one little county to work with. Come with me and we'll get this done as peacefully as possible."
"When?"
"Tonight. Then you can get back to your work. Leave everything to me."
#
Alexi couldn't sleep even with Washer laying against her like a bed-sized pillow. She wanted to see her home prosper, but at what cost? Peter's ambitions, grand as they were, unnerved her. She scratched Washer's neck and murmured, "Why did you come to us? Is it destiny, or did something from fairy-land pop into being for no reason?" Washer yawned. Alexi sighed; at least Peter knew what he was doing.
Peter opened her door and said, "It's time."
She led Washer outside in silence. Cinder's breath made heat-waves along her skin that made her shiver in the cold night. Peter wore his swords and a fur-lined cloak.
Riding dragon-back felt reassuring. With Washer at her command, she told herself, they could do no wrong. Peter looked regal atop Cinder, with his cloak flapping behind him. She could see why people heeded him and made little fuss over his ascension as Count: he was dashing, a hero out of the storybooks.
"What are you smiling at?" said Peter, throwing a grin of his own over one shoulder.
Alexi hid her mouth behind one hand. "You'll be a good Count, won't you?"
"Baron!" he said, and rode ahead.
The moon was high when the forest parted, revealing a granite castle perched on a hill. The town below was not far different from her own: another whole community of kind people. the sight made her feel more confident in the world, having filled in a bit more of her map of it and found more there, more of the same. Peter led he on, approaching the castle in silence.
A guard warmed his hands by a brazier, and looked up to see the dragon-riders. He dashed to a sally-port door and pounded on it, shouting a warning. Peter raised a hand and called out, "Peace! We're here to see the Count."
Peter rode on and repeated himself. The guard flattened himself against the wall, with a sword trembling in his hands. When Alexi caught up, Peter muttered, "A mouse for a guard." Then, louder: "We mean you no harm. We're on business from the Tsar himself."
The sally-port door flew open and three armed men sprang out. They too, froze at the sight of the dragons. "Well?" said Peter.
#
The Count's ermine robe lay lopsided across his shoulders as he staggered downstairs. "What's all this? Two children blathering about the Tsar and monsters?"
"I'm the Count of Iron Crag," said Peter, "And I've --"
The Count laughed. "You're the boy with all those rumors swirling about you."
One of the guards said, "Not just rumors, my lord. The beasts are outside our gate!" The Count's face paled but showed fear for only a moment.
Peter said, "By order of the Tsar, you are relieved of your fief, and I am the new Count of this land. Baron in all."
Alexi trembled, but there was nothing she could do. Peter was in charge.
The Count said, "Doubly preposterous. The Tsar has issued no such insult to me, and as you may not know, boy, a baron rules over counts but is not a count himself."
Peter took a scroll from his vest and said, "I have my orders. Have you seen our dragons, by the way? Cinder, come!" He raised an arm, and with a whoosh of heat that rustled Alexi's clothes, Peter's dragon appeared. A chair splintered as its iron tail smacked the floor. Firelight shined between red-grey scales and ashen hide. The guards shouted and drew axes.
The Count, though pale in the firelight, stood his ground with a dragon's head within reach of his own. "The devil's sorcery," he said. "You say you have the right to my land? Show me."
"I did," said Peter, looking startled at the Count's reaction.
"Give me the scroll."
Peter hesitated, then shoved it at the Count, who held it taut to steady his hands. The Count looked it over, then said, "The Tsar's red ink is made from blood, usually cattle. This is not."
Peter said, "Are you calling me a liar?"
Alexi froze. She hadn't read the scroll; Peter had told her what he was doing, that the Tsar had awarded him this land.
The Count faced the dragon's toothy smile and locked eyes on Peter. "You're a liar, a fraud and a usurper. The fact that you have a big lizard changes nothing."
Peter laughed at him. "How about two of them? Sister, bring yours."
Alexi faltered. "There's hardly room."
"Do it!" Peter hissed.
Alexi didn't know what else to do, with the angry Count and his men around them, so she did as told. She raised her am and called out to Washer. In a rush of mist her dragon appeared, close against Cinder's flank and looking bewildered. She patted his neck to reassure herself.
The Count gaped at seeing both dragons now. He stammered, "Impressive! Very impressive! What's your point?"
Peter said, "The points are the tips of my dragon's teeth, and two more on my belt. You're relieved as Count of this land."
"No." The Count seemed emboldened by the echo of his own word. He stepped towards Peter, saying, "No. Force and fraud won't make you lord of the land. Now leave, boy."
Peter jabbed a finger towards Cinder and Washer, his face darkening. "Are you blind? I told you how things are. Don't make this hard."
"Or what? By God, I'll not lift a hand against a child who's used nothing but words to disgrace himself. Is the girl part of your dishonor too? Did you ask her to help you murder me?"
Alexi blushed. Peter had -- well, he hadn't lied to her, had he? The Count was wrong about the ink. "Peter, the letter..."
"It doesn't matter," said Peter. To the Count he said, "Enough talk. Kneel."
