Rails Across The Dragonlands Read online

  Chapter 2

  Svan told them what he could, but all his stories were similar. A town would hire Svan to deal with a monster who had been eating their livestock, Svan would chase the monster to some distant valley or wood, and leave it there. Only the details of the monsters and the towns changed. At the end of each story Geoffrey would ask, “And you just ran away from it?” while Wilmer begged for another.

  Finally Geoffrey asked, “Do you have any story where you properly finished the job?”

  “If I am alive, and collect my pay, it is a proper finish.”

  “But said that you’re a hero.” Wilmer twisted the ends of his mustache. “Heroes are supposed to kill monsters.”

  “Heroes are supposed to deal with monsters, not get killed by them,” Svan said.

  “People want stories where the hero kills the monster, and brings back its head on a pike. He returns to the village, they throw him a huge celebration, and he kisses the Mayor's daughter.”

  “Then I would be dead.”

  “Why?” Geoffrey pulled off his glasses and polished them with a silk handkerchief.

  “My wife would kill me.”

  The train whistle ended further conversation. The brakes squealed, then screamed as the train dragged itself to a stop beside a weathered station. Passengers jumped up and grabbed their things from the overhead racks, then shoved their way toward the exit. A woman yelped, a face was slapped, and an apology muttered. Chickens squawked in a cage; a dog barked. The mob pushed its way outside, emptying like a water bottle on sand.

  In the relative silence of the car, Geoffrey looked at Svan. “You aren’t getting off here?”

  “I’m going across the Dragonlands.”

  “Good Lord, why?” Wilmer’s eyes widened. “Don't you know that it's certain death to cross the Dragonlands? It's full of dragons – giant, meat-eating, human-devouring dragons. They'll rend your flesh and crunch your bones, and use your skull for a dice-cup.”

  “You are not leaving,” Svan pointed out.

  “We've got a publishing contract to discuss. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, well worth the risk of death.” He smiled to show how little he believed his own story. “But you? Why are you going to the East Coast?”

  “Business,” Svan said.

  “I’m sure he has a very good reason for going.” A dainty young woman stood in the aisle, holding a parasol and a traveling bag. Her wide skirt was layered in lace, and her blond hair was layered in curls. “We all do. May I sit with you?”

  Svan moved to the end of the bench. With a rustle of stiff petticoats, she sat down.

  “And why are you risking certain death?” Wilmer leaned toward her.

  “Certain death,” she snorted. “And what other fantasy stories are you telling? There are no more dragons in the high plateau than there are wyverns in the Knife Edge Mountains. Does anyone want a sandwich? I brought plenty.”

  Svan glanced down at his boots and wondered if he had been wise to carry the bag instead of his weapons.

  The conductor appeared beside them. “Excuse me, sirs and miss – this car is to be cut from the train, so would you mind moving forward?”

  Svan looked up. “The baggage, it will go with us?”

  “I will be notifying her, as well.” He glanced toward the haughty woman who still sat in her seat, her right hand clutching an ornate walking stick.

  “I meant the car behind this one. My things are in that car.”

  “Yes, sir. This is the only car to be cut from the train.”

  “Well.” The young lady put her sandwiches away. “We’d best be moving. By the way, my name is Adrian Mills.”

  “Svan Svenson. I am a Hero.” He picked up the carpetbag.

  Adrian smiled. “I think it’s only fair to tell you that I’m meeting my fiancée on the East Coast. We're going to be married next month.”

  Svan nodded. “I have been married for twenty-five years. I recommend it.”

  At this Wilmer spoke to his companion sotto voice. “Now we know he’s not a hero. Heroes don’t marry.”

  Geoffrey looked thoughtful. “Twenty-five years? Sounds Heroic to me.”

  Chapter 3

  The forward car was shabby. Two windows were cracked, and the cushions were threadbare. A strong smell of cigar smoke and alcohol permeated the curtains. Besides the five people who moved from the rear car, there were a half-dozen rough-shod men clustered around a deck of cards, and an elderly couple dressed in simple Sunday clothes. Despite the late afternoon heat, the lamps and the kerosene stoves were already lit.

  Two women, barefoot and dressed in rags, moved through the car with pies and glazed jugs to sell to the passengers. They approached the haughty woman. “Will you want wine or beer, Mam?”

  “Certainly not!” She thrust her chin toward Svan. “Try him – no doubt he's ready for more.”

