Culled!

By William Bower

Ayrik thinks of himself as just a boy waiting for his father to return from the army.

Gnash is just a dragon who’s known nothing but slavery his entire life.

When fate brings the two together, both find more in themselves than they ever imagined.

Stolen by Gnash, Ayrik’s destiny is for the belly of a baby dragon, having everything taken from him, with nothing to his name when he faces his destiny and steals the final power from the evil of the empire.

When Gnash steals this annoying boy, he finds he’s stolen more than he expected.

Their meeting sets both on adventures they never expected and starts something bigger than both of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781662406812

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Culled!

William Bower

Copyright © 2020 William Bower

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-6624-0682-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-0681-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Thelsa heaved on the chains, his mount pitched left as his heels dug in, and down they went.

Thelsa hated these long searches, but it was a necessary journey for queen and country. He snorted in his dented and worn helm. He never was one to question either, just his own motivations in serving them both.

The mountaintops slid under them as his mount coasted on new thermals, presenting a wide-open forest of green below him. Somewhere down there was what he needed, and it would be his.

*****

Gnash felt the rings permanently impaled in his lower jaw on the left side pull, so he tilted that direction to prevent the discomfort from becoming pain. A prodding in his wing pits told him to go down, so he obeyed to avoid the sharp jab of the brass spurs. He felt a warm updraft from the forest bathe his underbelly and let it carry him. The journey so far was long and fruitless, but to fail would mean more pain, so he did as his rider wished. Success was rewarded, failure punished.

*****

Ayrik finished gutting the small deer he had taken and heaved the carcass over his shoulders. The thing was nearly as large as he was. But gutted and headless, the doe was light enough for his undeveloped legs to carry.

It was worth three full silver in any decent butcher shop, but he could expect one, if he was lucky. He wished he was larger, stronger, and all that, but he had to hunt. It was all he really knew. Well, he could take care of animals. His dad saw to that, his mother to the hunting. Most boys teased him that his father was a beast breeder and not a real soldier for the army and that his mother taught him to hunt when she should have been sewing, knitting, and cooking.

He had to get this meat to the market by noon as the celebrations were to start at sundown.

Ayrik didn’t care about the celebrations other than he could make money off the hides he sold to the ladies who made things to sell and the men who wanted meat in their pies. This celebration he would gladly miss altogether if he didn’t need the money.

He strode along double quick, the momentum carrying him as his load made its dead weight known to his thin legs and scrawny back.

He could smell the cook fires an hour before he saw the thin wisps of smoke rise from the forest canopy. He heard the people, the cheer at the happiness at another boy becoming a man. This jabbed a pain no salve could soothe into his chest.

Stand, brigand! A thin wisp of a body appeared before him, holding a stick in front of it like a sword.

For the love of… Ayrik groaned. Thinya! I got to get a move on. I can’t stop to play.

Awwwww. The girl dropped her fake sword and trotted after the boy, who passed her without breaking stride. You never play no more!

Got work to do. Winter’s coming, Ayrik grumbled.

So move in with us and be done with it! she groaned. You don’t need to do it all alone!

Mom’s dead and Pa will come home soon. Got to keep the place up. Ayrik focused on walking, not thinking. Thinking hurt too much; working didn’t.

Mommy and Daddy said they would have you. You can keep working as you want, and you’d just have a real family while you wait!

No, Pa will be home from the war soon. Ayrik had to tell himself this over and over to get through the night.

Six months, Ayrik! she blurted out. He ain’t writ in six months!

Ayrik stopped in his tracks and spun on her, throwing his load to the path. So? he growled. He’s been longer, when he was in Ribbon Reach.

I was just saying, if he was going to be home soon, he would write, but he ain’t, so I bet he won’t make it through the passes before they’re shut.

Ayrik always was a short handle on a sharp blade. He knew it, and now that he was alone, he couldn’t let himself be that way anymore.

Sorry, Thinya, I just gotta get this to the butcher fast.

