Dragon's Boy by Jane Yolen

1
The Cave in the Fens
    I T WAS ON A DAY in early spring, with the clouds scudding across a gray sky, promising a rain that never quite fell, that Artos found the cave.
    â€œHullo,” he whispered to himself, a habit he’d gotten into as he so often had no one else to talk to.
    He hadn’t been looking for a cave but rather chasing after Sir Ector’s brachet hound Boadie, the one who always slipped her chain to go after hare. She’d slipped Artos as well, speeding down the cobbled path and out the castle’s small back gate, the Cowgate. Luckily he’d caught sight of her as she whipped around the corner of it, and on and off he’d seen her coursing until they’d come to the boggy wasteland north of the castle. Then he’d lost her for good and could only follow by her tracks.
    If she hadn’t been Sir Ector’s prize brachet and ready to whelp for the first time, he’d have left her there and trudged back to the castle in disgust, knowing she’d eventually find her way home, with or without any hare. But he feared she might lose her pups out there in the bogs, and then he’d get whipped double, once for letting her get away and once for the loss of the litter. So he spent the better part of the morning following her tracks, crossing and recrossing a small, cold, meandering stream and occasionally wading thigh deep in the water.
    He let out his own stream of curses, much milder than any the rough men in the castle used. But they were heartfelt curses against both the chill of the water and the fact that, if he’d been one of the other boys—Bedvere or Lancot or Sir Ector’s true son, Cai—the water would have only been up to his knees. They’d all gotten their growth earlier than he. Indeed, despite Sir Ector’s gruff promises that he would be tallest of them all, Artos despaired of ever getting any bigger. At thirteen surely he deserved to be higher than Lady Marion’s shoulder.
    â€œKnees or thighs,” he reminded himself, unconsciously mimicking Sir Ector’s mumbling accent, “it’s blessed cold.” He climbed out of the stream and up the slippery bank.
    Despite the cold, his fair hair lay matted with sweat against the back of his head, the wet strands looking nearly black. There was a streak of mud against the right side of his nose, deposited there when he’d rubbed his eye with a grimy fist. His cheeks, naturally pale, were flushed from the run.
    The sun was exactly overhead, its corona lighting the edges of the clouds. Noon—and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, a simple bowl of milk swallowed hastily before the sun was even up. His stomach growled at the thought. Rubbing a fist against his belly to quiet it, he listened for the hound’s baying.
    It was dead still.
    â€œI knew it!” he whispered angrily. “She’s gone home.” He could easily imagine her in the kennel-yard, slopping up food, her feet and belly dry. The thought of being dry and fed made his own stomach yowl again. This time he pounded against it three times. The growling stopped.
    Nevertheless, the brachet was his responsibility. He had to search for her till he was sure. Putting his fingers to his mouth, he let out a shrill whistle that ordinarily would have brought Boadie running.
    There was no answer, and except for the sound of the wind puzzling across the fenland, there was a complete silence.
    The fen was a low, hummocky place full of brown pools and quaking mosses; and in the slow, floating waters there was an abundance of duckweed and frog-bit, mile after mile of it looking the same. From where he stood, low down amongst the lumpy mosses, he couldn’t see the castle, not even a glimpse of one of the two towers. And with the sun straight overhead, he wasn’t sure which way was north or which way south.
    Not that he thought he was lost.
    â€œNever lost—just bothered a bit!” he said aloud, using