The Hunt

Jem, a kid from a small farming village, loves dragons and enlists on a dragon hunt in hopes of seeing one.

The Hunt

The lizard perched on the wagonbed where Pol had placed it, and Jem shoved past a ballistaman to get a better look. “Men” was a misnomer, since most of the recruits were no older than Jem and on their first hunt. The lizard’s dewlap puffed and shrank [better word] with its breathing

 “Perfectly still,” Pol said. He stroked its rough scales with a dirty finger; its eyelids sagged, but it was otherwise unmoved. “You can see its breath, but you won’t have any other movements to go on. No wolf can stay that still.

“No man neither,” York called. The bullrunner sat straddling one of the canons, looking down on the recruits and smirking.

“Nor any man,” Pol agreed. He unsheathed his knife, which at six inches was twice as long as the lizard. He held it high in the air, well behind lizard’s tail, and continued speaking in a soft, even voice. “Nevertheless, it’s watching and smelling, even if it seems to be asleep. A ‘zard won’t give you any telltale movements, and if it has hidden in the woods your best chance is to listen for its breathing. Keep your own motions even,” he said, moving his blade slowly and fluidly, “until you’re ready.”

Without warning he struck deep into the wood, lodging his knife and slicing the lizard’s head clean off. Its corpse sagged like a tiny, popped sheep’s bladder, and blood soaked into the wood as Pol pulled the knife free and cleaned it.

Thorkel the Windspeaker nudged York’s knee and said, “Now try that with a thirty-footer.” The bullrunner chuckled, but Pol spoke sharply: “That’s enough.” Thorkel rolled his eyes and said something else to York, but the old man ignored him. He brushed the lizard’s body off the wagon and spoke to the recruits. “It’s the same idea: ‘zards are stiller than you can ever be. How do you approach them?”

Jem thought about it, and he could see that the other recruits were puzzling or looking down at the ground, thinking not to be noticed. He’d been an excellent hunter back home�"and, though know one could know about it, a successful poacher. Successful until the last time, anyway. What was different about a lizard?

The tall redheaded boy, Gil, said, “Well, just like with anything, I guess you don’t want to look right at them?”

“Yes, that’s very good. Act like it’s no more interesting than this pile of leaves,” he said, kicking some that had gathered under the wagon.

Another boy spoke up, more quickly now. “You want to keep your head down, right? Like it was a deer?”

“Sure,” Pol said. “Very good. Anyone else?”

Ha! Jem thought. This is simple stuff�"Pa would be embarrassed to hear it. He could come up with something better. “You want to walk with your back to them. They won’t run away that way�"they’ll think you’re leaving.”

Pol squinted at Jem and scratched his stubble. “Someone’s hunted deer.”

Jem panicked for a moment�"there’d be nowhere to hunt deer outside of Lord Gascoigne’s park. Then something came to him. “Um, it works with horses, sir. Taming horses, I mean. Catching wild ones, too.”

The other boys looked at Jem, impressed. The old man nodded slowly and said, “Indeed, it does. Why wouldn’t it work with dragons?”

“Sir?”

Pol said, “That’s very smart, boy, but it wouldn’t do you any good. Why not?”

He had no idea, but the other recruits’ admiration felt good and he had to wager a guess. “Maybe they hunt by ambush? So if you’re looking the other way, they think you don’t see them?”

Pol smiled broadly. “Very good!” He waved his hand over the crowd and then gestured down at Jem. “Pay attention to this. With a horse, say, you’re trying to get close without scaring it. A dragon isn’t scared of you. And that brings us to the one great rule about approaching dragons. [introduce better �" Pol asks them to guess, they do but no one figures it out.] Which is�"don’t approach a dragon, you idiot!”