Oh, yeah. She helped him pick up the load and knew better than to offer help carry it. He still bein’ cheap?

Yeah, pays me a third anyone else. Ayrik snorted. Bet it’s ’cause I’m a third the size.

Less’n that, I bet! A rude laughter followed, and the boy found his path blocked again. This time by three burly teens who were dressed in their best clothes. Of course, they could afford fineries like linen and such, but Ayrik had to make do with broadcloth and doe skin more often than not. Thinya, we told you to leave the flea alone!

Shut up, Igon, she snapped. He ain’t done nothing for you to be bothering him! The girl stood up to the biggest of the boys and poked him in the chest. And your momma would switch you if you come to your own birthday party all dirty from a toss-up. Igon mirrored his best friends Anoton and Moley in size, but his hair was a charcoal black and theirs a reddish brown. They had identical ugly flat faces with wide, protruding ears, as if a moose had run face first into a mountain and then realized it was there. They cracked their knuckles and chuckled merrily at the thought of mayhem.

Won’t take a minute, and we won’t muss nothing up. Igon smiled darkly. He won’t get a lick in.

But I will! She stood between the boys. "You make one move and I’ll make sure your momma puts this party off while she splints your legs!"

Igon and the other boys looked to one another. Pounding Ayrik was always fun. They rarely got a chance as he was always out of the village. When he was in town, he was very hard to catch unaware. However, fighting with Thinya, that was a whole other boot to consider. She was daughter of the town sheriff and a prize for any boy who could catch her. Politically, the sheriff’s family was a powerful one, while Igon’s family owned the grainery, bakery, and the butcher shop. Everyone knew that the two families had hoped to join for years, but the circumstances never arose. Igon Sr. had half a dozen boys, the line ending with Igon Jr. While Thinya’s family was similarly blessed with boys, she was the seventh child and only girl, also four years younger than Igon Jr.

Igon was sixteen today and was going to celebrate his rite of manhood this evening. Not that it actually meant much as rites go—just drinking and celebrating. It did mean the family could announce his betrothal if they had one arranged.

Ayrik was seething at this. He heard from the sheriff himself, though the man had not seen the boy of ten washing in his rain barrel the night before, that they had arranged for Igon to take Thinya in another four years when she became a woman. Although it was an extended engagement, it was not unheard of. Igon would be well established and able to take care of Thinya.

Ayrik had always liked the thin, wiry, and fiery Thinya. Secretly, he hoped he could marry her someday. But he knew it would never happen. He was the son of a hunter and dog breeder.

The older boys looked at the still damp dirt of the path and knew a knockdown here would shame them with the dirt they would wear the rest of the day, unless their mothers took them home to be scrubbed once more before the celebrations.

Ringing bells tolled the midday hour, and the boys all reluctantly turned to march off for lunch. Ayrik wasn’t worth missing a meal over.

Once they were out of sight, Thinya turned to Ayrik. Go on. You’ll be late for the lunch, he urged before she could open her mouth. What he wanted to do was yell at her for making him look like a weakling and fool in front of the older boys. Now he would never get any respect!

She saw the look on his determined face and hung her head, realizing she had undermined him and hurt his pride.

Ayrik watched her march ahead. She turned left at a fork down the road, her long blond hair vanishing as she went her way. He sniffled and wiped his eyes and nose on his hemp shirt.

What you mean ten coppers?! Ayrik bellowed at the big overbearing man in a bloody apron, wielding a sharp cleaver.

I told you the coin I will pay. You take it or leave it, boy. He grunted, reaching for the doe.

Fine. Ayrik snatched the load back and heaved it over his aching shoulders. The sheriff will pay me two silver for it.

Look, boy, you know town rules about that. You sell to the shops so they can sell to the folks.

No, you steal from me to sell to them, Ayrik spat. This doe’s worth five silver any good place, and you is just a thief offering ten coppers. He spun and was gone before the man started bellowing and didn’t look back as the man charged out his door, demanding an apology.

