Translator Natalia Lilienthal

© Natalie Yacobson, 2023

© Natalia Lilienthal, translation, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0059-4892-2

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Flames in the woods

Clement was gathering brushwood in anticipation of an attack. Though he now wore simple peasant clothing, and a sharp dagger with a costly hilt was hidden in his bosom. He would pull it out instantly if his pursuers sought him out again.

There was a deafening dragon roar through the forest. It almost made his ears bleed, it was so loud. Clement had expected anything but a dragon to appear. It was up to the humans to attack. His friends and allies had warned him that assassins had been sent for him. The main thing was that none of them would think of disguising themselves in a peasant’s shirt, as Clement himself had already done for the sake of disguise. If his enemies had the same plan, they would be indistinguishable from ordinary passersby. Well, almost impossible.

Clement himself was kept safe by his uncle’s magic. It was good to have a wizard uncle and a royal father, but only as long as your kingdom was not overrun by monstrous beings from the black sands. They were non-human, and they knew magic very well. His uncle had gone to great lengths to place impenetrable spell protections on his nephew and his new habitat.

Until yesterday Clement had slept at the palace; today his home was an abandoned hut in a forest of ill repute. There were stories in the old days that the place was haunted. It had been said that berry-picking peasant women had seen dryads and vicious elves in the trees. The dragon was probably part of the forest’s magic, and not an agent of the new ruler of Aluar. His aim was to kill the only surviving prince.

When his country was overrun, Clement himself survived only by going hunting. The young prince was bad with a sword, and could not improve this, though his instructors had exhausted him in the training ring. But he was so good with a crossbow and a bow that no royal archer was a match for him. Clement had always believed that if a prophecy came true, and the Aluar’s heir’s life was in danger, he would be saved by his skill as an archer. And so it was! It was only indirectly, not directly.

If he had not gone on that fateful day to hunt, he would already be dead. The kingdom had been overrun at night, and the prince had been so caught up in the hunt for game that he roamed the woods until morning.

Now there’s no way home. Black creatures are nesting in the king’s castle.

«They are a special race! They will either overwhelm and enslave Aluar’s people or utterly destroy them,» his uncle, who had only escaped the castle by virtue of his ability to obscure the eyes that watched him with magic, told him.

It turned out to be possible to verify his words in the nearest city, where there were more monstrous creatures than ordinary citizens. Clement’s allies still hoped that he could wrest the power back. But it seemed rather doubtful. It is better to escape. Clement had already been attacked more than a dozen times by archers and knights in black armor. The dragon, on the other hand, would not attack. It just flew by. Its scales glittered so brightly overhead Clement had to squeeze his eyes shut. You could go blind!

«Run away, you fool!» A villager of some sort dropped her basket of blueberries and sprinted from the thicket. «Dragon in the sky! Expect fire!»

But there’s nothing on fire! Clement looked around in astonishment, and spotted another squad in black armor. It was time to run. Or should they fight back? The knights had spotted him too, and despite the magical protection, they knew who he was.

Clement quickly reached for the crossbow, hidden under his shirt, on his back. It was time to fight. It was too late to run away. Suddenly the villager, running away, flashed like a match.

Could it be that lightning had struck the tree beside her? There seemed to be no thunderstorm! And the trees were all intact. Clement opened his mouth in amazement as the band of black knights burst into flames, too, like one big bundle of brushwood.

What is this? Was it a heaven’s punishment for these men trying to kill the true heir of the country in which they live. If so, so be it for them. But why did the villager burn? On the contrary, she was trying to warn him of some danger.

Clement waited until the knights had burned almost to the ground and walked over to examine the remains. The charred limbs beneath the pieces of the armor looked monstrous.

But the real monster hovered overhead. Clement shuddered, realizing that it was not the fire of justice that had burned the men alive, but the fire of a dragon.

«Sit in the gamekeeper’s hut and wait while I send you a helper,» his uncle instructed before parting. Did he really send a dragon to help him? With a dragon and no army, there’s a chance to regain his rightful throne! Only Clement’s joy was premature. The dragon was quickly gone.

All that remained was to bemoan his fate. He would need a dragon companion, and an army of ghosts who could overpower the invaders.

His uncle had promised to send him just one mate-fighter and one bride. The latter was superfluous in Clement’s opinion. To marry penniless and on the brink of death was unwise. Then his bride would be executed along with him. But his uncle had lectured him on the benefits of an alliance with a wealthy neighboring princess, whose kin would support him in case of trouble with their armies. His uncle was probably right.

Clement was a good-looking fellow. But that’s how a cranky princess was going to like him in peasant clothes. All the princesses he knew were mean and selfish.

But the elf-like girl who emerged from the thicket stunned him with her beauty. Pale, slender, dressed in a light white dress, as if she were a bride. She had a wreath of white daisies in her blond hair. One glance at her shocked Clement, but she was not looking at him, she was looking at the ash-covered ground. She was looking for something, and when she found it, she grabbed it and disappeared. What she had found was beyond Clement’s comprehension, but he supposed it might have been something magical, something dropped by a dragon in mid-flight. Who was this girl, picking up what the dragon had left behind? Was she a sorceress? Was she a forest nymph? Or who else might dwell in the thicket?

As Clement pondered whether to speak to her, the beauty’s body turned into a silvery haze that billowed skyward.