The Count clenched fists at his sides. "No."
Alexi said, "Peter, let's leave." There was a moment when Alexi felt she should say more, but the decision was in Peter's hands.
Peter drew his swords and said, "Cinder, attack!" Then he gasped, clutching his arm, and dropped the old Count's shining sword. A crossbow bolt jutted redly from his shirt.The shooter was not one of the guards, but a chambermaid who now fled, as the guards closed in and dragons screeched. Alexi got knocked back by Washer's tail, scooped up in a cradle of his neck and onto his back. Peter swung wildly with his good arm, but a guard's axe bit him and the Count had leaped at him with a dagger, saying, "Burn in Hell!"
It was the Count who burned, when Cinder's flame threw him to the floor. His robe caught and he screamed, eyes aflame, trying to stab Peter. Cinder turned and slammed aside the guards attacking Peter, blowing fire at one and raking another neck-to-belly with claws.
Alexi couldn't breathe. She wanted to undo this moment and be back to just talking, but it was too late. Washer reared back his head. She flinched, fearing he'd bite someone in half. Washer hesitated too, looking sidelong at her.
"Go!" she said. The Count was flailing and his clothes burning, so that he was like a demon striking at Peter's swords, driving Peter back. "Put him out!" Washer breathed a torrent of water at the men, sweeping them to the ground. Cinder faced her and roared to shake the hall. Alexi quailed, pressed down against Washer, wishing for the trouble to end.
It did. Peter was the only one who stood from the smoldering heap of bodies in the flooded chamber. He staggered through water, fumbling for a dropped sword. "We did it." His face held more pain than joy.
"All dead..." said Alexi, feeling she would slump from her dragon's back.
Peter glared up at her, past the twisting neck of Cinder. "I took a few cuts myself," he said with a cough.
She looked vaguely around the walls, past the carnage. "A doctor, somewhere."
"No! Not here. Home." Peter fumbled for a seat on Cinder's back. "You stay here. Guard the place. I'll return."
"Here?" She couldn't stay in such a place alone! But her thoughts were interrupted by a splash and a wet crunch. Cinder was eating the bodies. Her toes curled in her boots at the sight of a gleaming red eye and iron-dark scales spattered with gore. Peter hauled himself upright on Cinder and said nothing. Alexi heard faint heaving hiccups from herself and forced her gaze away.
"Stronger," said Peter. After a while he added, "I'm going. Stay and wait."
Alexi turned to nod mutely to Peter, as the black dragon wheeled and burst through the great hall's doors into freezing wind. She sat transfixed, because when she had looked, she did not seem to see Peter at all.
#
For hours she shivered and paced the hall, praying no one would ambush her too with a crossbow. She called out from time to time, "Stay away if you value your life!" The murky water sloshed around her boots until she retreated to a ledge and sat on soggy carpet, head on hands. No one dared bother her.
Washer nudged her arm with his muzzle. Irrationally she shuddered from the warm touch and both of them drew back. Alexi said, "Why? Why did you dragons come to us?" Washer only regarded her with soft equine eyes. She felt too weak to stand, or even to look at the mess below; she thought of the cleaning that the hall would need.
Washer looked down at what remained of the bodies, then regarded her again. "No!" said Alexi. "Only monsters eat people." Peter had been trying to grow stronger, to make his dragon stronger and expand their territory. He'd lied to do that, but then he'd say that didn't matter, any more than his sword to Bogatyr's throat made him not really a master smith. So Peter was a baron, even if he'd had to -- to --
Alexi couldn't continue the thought. If she could wait and do what she was told, she'd be helping people, helping Peter improve things. The hall stood empty, with Peter's new subjects too afraid even to look at her.
Ivan, the guard from home, arrived and slipped his wool cloak over her. She could hardly look at him all the way back, or watch the Iron Crag guards who streamed next into the hall to consolidate Peter's rule. Alexi was glad for his quiet company as she rode home on Washer. But when they arrived, the forge-smoke clouded the river and she couldn't find her house.
Ivan said, "What's wrong? Your things are in the mansion now." She blinked at him and he said, "He didn't tell you?" Through a break in the smoke she could see the spot where she'd knelt washing clothes for years, now torn up and under construction as another forge.
"Peter /destroyed my house/ while I was away helping him?"
Ivan stammered, "I'm sure the Count -- Baron -- whatever -- didn't mean any harm. You can live in the mansion."
"The hospital, you mean?"
Ivan stared at his boots. "Of course, my lady. You're working there anyway, right?"
"I am not!" Alexi said, startled by her own voice. Washer lifted his head from dozing. "I'm just a washerwoman. What's Peter doing giving orders so soon after coming back hurt?"
"Hurt? He was fine. He returned pounding on the barracks door, demanding troops to occupy his new province."
Alexi glared at Ivan. "And you're his favorite?" she snapped. "I'm told he needs Counts under him to be a Baron; is that the job you're after?"
"My lady, that's not fair."
"Neither is how he's treated me, or the Counts! I'm going to -- to --" She stifled a yawn, being hungry, exhausted and cold. "I'll give him an earful tomorrow."