  “Will you want a pork pie for the long trip ahead, Mam?”

  “Come back later, at dinnertime.”

  “We won’t be staying on the train, Mam.”

  “Then I am certain the porter will offer us something at the proper time.”

  Svan watched the porter lock his cabinet at the front of the car, pocket his keys, and jump off the train. Through the window he could see the conductor talking to the baggage clerk, as they both made their way into the station.

  “Will you want wine or beer, sir?” The vendors had reached Svan's party.

  Geoffrey peered at the glazed jugs. “What vintage is the wine?”

  “It’s local, sir. Made it last month, we did.”

  The writers cringed while Adrian fanned herself.

  “Do you have water?” Svan asked.

  The two women looked at each other, then the first one spoke. “Yes. But it’s local.”

  “I will take all your water and one jug of wine. And all your pies.”

  “All of them?” Both women stared.

  They were poor, and he was a hero. This was a duty. Svan pulled out his purse and poured gold coins into his palm. “Will this be enough?”

  “Oh, yes sir. Thank you, sir!” They handed over a large basket and a dozen jugs, then hurried off the train.

  Adrian looked into the basket. “That’s a lot of pies. Didn't your wife pack you food for the trip?”

  “Just these.” Svan showed her the wax balls in the carpet bag.

  “What are those?”

  “My wife made them for the dragons.” He shrugged.

  Wilmer took one. “It's just wax.”

  “There is wax, and within there is...” He paused, not knowing the lowland word for the herb she had used. “There is katafayda.”

  “What?”

  “Katafayda. I am to throw it at the dragons.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “I promised my wife that if I saw a dragon, I would do as she asked.” He shrugged.

  Chapter 4

  The train curved south, then climbed a low rise up the face of the mountain ridge. The late afternoon sunlight shone unrelentingly through the windows, adding to the heat from the stoves and lamps. Windows were thrown open, but that helped little, and they let cinders from the boiler stream in like a plague of black flies.

  The haughty lady fanned her face, red and shiny from perspiration. “It's much too hot in here. We don't need those stoves.”

  One of the men looked up from his game. “You'll want them soon enough, lady.”

  “We don't need them now,” she sniffed. “When it becomes dark, the porter can re-light them.”

  “There is no porter,” Svan said.

  “Nonsense. He’s in the other car.”

  “There is no other car.”

  “Of course there’s another car. I shall find him, and insist that he put these stoves out.” She hefted herself to her feet and marched to the front of the car. Throwing open the door, she stared at the blank end of a boxcar. Undaunted, she closed that door and marched to the rear. She flung open the doo
r and pointed to the solid wood door on the car behind them. “He's in there.”

  “That is the baggage car,” Svan said. “It is locked. Both the porter and the baggage clerk left the train.”

  With a sharp look back, she stepped across the coupling and rattled the doorknob. Then she banged on the door. After a few minutes she returned, glared at Svan, and said, “What do you mean, they left?”

  “They got off the train and did not come back.”

  “Then what are we to do for food? And drink?” Her voice wasn't shrill, but as insistent as an avalanche.

  “I have plenty. Enough for everyone.”

  The lady sniffed. “That is not the accommodations I expected.”

  Taking a deep breath, Svan stood. “I will go outside. I believe it will be cooler there.”

  “I'm going with you,” Adrian announced.

  They went out onto the rear platform, which was not large enough for a wide-shouldered hero and a woman in a voluminous skirt. In addition, Geoffrey and Wilmer were rising to follow. Svan looked around and saw the ladder leading up to the roof. The train was moving slow enough that he was in no danger of being thrown off, and there would be plenty of open space. He hoisted himself up.

  And found the view to be spectacular. Before him the whole of the Farmlands lay golden red in the setting sun, a patchwork of cultivated fields like a giant quilt. Purple shadows stretched like ink stains from the occasional forests; ruby light reflected from ponds and lakes. Towns clustered along a wriggling river; train tracks webbed them together. Here and there a steam engine sent up smoke signals to its fellows as it traveled.

  Here also was precious solitude, a balm for his soul. For the first time since entering the Farmlands, Svan breathed easy.

  “Excuse me, but could you move down a bit?” Despite her skirts, and still carrying her parasol, Adrian had climbed the ladder.

  “I do not think this is a safe place for you,” Svan said.

