The Girl, The Rat, And The Five Whiskered Snow Dragon

Chapter 19

Broken Horse

The Glass Rocking Horse was full of drunkards and imbeciles, which meant it was Tuesday, on Wednesday it is filled with imbeciles and drunkards. It could have been any day of the week, actually. The day itself doesn't matter. What matters about this particular day is that it will be the last day the Glass Rocking Horse is open for business on account of it being destroyed by a dragon and a girl who rides the dragon; the unlikely pair will come to be known as The Fox And The Fury.

Hugo was upstairs watching the barkeep pour drinks. He was making sure not one drop was spilled in the pouring and no extra was given in hopes for a tip. If any mistakes were made, he would be sure to take it out of the barkeep's paycheck. Hugo was a miser's miser. If a copper where not squeezed till it was blue in the face, it was bad business.

The band was missing a mouse. He walked over to the small stage of mice and stared, as if that might make them stop playing. His bulging eyes were nothing out of the normal. The mice paid him no attention. This infuriated Hugo to the point of his face turning red, the kind of red on a ripe tomato, the kind of tomato that could just pop, really. The band continued to play while Hugo tapped his foot in a rage. He began yelling once his foot had enough.

"Where is Redfur! Do you think you I'm going to pay for a band that doesn't even have all its members? You don't just come and go as you please and hope I won't notice! If you don't tell me where Redfur is I will have every last one of you mice hung from your tails and we will have a new game of darts with your belly's being the bullseye. You hear me?"

The mice stopped playing their instruments during this tirade. Several of the patrons were upset at the stoppage, but the idea of piercing a mouse in a game of darts seemed like an interesting proposal. Saint Thomas was preparing to respond, hoping to not become a living bull's-eye (and wondering if they would paint red and white circles on his belly, his fur was quite sensitive), when a true-life Deus Ex Machina occurred, proving such things happen, as the roof was ripped open from above by the jaws of a massing dragon.

"The bar is closed for remodeling," Fox said from the neck of the white dragon as she willed the massive beast to fly over the roof, once she'd gashed a sizeable hole in it. The dragon tore the entire lid off the building with the many claws of its many legs, which ran along its body. She turned the dragon in the sky and unleashed a torrent of freezing water from its mouth. The entire east side of the bar froze solid.  A goblin, who was attempting to flee out from a first story window, froze like a statue, half in, half out of bar and was covered in a film of ice.

Hugo fell on his bottom and was trampled underfoot as all the drunkards on the second floor scrambled and screamed and attempted to come to grips with the fact that their evening had been ruined by a flying beast.

"Was that Fox?" Marbles asked.

"I think it was," Jacks replied.

"Think we should play something appropriate for the attack?" Saint Thomas mused.

"It's not every day a band gets to create ambiance for a dragon strike. Let's do that Birds in the Night number," Jacks said, and the mice went about doing the dark ballad as the bedlam unfolded. It wasn't altogether unnatural to see the band playing while everything waxed chaos around them. Hugo would later say in his formal witness statement to the Inquiry on The Five Whiskered Snow Dragon, which Nimren would appoint in order to gain intelligence on exactly how the Rocking Horse was destroyed and who was daring to incite rebellion in his kingdom, that the band of mice continued to play some dark music that seemed to put a trance on those who heard it, the kind that made him unable to move. He advised he was only able to sit there with his mouth open and stare, and he knew for sure it was magic, and the mice were certainly in league with this Fox scoundrel and her cursed dragon. He also mentioned that his legs were broken in the incident. He also lost a few teeth. He hoped that he might gain some reimbursement for his troubles, but, happily, he would not.  

Fox and the dragon slowly glided to the ground in front of the bar as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening, delicate as a snowflake alighting on a pine needle. Fox slid from the hard white scale which had become her seat. She could feel herself and the beast becoming attuned. She was gathering memories from the dragon, who once was Innego. Images were becoming a part of her, deep in her subconscious. She was learning the way of magic; she understood things which she'd never thought of, things about the nature of the earth, the stars, the seasons.

"I will spare your lives," Fox spoke loudly without yelling and something in her voice halted each scrambling person, "so that you can tell them Fox and the Five Whiskered Snow Dragon are building an army, and those that are tired of being slaves, tired of being kicked and starved and cursed, can fight, and probably die, for freedom, or they can live as cowards."

The dragon roared at the end of her statement, an exclamation at the end of her sentence. The frost that screamed into the sky from its open jaw filled the air; a few snowflakes danced on the wind and landed on the shoulders of the fleeing guests where they melted into the fibers of dirty cloaks, the moist cold fabric sending shivers up their spines.

The white dragon moved its head down to Fox, who held her hand in the air in order to scratch under the beast's jaw, which she did. It was a start. She had a lot of training and study to do, building the strange connection between herself and the demigod. She needed an army, and she hoped against hope that the land of Umbrosia had a people willing to fight against a foe she did not think could be beaten.

End Book One

*******************************
Find me on Patreon for exclusive content! Search for JM Wendel