#
She woke in darkness, feeling lethargic. Something cold rested on her forehead. She brushed it aside, murmuring, "Washer, no nose," but then came a clang of metal on the wooden floor. Sleepily she looked past the bed to find a scarlet ribbon tied around a dagger.
Alexi scooted away from it, getting tangled in sheets. Washer slept by the door. Who would sneak into her room, slip past a dragon, and place a knife on her forehead? All that came to mind was the truth: men on black horses, bridles trimmed with dogs' heads. The Black Riders.
Alexi stood, shivering. "Washer, wake up!" The dragon opened one eye and gave a yawn full of molars. "How did you sleep through that?"
So had she. The dragon was no worse than her, and no better. A simple laun-dragon, not to be blamed for sleeping through danger. Peter's was much like himself, too, a creature of fire and iron. A monster, though: a beast eager to feast on the charred corpses of its enemies. Peter wasn't like that! She shivered, thinking of Master Bogatyr's neck, the Count's death, the false letter, the other Count striking like a rattlesnake only after warning Peter against lies, robbery, murder -- and she imagined that night when Peter rode away without her, for a moment seeing the bloody fangs and red eyes on her brother's own face.
The knife wasn't a threat, so much as a request.
Alexi threw on a dress and cloak and shoved the dagger into a pocket. Peter had to see the thing and understand that the Tsar was more dangerous than a fire-breathing lizard. She got Washer to uncurl, stretch, and follow her out to a cold drizzling sunset. Townsfolk stared at her as she rode, and pulled their children inside. Alexi glared at the old Count's mansion and at the ruins of her house. Rain soaked her. She headed for the mountains, where she could hear the boom of a dragon smashing stones. There, leathery wings thrashed the air and her brother carved himself a castle with hot steel claws.
Alexi froze. Peter, or the dragon, or whatever they had become, reared up on hindlegs and crushed a boulder. He fixed eyes on her and paused, looking at his massive hands as though he hadn't noticed them. "What...?" he said, and raindrops caught the steam from his muzzle. "So it's happened again."
"What happened?" Alexi said. Washer slid protectively in front of her, but she still felt about to collapse with fright.
"I'm stronger. This is what dragons can do to you, I see. I've reached a peak." He spent long seconds admiring himself, then tilted his head and aimed one flame-red eye at her. "Why didn't you?"
"This has to stop," she said, her voice trembling.
"What does? Growing, changing, being a hero?"
"You -- you were Cinder already when -- it was you who ate those people."
"For a while. One moment I was reeling and wounded, and the next I was strong and healthy. It seemed natural." The dragon waved a hand dismissively. "And so what? This way there's nothing to bury or mourn."
Alexi stared up at him with rain plastering hair to her face. "The Tsar knows you lied. We're all in danger."
"Join me, then," said Peter, offering a huge hand as if to dance. "You'll stand with me as we use the forges to build an army, and free the kingdom from tyranny. We'll kill the Tsar and his ministers, and rule over everything."
The blood drained from Alexi's face as she looked to Washer. Why hadn't the same thing happened to her, making her a handsome, gleaming white dragon to match this, this monster? Peter was a forthright man who fought for what he wanted. She herself said she wanted a peaceful life, yet she went along with whatever Peter wanted, even if it was wrong. Maybe that difference was the key.
"Let me tell a story," Alexi said. "Imagine that a mad wizard in another land made dragons as mirrors. He scattered the eggs, wanting to see what their finders' hearts made of them."
Peter's smile was a slice of Hell. "In that case, you have a cute little spirit." He reached down to pat Washer -- who recoiled and screeched.
"Stop!" Alexi said, feeling the knife beside her. "You may not touch Washer, and you can't spend your life murdering your way to greatness!"
The iron-forged dragon brought his face close to her and caressed the underside of her chin with a scalding metal claw. "In the name of everything you love, never again dare to tell me that there are things I must not do."
She retched and quivered, torn between a sick love for such unbridled power and an angelic aspect of herself begging to plunge the knife into the monster's brain. Now!
"Please," she said, standing on the foundation of a black castle. "Just let me alone."
Peter smiled, stretching high into the night sky and burning raindrops with his steaming maw. "Of course!" he bellowed. "Good that you would ask so nicely. Everyone ought to ask that. Everyone belongs to me."
Alexi said nothing, as she had been silent before. How could she hope to change his mind, when she was so weak? What did she love that was worth more than her brother? In the face of blade-teeth and a beast that seethed like a volcano, she could think nothing of love. Nor was it kindness that fueled Peter's quest.
Peter loomed over her and said with a cloud of vapor, "Let's be clear, then. You're mine. /Kneel./"
Washer, soaked and miserable, coiled around Alexi, butting his head against her. He was a creature of potential might and magic, far better than she deserved, and to betray Peter was a mad dream. She pushed Washer away. On the dark stone, in the rain, she knelt and acknowledged the burning dragon as her master.
So began the reign of Peter the Dragonlord, the Searing Glory, the Winged Damnation.
