The Call of the Dragon: Chapter Two

Kai stared at Mary for a long moment, his brain refusing to make sense of the situation for him.  Then, thinking that perhaps it was a joke - for what else could it be, after all? - he smiled timidly up at his hostess.  However, she did not smile back, and Malachai knew that she was serious and the town elders really did mean to turn him over to the dragon.  Trembling now, all color draining from his face to leave him looking pale and ashen, he stared up at Mary with wide, haunted eyes.
    
“But,” he stammered quietly, “why me?  I’m not even from this town!”
    
The gray haired woman nodded grimly.  “Exactly.  No one here knows you or has any personal ties to you, so they don’t feel guilty about sacrificing you to save their own hides.”  With a disgusted huff, she sat down on the bed beside him.  “I spoke up for you, tried to get them to change their minds.  But no one wants to use any of the young women from town, so they’re absolutely set on using you.”
    
For a long moment, terror overcame rationality, and Kai was held prisoner in it’s unrelenting grip.  Then his brain made sense of the words.
    
“Wait a minute, Miss Mary.  I’m not a girl.”
    
Mary’s eyes widened as she stared at Kai.  Her keen, sharp eyes raked over his finely boned face and the slender figure that was hidden beneath layers of sheets and a too-long nightshirt.  “Not a…?” she finally questioned, taking in the smaller details of his face that did, indeed, speak of masculinity.  The thicker, low slung eyebrows; the wide mouth whose lips seemed too plump to belong on a young man’s face, but which she knew were far too thin for a girl.  And most telling of all, the completely flat chest and the distinct lack of curve to the hips.  Still uncertain, she questioned, “Kai?”
    
The young man shook his head.  “A nickname.  One preferred by my mother in order to separate me from the uncle for whom I was named.  Malachai.”
    
Understanding began to bloom on Mary’s face, and she repeated his name quietly.  “But, you sew and weave and make belts.  These are not things that a man learns.”
    
Now a blush stained Kai’s cheeks, but he answered honestly.  “I was a sickly child, and as such, I couldn’t help my father outside in the fields.  I learned to help my mother with her work, instead.”
    
Mary nodded, understanding a bit more of the youth who sat beside her.  Speaking slowly, she voiced her thoughts.  “The elders thought that you were a maiden.  Perhaps if they find out that you are, in fact, male, they will abandon this ridiculous plan and come up with another, less cruel, idea.”  Bringing her gaze to Kai, determination hardening her features, she told him, “Get dressed, young man.  Then we'll go and face the Elders together.”
    
With hope now lighting his eyes, the youth did as she asked and, once she’d left him to himself for a few minutes, drew off the borrowed nightshirt and slipped back into his own filthy clothes.  He wished now that he’d had the presence of mind to wash his clothes in the bath water, but he’d been so tired that the idea hadn’t even occurred to him.  And it was certainly too late to do so now, as he had no desire to walk around in dripping wet clothes.
    
Once he was dressed, he quietly called out Mary's name, then sat down on the edge of the bed to await her return.  As soon as the older woman came back into the room however, Kai asked her the question that had been nagging at his mind since she'd told him the Elders wanted to see him.

"How do they even know about me?  The Elders, I mean."
    
“The guard who told you to come to me,” she began quietly, “has been talking all over town; telling anyone who’ll listen about the gorgeous young thing he sent to the milliners.  Somehow it got back to the Elders, and they approached me last night at the Town Meeting."  Holding out a hand to Kai, she said, “They want to meet you.  Let's go see if we can convince them to change their plans."
    
Terror flashed across the young man’s face, but he squared his shoulders and took Mary’s hand, determined not to let these men see his fear.
    
As they stepped from the hall into the front room of the house, Kai raked his gaze over the assembly of seated men in the room.  Two guards stood on either side of the jovial looking man from the store, who Kai now knew was Josef, Mary’s husband.  As soon as they entered the room, the guards released Josef’s arms, and he quickly crossed the room to stand beside his wife.  The youth could feel their combined support at his back and that gave him the courage to stand tall and without trembling.
    
