Rogue Dragon by Avram Davidson Read Free Book Online Page A

pace. The thought came into Jon-Joras’s mind, this one is no virgin! At his near approach, the front row of bowmen seemed to vanish into the earth—one jump—the narrow trench, too narrow for a dragon-paw, received them. The row of dummies swayed slightly on the shaking ground. But the dragon ignored them. Unwavering, it rushed on and on.
    From behind a low earthen wall directly in his path, up leaped a row of figures, bright banners waving on long poles. Jon-Joras had to squint and peer a moment before realizing that these, too, were dummies. The dragon plunged on through their midst. Jon-Joras flung his head around and his eyes flew down the arena to see what lay dead ahead of the plunging questing beast. He had not far to look.
    There were the figures in huntsmen’s clothes, guns in hands. Bellowing his hatred, pain and rage, the dragon came on and on and in great, maddened leaps, flung himself upon the group. Jon-Joras had not seen this one trench. He blinked as the figures vanished into it. All but one of the figures vanished into it—that one, a dummy fastened to a stake, flew first right, then left, then was lifted high into the air to be worried as a rat in the jaws of a dog.
    Something splashed and spattered on Jon-Joras’s face and chest. Thoughtlessly, he raised his hand, wiped at it. It was warm. It was blood. He looked, incredulous, at the figure which the dragon now held in its paws and tore into bits. And then he vomited again.

    “That, you see,” the tall man with the scar said, abruptly turning to him “is what happens to traitors!”
    His voice had started out astonishingly soft and smooth, the face as blank as ever; but on the last word the face convulsed, the voice rose into a shriek, cracked upon the last note. The hands leapt up from his sides. Jon-Joras fell back. Then the face struggled, the mask fell into place again. So did the hands.
    The voice was soft again. “You outworlder—you’re a boy. A pawn, a slavey. You don’t know, does you? What’s been going on here on our old Earth? Think about the worst enemy they’s ever had in your world. Times it twice, add to it. And think what rotten things turns traitor, turns enemy. Is that— down there—too bad for it? Oh, no, boy. No… Too, good.” The voice fell lower on the last word, and the effect was somehow more frightening than when it rose. The tiny eyes glinted. The thin mouthed stretched.
    Abruptly, he beckoned, turned his back, started down a ramp. And again Jon-Joras followed. Dimly he wondered if the Prime World, supposedly so old and so tired, might not be too much for him. Its unexpected vigor, wasted as it was in strange ways, was all too different from the tight and organized hegemonies of MM beta— where even the unexpected was predictable.
    They came at last to a scene untouched by the turmoil and disorder of the rest of the place: a chamber immaculately clean, furnished with a trestle bed, a table consisting of a wide plank set on two more trestles, and a doorless cabinet lined with shelves. There were no chairs.
    “My name is Hue,” the tall man said. “Not Huedeskant and not Huelorix—just Hue. Never mind telling me yours, I know it since you come here. We been watching you. We watches everyone. First, naturally, I thought maybe you was a spy. Now I think you isn’t. Probably…” His sentence ended on a significant pause.
    “Where was the dragon hunt yesterday? Near the Lie village?” He went to a map on the wall and marked it with a piece of charcoal. “Tell me about it. All about it.”
    His gaunt, scarred face remained impassive, but his tiny eyes glittered under his Medusa’s brows. Then he was silent a while.
    “All right,” he said, answering an unspoken question. “Here it is, see. What justifies the Gentlemen, that they lives on others’ labor and does what they likes with others? Why—they hunts drags. Yes. And the drag is terrible big and terrible dangerous. Isn’t he? Of course. You has