Dragon Read online

  I arrive at work a few minutes before six, which is early for me. Ozzie sees me to the back door of the butcher shop and stands patiently watching until the heavy steel slab closes behind me. She’ll stay there in the alley all day, moving only to switch from sunbeam to shade depending on the weather, lifting her head every time we toss out the big bones, which she crunches down to nothing with an efficiency that makes me oddly envious.

  I step through the anteroom to the large refrigerated chamber where we work.

  Ram is already inside, in full gear, fresh blood dripping from his coveralls and beard.

  He’s finishing a carcass as I walk in, and true to his usual habit, he doesn’t pause to acknowledge I’ve entered, but remains focused on his work, his movements rapid but precise. With the sharp, slightly curved blade of the saber in his right hand he slices the last of the round steaks. Then he drops the sword back into the leather sling at his right hip, simultaneously pulling the cutlass from his left hip with his other hand. He swings the heavy-headed blade upward, and with a powerful blow, frees the steaks from the shank.

  At the last second he grabs a pan with his right hand and catches the steaks as they fall, then turns to face me, depositing the pan on the stainless steel table, which is already heavy-laden with the rest of the butchered cow.

  For a second he just stands there, blood dripping. Then he grabs a spray bottle from the table, aims it at his eyes, and douses his goggles, wiping them with a fresh towel.

  It may be bloody in the butcher shop, but it’s clean.

  Well, sanitary at least.

  I glance at the table of beef, mostly steaks with a few roasts and the inevitable kabob pieces. “Just one cow so far?”

  “You’re early.”

  “Not that early. What, did you pull a muscle? Need me to kick out a kink for you?” That’s happened before. The man works like an ox for twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day, usually with no ill effects, but every so often he gets something out of whack and needs me to shove it back in place. Last time it was his left shoulder, and I had to run at him and drive my elbow into the spot while he braced himself against the wall. It took three tries until it slammed back into place with a loud pop.

  I can’t imagine how that’s healthy. It’s just what happened.

  But today he rolls his head slowly back-and-forth, sending out little neck-popping noises while the bloodied hairnet he wears on his beard dances a little jig.

  The hairnet is for health code reasons. As near as I can tell it’s almost useless, and I’m sure if we were inspected he’d have adequate warning to throw one on, but he still wears it every day, true to the rules, even if it makes him look silly.

  As much as a man of his size can look silly.

  “I went for a walk this morning, just to make sure.” He glances toward the door.

  I look behind me, too, as though there might be something there besides a steel slab and the door handle.

  Nope, just a little blood splatter.

  “Smell anything?” I ask.

  I expect him to shrug off my question, to deny any danger, because that’s the way he is—confident, nonchalant, bigger than any obstacle.

  But he doesn’t shrug or shake his head. He walks toward me, the volume of his voice turned down low, as though whatever was on my stoop last night might be out there right now, listening through the insulated walls of the refrigerated back room.

  “I smelled it in Old Town, New Town, the Jewish Quarter, Castle District—”

  “You crossed the river?”

  “I’ve been all over town. I followed the smell.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” I honestly don’t even know what the smell is, just that it accompanies whatever Ozzie was growling at, so that must mean it’s something fearsome. And it was there when the world of my childhood was torn apart. Oh, and it seems to even make Ram wary.

  Fearsome, indeed.

  Ram speaks in quiet tones, the hairnet on his beard bobbing like a bloody sock puppet. “I’d say it means they don’t know where you are, just that you’re in town somewhere. It’s like they’re looking for you.”

  I start to exhale, relieved.

  “But if they were on your stoop last night—”

  My breath catches in my throat, shoved back by the fear of whatever it is that makes that smell, that chased me from my home and forces me to live in exile still.

  “But, who are they?” My heart pounds with theories. Are dragons real? Are they after me?