The room was silent for several long minutes as the town elders looked the young man over; so long that Kai began to get fidgety and only stopped the restless wringing of his fingers when Mary lay a comforting hand on his shoulder and spoke up.  "There's been a misunderstanding, Elder Sage.  Kai is a young man; not a young lady.  Doesn't tradition state that a dragon's sacrifice has to be a maiden?"
    
The congregation was silent for a long while, glancing back and forth between Mary and the youth she sought to protect.  Finally, the oppressive silence was broken when one of the elders said simply, “He’ll do.”  He paused for a moment to gauge the raction from his audience, and, finding them all staring at him with shocked expressions, went on, "Once he's fixed up and wearing a skirt, no one will be able to tell the difference, anyway.  Besides.  The dragon isn't going to care what gender it's next meal is."
    
Stepping forward, defiance written on every line of his body, Kai demanded, “I’m not a citizen of this town.  What makes you think I’ll do anything you tell me to?  Mary did what you asked of her; she brought me to you.  This is my own defiance.”  Narrowing his gaze, the young man went on, “I own nothing, so there is nothing for you to use to threaten me with.”
    
The elder who had first spoken watched Kai silently as the young man spoke, then smiled cruelly when he fell silent.  “You think not?”  One gesture from the elder had the guards moving forward and grasping the arms of both Mary and Josef.  At Kai’s startled exclamation, the elder demanded, “You will do exactly as you are told, or these good people, who took you in out of the kindness of their hearts, will lose everything.”
    
Malachai didn’t turn around to see what his host and hostess thought of this new development; instead, he kept his gaze locked on the only elder who seemed capable of speech.  “You would use your own townspeople, good citizens, as leverage and bargaining chips?”
    
The elder stood slowly, indignation making the harsh lines of his gaunt face seem even more severe.  “I will do whatever is necessary to keep my town safe, including using good citizens as leverage, and a pretty visitor as a sacrifice for a hungry dragon.”
    
Kai stared the elder down for another long minute before his shoulders slumped and he bowed his head in defeat.  “Let them go, please.  I will do as you ask.”
    
Immediately, Mary and Josef’s arms were released, and they both stepped forward to wrap an arm around the young man - Mary’s arm around Kai waist, and Josef’s around his shoulders.  Together, the three of them faced the town elders.
    
“Remember young man,” the elder snapped, signaling to his cronies that it was time to leave and simultaneously pinning Kai with a venomous look, “if you go back on your promise, or in any way try to get out of this, Mary and Josef will pay the price for your cowardice.  Is that clear?”
    
Kai nodded.  “Yes, sir.”
    
“Good.  Mary?”
    
“Yes, Elder Sage?”  The woman’s voice was quiet, but the anger she felt could be heard clearly.
    
“I understand you have a daughter.”
    
Frowning now, wondering what he wanted with her child, she answered slowly, “That’s right.  She’s tending the store for us at the moment.”
    
But the elders weren’t interested in Mary’s daughter, only her clothes.  “Dress this young man in one of her frocks.  Brush out his hair, curl it, pin it up, whatever.  But have him dressed and ready to go by tonight.”
    
“So soon?” she asked with dismay.
    
This time, Elder Sage’s smile was quick, fierce, and unpleasant.  “The young man is going to be given to a dragon.  Why waste time?”
    
As the elders and town guards filed out of the house, the trio stood and watched them silently until the door had clicked shut behind them with a sound of finality.
    
When Kai turned around, he found himself immediately embraced by Mary, her tearful, “Oh, Kai,” murmured in his ear.
    
