The Name of the Wind

Rubbing at my eyes, I looked down again and saw the thing move closer to the fire. It was black, scaled, massive. It grunted again like thunder, then bobbed its head and breathed another great gout of billowing blue fire.

It was a dragon.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE Interlude—Obedience

In the Waystone Inn, Kvothe paused expectantly. The moment stretched out until Chronicler looked up from his page.

“I’m giving you the opportunity to say something,” Kvothe said. “Something along the lines of, ‘That can’t be!’ or ‘There’s no such thing as dragons.

Chronicler wiped the nib of his pen clean, “It’s not really my place to comment on the story,” he said placidly. “If you say you saw a dragon ...” He shrugged.

Kvothe gave him a profoundly disappointed look. “This from the author of The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus? This from Devan Lochees, the great debunker?”

“This from Devan Lochees who agreed not to interrupt or change a single word of the story he is recording.” Chronicler lay his pen down and massaged his hand. “Because those were the only conditions under which he could get access to a story he very much desired.”

Kvothe gave him a level look. “Have you ever heard the expression white mutiny?”

“I have,” Chronicler said with a thin smile.

“I could say it, Reshi,” Bast said brightly. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

Kvothe looked back and forth between them, then sighed. “There are few things as nauseating as pure obedience,” he said. “Both of you would do well to remember that.” He gestured for Chronicler to pick his pen up again. “Very well.... It was a dragon.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus

It’s a dragon,” Denna whispered. “Tehlu hold and overroll us. It’s a dragon.”

“It’s not a dragon,” I said. “There’s no such thing as dragons.”

“Look at it!” she hissed at me. “It’s right there! Look at the huge Goddamn dragon!”

“It’s a draccus,” I said.

“It’s Goddamn huge,” Denna said with a tinge of hysteria in her voice. “It’s a Goddamn huge dragon and it’s going to come over here and eat us.”

“It doesn’t eat meat,” I said. “It’s an herbivore. It’s like a big cow.”

Denna looked at me and started to laugh. Not hysterical laughter, but the helpless laugher of someone who’s just heard something so funny they can’t help but bubble over with it. She put her hands over her mouth and shook with it, the only sound was a low huffing that escaped through her fingers.

There was another flash of blue fire from below. Denna froze midlaugh, then took her hands away from her mouth. She looked at me, her eyes wide, and spoke softly with a slight quaver in her voice, “Mooooo.”

We had both gone from terrified to safe so quickly that we were close to laughing from sheer relief anyway. So when she convulsed with laughter again, muffling it with her hands, I started to laugh too, my belly shaking as I tried not to make any noise. We lay there like two giggling children while below us the great beast grunted and snuffed around our fire, occasionally sending up gouts of flame.

After a long several minutes, we regained control of ourselves. Denna wiped tears away from her eyes and drew a deep, shaky breath. She slid closer to me until the left side of her body was pressed close up against my right.

“Listen,” she said softly as we both looked over the edge of the stone. “That thing does not graze,” she said. “It’s huge. It could never get enough food. And look at its mouth. Look at those teeth.”

“Exactly. They’re flat, not pointed. It eats trees. Whole trees. Look at how big it is. Where could it possibly find enough meat? It would have to eat ten deer every day. There’s no way it could survive!”

She turned her head to look at me. “How the hell do you know this?”

“I read about it at the University,” I said. “A book called The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus. It uses the fire in a mating display. It’s like a bird’s plumage.”

“You mean that that thing down there,” she groped for words, her mouth working silently for a moment, “is going to try and tup our campfire?” She looked for a moment as if she was going to burst into laughter again, but she drew a deep, shuddering breath instead, regaining her composure. “Now that’s something I have to see....”

We both felt a shudder in the stone underneath us, coming up from the ground below. At the same time, things grew noticeably darker.

Looking down, we saw the draccus rolling in the fire like a hog in a wallow. The ground shook as it wriggled around, crushing the fire underneath itself.

“That thing must weigh ...” Denna stalled out, shaking her head.

“Maybe five tons,” I guessed. “Five at least.”

“It could come get us. It could push over these stones.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, slapping the stone under my hand, trying to sound more certain than I really was. “These have been here for a long time. We’re safe.”