Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [204]
It became obvious to Wataru that this dragon was young—just a kid. Still, he was over six feet long. How was he going to drag this creature out of the water? Then he had an idea.
“If you could somehow get a foothold, do you think you could drag yourself out of the water?”
“Sure,” the dragon said, nodding. “And if I can dry my wings, I’d be able to fly out.”
“Wait a second, okay?” Wataru said, dashing back to his udai. He pulled two paddles from the animal’s hooves and brought them back to the prone dragon. “Here, put these on your hands. They should allow you to grab onto the mud.”
The dragon did what he was told, and though his progress was slow, he began to inch out of the water. “Yerrrsh!” he said with great effort. Wataru imagined his face would have turned beet red, if it wasn’t red already.
Finally, his wings emerged from the water. The parts that had been submerged hung limp, as if anesthetized. The sight sent a shiver down Wataru’s spine.
“Just a little farther!” Wataru put a hand on his back and pushed. Finally, most of the dragon was out of the water, leaving only his tail dangling in the murky blackness.
“Just a bit more!”
“Yoik?” The dragon’s eyes opened wide. “Gah! It’s a kalon!”
“Huh? What?”
The dragon twisted and turned, trying to shake his tail. “A kalon! A kalon’s eating my tail!”
Wataru looked to the lake to see the stillness of the water disturbed by a thrashing where the dragon’s tail disappeared beneath the surface.
“What’s a kalon?!”
“The only fish mean enough to live in this lake! Oh, they’re fierce eaters!” The dragon scraped at the mud with both arms. “Ack! It’s pulling me in! It’ll eat me alive!”
Wataru saw that it was true. Even as he struggled, the dragon’s body was slowly sliding back into the lake. The paddles on his forelimbs left skid marks on the mud. The waves on the water’s surface were growing larger by the moment.
“I’ll deal with that fish!” Wataru said, drawing his Brave’s Sword.
The dragon shook his head, pushing Wataru away from the water with his wing. “No, no! That little sticker of yours won’t dent the kalon’s skin. You’ll have to cut off my tail!”
Wataru looked back and forth between the dragon’s panicked face, and his tail, drawn taut as a fishing line.
“Cut…your tail?”
“What did I just say? Look, I’ll tug real hard to pull it out as far as I can. Then you cut it—as close to the water’s edge as you can get. Got it? As close as you can! Cut off too much and it’ll hurt something fierce and I’m no big fan of that. When I give the signal, you cut as swiftly as you can. And make it a clean cut—I want that sword all the way through the first time, got it? The first time!”
“Wait!”
“Wait?! Wait and the kalon’ll eat me alive! You got your sword ready? Get a good footing, now. Ready? I’m going! One, two, three!”
Then the dragon yanked on his tail with every ounce of his strength. In a daze, Wataru lifted his sword and aimed for the tail right where it emerged from the water, a trembling taut cord of energy.
Snick!
Wataru felt the blade connect. The dragon howled. The lake water erupted with waves, and through the spray, Wataru saw something like a great round saw blade arc above the surface, before disappearing into the dark depths.
“That hurt!!!” The dragon thrashed with its forelimbs on the mud. Great tears fell from its eyes. “I said as close to the water as possible! You cut practically half the thing off!”
Wataru sighed, unsure what to say. “What was that thing?” he said at last.
“What was—I told you! A kalon!”
“I mean that thing like a round saw blade. Was that its mouth?”
“Nah, just the back fin. Its teeth are much, much longer than all that. Believe me, I know,” he added, glancing back at his tail.
The severed section was about as thick as a large carrot. Red blood seeped