  “If it’s safe for you, it’s safe for me.”

  “But I am a hero.”

  “And I am a woman. Now, please move. Wilmer and Geoffrey are also coming up the ladder, and there is no room for me to turn around.”

  A hero does his best work alone, but a hero is still obliged to other people. Regretfully but responsibly, Svan moved down.

  Chapter 5

  It was pleasant on top of the car. There were still cinders from the engine, but Adrian's parasol blocked the worst of them. As she waxed poetic about the view, Wilmer copied down her phrases. The older couple had come as well, and sat at the end of the car with their picnic basket tucked between them.

  “Look, Ira,” said the woman. “You can see the farm from here.”

  “Yep,” said the man. “There's your house, Ida.”

  Svan looked where they pointed, but could only see a patch of fields and seed-sized buildings.

  Geoffrey turned to the older couple. “Why are you traveling to the East Coast?”.

  “Got kids,” said Ida.

  “Got grandkids,” said Ira.

  “Are you afraid of the dragons?”

  “Wouldn't want to meet one,” said Ida.

  “Big as a house,” Ira said.

  Svan doubted that was true. In his experience, monsters gained size every time they were described to someone new.

  “Can't fight 'em off,” Ida added.

  “Can't hide. They sniff out anything,” said Ira.

  “Run faster than a train.”

  Svan also doubted this. The larger the monster, in his experience, the more it lumbered.

  “But only when they're active.” Ida finished.

  “They sleep a lot.” Ira nodded in agreement.

  “We'll be safe.”

  Svan turned away and looked up the length of the train as it chugged up a low rise toward the pass. He could see that the engine had been changed to a long-nosed tank engine encased in a cage. Hooks and barbs embellished the iron bars, as if protecting it from a fierce beast. Might the dragon stories be true?

  The passenger car, on the other hand, had wood paneling over a simple frame. No protection at all. That argued against the dragon stories.

  On the other hand, the better car had been taken from the train, and the older, less valuable car had been left.

  Pondering this, Svan turned back to Ida and Ira. “These dragons – what keeps them from leaving the Dragonlands and coming down to eat the cows in the farmlands?”

  “Winter,” said Ira

  “Fear of heights,” said Ida

  Svan blew out his breath.

  Chapter 5

  Beyond the pass, the train slid into a world of shadows and trees, and the small party returned to the cabin. The card players continued their game with a stoic grimness; Svan and the rest shared meat pies and stories. It looked as if this would be a pleasant enough journey, much more comfortable than rising a horse across the mountains. Svan went to sleep confident, at last, that he had made the right choice.

  Chapter 6

  A squeal of the brakes woke Svan. He opened his eyes and saw a wretched landscape huddled in fog. Wind-blasted rock and dry scrub stretched into grey nothingness. A boulder large enough to set a house inside sat on the lip of a deep ravine.

  Adrian lifted her head from Wilmer’s shoulder. She sniffed. “Is something burning?”

  Ira and Ida stood by the window with placid frowns on their weathered faces. Ida said slowly, “That’s not good .”

  That isn’t fog, Svan realized, as a pile of twisted, smoldering timber slid into view. Charred fingers, hands, and arms reached up from the wreck.

  “Oh, God,” Adrian whispered. “What happened?”

  “Train wreck.” Geoffrey pushed his glasses up his nose. “There can't be survivors.”

  “Dragon attack,” said Ida

  “Dragon attack?” Wilmer's mustache quivered. “The fiery breath of a dragon burned up the train?”

  “They just yank the cars from the track,” Ira stated. “The stoves start the fire.”

  Svan wasn't alone in turning to look at the stoves at either end of the cabin.

  Adrian shuddered. “Shouldn’t we put them out? In case there's an accident – or something?”

  “Couldn't hurt,” said Ira. She went to the stove within the circle of laborers, who still played furiously at their game and ignored the scene outside the window. Ida went to the closer stove, and Geoffrey and Wilmer shut off the lamps.

  The haughty woman came awake. “Have we stopped? Why have we stopped? We'll be late if we stop for every little thing.”

  “There is a wreck,” Svan said.

  “Dragon attack,” Ira added.

  “Posh,” she declared, as she marched to the window. She paled at the sight, but added, “I don't believe dragons had anything to do with that.”

  One of the laborers looked up. “You don't have to believe in dragons, ma'm. They can kill you just the same.”