Josef clapped a broad hand to the young man’s back and brushed the hair away from his wife’s cheek.  “We’ll figure something out,” he swore solemnly.  “We’re not going to let them give you to any dragon.”  He turned away, his eyes looking over everything they’d collected in this one room before saying quietly, “We could leave.  Pack up the merchandise we already have made to sell along the way, and just take what clothes we can fit into small bags.  We could leave within the hour… go north maybe.  Find another town to settle in.”
    
Mary was nodding eagerly, watching her husband with fervent excitement.  She frowned, however, when she noticed Kai shaking his head.  “No?” she demanded.  “Why ever not?”  Taking the young man’s face between her hands, she declared fiercely, “I can’t let you die!  It would be like… like…”
    
“Like letting them take our own son,” Josef finished for her quietly.
    
“You can’t protect me, either,” Kai said, smiling gently at both of them.  “You heard what Elder Sage said; he’ll take away everything you have and leave you penniless if you try.”
    
“So, we’ll leave.”  Josef’s voice was as determined as Kai’s was resigned.
    
“No,” the youth said again.  “You barely know me.  You’ve both been very kind to me, but you have a home and a life and family here.  I’m not going to let you ruin all that because of me.”
    
“But,” Mary tried again, “we could…”
    
“No,” Kai cut her off.  “We couldn’t.”  Taking a deep breath, he forced a smile onto lips gone numb with fright and injected a false joviality into his voice when he said, ”Let’s go find a dress for me to wear on my date with a dragon.”
    
Mary stifled a sob behind her hand, but, seeing that she couldn’t change Kai’s mind, she nodded and turned to lead the way into her daughter’s bedroom, grateful when Josef slipped his arm around her waist to offer his silent comfort and support.  The couple stood aside and watched as Kai looked over the simple dresses before choosing a plain green dress with no frills.  The color suited his skin tone, but it was a somber dress for a somber occasion.
    
Looking at the garment in distaste, the youth finally glanced back up at Mary and Josef.  “I hate to ask anything more of you than what you’ve already done, but…”
    
“Anything,” Josef assured him quietly.  “You’re sacrificing yourself to save my family.  You have only to ask, and if it is within my power to give it, whatever you want will be yours.”
    
Kai smiled at the man, but requested only an old pair of Josef’s trousers.
    
“Whatever for?” Mary wanted to know.
    
“I’ve never worn a dress,” he reminded her.  “This is a lot of fabric that will be swirling and swishing about, and I’m not the most graceful thing as it is.  I’m hoping that if I can sew a pair of pants inside the skirt, it’ll feel normal to me while still appearing to meet Elder Sage’s dress requirements.  Plus, if I manage to get a chance to run, it'll be easier and faster to rip the seams and tear the skirt off then to have to wrestle it down my legs.”
    
While Mary was curious as to how Kai would sew trousers into a dress, Josef merely nodded and went into the room he shared with his wife to retrieve a pair of pants from his younger years.  They were significantly smaller in the waist than the trousers he currently wore, but he still feared that Kai was so small, the waist would slide right off over the youth’s hips.
    
Never the less, he handed them over to Kai when he reentered the room, and only nodded his head at the quiet thanks.
    
Mary wanted to stay in the room to see how Kai would fuse the two articles of clothing together, but Josef pulled her gently away and told her, privately, of course, that the young man needed some time to himself to come to terms with what he had agreed to do.  After all, it wasn’t every day that a youth - no longer a child but not yet a man - decided to turn himself into a dragon’s meal in order to save a town he had no loyalty for and people he held no love for.
    
When the couple came back into the room about two hours later, they found Malachai curled up on the floor at the foot of their daughter’s bed.  He had donned the dress with the trousers sewn in, and at Mary’s request, he showed her how he’d used large stitches at the waist that would tear apart easily, so he could rip away the outer skirt with little trouble.  He’d also done the same thing to the seam at the waist between the skirt and the bodice, so that when the outer skirt was torn away, it would leave the bodice behind as a separate top.
    
After several minutes of chattering back and forth and doing their best to ignore what they knew was coming, Josef laid his hand on Mary’s shoulder, looked Kai square in the eyes, and said only, “It’s time.”
    
