Idle claws, p.1
Idle Claws, page 1
part #2 of Lazy Scales Series
Cover Art by Lugh Delaney Boyle
© 2020 DM Gilmore
All rights reserved
More books by DM Gilmore
The Lazy Scales series
Lazy Scales
Idle Claws
Dull Teeth
Broken Horns
Kindled Flame
Beating Wings
The Centre of Magical Affairs series
Drake
Trace
Poach
Prologue
The day Jeremy learned that dragons were real was the day that his best friend, Lewis, turned into one. They’d been friends since childhood. They’d grown up together. They’d been inseparable.
Lewis had practically been a brother to Jeremy until the day he suddenly wasn’t.
Jeremy looked at the glowing fire in the distance. He could see eight men gathered around it, laughing and joking. Some of them had set up a table and were playing a game of cards. Others were roasting hotdogs over the open flame and swapping stories. They had erected tents for shelter and a gasoline generator to supply them with power. Jeremy knew who these men were, even if they had never outright stated it themselves.
They were dragon slayers.
The blonde man at the table, who was calmly shuffling around a handful of poker chips, was John Lambton. Jeremy recognized him as their leader, the one who spoke for the entire group. It felt strange to see Lambton dressed in something other than black body armor, the standard uniform of the dragon-slaying troupe. It struck Jeremy as odd that these men, who hunted strange and fantastic creatures, could dress in anything remotely reasonable.
And yet, there he was, dressed in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He shuffled his hand of cards and tossed a handful of chips into the middle of the table.
They’d set up their campsite in the middle of a large grassy field just outside Barrington Hills. Behind their camp, the city was alight with evening activity. A little ways away, Jeremy could see the outline of their big, black, eighteen-wheeler truck against the night sky.
Jeremy took a deep breath. So far as he could tell, they hadn’t seen him yet. He could still turn around and walk away. He didn’t have to get involved, as much as he thought he wanted to. He could forget he’d ever come out here. If he left now, he could still forget all about this.
Except, he didn’t want to forget.
How could he forget, when it was all so painfully apparent in his mind?
Jeremy caught sight of a flash of orange and recognized Dayton’s stocky form, one of Lambton’s men. The ginger-haired man had his arm in a sling and winced slightly as he laughed, no doubt from his broken ribs. Jeremy’s heart leaped up into his throat as he remembered what had happened to that man in their last encounter. Jeremy’s resolve hardened. Dayton had nearly died in their previous meeting, an encounter that had ended with a furious dragon. Jeremy remembered why he’d wanted to come out and find the dragon slayers.
He swallowed his fear. He’d come out here with a purpose, and he couldn’t leave until it was fulfilled. He quickly pushed his glasses up his face and marched towards the camp, his head held high and his shoulders back.
As he approached, a few of the dragon slayers looked up and eyed him suspiciously. Lambton, however, never took his eyes off his game. His eyes were hard, a blue so fierce that they almost seemed to glow as they caught the firelight. Jeremy stopped beside the table and held his breath, waiting for some sign that he was allowed to be present.
Lambton picked up a can of beer from the table and took a pull off it, smacking his lips as it came away. “About time you stepped out of the shadows,” he said in a thick British accent. “I had a bet with my mates here that you’d turn around and leave. Guess I owe them some coin.”
The men around the table laughed as Lambton tossed each of them a poker chip. The older man grinned as he turned to Jeremy again. His age was indeterminate. He looked to be maybe in his early forties, but somehow Jeremy got the sense that Lambton was vastly older than he appeared. The last time they’d met, Lambton had held himself tall and proud, like a man who had seen and therefore knew far more than he let on.
“You knew I was out there?” Jeremy asked although he was mostly unsurprised. The old dragon slayer always struck him as highly intelligent.
“You don’t get to be as old as me in this profession without being vigilant, lad,” Lambton chuckled, shuffling his remaining stack of poker chips. Jeremy noticed that, despite handing each of the other players some of his chips, he still had a remarkably large pile. “Observe everything and absorb every detail. You never know when something like that might come in handy.”
Jeremy adjusted his glasses and nodded in understanding. “Right. Vigilance. Observation. Makes sense.”
Lambton smirked and flipped his cards face-up on the table. “That’s a straight, lads. Pay up.”
Two of the other players swore, while the third, who had already folded, nodded sagely.
“Do you play poker, kid? Five-card draw?” Lambton asked, giving Jeremy a pleasant grin as he raked in his chips.
“I only know how to play Texas Hold ’em,” Jeremy said, sheepishly.
“Ah, it’s basically the same thing, except you get five cards in your hand, and there’s no river. Join us, play a few hands.”
Jeremy shook his head violently. “I’m not here to play games!” He said, his fists tightening.
“Of course you’re not,” Lambton said with a smirk. “Why the hell would you ever play a game with old men like us?”
Two of his men at the table laughed again. Jeremy noticed that those who were still around the firepit had gone silent, observing the conversation.
“I know why you’re here, but since you won’t come out and say it, I’m just filling the time,” Lambton said, as he carefully stacked his chips into piles organized by color. When he was done, he had even more than when he’d paid out to his friends on their bet. “I like preamble and banter. It’s interesting. You learn more from a man by what he doesn’t say than what he does.”