*****

Thelsa didn’t need the echoing bellows of the shopkeeper to tell him he found the village. The smoke and smells of roasting meat and neat thatched roofs told him he had done that, but the ranting butcher had directed his attention to a particular prize.

*****

Gnash smiled. Fresh meat was always a delicacy for him, and he enjoyed these long trips if only for the hunting of it. Now it was carried on the back of a small human, and one that would do nicely for the duty they had been sent to do.

He dove even as the human atop him ground his knee spikes into his sides.

*****

Miserable old son of a… The rest was lost as a shadow caused the gathered onlookers to glance up, then scatter like chickens before a hawk. Ayrik looked up to shriek in mortal terror as claws, as large as he, scooped him up as he watched the ground fall away in great leaps and bounds as massive leather wings beat on either side of him and a huge tail whipped out behind.

Ayrik’s terror was not short-lived for he knew what had him and that he was likely poop by dawn. His voice seemed to have a desire to live long after in the echoes of the mountains as his tiny screams shattered the cold air of the mountaintops and wide valleys. Echoes of his fear came back at him over and over as the beast slid down the far side of a range of mountains they had reached in minutes. It was a trek that would take the boy a full day to reach on foot.

Soon he could scream no more, so he cried. After a long time, he could cry no more and he trembled, but he soon felt a fire grow inside him.

He always hunted alone and knew the risks. His mother told him about them over and over again. He once told her, jokingly, that if a bear or lion wanted to eat him, he would grab their tongue going down and choke them with it. He knew the silliness of such a thing, knowing all too well that he would be dead long before he had a chance to attempt the boastful childhood assurance.

He had his bow and his knife, and he promised himself to never lose a fight without making sure that he was not soon forgotten. This beast, this monster, was no different. He knew it could be hurt, for it had long and short, shallow and deep scars all over its belly, down its four legs, and out its long membraned wings. If it had scars, it could be hurt, but not killed by his tiny blade or his short arrows.

No, there was no hope to kill it, but he intended to make it work for its meal. He would be remembered forever in its tales to its friends.

"Oh, yes, I had this tiny lad. Could not have been ten summers in age. He fought like a lion and with the courage of a bear, gave me this scar too!"

Oh yes, this thing would remember this boy.

Ayrik reached clumsily to his belt, pinned half by a claw, half by the deer at his back, as he drew his short blade out and sought an effective place to strike.

Ideally, he would clip its wing at the joint where he saw great ropelike tendons firing the tree-sized muscles along the wings.

When he looked down, and realized, if he crippled the beast, he, too, would die from the fall. The trees were no longer trees but looked as if the forest was a great soft carpet of green.

No, a fall from this height was doom. He studied the beast’s hide underneath. It bore many scars, but he also saw it was covered in a thick layer of very tough-looking scales. He knew, of course, if you struck a scale directly, it would do its job. It would protect the beast as a soldier’s shield protects the man. As his father explained one day, going over, under or around the shield was best when fighting a man armed this way. He had to get under the scales, to the meat of the beast.

But to do that, he had to get close, reaching his free hand up and stretching for all he was worth. He could come no closer than half the distance he had to in order to reach the belly of this monster.

Ayrik looked up to see a great sinewy neck that held a massive house-sized head. Three massive sharp, saber-like fangs protruded from its closed mouth. A fourth one was splintered off near the base, and it looked fouled with sick.

The tail behind was the length of the beast with a spike four-foot long and appeared to be made of rusted iron or a dull bronze. This, too, held a goodly layer of hard scales.

Suddenly, the creature dove, and they plummeted from the sky, toward the earth again.

Ayrik’s screaming was done for he had nothing left to scream out—his fear gone, his terror gone, his thoughts of dying finished, he accepted this, and he intended to go down this thing’s gullet with a piece of it in his hand.

