Well, perhaps the big black dog who guarded the farmyard really was stupid, perhaps it was even more stupid than a squirrel (which really would be rather stupid), but it had a very, very good nose. And it wasn’t chained up. Oh no.
Sorrel hadn’t gone far when the huge black shadow emerged from the night. She’d never known that dogs could be so big. This wasn’t a dog, it was a calf! And how horrible its hot breath smelled!
The dog chased her—chased her through the night, chased her relentlessly through thorns and thistles, uphill and downhill. Sorrel swerved sideways, she sobbed as she ran, she cursed herself for her recklessness—and she heard the huge black dog panting and gasping behind her. “I’m sure it’s never tasted a nice juicy brownie before,” she told herself despairingly. “I’m sure such a delicious smell has never risen to its big black nose! It’s going to eat me, skin and bones and all, that’s what it’s going to do, and no one will ever know I ended up inside its stomach! What a dreadful fate! When I’m only just twenty-three winters old—and is that any age for a brownie? No! No, it’s no age at all!”
She sobbed and stammered like this as her stumbling feet ran on, and then …
Then, all of a sudden, there was the dragon.
The jagged crest on his back covered the moon, and his scales shone like silver in the moonlight. And he was big, oh goodness, he was enormous! He lowered his head with its terrifying horns and examined Sorrel as if he had never in his life seen a brownie girl before, then he raised it again and looked at the dog as it came bounding through the undergrowth, panting. The snarl that emerged from the dragon’s chest was not very loud, but it sounded extremely menacing, and the dog put its tail between its legs—uttered a howl, and didn’t even glance at Sorrel before racing away just as fast as it had been running after her.
As for the dragon, he looked at Sorrel again. Sorrel stood with her knees trembling, not sure whether to run away like the dog or simply die of fright on the spot. But when she looked into those golden dragon eyes— “There’s no finer sight!” Wasn’t that what her mother always said? “No finer sight!”— when Sorrel looked into those eyes she suddenly wanted nothing in the world more than to drive away the sadness she saw there.
“What’s your name?” asked the dragon, and she could hear from his voice that he was still young.
“Sorrel,” she said softly, so softly that the dragon lowered his head again to hear her better. “What’s yours?”
“Firedrake,” replied the dragon.
So that was how the two of them met: Sorrel and Firedrake. Sorrel rode into the valley of the dragons on Firedrake’s back, and from then on she sang him to sleep on many wet and rainy nights—and she discovered that what her mother had told her was true: There’s nothing more wonderful in the world for a brownie than to be a dragon’s companion.
About the Author
CORNELIA FUNKE has become one of today’s most beloved writers of magical stories for children. Her internationally acclaimed, bestselling titles include The Thief Lord and the Inkheart trilogy. She lives in Los Angeles, California, in a house filled with books.
Copyright
First published in Germany as Drachenreiter by Cecilie Dressler Verlag, Hamburg, 1997
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Original text copyright © 2000 Dressler Verlag
Original English translation copyright © 2001 by Oliver Georg Latsch
This translation by Anthea Bell copyright © 2004 by Chicken House
Cover art © 2004 by Don Seegmiller
Inside illustrations copyright © 2004 by Cornelia Funke
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. Originally published in hardcover in 2004 by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, CHICKEN HOUSE, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. www.scholastic.com.
This edition first printing, April 2011
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eISBN: 978-0-545-40598-0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
1. Bad News
2. A Meeting in the Rain
3. Advice and Warnings
4. A Big City and a Small Human Being
5. Gilbert the Ship’s Rat
6. Dragon-Fire
7. Waiting for Dark
8. Flying Off Course
9. Nettlebrand, the Golden One
10. The Spy
11. The Storm
12. Captured
13. The Basilisk
14. Professor Greenbloom Explains
15. Twigleg’s Second Report
16. Flying South
17. The Raven
18. A Visitor for the Professor
19. The Signpost
20. The Djinn’s Ravine
21. Twigleg’s Decision
23. The Stone
24. The Anger of Nettlebrand
25. The Indus Delta
26. An Unexpected Reunion
27. The Dragon
28. The Tomb of the Dragon Rider
29. Twigleg the Traitor
30. All Is Revealed to Nettlebrand
31. Return of the Dragon Rider
32. All Lies
33. Face-to-Face
34. Snatched Away
35. The Nest of the Giant Roc
36. Losing the Trail
37. An Old Campfire
38. The Monastery
39. The Rat’s Report
40. Work for Gravelbeard
41. Burr-Burr-Chan
42. A Farewell and a Departure
43. The Pursuers
44. The Rim of Heaven
45. The Eye of the Moon
46. The Dragons’ Cave
47. No, No, and No Again
48. The Captive Dwarf
49. Making Plans
50. Deceiving the Spy
51. Polishing Nettlebrand for the Hunt
52. Nettlebrand’s End
53. The Dwarf’s Request
54. A Dragon Wakes
55. What Now?
56. The Way Back
57. Good News
Also by Cornelia Funke
Praise for Dragon Rider
Letter from the Author
Who’s Who in Dragon Rider
Dragon Tales
Sorrel’s Story
About the Author
Copyright