Old World Ways

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. When I was a girl, they weren’t allowed. Times have changed.

The first time I saw a dragon, actually, was at the Valley’s front door. Dad and I used to come every Sunday evening for the roast. It was the one day of the week he got to put on a clean shirt and see his pals, have a laugh and a pint. The men were always kind to me. I think it was great fun for them to have a little one around—children were already becoming scarce in those days. I was sitting at the table with them, sipping milk from a pint glass, swinging my stumpy legs, when a hullabaloo at the pub door caught my attention. Greg, the old barman, was shouting.

“Spiny devil! Freak!” He was drunk, of course—it’s a real miracle Old Greg can still manage to prop himself up behind the bar. I was used to seeing him drunk, but I’d never seen him so angry. “Out!” he spat at the door. “We don’t cater to your kind. You ought to know that!”

My curiosity got the better of me. I was at that age; the world was full of exciting mysteries I hadn’t yet learned to fear. I slipped beneath the table before any of Dad’s mechanic pals could snatch me by the collar and ran for the door.

“Zuza!” Dad called after me, but it was too late. Dodging boots and barstools, I dashed toward the new sound: a voice, deep and brittle, like no voice I had ever heard. Old Greg was the one to catch me and scoop me up. Just before he set me down to scold me, I saw the beast. The dragon—a word I had only heard in hushed whispers, like a curse, like a naughty joke in the schoolyard. It stood on the pub stoop. Almost like a person, I thought, only scalier and in dirtier clothes. In its taloned hand, I saw a hat.

“Sir,” said that growling voice. It made my spine crawl with bugs. “I only ask for a meal.”

A lot can change in a decade and a half. As the men of my grandparents' generation aged, their beliefs aged with them. A wave of new ideas flooded our valley. Science took root. Now, on any given day, there are plenty of dragons in the Valley Pub.

Personally, I don’t mind them. It’s the human patrons who make my job difficult.

“Over here, sweetheart!” The man at the end of the bar shouts for me a third time, and for the third time, I ignore him. He waves a purple bill in the air. I don’t recognize the money—another foreigner, flashing his region’s currency like I should care where he’s from. “Let’s have another round down here!”

“I’ll get to you when I get to you,” I mutter, busy with my tray. Three pints, three dishes of stew for the table of dragons by the back door; four whiskeys for the humans at the next table over. The dragons take their food and drink without so much as a nod. Their kind is never too polite. They never leave much of a tip, either, but I’d still prefer a poor tip to a slap on the arse or a hostel room number.

From the pub’s back courtyard, I hear glass shatter. A woman squeals with laughter. I roll my eyes as I duck back under the bar with my empty tray.

“It’s the full moon,” says Ellory, harried, wiping clean the ale tap before she pours another pint. “Folks are always at their wildest around the full moon.”

Again, I roll my eyes. She’s a sweet girl, Ellory, but she has a habit of regurgitating her grandfather’s old world beliefs. “It’s not the full moon. It’s that tomorrow’s Soldiers’ Day, and there are ten times the people in this pub as usual, and half the staff. Where’s your sister, anyway?”

“Upstairs, with Granddad. He isn’t feeling well.”

“Of course.” I fill three glasses for the impatient man at the end of the bar, then take his purple money. Five, it says—five of anything ought to be enough. “I’ll bring him a whiskey,” I say to Ellory. “Elaina needs to start her shift.”

Greg’s room upstairs is hot and dank smelling. A fire crackles in the stove, the kettle on it long past boiled, his musty coat and trousers littered across the floor. Elaina, his eldest granddaughter, sits at the three-legged table in the corner, fiddling with the radio knob. Choppy words jump out at us through the static. She is so focused on finding her station that she hardly looks up when I cross the room. I take the kettle off the stove, then drag a stool to Old Greg’s night table and set down the whiskey bottle with a thump.

The old man lifts his head at the clink of glass. I fill two and thrust one at him. “Time to get up, Greg. You can’t keep Elaina up here all night with your bitchin’ and moanin’. We need her downstairs—we’re busy.”