*****

Gnash snapped his wings shut to dive. The knees and sharp yank down with the jaw rings told him to descend, and the urgency told him to dive. Besides, he liked to dive, and he wanted groundside to eat.

*****

Damn you, stinking beast! Thelsa bellowed. He hated dives! They always left his stomach in a lurch and put him off his meals. He just wanted down, not falling like a great boulder from the sky. Air whipped through his visor and into his eyes. He was lying flat against the beast’s hide and bellowing for it to behave when the wings snapped out and his body rammed into the creature’s neck with the force of the deceleration. His helm smashed into his mount’s neck, causing it to hiss and spin around to face him, earning it a cuff with an iron-gloved fist.

I did not tell you to dive, you great stupid brute! Thelsa struggled to compose himself and regain his seat in an upright position to see what was happening. Now they flew low over treetops, back to the waiting camp they left a few short hours ago.

Gnash hunched his rear legs up, reached down to his back feet, and transferred the captive to his front feet mere moments before the giant rear feet slammed into the ground with an earth-shattering thump.

The man slid off, stiff legged and cursing colorfully and loudly at the monster in front of him. He was big, but the thing he rode was larger.

*****

Ayrik was upside down as the man walked up and snatched his dagger out of his hand. In moments, the man had Ayrik tied hand and foot, searched and relieved of his hunting knife, a small skinning knife he kept in his worn boot, and his bow. Then he snapped his bow easily and gripped the boy’s shirt, barking at the monstrous lizard to let go. Ayrik’s feet hit the ground, and he spun to knee the man in the fork. He would have collapsed in agony as he felt his knee make contact with steel, not flesh, but the man still held his heavy shirt to keep him upright.

The doe carcass hit the ground, and the beast swiveled his head to scoop up the morsel. The man bellowed at the monster and it relented, looking grumpy. He threw Ayrik to the side and stormed around the camp, packing fast several bags of camping gear, a tent, a pot or two, and a bedroll. After commanding the flying monstrosity to lay flat as he packed the bags on the creature’s back, he lifted the carcass and tied it in place before handing the boy to the thing, who took him in his front clawed paws. Wrinkling his nose at the child, it turned his head away.

So he crapped himself. They do that when you come at them like that! the man snarled. The beast kept his head turned, and the man grumbled as he climbed aboard again.

You don’t like the smell? Throw him in the lake to wash him off, but you lose him and it’s your hide!

In moments, the thing bunched its legs, clapped its wings tight against its back, and leaped high. Wings the size of ship sails exploded out to snap down, lifting them up, then again. They beat and they rose again. Soon they were above the trees and flying south, away from the home where Ayrik knew his father would search for him.

Every so often, the beast would look at Ayrik and wince, shifting its nose to be away from him. Sure, he crapped and wet himself. Who wouldn’t? How could anyone not, with a hundred feet of scaly nightmare bearing down on them with outstretched claws and bared fangs like Satan himself come from hell to claim you?

Over there then, damn you! the man hollered above the roaring wind, and Ayrik saw a river slide beneath them as they dipped down closer and closer. He had to lift his feet to avoid getting them wet, but it did no good. With a ripping splash, and a tearing rush of water, he was dipped in the river as they flew along, faster than any horse, faster than some birds. It hit the boy like a wall of ice and stone.

He tried to cough, spit, or scream, but the force of the water against his chest and limbs threatened to break him apart. He had no way to open his mouth without getting his lungs filled with the icy water that was run off from the mountain glaciers. Suddenly, the pressure was gone, and he could gasp, cough, retch, and heave as they rose from of the river.

The great scarred head swiveled around and sniffed the boy from foot to face and nodded.

Looking down, Ayrik saw why. His naked legs dangled, and his pants and boots were gone!

*****

Gnash liked to play in water as a youth, but the opportunities were few then and fewer now. So he took his time about washing the fouled child and dipped him deep to wash the stench from him. His aged hands were deep in the water, feeling the cold soothe the aches and pains of so many miles. He sighed then lifted the spluttering and struggling child up. He looked around at it and saw its lower limbs were now bare and clean of its terror-induced voiding. He sniffed up the youth and judged it to be clean enough to being going on with.