  Ram only scowls, his mouth curving sourly in the midst of his beard. I don’t think he’s angry—I can’t recall ever seeing Ram angry—but I brace myself anyway for whatever’s going to come.

  This is how we butt heads, me and Ram. No raised voices, no threats or violence. Just me asking for answers, and Ram refusing to provide them. We’ve been at this all summer, ever since school ended and my father brought me here.

  Ram’s silence doesn’t surprise me. My father was always the same way. He visited me rarely enough while I was away in Britain in boarding school. I soon realized there was nothing to be gained by asking him questions—nothing but awkward silences, apologies, and longer gaps between visits.

  The longer gaps may only have been coincidental, unavoidable delays on his part, but I felt them acutely, each day feeling more lost, abandoned, and unsure of myself and my place in this world.

  So I’m not surprised that Ram denies me information. I’m used to it.

  But now, instead of turning his back on me and starting in on another beef carcass, swords whipping through the air, singing the song of blade against bone, he meets my eyes.

  As much as he can meet my eyes when his are covered. He’s stepped closer to me, so close I could reach out and touch him, not that I have any desire to do so, bloody and hairy as he is. Close enough that his voice is little more than a rumble like distant thunder warning of a storm, his words clear only because I know the sound of his speech so well.

  “They are the ones who attacked your village ten years ago. The ones who killed your mother. The reason you live in hiding still.”

  Pinprick stars flicker across my field of vision. Lightheaded, I reach for the table, but it’s wet with the blood that oozes from the steaks, and my fingers slip.

  Ram catches my elbow with one leather-gloved hand. His other arm keeps my sagging back from dropping to the floor. The prickling lights seem to mock me as they skitter away, chased from my sight by a surge of blood that pumps through my veins in a flood of embarrassment.

  I’m a daft twit! How am I ever going to convince Ram to tell me more if I faint when he tells me anything?

  Not that I actually fainted.

  I just got a little lightheaded and couldn’t quite stand upright. That’s all.

  Normally I’m a right steady person. Keep in mind, I dismember animals for a living. It takes a lot to make me woozy. But the mention of my mother’s death, coupled with the reminder of the attack and my exile…it’s too much, even for me.

  And of course Ram knows I’m not a fainter, so now his mouth is clamped shut, a thin line barely visible amidst his beard.

  “Who are they?”

  Ram shakes his head. He’s not going to tell me, not if it’s going to blow me over.

  “I need to know. How can I avoid them if I don’t even know what they look like?”

  “The smell,” Ram reminds me.

  “What if my nose is stuffed up? What if the wind is blowing the wrong direction?” I lean hard on his arm as I struggle to put my full weight on my feet.

  Ram doesn’t look confident in my ability to stand on my own, but his arms move with me, propping me in a vertical stance.

  I feel slightly less stupid from this angle.

  Slightly.

  “You’ve been training me to fight them?” I stare at the mirror-like surface of his goggles and wish I could see the answer there. Ram has been training me to fight—there was never any question about that. He’s made it c
lear with his every instruction. The swordwork slices steaks, yes, hacks through cartilage and bone. We earn a living with our work, and Michal Jitrnicka, the butcher shop owner who works the front counter, is thrilled with our productivity and the lines that form to buy our precision-cut handiwork.

  But every jab, every spear, every swing of the blades is a lesson, familiarizing me with the weight of my weapons, dulling the revulsion that would normally follow the stab of sword into flesh. Ram has been teaching me, not the clang of steel on steel, of fancy fencing like gentleman practice in sports clubs, wearing white uniforms and fighting like civilized men.

  Ram has been teaching me to be a butcher.

  To defend myself against my enemies with such effective swordwork my blade never touches theirs. To fell them before they ever have a chance to hurt me. To defend myself and my people from an attack such as the one that banished me from my homeland, should the enemy ever visit us again.

  And they will visit us again.

  I just don’t know where, because until it is safe for me to return home, I am here.

