Hunting of the Last Dragon Read Online Free Page A

Tybalt himself. The swordsman recognised me, and gave me a grin and a wink.
    Behind me, a boy asked if the freak was dangerous, and whether it had two heads. “I don’t know, son,” the lad’s father replied. “But she’s a wicked heathen, so she’ll have horns, more like, and hoofed feet.”
    Other people laughed, though there was little mirth in it. Then the pavilion entrance was closed, putting us all in darkness. Instantly there was silence. Of a sudden I was afraid, thinking on another freak I had seen in another fair, long ago when I was small. That freak had been hideously misshapen, his face disfigured beyond any semblance to a human being, and I had been in terror of him, though he was heavily chained. Could this monster be worse?
    A torch was set aflame, lighting the box and the faces of the men bending over it. People pressed forward, and I was crushed so hard against the stage, I had to put my hands on the edge of it to brace myself. The faces on the painted box were so close I could have spat on them.
    The box was unbolted, the lid thrown back. Ghostlike in the semidarkness, a figure rose from within. It raised its arms, there was a shimmer of red silk, and the torch was passed quick beneath its face. The face was small, human, yet different. Only for a moment I saw it—saw the alien brown features, goblin-like and freakish, with dusky wild hair and coal-black almond-shaped eyes—then the torch was whipped away. Truth to tell, I was disappointed. Hardly a freak, this, compared with the other I had seen!
    The person was lifted out and placed upright onthe stage. Small it was, half lost within folds of scarlet silk, teetering like a child barely able to stand. Then it lifted its shining hem, and the torchlight passed close by its feet. They were small, far too small for human feet, and I thought they must be devil’s hooves. Then the freak began to walk. Up and down the platform it walked, not quickly, but with tiny limping steps, as if its feet were chained closely together. Its head was bent, its hands folded at its waist. I watched, appalled and entranced. Was it human, or was it some alien half-thing, unnatural and demonic? Just then the freak stopped hobbling and turned to face us all. In the leaping flame-light from the torch I saw its face again, and realised, with a start, that it was a maid.
    â€œSpeak, O Heathen One,” commanded Tybalt, holding the torch flame by her head.
    For a moment she hesitated, swaying as if her tiny feet were hardly able to support her, though she was slight enough to be blown away by the wind. Then she opened her mouth and chanted a bizarre little song, her voice high and lilting, making words as strange as spells. When she had finished, she very politely bowed low. People cheered and clapped, though I did not. I don’t know what I felt—fear, or fascination, or pity. She was like a changeling, a strange brown elf-child, enchanting and fragile. Some of the people standingclose called her a hobgoblin and spat at her.
    Tybalt commanded the freak to do something else, and she sat on a stool and took off her tiny shoes. Being close, I noticed that her fingernails were long and curved, like claws. Her feet were bandaged. At another order from her keeper, and with the torch held close to her, she removed the bindings. Her feet were grotesque, misshapen clumps with the toes and heels curved down and inwards, almost touching underneath. And they were flat, shapeless, as if the bones had all been broke.
    â€œThey’ve been bound up like that since she were a little child,” announced Tybalt. “That’s what they do in the barbarian land she’s from. It’s to keep the women in their place, you see. To stop them a-wandering, and gossiping, and getting up to mischief. A very sensible custom we would do well to take on, here.”
    Some of the men chuckled, shouting agreement, and their wives scolded