Dragonskin Slippers

The Brown Dragon of Carlieff


It was my aunt who decided to give me to the dragon. Not that she was evil, or didn’t care for me. It’s just that we were very poor, and she was, as we said in those parts, dumber than two turnips in a rain barrel.

My father had been a terrible farmer, and too proud to admit it, so he had struggled on year after year despite countless failed harvests. It had only been my mother’s skill with embroidery that kept us from starvation. She had sewn fancywork for all of the merchants’ wives and once for the lady of the manor. But now Mother and Father were dead from a fever, leaving me and my brother, Hagen, to the mercy of my father’s sister and her husband, who weren’t exactly wealthy themselves.

After the sale of our farm brought only enough money to pay off the mortgage, my aunt proposed the idea that I might marry into money and so pull the rest of the family out of poverty. But while I was pleasant enough to look at, with blue eyes and a small nose, my straw-yellow hair was also straw-straight and I was sadly freckled. To be blunt, I was no beauty, and as I could not spin straw into gold or cry diamond tears, there was no reason for a wealthy suitor to overlook the fact that I had no dowry whatsoever.

“It will have to be the dragon,” my silly aunt declared as we all sat around the hearth, holding what my uncle called a council of war. “Surely a brave adventuring knight will save her from its clutches,” she continued, “and then we shall all be taken away to live in his castle.” She was also very fond of reading romantic tales.

“All of us?” My uncle looked up from where he sat by the fire and whittled a rattle for my newest cousin. “Throwing yourself and myself and our youngsters into the mix as well?” He winked at me behind her back. He had a sly sense of humour after years of dealing with my aunt.

“It’s the least he could do,” she said stiffly.

Which really made no sense at all. Why should anyone be rewarded for defeating a dragon by being saddled with a dowryless, freckled wife and well over a dozen daft and impoverished in-laws?

No matter how I pleaded and my uncle argued logic, my aunt would not be swayed. That my uncle finally agreed to the plan made me realise just how badly off they were. Their farm, like my father’s had been, was on the brink of ruin. Hagen was fourteen and could help in the fields, so there was no need to get rid of him, but I was just another mouth to feed, blood kin or not.

Rolling my eyes, I went into the hills above our town and stood outside the great smoke-stained entrance to the cave where everyone agreed that the dragon of Carlieff lived. My aunt came with me, to make sure that I didn’t try to skive off, and brought her two oldest boys and Hagen as well. She promised them each a penny candy if they would pitch rocks at the cave mouth to awaken the dragon once she was safely back on the trail to town.

Hagen just shook his head and grinned at me. “Not to worry, Creel,” he assured me. “All us lads dare each other to come up and yell at the dragon. He’s never been seen, not since Grandad’s time. Dead as a doornail, I bet. Just wait here until dark and then come on home. Uncle says mebbe you can get work at the manor.”

I smiled and nodded, suddenly choking back tears. My scanty possessions were in a satchel slung over my shoulder, including any yarn or embroidery floss I had managed to save from Mother’s supplies before my aunt sold them. I didn’t want to upset him, but this would likely be the last time I saw Hagen for a long, long time.

My uncle had mentioned working at the manor to me as well. He told me to go to the caves to humour my aunt, and when I got back he would take me to see the manor housekeeper about a job. But I had seen the doubt in his eyes and knew that it was a slim hope. I had my own plans, once Hagen and the other boys had gone back to town. And they didn’t involve scrubbing floors.

My aunt started down the trail, shrilly directing the boys to start throwing rocks and admonishing me not to forget whose idea it had been to bring me to the dragon. I promised her cheerfully that I would not, snickered with Hagen, and even threw a few rocks myself.

Either the dragon had risen from the dead, however, or it had been away visiting friends since our grandad’s time. It appeared soon after we began our bombardment. The first thing we heard was a great rumbling and scraping, audible even over the sound of our shouts. Then a plume of smoke came out of the cave, followed by the beast itself. My two cousins took off, screaming like anything, while Hagen and I stood there numbly, staring at the dragon.

It was brown and scaly and looked impossibly old, with a great rack of shining golden horns on its massive head. My throat was so dry that the sides stuck painfully together, and a cold river of sweat started down my back beneath my worn gown.