  There’s a part of me that sort of hopes, twisted hope though it may be, that it’s now too dangerous for me to stay here. Because if it’s dangerous here—as dangerous as it is there—then there’s no longer any reason for me to stay away.

  Twisted, yes. But nonetheless, that’s how I feel.

  “Yes. They are the reason you must learn to fight.” Ram releases me slowly, testing my ability to stand on my own before fully letting go.

  “I need to know my enemy.” I’ve stated these words before, but never with such conviction. “If they’re at my doorstep, I need to know so I can defend myself. I can’t afford to hesitate, but I’m so jumpy now I might attack anyone.”

  “Don’t face them alone. That would be foolish and unnecessary. I will fight them for you. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Then why are you teaching me to fight?” I stare at him through a long silence.

  Just as I’m beginning to think he’s not going to say another word, Ram answers with an unfamiliar strain in his voice. “If all else fails.”

  It takes me a moment to match his response to my question, to realize his words are the unexpected answer I’d asked for.

  He swallows, the bobbing hairnet the only sign he’s moved at all. “If I fail.”

  Chapter Three

  Anger and fear fuel my work. I can’t shake my dread—what if they come upon me suddenly?

  Am I quick enough?

  Strong enough?

  I imagine the beef carcass in front of me as the enemy, and try to make each blow the one that defeats them.

  We don’t butcher like most butchers, with knives and saws, on tables, neat and methodical. We butcher with swords and daggers, standing upright as though facing an enemy. We start from the bottom of the carcass (that is, the neck—it’s hung by a hook through the hind legs) and work our way up.

  The heavy curved end of my cutlass frees the shank from the brisket, the arm roast from the chuck, and my saber makes quick work of the short ribs.

  I set two pans on a low wheeled cart below the carcass, pull the daggers from their sheaths on my thighs, and slice crosshatches, carving out cubes of meat for stews or kabobs until I get to the ribs, the ones we turn into ribeyes, one of my favorite cuts of meat, second only to T-bones and, of course, porterhouse.

  Okay, now I’m hungry.

  Most days, I pull the long swords from their sheaths on the double baldrics that make an X across my back, and use the blades to cut ribeye steaks by first gently placing the edge of the blade in the precise spot where I’ll need to make the cuts, making sure I’ve got the exact angle and proper alignment between the rib bones. Then I pull both arms back and bring the swords together swiftly, one on each side, cutting inward and downward toward the spine, slicing two steaks simultaneously, drawing the swords through and out toward me so that the two blades never touch. I then align my swords and make the next cut, and align them again before the next.

  But today, I face the carcass like an opponent. I pull my swords out so swiftly the metal sings. I swing the blades wide, then bring them down and together, down and together, like a swimmer doing the butterfly stroke, like a butterfly fluttering its wings, except my wings are blades. This is how Ram always does it, how he’s encouraged me to do it, but I’ve always been too careful before. I wanted my steaks to be pretty.

  Not today.

  If the enemy is after me (whoever they are, the ones who killed my mother and chased me from my homeland) I need to be quick far more than I need to be pretty.

  I slam the razor-sharp metal through the meat, slice after slice, working my way past the ribeyes to the T-bones, the porterhouse, the sirloins, pausing only to free the flank steak with my saber.

  When there’s nothing left but the hind legs I stand back, panting from the effort, to evaluate the meat piled in the pans below.

  Ram has stopped working and is watching me. He is grinning.

  This is most unusual, and, dare I say it?—a little unsettling. He has very white, straight teeth, and his smile—at least as much as I can see of it through his beard—is handsome.

  Weird. I really didn’t expect that. Ram is a giant looming force, singing blades and cloaking hair. On some level, I’ve always assumed he’s hair all the way down, that if you shaved him you’d end up with just a pile of hair, swords, and shoes.

  Not this grin that’s watching me as though I’ve done something dazzling.