Raymonda

The beauty came to his hut in the middle of the night. A village was burning nearby. The smell of fire reached here. When Clement woke up to the stench of smoke, he had the feeling that everything was about to burn, but the beautiful elfish woman he had seen in the woods that morning smiled sweetly and said:

«Don’t worry, the fire is far away! The forest is not on fire!»

He was at once relieved. If she says all is well, it must be so. How could he not believe her? But Clement was worried.

«But the village where I bought the wine and candles is burning. It stands behind the forest edge.»

«It has already burned!» The beauty corrected him without regret in her voice. «The people weren’t very nice.»

«Has anyone survived?»

«It is hardly. Only ghosts. They come often from the ashes of dragon fires.»

«So a dragon burned the village?»

The beauty silently trimmed a cascade of snow-white skirts, covered in a layer of silver sequins as if they were stars. Her bouncy blond curls snaked down her chest and back. The puffed sleeves accentuated the grace of her thin arms. How beautiful she was! Clement regarded her, forgetting to ask how she had managed to get through the latch-locked door.

Only the window was open, but girls in expensive dresses certainly didn’t climb through windows. Clement knew how meticulous court fashions were. It was as if the guest had walked through walls. If she’s from a tribe of elves, that’s no surprise.

«Are you an elf princess?» Clement asked directly.

She only laughed in response. Her laughter was infectious and beautiful, like the ringing of a bell. Her presence in the wretched hut had somehow brightened the air.

«I knew that huntsman who lived here before you, and now there are only bones left of him,» she said.

«But I did not know him!»

«No wonder you didn’t. He was eaten by a dragon before you got here.»

Again she spoke of the dragon. It made Clement uncomfortable to think of it. Surely he’d burned down the nearest village for sport. There would be no place to buy spirits now. He would have to make do with spring water. That’s all right. It’ll be soberer. Perhaps then the wood elves won’t seem so beautiful to him anymore.

«How did you get in?»

«You called me when you were sad for me,» she said in a simple voice. «The boys let me in as soon as they start pining for me. And the dragon comes with me. Don’t you want me to go?»

«No, I don’t. Stay!» He took her words as a joke. How can she be connected to the dragon?

«You have nowhere to sit!» She paced about the hut rustling luxurious skirts.

«This is not a royal mansion.»

«And you do not look too much like a huntsman,» she reproached.

«But I am dressed as a peasant.»

«I look like a pixie, but I have no more than a drop of pixie blood.»

There was not a drop of blood from the peasant race in Clemente, but he remembered that he had to remain incognito. Suddenly she is the beautiful spy of the chief of the black tribes, Shai.

«Who are you?» Clement questioned her. «Where do you live? Do you live in the woods?»

«Well, I live almost in the woods,» she corrected him. «There are a lot of places here that are forbidden to humans, but are open for me.»

«You look like a ghost in the moonlight,» Clement decided. «You must be a moon fairy! I have heard of your kind from my uncle.»

He chuckled as he remembered that he’d seen her during the day too. Moon Fairies cannot appear in daylight.

«I am Raymonda,» the beauty said.

«And I’m Clement, but it is just Clem to my friends…» He should have used an invented name, but he’d already blurted it out. Too late to make amends.

«Would you like to dance the night in a circle of moon fairies or elves? I know some of them. I could set you up with dryads or nocturnes or nymphs or…»

Raymonda curled her fingers as she enumerated. He probably thought she had more than five fingers on each hand.

«I have a fiancée,» Clement muttered reluctantly.

She grinned wickedly at him. «How many fiancées have you got?»

«What do you mean?» Clement didn’t understand. «I haven’t even had one recently. But I happen to be engaged. It’s a family whim! I am waiting here for my betrothed.»

«It is even so!» Raymonda suddenly softened. «You’re faithful! That’s good! I wouldn’t have anything to do with a traitor.»

Her blue eyes suddenly twinkled dangerously, as if there were ice inside her pupils.

«You want to see some magic?» She fluttered her curls into a halo-like blaze, and the cards his uncle had left at Clement’s hut shot up into the air and started shuffling on their own.

«Come on, then!» Clement was frightened that he was actually asleep and couldn’t wake up.

«Well, all right, sleepyhead!» Raymonda suddenly leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. «Sleep till morning, and I’ll come and see you in the afternoon.»

He thought she had scales of skin under the pendants of pearl on her bare forehead. It was probably part of the ornament. It’s hard to see in the dark.

What kind of pendants do jewelers attach to pendants? Sapphires cut in the form of drops or stars, beads, even cameos. Suddenly it occurred to someone to make a crown of dragon scales. What fashions will not be introduced! And the court ladies will support any innovations, even those that would cause them to burn themselves on jewelry made of dragon scales.

What surprised him more than scales was the veil in Raymonda’s hair. It was thin, like a spider’s web, but white. How similar to a bride’s veil!

If she is the one he is waiting for, she is certainly no princess. She is a forest nymph or an elf! His uncle has promised him a sorceress!

Or is it worse and Raymonda has been promised to someone else? It is for a wood elf like her, for instance. Clement’s heart ached, but there was no time to question Raymonda about her marriage. The beauty had vanished. Literally! Where she had stood, a luminous puff of smoke wafted toward the open window.