“Bitchin’ and moanin’,” Greg laughs, pushing himself upright on spindly forearms. “You’ve got me confused with my grandchild. She’s the one keeps complaining I don’t care enough about current affairs.”

Elaina has found her station. She hushes us, leaning in closer to the radio, her thin fingers floating delicately over the dial.

…no news to report on the case of Hubert Derry, the infant boy tragically snatched from his East Peak home last Sunday… with a hiss, the voice cuts out again. Elaina curses.

“They still haven’t found him?” I ask, frowning through the harsh sting of whiskey. I never much liked the stuff—but milk and ale can only take me so far on a busy night in the Valley.

“I doubt they will. First baby born in three years… wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve sold him to some old magic witch…”

Old Greg waves an impatient hand at us. Clearly, he’s heard enough about the Derry boy this evening. News from outside our valley has never held much interest for him. “Busy, huh?” he asks me, lowering his whiskey glass with a smack of his lips. “Who’ve we got down there? People, or a full house of babykillers?”

Elaina winces at the slur. She stands, turns off the radio, and ties her barmaid’s smock around her waist. “You can’t say that anymore, Granddad,” she says. “I’ve told you.”

“Why not? It’s what they are.”

“It’s not what they are. Dragons have nothing to do with the fall in births, remember? There’s just no science—”

“Science!” Old Greg scoffs. “In my day, they called it magic.”

“That’s enough.” I cut him off, snatching the glass from his hand to refill it. “Come on, let’s have another. We’ll get you back on your feet so you can make yourself useful, huh? Unless you’d rather leave us girls in charge all night.”

The old man frowns. Then, slowly, his wrinkled face blooms into a smile as he takes his glass back from me. “Another, then,” he says. “Then I’ll show you girls how a decent man runs his pub.”

The crowd finally begins to dwindle in the bitter hours of the morning. Exhausted, I lean against the wall beside the ale taps, drying glasses on my smock as Ellory cleans them, half-listening to the dregs of drunken conversation in the pub around me. Soldiers’ Day festivities will start in just a few hours—these lingering travelers are in for a nasty wakeup once the parade horns get blowing.

“How old are you?”

“Hmm?” I blink up at the man watching me from the other side of the bar. The same foreigner who waved his purple money at me earlier in the night, I realize. His friends have left him. For the hour, he seems rather composed. “I’ll be twenty next month,” I answer.

The man smiles. He has messy, graying hair, and the weathered skin of someone who has seen the world. Not as a soldier, I think, but on his own time, with his own two feet. Men of his like trickle through the Valley by the dozen. “So young,” he mutters. “It’s refreshing, to meet a young woman. You’re a dying breed, you know.”

“An aging breed,” I correct him. The man chuckles. He offers to buy me a drink, and I hesitate—I know I shouldn’t, but it’s late, and Old Greg is already too lost to the world to care what I do. He sits at the other end of the bar beside another withered local, slurring as they reminisce over better times. It won’t kill me to humor the traveler, I figure. I pull up a stool and pour two glasses.

“So,” he begins. “How does a pretty young girl get stuck in a place like this?”

I laugh at his choice of words. Stuck is exactly what I am. Paralyzed by my options. There isn’t much a child of the valley can grow up to do—war and tourism are our only industries. I could become a soldier, like my mum, or I could work on the airships that carry them, like Dad. Unable to choose, I’ve been stuck right here for the past three years, pouring drinks for dragons and wealthy folk who come and go as they please. “I don’t know,” I answer. “I suppose I’m saving up the means to leave.”

“I could take you away from here,” he says, quieter. “I could take you anywhere. Someone your age is invaluable these days.”

His tone makes me shudder. I’ve heard stories of snatchers, foreigners who lure young people away from their homes and sell them to witches, followers of the old black magic, folks who believe the birth curse can be healed with old world ways. I am a bit too old to be snatched, I know, but something about the idea thrills me in a dark way. “Invaluable,” I repeat. “How’s that?”