  Probably I am only imagining the handsomeness. I mean, he did rather save me from whatever Ozzie was growling at last evening, so perhaps my perception of him has gone fuzzy. I must remember, this is the man who makes me work like a slave twelve hours each day, who refuses to help me get home, who won’t even tell me where home is, though I know he knows.

  I glower at him. “What?”

  He is supposed to take the hint and stop grinning, but instead he steps toward me, his smile still broad. “You’re doing it. You’ve got it.” Crouching, he plucks a couple of steaks from the pans and holds them toward me, flat on his palms. “Very good. Even thickness. You’re still cutting at a bit of an angle, though. See how these are parallelograms?” He tips his hands to exaggerate the flaw.

  “They’re still even thickness. They’ll cook fine.”

  “But you’ve got to get the movement right.”

  “Why?” I’m out of breath, panting even, from the exertion of cutting so many steaks so swiftly. Maybe I make it look easy, but it is hard work, just the same.

  “It’s important. Besides, if you do it wrong, you’ll get a cramp in your shoulders. Here.” He shoves the dangling hindquarters aside and grabs the next carcass in the queue, scooting it along the hook track above, positioning it above the waiting pans.

  “I wasn’t done with that.” I point feebly at the hindquarters.

  “I want you to get this right. You’re so close.” He swings his cutlass, with one mighty blow lopping the shank and brisket free from the rest of the cow. After returning his sword to its holster, he plants me in front of him and guides my arms in a swooping motion, so similar to what I was doing moments before, but with a flatter angle and more of a twist at the end. “See there? Feel that? Good form reduces your odds of getting injured and cuts better steaks. It also helps ensure your blows are accurate.”

  “Okay. Stand back.” I can feel the difference in the swing. As Ram steps back, I step toward the carcass and bring the blades together just as he showed me. Two steaks fall atop the mountains of meat. Two more. Two more.

  Still tired from my marathon effort with the last animal, I pause, replace my swords in their scabbards and pick up two steaks, holding them out to Ram for his inspection.

  What is it with this guy? He’s still grinning. Seriously, Ram never grins and Ozzie never growls, not until the last ten hours or so. At least Ram’s smile isn’t quite so big right now, but I still study his face to prove to myself he is not actually han
dsome, that it was just a trick of the light or my overwhelming shock at seeing him smile in the first place.

  Hairy and goggley, yes, but also sort of good looking.

  Weird.

  “Much better. I think you’ve got that down.” He hoists the heaping pans of steak from the floor cart and carries it to the table. I grab the nearest wheeled rack and help him load the pans.

  The cut meat goes to the next room, where Michal’s teenage daughters, Zusa and Tyna, wrap what needs to be wrapped, further process anything that needs further processing (like the ground beef and sausages) and arrange it attractively in the windows, all while smiling and giggling and flirting with the young men among the customers who come to the shop.

  In a logical sense, Zusa and Tyna are probably a lot like me. I mean, I’m eighteen and they’re both right around there, sixteen and nineteen, I think. But I feel like we have little in common, and I’m not just talking about the language barrier. I may not know much Czech, but they know a bit of English, and all three of us have conversational German, enough to chat together—which we’ve done for a few moments now and then, mostly when I first came here.

  Not that I can blame them for not befriending me. I’m probably a little freakish, with my swords and blood-stained coveralls. And I admit I don’t linger too long in the doorway when I shove the meat cart their way. “Děkuji, Tyna. Děkuji, Zusa.” I let go of the cart and wave.

  “Děkuji, Ilsa!” They wave back, friendly enough, but that’s the end of it. Tyna grabs the cart, turns her back to me and navigates the narrow walkway of the front room.

  The door closes.

  And that’s the end of my normal peer interaction. To be honest, I didn’t fare much better at Saint Evangeline’s, even without the swords and bloodstained coveralls. I went to school with real princesses, with girls whose families had so much money they could buy themselves a country, if they wanted (or so girls claimed whenever someone of noble birth tried to pull rank).