  Chapter 7

  When the train resumed its journey, Svan stared out the window at a bleakly empty land. Knee-high grass, sparse with late summer drought, stood in patches on the rock-strewn ground. Here and there the ground dipped down into ravines – or perhaps they were sinkholes. A few trees stood among the rocks, short and squat with waxy leaves. In the distance he could see a large herd of black wooly creatures.

  “What are those?” he asked.

  “Buffalo, I think.” Adrian was eating one of her sandwiches. “That's what I've heard.”

  “I wrote about a buffalo once,” Geoffrey said.

  “Would you like apple cake?” Ida asked. She pulled a box from her bag.

  “Please,” Svan said gratefully. “I am tired of meat pie.”

  Things had returned to normal. Svan took a breath of relief – the wreck was just a rare accident. Then another wreck slid by the window.

  Chapter 8

  There were other wrecks by the railway, Svan saw as the day wore on. Most were old, covered with weed
s, and he would have missed them if he had not been looking for scraps of twisted metal within the wild brush. Lizards, come to life in the heat of the day, poked their heads up from the debris and birds made nests among the bones.

  Adrian broke the silence of the car. “There are quite a lot of wrecks.”

  Geoffrey glanced out the window. “We've passed nearly twenty. Maybe there are dragons out there, hunting down the trains.”

  “Just accidents,” huffed the haughty lady. “High winds, careless engineers, rocks on the track – all sorts of things can go wrong.”

  “I hope that's all it is,” muttered Wilmer, as yet another wreck came into view. This one had not burned, but the cars were ripped open. Bones – human bones – and tattered clothing lay in disorganized piles. In the crevice of a boulder beyond the scene, a desiccated corpse clutched a broadsword.

  “Who would do that?” Adrian gasped

  “Dragon attack,” Ida said.

  “The bodies, I mean. Who would pile them up like that, instead of giving those poor people a proper burial?”

  “Dragons,” Ira said, his face paler than usual.

  Ida clutched her bag. “They leave what they don't eat.”

  Svan shivered. The piles had looked like the pellets that owls left behind – except larger. Yet the land around the train was empty, save for the buffalo far in the distance. Empty for now. “I see no dragons.”

  “No one ever does,” Ida said grimly.

  “Unless it's the last thing they see,” Ira finished.

  Chapter 9

  By mid-afternoon the sun roasted the Dragonlands. It was too hot for even insects to fly. Svan's companions dozed while the card game at the front of the car went on, the players oblivious to the world beyond the slap of cards and the rattle of coins. Only Svan gazed out the window at the open landscape, watching.

  Only Svan saw the dragon boil up from the ground and swipe at the railway car with a paw as big as a draft horse. One claw raked along the windows, shattering the glass. Adrian screamed; the haughty woman fainted. Ida and Ira clutched each other. Geoffrey and Wilmer sat frozen, a pair of white-faced statues.

  “Dead man’s draw,” called out one of the card players, as he shoved half his coins into the pot.

  “See you and raise,” said another.

  Svan grabbed his wife's carpet bag and bolted for the back door.

  “What are you doing?” Adrian screamed.

  “I am a hero.” He bolted through the door.

  Beside the train, the dragon loped smoothly, moving more like a mountain lion than a lizard. A huge mountain lion: it stood twice as tall as the coach and was as long as three boxcars. Short, dun-colored bristles covered its body.

  The train whistle cried. The dragon howled back.

  Svan climbed the ladder to the roof and stood to face his monster. It stared back with giant red eyes, then paused to life a paw. Svan reached for his broadsword, but his hand closed on nothing.

  It was still locked in the baggage compartment, along with his ax.

  Svan ducked as claws the size of tree trunks swished inches above his head. His weapons would not have stopped that, he realized. Not having them had saved his life. But what good would little wax balls filled with herbs do?

  He had nothing else. He reached for the carpetbag – and again his hand closed on nothing. The bag was sliding toward the rear edge of the roof, almost out of reach.

  A shadow passed overhead. Svan threw himself to the side; a belch of fetid breath brushed his neck. He slid backwards just as slat-sized teeth snapped where he had been. The monster was hungry; he had just escaped becoming lunch.

  Suddenly he realized that there was nothing beneath his lower half, and he was still sliding. He barely had time to clutch the running board before the rest of his body followed.

  Hanging halfway off the roof, Svan watched as his wife’s bag slid over the edge.

