rock beside the stream and appeared to be lost in meditation. But the wiry man roused quickly enough, took the sword on his lap and undid its wrappings carefully. There was still enough light for a fairly close inspection. Nestor sighted along the edge of the blade, and then tried it with a leaf. Brushed lightly along the upright edge, the leaf fell away in two neat halves.
With one finger Nestor traced the subtle pattern on the hilt. Then, acting as if he had reached a decision, he let Mark hold the sword for a moment and got to his feet. Lifting his net from the water, he peered into the mass of small, struggling creatures it had captured. The net held, thought Mark, a surprising weight of swimming and crawling things; perhaps the magical symbols round the rim really were effective.
Nestor plunged his hand into the mass, pulled out one wriggling thing, and let the rest sag back into the water. 'Baby dragon,' he said, holding up a fistful of feebly squirming gray for Mark's inspection. There were no wings, and the creature was vastly smaller than the one back in the cage. 'You find 'em in a lot of the streams hereabouts. There's a million, ten million, hatched for every one that ever grows big enough to need hunting.'
Then he surprised Mark by taking Townsaver back again. Nestor held the blade extended horizontally, flat side up, and on that small plain of metal he set the hatchling dragon. Freed of his grip, it hissed an infinitesimal challenge, and lashed a tiny tail. Nestor rotated the blade, slowly turning it edge-side up; somehow the creature continued to cling on. Its scales, though no bigger than a baby's fingernails and paper-thin, could protect it from that cutting edge. It hissed again as the sword completed a half-rotation, once more giving the dragon a flat space to rest upon.
Nestor contemplated this result for a moment, as if it were not at all what he had been expecting. Then with a small flick of his wrist he dashed the tiny creature to the ground; and in the next moment he killed it precisely with the sword, letting the weight of the weapon fall behind the point. Nestor handled the sword, thought Mark, as if it had been in his hand for years.
'One less to grow up,' said Nestor, turning his thoughtful gaze toward Mark. With the sword point still down in the soil at his feet, he leaned the hilt back to Mark, giving the sword back. 'First dragon this sword has ever killed, do you suppose?'
'I suppose,' said Mark, not knowing what the question was supposed to mean. He began wrapping the weapon up again.
'Your father didn't hunt them, then. What did he do with this sword? Use it in battle?'
'I… ' Suddenly Mark couldn't keep from talking, saying something to someone about it. 'My brother did, once. He was killed:'
'Ah. Sorry. Not long ago, I guess? Then the sword, when he used it, didn't… didn't work very well for him?'
'Oh, it worked.' Mark had to struggle against an unexpected new pressure of tears. 'It worked, like no other sword has ever worked. It chopped up men and even warbeasts — but it couldn't save my brother from being chopped up too.'
Nestor waited a little. Then he said: 'You were trying to use it today yourself. But — after I got there at least — nothing much seemed to be happening.'
'I couldn't feel any power in it. I don't know why.' At some point the thought had occurred to Mark that the limitation on the sword's magic might be connected with its name. But he didn't want to go into that just now. He didn't want to go into anything.
'Never mind,' said Nestor. 'We can talk about it later. But this design on the handle. Did your father, brother, anyone, ever tell you what it was supposed to mean?'
None of your business, thought Mark. He said: 'No sir.'
'Just call me Nestor. Einar, when we reach Sir Andrew's… well, I don't suppose I have to caution you to keep this sword a secret, until you know just what you want to do with it.'
'No sir.'
'Good. You carry it, I'll bring the net.'
Back at the wagon, they sorted out not only a catch of frogs for dragon-food, but a few fish to augment the dinner of beans, bread, and dried fruit that Barbara was preparing. It turned out that Ben was roasting some large potatoes under the fire as well, and for the first time in days Mark could eat his fill.
After dinner, when the immediate housekeeping chores had been taken care of, Ben got out his lute and sang again. Both Nestor and Barbara, for some reason, chose this time to make their personal trips into the woods.
'Hard day tomorrow,' Nestor announced when he returned. And, indeed, everyone was yawning. The captive dragon had already been put back inside the wagon, and the dragon-hunter retired there now. Barbara shortly followed, after looking at Mark's boots and vowing that she would soon mend or replace them for him. After throwing out a quantity of bedding, and emerging once more to make sure that Mark had got his share of it, she went in again and closed the flap.
The rainclouds that had threatened earlier had largely blown away, and now some stars were visible. Ben and Mark bedded down in the open, on long grass at a small distance from the dying fire. Wrapped in the extra blanket Barbara had given him, Mark was more comfortable than he'd been since leaving home. He was better fed, also, and very drowsy. His sword was safe in the wagon, and in a way he enjoyed being free of its constant presence at his side. Yet sleep would not come at once.
He heard Ben stirring wakefully.
'Ben?' 'Yah. '
'Your master really hunts dragons? For a living?'
'Oh yes, he's very good at it. That's what our sign painted on the wagon means. Everyone in the parts of the country where there are dragons knows what a sign like this means. This isn't really dragon country here. Just a few little ones in the streams.'
'I thought that the only people who hunted dragons were…'
'Castle folk? I think Nestor was a knight once, but he don't talk about it. Just the way he acts sometimes. Some highborn people hunt 'em, and others just pretend to. And both kinds hire professionals like Nestor when they have to, to hunt or to help out. There's a lot of tricks to hunting dragons.' Ben sounded fairly confident that he knew what the tricks were. 'And you help him,' Mark prodded.
'Yeah. In two hunts now. Last hunt, we were able to catch that little one alive, as well as killing the big one we started after. Both times I stood by with the crossbow, but I didn't do much shooting. Nestor killed 'em both. Neither of them were very big dragons, but they were in the legged phase, of course. Bigger than loadbeasts. You know?'
'Yeah, I guess.' What Mark knew, or thought he knew, about dragons was all from stories. After hatching, dragons swam or crawled around on rudimentary legs for about a year, like the one Nestor had netted, while large birds, big fish, and small land predators took a heavy toll of them. The ones that survived gradually ceased to spend a lot of time in the water, grew wings of effective size, and started flying. They continued as airborne predators until they were maybe four or five years old, by which time they'd grown considerably bigger than domestic fowl. A little more growth, and they supposedly became too big to fly.
Once their wings were no longer used, they withered away. The dragons resumed an existence as bellycrawling, almost snakelike creatures — so far their legs hadn't kept up with the growth of the rest of their bodies — though of course they too were on a larger scale than before. In this, called the snake phase, they were competitors of the largest true snakes for food and habitat.
When they were ready for the next phase — Mark wasn't sure how many years that took — dragons grew legs, or enlarged their legs, rather in the manner of enormous tadpoles. This legged phase was, from the human point of view, the really dangerous period of a dragon's life. Now, as omnivores of ever-growing size and appetite, they stalked their chosen territory, usually marshland or with marsh nearby. They ravaged crops and cattle, even carrying off an occasional man, woman, or child. Mark could vaguely remember hearing of one more phase after the legged one, in which the beasts after outgrowing any possible strengthening of their legs became what were called great worms, and again led a largely aquatic life. But of this final phase, Mark was even less sure than of the rest. 'Sure,' he added, not wanting to seem ignorant.
'Yeah,' Ben yawned. 'And both times, Nestor followed the dragon into a thicket, and killed it with his sword.' Ben sounded as if he were impressed despite himself. 'Did your father hunt dragons too?'
'No,' said Mark, wondering why everyone should think so. 'Why?'