*****

The dipping had shut the boy up and seemed to take the fight out of him, as Thelsa was relieved to discover. A struggling captive always made for a difficult flight. Perhaps this was a way to take the fight out of others in the future.

They had only a few hours of daylight left, and he intended to use it to go home. The stick-like child was worth not only fifteen gold rings, but a week of leave and a month of light duty after. And if, if, it was chosen for the first, then it was worth its weight in gold!

Some younger fliers purposely selected fat targets for this reason, but invariably, the hatchlings liked theirs lean and tender, thus children.

He was far out and knew it was going to be five hard, long days to the ocean, then a full two-day flight over. He could not seek a transport. They had to make the crossing as quickly as possible to make the hatching, and he had nine days to make it. Should he miss the day, he would lose all his pay for this hunt and be on the next one to go out in a week’s time on this beast. Worst of all, it would delay his promotion and his elevation out of the mere flier ranks into the officer ranks.

They landed hard as the sun sank, and Thelsa quickly threw up a rope and tarp to sleep under. Leaving the tent, he swiftly made a fire as the beast held the boy in its talons, and the weak, half-drowned boy observed with his hands tied.

*****

The man untied the deer and quickly made a spit to roast it on as Ayrik was held by the beast. He noticed things—small, unimportant things to the man, but some things he noticed. He reached out and poked one of these.

The beast flinched and snarled at the boy, pulling its left paw away and growling at him. His massive face came close, and it growled into Ayrik’s face to tell him that wasn’t a good thing to do to a creature that could, and probably would, eat him.

Bugger off. Ayrik grinned and punched the broken tooth hard with his bound hands.

It let him go with a bellow that shook the trees and staggered back in agony, shaking his head and howling as it reared up.

Ayrik was up and running away as fast as he could. He knew that escape was hopeless. It was a wild fantasy, a delusion, but he insisted on making this evil man work for his prisoner.

Ayrik screamed as an iron-fisted hand took him by the hair and drug him back to the monster.

Watch him this time, damn you! The man struck the beast again and yanked a chain that elicited a cry and whimper of pain from the beast, completely at odds with the obvious fact that the thing could eat him, armor and all, in two bites. One if he was feeling peckish.

The doe was cooking, the hide thrown aside carelessly. The man took his armor off to stretch and sigh. He pointed to the dirt across the fire with a long stiletto, and the dragon dropped Ayrik there and sat on its haunches behind the boy, sucking its sore talon on its left paw.

Boy, listen up, the massive, hairy, muscular man growled. I took you for one reason, and not many get this honor…

Oh, let me guess. I’m off to be a flier on one of these damned things? Ayrik nodded over his shoulder.

He laughed spitefully. Hell no! He guffawed.

Oh, then dragon crap, the boy said stoutly to the man.

Yes, he said with all deadly seriousness.

The admission didn’t shock the boy, so he kept his mouth shut. What more was there to say?

"Damned few get selected for this honor. Damned few. And it is an honor, particularly now, with a royal egg to be hatched at the full moon."

Why me? Why not a deer or cow or a damned herd of elk?

He glared at the boy and grinned evilly. Because, if their first meal is human, then they won’t balk at eating them later.

The beast was moaning as it sucked its finger, and Thelsa snapped. Shut your hole, damn you, you pitiful excuse for a cur!

It growled behind Ayrik and settled down.

Why you mean to it? I thought these things liked their riders?

Bah, they would eat us as soon as you, given a choice. Dumb brutes. They got some smarts in there, but as dumb as a tree stump.

So you got to hurt them to make them do what you want?

Of course. It’s the fastest way to make anyone do what you want.

Yeah, right. The boy snorted. "You’re just like them bullies at home. Hit and hurt till you get what you want. Only difference between you and