Here There Be Dragonnes Read Online Free PDF

dirtiest, most hideous creature I could imagine and you came to mind, you filthy little obscenity! Twisted, monstrous, revolting—Thing—that you are . . ." And I had shrunk back, for the venom in her voice frightened me more than anything she had done before. "Yes!" she had howled, "I cursed him, for he refused—" but she suddenly snapped her mouth shut and seizing her Broom, proceeded to beat me so hard I could not help but cry, despite my determination never to let her see how much she hurt me either physically or mentally. Then she seized Moglet and tried to throw her on the fire, but I snatched her back and hid her, mewing pitifully, under my cloak. Thwarted, she kicked Puddy out of his crock and stamped down catching my hand instead, for he had jumped into my pocket for protection. Poor Pisky was next, for she threw his bowl against the wall where it smashed and he lay helpless and flapping on the mud floor till I stretched forth my uninjured hand and popped him into the leather water-bucket, drawing that also under my cloak. Then came Corby: she snapped the fine chain that kept him to his perch and pulled and twisted at his neck until he pecked her and spiralled down helpless to join the rest of the creatures huddled under my cloak. Then she seemed to go mad, and though she now made no attempt to touch us herself, she shrieked a curse that made all the pebbles we were burdened with hurt as they never had before. And then her Broom was beating and beating at my bowed head until the blood ran . . .
    That seemed to calm her, the sight of my blood, for she called off her minion and I heard her whisper, as though to herself: "No, no not yet: They must have a living home, a living body, or He will seek them out . . . Hide, hide, my precious ones, till I find the formula . . ."
    * * *
    For a while after that She had stayed at home and life had resumed its monotonous sameness, but I never forgot that moment of utter terror when she had lost control and we had seemed to face extinction; nor had I forgotten how my friends, for that is what they were, had all sought refuge under my cloak, as though I were in some way responsible for them all.
    This action seemed to bind us all closer together in a way we all secretly acknowledged but never mentioned, which appeared to make our lives together easier and more hopeful in the days that followed.
    And now came this day, the day that was going to change our lives irrevocably. The preceding night She had left the hut just before moon-high, and the whole of the two days preceding had been taken up with Shape-Changing. It was early autumn, for she had sent me out for a few heads of saffron which I had found easily enough and then lingered awhile at the edge of the forest gazing down at the village below. Two-wheeled carts laden with the last of the hay and straw creaked down the muddy street; children played with top and ball, their happy squeals and shouts loud in the still air; men trudged back from the fields, mattocks on their shoulders from breaking up the earth ready for the winter sowings; a woman beat out a rag rug and farther off they were burning off stubble, for the smoke curled up thin into my nostrils and stretched them wide with the acrid, sad smell that is the ending of the year. At last an extra-sharp twinge in my stomach reminded me of my Mistress and I hastened back in the blue twilight, snatching a handful of blackberries from a bush as I went and eating each bleb separately to make them last longer. I had been almost happy for a moment or two that afternoon, but there had been a cuff for my tardiness and another for my betraying, juice-stained mouth and I had gone into the corner by the fire and turned my face to the wall. And so, in a fit of the sulks, I missed that last change to beauty, with all its preenings and posturings, which to the others at least broke the monotony of their drab days. So once I heard her split the roof and disappear I was