“Well…” The man’s hand has crept across the bar, to my wrist. It crawls slowly up my arm. I want to swat it away like a spider. “Men’s tastes haven’t exactly evolved to the times. A young woman like you…”

“Alright.” I swig the last of my drink and push back my stool. “I’ve heard enough, thanks.”

The man chuckles. Then he tosses his head back and howls, laughing at his own laughter. “I’m just teasing you, sweetheart. There’s no need to be prudish.”

I stand and take his empty glass from him. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

An hour later, I have all but forgotten about the conversation. I leave Ellory and Elaina to mind their granddad and the last few pub guests, punch my timecard, and step out into the brisk pre-dawn air. The courtyard is strewn with glasses and empty dishes—a job for my next shift, which starts all too soon. Bleary-eyed, I veer around the courtyard fence and step into the alley. My head is swimming; I’ve had too much to drink tonight, and too little to eat. Dad should be waking up soon. He’ll have warm bread and a fresh glass of milk waiting for me in the kitchen.

“Hello again.”

I turn. Too late, I recognize him in the dimness, hovering behind the waste bins. Weathered face, messy hair, hands like spiders—he’s on me before I can scream.

“Quiet!” he hisses in my ear. One hand closes over my mouth; the other presses against my throat. I feel something cold and sharp in his grip. “Relax, sweetheart. I told you, I’m going to take you away from here. I can make you rich. Alright?”

Panic freezes my blood. I can hardly think, can hardly move. Fight, a voice in my head screams, but my tired body has betrayed me.

He drags me toward the back of the alley, away from the light of the pub windows. I hear a motor rumbling in the dark. In a rush, I lift one arm and swing it back as hard as I can manage, driving my elbow into his gut. The man grunts and flinches, but his grip on me only tightens. “Stop it!” he mutters. “Enough of that! I don’t want to—fuck!” Suddenly, his arms spring away.

I fall to the cobblestones. Someone—something—has snatched my attacker from behind. I scramble backward until my head smacks the courtyard fence. Squinting, I can hardly see the fight; one dark figure crouches over the other, limbs flailing. A horrible, guttural howl fills the alley.

“Get off me!” The foreigner wails. “You animal! Filthy, spiny, babykiller!”

“Leave,” growls another voice. It’s low and raspy—a dragon’s voice. As I watch, stunned, the man breaks free of its grip and takes off down the alley at a sprint. The grumbling motor roars, then fades as the vehicle drives away.

I must be in shock. I can’t seem to find my hands and feet. The dark shape in the alley pushes itself upright and turns to face me.

“Are you alright?” the dragon’s voice asks.

As my eyes finally adjust to the darkness, I can make out more of its figure. It’s short, shorter than me, though the long, scaly snout and heavy tail of its kind make it seem so much larger. A male, I notice—he wears a shirt and trousers. No coat.

At last, I find my voice. “I think so.”

“What’s your name?”

Even through my shock, this strikes me as funny. No dragon has ever asked me such a personal question. “Zuza,” I tell him. I wonder: should I ask his name in return? As I struggle to my feet, bracing myself against the fence behind me, I decide I ought to invite my rescuer into the pub for a drink and a hot meal. Before I can open my mouth to do so, though, a sound catches me off guard.

I’ve never heard such a cry. High and choking, scrambling for breath. What is that? I wonder. A goat? A new calf? Then I realize—but, no. It can’t be.

The dragon turns in a hurry and strides away from me, toward the head of the alley. He stops just below the pub window. In the yellow lamplight, I watch him kneel. The scales of his hands are a pale, shimmery blue. “Hush,” he says, and it sounds so strange in that monstrous growl.

“What do you have?” I hear my voice in a whisper. The cry grows louder.

As I step closer to the light, the dragon picks up a dingy bundle of fabric off the cobblestones. His coat, I think. He lifts the bundle and cradles it to his chest. Those dark eyes flicker beneath their scaly brows. The collar of the coat falls in his arms, and I lose my breath—there is a tiny head in that bundle, a tuft of black hair. A human baby. “Hush, now,” hisses the dragon. “It’s alright, Hubert. Hush.”