  Now he had nothing, Svan realized. This time, the monster was going to win.

  “Do you want the carpet bag?” Adrian yelled from the ladder. “I caught it with my parasol.”

  “Keep down!” Svan shouted. “Throw me a ball!”

  “Geoffrey,” Adrian said, “Pass me an orb from the bag.”

  “Wilmer,” Geoffrey said. “Open the bag and hand me one of those spheres.”

  “Not the bag itself?” Wilmer asked.

  The dragon paused, its claws out, waiting for the car to catch up. “Hurry!”

  “One sphere, and hurry!” Geoffrey said. Then, “Here, Miss Adrian.”

  “Catch,” Adrian tossed the ball.

  Svan tore the wax with his teeth, then flung it all at the dragon. And missed.

  Glancing after the ball, the dragon turned back to Svan – then looked down at its thigh, now smeared by a green mass.

  “Score one!” Wilmer shouted.

  The monster licked its leg clean, then resumed its chase. Soon it would catch the train – but Svan now knew what to do with the balls. “Throw me another!”

  “Another orb, Geoffrey!” Adrian called

  “Hurry, Wilmer!” Geoffrey called. “Here, Miss Adrian.”

  “Catch, Svan!”

  “And do not throw another unless I say so!” Svan added.

  This ball went just past the dragon’s nose this time, and rolled into a crevice. The dragon jerked its head to follow it.

  “Did you miss?” Wilmer called hopefully

  The dragon flipped around and dug furiously. As the train sped on, Svan could see only spurts of dirt flying into the air. “We have escaped, I think. We will live another day.”

  Chapter 10

  “It seems your wife was right,” Wilmer said as he and Geoffrey pulled Svan back up to the roof.

  “She knows many things,” Svan agreed.

  “But how did she know that this katafayda would work?” Adrian asked. “Has she been to the Dragonlands?”

  “I do not think so. It works with cats, she says.”

  “Cats?”

  “Yes, the cats will do anything to eat this.”

  “Catnip!” she exclaimed. “You lured away the dragon with catnip!”

  “Wouldn't that be dragonnip?” Wilmer said.

  “The dragon’s attack was nipped!” Geoffrey replied.

  “I think we need to get these two out of the sun,” Adrian gave her parasol a distasteful twirl. “And you as well, Mr. Hero.”

  “I should stay up here.”

  “It's not very comfortable.” She mopped her face with a handkerchief.

  “That is true. But...” He pointed to what he had thought were ravines. “That is where the dragons hide. I will stay up here, with the katafayda, in case another is waiting.”

  “You’ll get sunstroke,” she said. “I insist that I will stay with you, and shade you with my parasol.

  A hero works alone, he started to say, but that wasn’t true. Not today, anyway. With the shade of her parasol, it might even be more pleasant up here than in the car. Instead, he bowed his head. “If you wish. Perhaps the gentlemen here will be kind enough to bring us food and drink.”

  “Certainly,” Geoffey beamed.

  “We could make this into a great story,” Wilbur added.

  Chapter 11

  They saw only one other dragon that day, off in the distance. It reared from the ground as a herd of buffalo thundered past, plucking out a full-grown bull, flinging it into the air, and swallowing it down whole. That dragon wasn't even half as large as the one that had attacked the train.

  Svan had faced down monsters for most of his life, and always had been glad to leave the hunting grounds behind – but never so glad as he was when the train rolled into the eastern wilds just before sunset.

  Chapter 12

  When Svan stepped off the train, he finally felt complete. His bastard sword, with its triple-notched edge, swung comfortably at his side, and twin-bladed sword was a welcome weight on his back.

  If he never saw another
dragon, he would be a happy hero indeed.

  At the end of the platform waited a small, nervous man who looked at Svan and nodded. He hurried up and took Svan's carpetbag. “Thank you for coming so quickly. This all started, I'm afraid, when someone smuggled a baby dragon into the city – and when it got too large to handle, they released it in the sewers. You have dealt with dragons before, haven’t you?”

  “Just one.” He forced himself to smile. Heroes face danger willingly; he was a hero. “And I am still alive.”

  Thank you

  Thank you for reading this piece, which I wrote for fun. I was born in Louisiana and later was transplanted to Ohio, where I and my husband raised twin daughters. Find me at https://www.sff.net/people/dragonwriter.