Tiny Dragons 2: The Bear and Scepter by Bernard Schaffer

1. At the Peak of a Distant Mountain
     
    Lord Sun, the great golden dragon and king of Sky Dragon Mountain, was captured. His massive wings, tied down, and his captors surrounding him in the cold, icy tundra. They'd leashed a tight leather restraint around his neck and used it to pull his enormous head down to the ground.
    It happened in Greenland, which, interestingly enough, is not very green. It's quite snowy and barren, as opposed to Iceland, which, incidentally, has a fair amount of green. But the outer reaches of so-called Greenland extend into the Arctic with its thick, furry bunnies and caribou and shaggy foxes and polar bears, and even, beluga whales. But there are no dragons there. At least, not normally.
    Except that day.
    On that day, Lord Sun was flying low above the frozen earth and watching his own reflection in the thick ice covering the water below. He was thinking of his home, so far away, and his wife, the beautiful Lady Moon, and that maybe, perhaps soon when this was all over, he would bring her to this place and show her all of its stark, pale beauty.
    That is when they struck.
    He caught a brief glimpse of the catapult below just before it sprang, launching a massive stone boulder through the air at him with the force of an express train. The boulder crashed against Lord Sun's jaw, throwing his head up into the air as the rest of his body spun counter-clockwise. This was exactly the wrong position for him to maintain flight.
    Then he remembered spinning, and not being able to see, in those brief moments before he crashed. He slammed against the tundra so hard it kicked clouds of ice shards and snow into the air, and that is when they jumped on top of him.
    They were dressed in tribal furs and boots bound with leather thongs, screaming at him in their strange, native tongue, and shaking hand-crafted spears over their heads. Lord Sun groaned and tried to fight back, sweeping a dozen of them out of the way with one swipe of his wing. He was more annoyed with himself for having been hit by their crude weapon than anything. There was no way this ragtag group of natives could keep a dragon like Lord Sun down, but then something strange happened.
    The tribe's mystic, a man called an Angakkuq, emerged from the crowd and all the other natives fell silent. Lord Sun sniffed with laughter, for the man was ridiculous looking, wearing a wooly suit of painted fur and long braids of yarn that draped down from his arms all the way to the ground. The Angakkuq's mask was wide and flat and carved into the shape of a deformed monster, probably meant to terrify all who saw it, but Lord Sun, the great dragon, was not easily terrified. He was certainly not terrified of humans. The dragon rolled his eyes and went to get up. He'd had enough of their nonsense, and they were lucky he hadn't delivered a few hot bursts of flame to their backsides to send them on their way, yet before he could stand, the Angakkuq thrust his hand into the air, and Lord Sun stopped cold.
    In the costumed man's grip was a totem, a long, knotted, wooden staff carved with runes and symbols. At the top of the staff was a jade dragon's head and its eyes were made of enormous red rubies. The rubies flashed in the Arctic sunlight, as if the stones were filled with strange, searing, fire, and Lord Sun felt all of his strength drain away. As he looked into the glowing rubies, his front legs buckled beneath him and he collapsed back down heavily on the cold, hard, ground.
    The tribesmen roared and cheered as they worked quickly to stake his arms and legs to the tundra. They lassoed his wings and tail and neck with expert precision, all while the Angakkuq stood before Lord Sun, forcing him to stare at the totem, using the bright light of the flaming stones to keep him motionless.
    "And now," the mystic announced from behind his mask, "you will serve me."
    Lord Sun heard his own voice, as if it were being spoken by someone else, "And now, I will serve you."
    The