Sparrow on the Moor
This is actually the first effort at a restart to The Dragon Ring, I had started submitting it to agents, and after awhileI realized thatmany of them thought the book was for children based on the poriginal opening.
Your comments and votes are welcome and encouraged!
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Iveston on the Moor, Devonshire
Two ravens soared out of Faerie and into the noon sun spilling over Raven Tor. Turning each on a blue-black wing tip to ride the currents over the hill top, they hunted idly among the ragged teeth of its stone circle, and listened to the music in the wind. One spied a dying vole under a clump of gorse and dived to feast on it. The other having quite a different mission spun out in a lazy spiral over the farmland of Iveston Vale and the slender, tree-lined track of the brook, keeping the tidy village under his eye.
He knew it well, and could name most of the inhabitants even from the air. Here were the shops and houses that filled in what had long ago been a village green, while up the lane stood the pub they called the Star that was old when the Henry VIII was young. There was the classic square tower of St Michael’s church, avoided out of courtesy, where wooly white dots of sheep grazed among the headstones. And across from it, in the shadow of the tor, the sleek, modern primary school and its laughing children in their blue-green uniforms, bright as robin’s eggs. The part of his mind that was not a raven made note. Most of the younger boys were running and tumbling and carrying on as kids do in a school yard at playtime.
Then there was Sparrow, who was 7, and who might be in danger, hunkered down to face the tiny being at the edge of the school yard with every appearance of carrying on a conversation. A tumble of pesky pixies bounced and giggled among the rocks and grasses, but the boy’s attention was only on the wizened little man in front of him, no higher than the boy’s knee, who was looking a bit snappish.
The little man, a familiar character among the moor folk, was dressed in what might be rags or maybe leaves and burdock root in brown and green, with a hat that was partly leather and partly marsh grass, and a red heron’s feather. His nose was so long and so curved down that it came almost to his chin, which was so long and so curved up that it came almost to his nose. One bright black eye seemed to be trying to look behind him but in a moment gave up and swung round to match the other, which was glaring up into the boy’s fair English face.
The Raven, almost but not quite distracted by the glint of faerie wings above the blowing grass, landed with a harsh cry on a boulder a little way above the rest: far enough for his size not to seem threatening, near enough to transform and intervene if anything moved against the child. While all looked friendly, not every inhabitant of Faerie Dartmoor was a jolly, playful pixie and even those could cause harm on a whim. Many, like this wee man and his cousins, could hardly be told apart for good or ill. And ill will was in the wind.
Desires had been expressed in Titania’s court, with talk of stealing away the pretty child who could hear the bells of Elfland, and leaving a changeling in his place, as had been done in other times. The queen of Faerie usually got her way, unless the king blocked her, and the king’s Raven had his orders. So why was the wee man chatting up the child?
Before the Raven could hear a word on the wind, Sparrow’s eyes flew open. The little man was gone, and so was any sign of flowery heads, glinting wings, and laughter, except from the children playing behind him. The bell that rang was from the school, and meant only it was time for the children to return to their classrooms.
Satisfied that all was well and the queen’s minions were nowhere about or had withdrawn, the Raven croaked once and launched into the clear summer sky on the drum-beat whomp of broad wings.
“Sparrow!” the teacher called. Only his mother and the school doctor called him Dominic. “Did you hear the bell? What were you doing out there, dear?” she added as he trotted toward her, pulling an inhaler from his uniform pocket. “Did you find something?”
“It was a pixie, Miss! A real — pixie. I don’t know — which kind.” The asthma that had almost put him behind a year in school kicked up when he got excited.
“Now, Sparrow, what did we say about this last time? Wasn’t it a rabbit? Or a mouse?”
“But it was, Miss. Didn’t you — see him? There were — others, but they were — hiding, but this one—he was just like —a wee man and...” They disappeared behind the wide glass doors.
The Raven that had been coasting in lazy spirals over the schoolyard suddenly gave a raucous cry and tumbled out of the air to swoop over Sparrow’s head and then land with blue-black grace on the gate. Awed, the boy turned to stare as the huge bird cocked a black eye at him and cawed again, in a friendly way. It preened a bit, then as Sparrow disappeared into the building, it flew up to perch on the roof peak as if on guard, eyes bright.