Jeremy blinked slowly, not understanding what the old dragonslayer meant.
“Take your brother, for instance,” Lambton continued, tossing his hand of cards to another player as they shuffled the deck. “The last time we met, he insisted that it was coyotes that attacked your barn, even though it was obvious that he recognized the tracks. Strange, innit?”
“What makes you think he recognized the tracks?” Jeremy blurted, his face scrunched in confusion.
“Vigilance and observation,” Lambton said again, tapping his temple. “I use my eyes and ears. Anyone can learn to do it if they want to. But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. The fact you got defensive shows me you recognized the tracks, too.”
Jeremy thought back to the first time he’d met Lambton. The older man had stopped by his farm to investigate the damage done by a beast that most certainly hadn’t been a coyote. He sputtered nervously but said nothing outright. How did he know!?
Lambton cocked an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a slight grin. “See, lad, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re not speaking, but you’re saying so much. Your body language says that you knew the creature wasn’t a coyote and that your brother knew it too. You’re saying that you know exactly what the beast was.
“I’m able to tell all that by the way you hold yourself: your facial expressions, your eyes, your posture. Your body is giving away what you don’t want to say. Everything tells a story, lad,” Lambton continued, as he tossed his blind into the pot, and the dealer handed him five new cards. He licked the corner of his lip and sorted the cards in his hand. “Everyone has their tells. Vigilance and observation. Remember that.”
“Vigilance and observation,” the other slayers echoed as they sorted their own cards.
“Take these chums,” Lambton said, snapping his fingers to draw Jeremy’s attention and pointing at the other three men at the table. “They all saw me lick my lip just now and think that’s a tell. That’d be the vigilance, they’re keeping an eye out for something that can mean more than what’s being said. The only problem is that I’m observant enough to know that they think like that, so I could have just as easily faked a tell to throw them off.”
The three other players looked up in surprise, and one of them threw his hand onto the table and crossed his arms. “Fold,” he grunted.
Lambton spared Jeremy another smile. “So, what about it, lad? Want to come out and say it, or want me to guess your intention?”
Jeremy opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He genuinely didn’t know what to say. Lambton had called him out, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to answer. The blonde-haired dragon slayer’s smile waned for a moment, and he shook his head.
“I’ll tell you what, lad,” Lambton said, raising an eyebrow. “Let me take a crack at you. I’ll tell you what I think you’re here for. If I’m right, you join us at the table, and we play a game of poker. I’ll teach you the rules, even give you some of my chips. If I guess wrong, you can turn around and leave. No worse for wear. We ain’t thugs, we don’t hurt people if we can avoid it.”
Jeremy swallowed nervously. “All right, fine. You get one guess.”
Lambton smiled. “One? Ah, the lad’s making it challenging for me, eh? All right.”
Lambton took another quick look at his cards before tossing them onto the table in a fold. The other player who’d folded swore under his breath as the blonde-haired dragon slayer turned in his seat to meet Jeremy’
“You are intimately familiar with the dragon on some level,” Lambton began, looking into Jeremy’s eyes. “You know him personally, and you even considered the dragon to be a friend, but now you’re unsure if that was wise.”
Jeremy’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and he took a step back in surprise.
“Your reaction tells me I’m right on the money,” Lambton said, rising to his feet and speaking faster. “Let’s continue. The dragon destroyed your property, namely the cow, something that your family needed for dire financial reasons. How do I know you need the cows for money? Simple. Your fields have been untended for at least a couple years. They’re unturned and full of weeds. Your brother does all the hard labor around the farm, and yet you don’t plant any real crops. I suspect he used to help your father before he left or died, but now maintaining the field is too much work for him alone. You’re much too scrawny to be of any genuine help, beyond milking the cows.”
Jeremy took another step back, and Lambton advanced again.
“Right again, I see. All right, one more. Because the dragon destroyed something you needed, it drove a wedge between your friendship. Now you regret your decision to ever get close to the beast because you’re unsure if you’ll be able to do what is necessary to remove it. That is why you came here. You want my help to kill the dragon, but you don’t want me alone to do it. No, you want to be involved. You want to see the beast’s life fade from its eyes as it dies. You want to have a hand in its death.”
Lambton reached out and put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “All of that preamble leads to one thing: you wanted to ask me to train you to slay dragons.”
Jeremy swallowed and quickly adjusted his glasses.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You want to learn how to kill dragons?” Lambton asked.
Jeremy took one look into Lambton’s sharp blue eyes, and then another look at the poker table and fire pit. The other dragon slayers had gone completely still and quiet.
“I could go deeper if you’d like, lad,” Lambton offered, drawing Jeremy’s gaze again. “From the way you’re looking away from me, I feel there’s more to it than that. Wanting to slay the dragon is just the meat of it. So, tell me, boy, am I right?”
Lambton waited in the silence, his smile never wavering for an instant. He patiently waited for Jeremy to admit he was right. Jeremy, however, swallowed again before speaking. “You’re missing one detail,” he said.
