And how he hated the human warriors.
Najikko’s cold stare travelled past the suits of armour to a room where six new “visitors” awaited him. They had come seeking help, like many others. They were beautiful women and yet all he could see were imperfections. Ugly as sin they were to him.
Najikko looked out of the window at one of many cities that he owned and wondered how long it would be before a challenger came to his doorway.
CHAPTER FOUR The Dragonhunter’s Home Life
If anyone asked, Simon would say he lived in New England, but he was rarely there. He lived in a chilly, rundown, ex-British castle – a former fortress built in America during the Revolution and later modified to resemble a true baronial manor in the 1880s by a lord who wanted a touch of home in the States. And it must have succeeded in looking authentically English, for it was the only place Aldric could be convinced to make into a permanent residence. It was not yet a home in Simon’s mind, just a stand-in for one, though he welcomed the stone walls after the heat of Africa. In his first few months as Dragonhunter, he had been all over the map. Now he moped around the giant house, feeling snappy and tired, unable to sleep.
Simon felt fifty years old and wondered how his father managed all this travel. There Aldric was, clanging around the big kitchen with all of the energy of a cat, making some kind of sausage breakfast, and all Simon could do was stumble towards an old chair and hope his father remembered to make him something (sometimes he didn’t).
As Simon slipped past the stove, Aldric spun about taking some biscuits out of the oven, and bumped into him, dropping the biscuits on the floor.
“Simon!” his father barked.
“Relax, I didn’t mean to get in your way,” said Simon, sinking into the chair. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re always saying sorry,” grumbled Aldric.
“You’re always making me,” Simon sighed. They had grown into better coordination on the battlefield, but at home, they were all left feet and elbows and chaos. He watched as his pet fox Fenwick dived for the spilled biscuits.
Simon listened to the familiar sounds of Aldric chasing the fox with a flyswatter and looked out of the wide windows towards his old schoolhouse, the Lighthouse School for Boys. It was a rare, clear day and he could see the lighthouse tower and the Revolutionary War buildings in all their rundown beauty, and for a moment he wondered what the boys there were thinking of him. Crazy Simon St George, the hermit kid, who lived in the castle and studied at home behind closed doors. Little they knew.
“You’re up. I knew I heard some ridiculous tirade,” said Alaythia, entering the room with a plate of sausages and a basket of piping hot biscuits of her own. There was also the less appetising smell, Simon noted, of sulphur and ancient herbs. Alaythia often had unusual and interesting fragrances around her; Simon had found that her cooking would do that.
She strode past a surprised Aldric.
“What’s all this then?” Aldric stared.
“I decided to avoid the usual arguments – and the usual shortages, since you always forget me and Simon – and just make breakfast myself, in the alchemy lab,” chirped Alaythia, and she sat down to serve herself the meal. “Simon?”
“I’m going to skip breakfast,” said Simon, trying not to look disgusted.
“Not a great idea,” she said, but didn’t push the issue. She was good that way.
“Rancid stuff, smells of burned rats,” grumbled Aldric. “Just ’cause yours looks better doesn’t mean it’s good.”
“Simon thinks my food is spectacular, he’s just not hungry. And Simon has excellent taste, don’t you, Simon?” She winked at the boy.
Aldric frowned. “His opinions frighten me.”
“Well, there may have been rats in the vicinity and they may have got torched – but none of them found their way into the sausages,” she said, and continued eating.
“I don’t need any help making breakfast,” Aldric said, but Simon noticed he sat down and helped himself. “I’ve managed well enough without your help all these years, haven’t I? What I will say for you is that you’re getting a touch better each time out.” He half grinned at her.
“Glad you think so,” she said. “There may be rats in the sausage after all.”
And as they discussed this possibility in playful and somewhat aggravated tones, Simon tuned them out and moved away towards the window. He didn’t like the way his father and Alaythia flirted; he wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t seem serious enough about each other, or because Simon himself had begun noticing Alaythia’s prettiness a bit too much, an uncomfortable thought he sent away quickly.
Fenwick stood up at the worktop and pushed in Simon’s direction a stray biscuit which Aldric had saved from the floor. Simon actually took it.
His white horse was trotting in the field outside and, watching it, Simon snapped out of his sleepy state. Deciding he needed a ride, he grabbed another biscuit from the table and headed for the door.
“And where do you think you’re going?” asked Aldric.
“Into town.”
“Not for long, we’ve training to do. Lances today.”
Simon kept going, keeping the debate to a minimum. “Training again? When am I going to prove myself enough to you?”
“It’s not about proving yourself, it’s about keeping up your skills. This isn’t a bloody game, is it? You can’t fail at this.”
Simon left the big stone kitchen and headed down a cold hallway, but their voices echoed behind him. “You know, a little of that goes a long way,” Alaythia told Aldric good-naturedly. “You can never just let things be, not even for a second.”
“What’re you going on about? My father used to knock me down if I tried to walk off like that.”
“Well, you can look forward to the same wonderful relationship with Simon. You don’t have to browbeat him so much, he’s not afraid of hard work. He hates himself enough already.”
“Oh, and why is that?” grumbled Aldric.
“Because he isn’t you. Obviously,” said Alaythia. Listening in the dark hallway, Simon could feel his face turn red. “Let him fail,” she added. “It’s how you learn, right?”
Simon went on to the hallway, filled with newspapers from around the world which might hold signs of supernatural events – the hallmarks of stray dragon magic.
There were circles around articles like “African Forest Fires at All-time High” and “Strange Lifeform Sighted in Jungle” and so on. Simon was actually obsessed with these strange activities. They gave him nightmares, filled up his thoughts, gave every action in the world a darker purpose. Like his father, he now saw a dragon presence in everything and he worried constantly over every news story, from strip-mining and pollution to crime and – right there, he thought, his eyes on a small headline. What is that? “Factory Laying off Thousands of Workers in Unusual Move.” That’s one of them, spreading hate, expanding its little domain of misery, that’s what that is. This was all he ever thought of now; it was just worry, worry, worry; he could hardly see the forest for the trees. Was there any end to this stuff? Was he losing his mind?
His ears pricked up for a second. To his embarrassment, he could still catch the talk in the kitchen.
“He’s got a girl,” he heard Alaythia say.
“How do you know that?” wondered Aldric. “If he met a girl, he’d clean himself up more.”