It was obvious from the tracks on Kai’s face that he’d cried at some point during the two hours he’d been left alone.  However, he stood now and nodded bravely before bending down to retrieve something from the pile of his old clothes.  He held up the belt that he’d made and offered it out to Mary.  When she hesitated, he said, “I know it doesn’t look like much now, but if you wash it, you’ll find that the colors are vibrant, and the pattern is complex.”
    
Reaching out slowly, she accepted the belt from Kai’s outstretched hand and held it loosely in her own.
    
By way of explanation, the youth said only, “I made one of those for my mother for her last birthday.  She wore it every day until the raiders came.”
    
Tears sprang to Mary’s eyes, and, heedless of the filth and grime that encrusted the belt, she clasped it around her own waist, tying the end strings securely before reaching out and drawing Kai into a hug.  Josef joined in by putting his broad palm flat on the youth’s back, and he drew away when his wife stepped back also.
    
They spent the next hour fussing over Kai’s long hair and making certain that he looked appropriately feminine enough to please Elder Sage.  When they were finished, his blonde curls tumbled down his back to his waist, a beaten silver head band in place to hold the riotous mass back off his face.  He had tried to make Mary take the head band back, saying that it was far too valuable to waste on someone who was just going to die anyway, but that only seemed to make her more adamant that he should have it.  His large brown eyes had been lightly lined with a bit of charcoal, making them seem larger and more deeply set, and lending them a mysterious quality that turned them into a molten gold.  The dress that he wore fit him well enough, though it hung rather limply from his flat chest, and was pulled a bit too tight through the shoulders as Kai was slightly more broad than Mary and Josef’s daughter.
    
Finally, it could be put off no longer, and the trio left the cozy house with it’s little shop to meet the elders at the center of town square.  Malachai’s steps faltered as he saw, not only the elders, but what appeared to be the entire population of the town gathered at the raised dais that was usually reserved for town meetings and such.
    
Kai could feel the gazes boring into him, but he resolutely kept his eyes on the ground in front of him.  He didn’t look up until he heard Mary cry out behind him, and then he whipped himself around to see that the guards were forcing Josef and his wife away from Kai and back into their house.
    
Relieved that they weren’t being harmed, the youth brought his gaze back to Elder Sage and nearly flinched at the maniacal gleam he saw in the old man’s eyes.
    
Raising his hand in the air, the elder beckoned to the guards and called, “Bring the sacrifice!”
    
As his arms were grabbed and his hands tied behind his back, Kai had to close his eyes on a wave of pure terror.  That terror was increased exponentially when a folded cloth was tied around his eyes and prevented him from seeing where he was going.  Now, he was completely dependent on the guards who held his arms to keep him from falling on his face as he was forcefully led down a side street and out of town.
    
After the third time he tripped on a loose rock and stumbled into one of the guards, they stopped walking, jerking on the ropes that bound the young man‘s arms together.  Kai stood where he was, his shoulders and arms aching, and uncertain if there was a place for him to sit down or not.  They had already traveled quite a ways, and the youth’s feet hurt badly.  Nothing had been said since the blindfold had been slipped over his eyes, so he didn’t even know if the elders were still with them, or if he was alone with the two guards.
    
Finally, after several long minutes of silence, he heard a voice to his right say, “This is taking too long.  Elder said we just had to get her there so the dragon will find her.  He never said she had to walk there on her own two feet.”
    
It took Kai a moment to realize that the guards were discussing him; apparently, Elder Sage hadn’t told the townspeople that their sacrifice was male.  But before he could figure out what the guards had meant about his walking, something blunt and heavy struck him on the left side of his head.  Kai cried out as fierce, blinding pain exploded behind his eyes, and he turned his head to the side and took a step backward in reflexive defense to try and ward off any further attacks.  But he was struck again, and this time, his world of darkness went completely black before he pitched forward into the unknown.