Lambton cocked an intrigued eyebrow. “Really? What would that be?”
“The dragon killed my best friend.”
Lambton nodded his head slowly, as though mulling the statement over. “Interesting,” he muttered. “That’s as good a reason as any to want it dead.”
“You don’t sound surprised,” Jeremy noted.
“I’m not. There’s always something after a human tries to befriend a dragon. Dragons are slaves to their baser instincts. Eating humans comes easy to them.”
The pair stood in silence for a brief moment. The dragon slayers said nothing, as they waited to see what Lambton would do next.
“I believe you owe me a game,” the older man said, releasing his grip on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Lads, pull up another chair. Are you hungry, boy?”
Jeremy shook his head, but a bowl of stew was already poured and set at the table. One of the dragon slayers unfolded a chair and put it next to Lambton. The blonde man gave Jeremy a quick grin and tapped the seat eagerly.
“One game, lad,” Lambton said. “That was the deal.”
“The deal was I’d play if you read me right,” Jeremy noted.
Lambton shrugged. “I got it mostly right, and besides, something tells me you want to stick around, regardless of one missed detail.”
Jeremy took a deep breath and adjusted his glasses on his nose again. He didn’t have to win; he just had to play. Swallowing, he took a seat on the chair, and Lambton reviewed the rules.
“Your first lesson, lad: vigilance and observation.”
“Vigilance and observation,” Jeremy repeated.
“Be aware. Be cognizant, and above all,” Lambton started. In a flash, there was the blade of a dagger pressed against Jeremy’s throat. “Be ready to strike at all times.”
Jeremy swallowed nervously as the blade was pulled away and sheathed again at Lambton’s hip. “Now. Let’s play!
Chapter 1
The pronghorns were grazing peacefully on the grassy mountainside. There were six of the tawny mountain antelopes, in ages ranging from young juveniles to grown adults, chewing away on the dried yellow grass. They clopped along, blissfully unaware that just upwind, they were being watched.
Lewis stayed low to the ground, trying his best to blend into the mountainside as he stalked his prey. His bronze scales did little to conceal him from the pronghorns, but with the wind blowing against him and keeping his scent away, they didn’t even know he was there. The wind was blowing down the mountainside, which meant he’d have to charge uphill to catch any of them.
He took a deep breath through his nose, feeling how the scent of his prey danced across his nostrils. Any second now, he would leap out and strike, taking one of them down.
“Not yet,” came a whispered voice from over his shoulder.
Lewis risked a momentary glance up and saw the floating, translucent form of Lasthope. The ghost dragon observed the pronghorns intently, advising Lewis on the perfect moment to strike. Why he bothered to whisper was beyond Lewis’s understanding. It wasn’t like anyone else could see or hear him. Lasthope might as well have been Lewis’s imaginary friend.
“Taste the air with your tongue, what’s the flavor?” Lasthope asked.
Lewis didn’t want or need Lasthope’s nagging, but he couldn’t deny that the elder dragon’s wisdom came in handy now and again. Lewis had only been a dragon for about a week, and he still wasn’t getting any better at it. Previous attempts at hunting had ended in utter failure. As a result, Lewis had a painful gnawing in his stomach that refused to go away. He was sure he’d lost a bit of weight, too, since it had been several days since his last decently sized meal.
At Lasthope’s insistence, he stuck his forked tongue out and tasted the air. “Bitter,” he grunted.
Lasthope snorted. “They’re on alert,” he explained. “They don’t smell you, but they can feel you watching them.”
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Lewis grumbled, shuffling his claws to get in a better position to strike. “More importantly, how did you get that from bitter air?”
“Shush, Lewis,” Lasthope hissed. “They can still hear you.”
As if on cue, the tail of one pronghorn lifted, and it raised its head from the grass. It looked around, trying to spot the source of the noise.
“Behind the rocks, quickly,” Lasthope said, pointing a translucent talon at a rocky outcropping not too far away.
Lewis held his breath and waited for his breakfast to turn away, and then quickly scuttled on all fours towards the rocks. His tail thrashed behind him, and his furious belly dragged along the ground beneath him. The pronghorn’s ears flicked at the noise. Just as Lewis dived behind cover, the prey whirled and scanned the grass patch he’d been hiding in not seconds earlier.
“Good, good, you’re getting better at this,” Lasthope said, praising Lewis with an intangible pat on the head. “Keep patient, we’re almost done, and then you can eat.”
Lewis said nothing as he risked a peek out from behind the rocks. The pronghorns had moved a little way further up the mountain. He licked his lips, imagining how good it would taste to get his fang-filled mouth around their luscious legs.
“All right, almost time,” Lasthope whispered. “Notice the tails? They’re still on alert. Give them a bit more time to drop their guard and then you can—”
Lasthope was suddenly interrupted as a monstrous growl echoed across the field. For a moment, the ghost dragon’s brows pinched together. Had Lewis just growled at him? Then the sound rippled again.
Lewis’s eyes were wide, and his snout had gone green from embarrassment. He bit his tongue to stifle a groan and flattened himself against the ground, rubbing the sides of his belly as it gurgled angrily again.
