Torq's Greatest Mistake

"Why, oh why did I ever leave Brittain?" wondered Roderick, aloud. All around him lay the soggy and unkempt half-dead grasses of late autumn. The snows would be here soon, and no ship would leave the coast of Kells after the storms of winter set in. Roderick cursed his ill luck, and continued tramping along the rocky trail he was following, pulling his gray woolen cloak closer around his body. The low gray clouds that had been pursuing Roderick for the last two leagues finally caught up with him, and proceeded to rain on him with a triumphant peal of thunder. Roderick's scruffy light brown hair started dripping water into his eyes steadily.
Through the sheets of water ahead of him, Roderick could make out the mouth of a cave, or perhaps an overhang. Whatever. Anything was better than waiting it out in the rain. As he stumbled forward over the streaming rocks leading to the cave entrance, Roderick saw, or at least though he saw, a tall cloaked figure leaving the entrance of the cave, and disappearing into the storm.
"Hey! You there!" Roderick called, after the retreating shadow. The figure took no notice of him, or perhaps just didn't hear him over the noise of the rain and thunder. It disappeared into the rain.
"Hello?!" Roderick called after it, to no avail.
"Fine, you fool." muttered Roderick, "Just go off into the rain and ignore me, I don't mind."
At long last, Roderick reached the shelter of the cave's entrance, and stripped off his wet cloak gratefully. He wrung it out on the floor of the cave, producing an impressive cascade of water. It was surprisingly warm, in this cave, and it smelled like sulfur, and fires, and something vaguely unpleasant. Deeper in the cave, the floor turned sandy, and the interior was pitch black. Roderick got a torch out from his pack, and lit it with flint and steel. As the torch spat to life (it had gotten a little wet), Roderick saw that the cave was huge, and unmistakably volcanic. There was a sword leaning against one wall, a fine and unusual weapon with a dragon-headed hilt, the likes of which Roderick had never seen. He tied the sword on to the top of his pack, after discovering that it was too long to fit inside. This done, Roderick turned his attention back to the cave. Two other things caught his attention. The first thing was the baby, and the second was the dragon. Ah, yes the dragon. Every armored, scaly, red inch of the beast glowed evilly in the frail light of Roderick's torch, and worst of all, one of the creature's eyes was open, watching him speculatively. Roderick's first impulse was to drop the torch and run, which he did.
Gasping for breath in the rain outside the cave, Roderick got a grip and decided that leaving the baby behind was a shameful thing to have done, dragon or no dragon. Roderick was not a hero, and he was not a knight, he was just an ordinary weapon-smith, but even so, it didn't look like anyone else was going to help the kid. Could the man he'd seen leaving the cave have left the child to be eaten by the dragon on purpose? Roderick wouldn't put such cruelty past human nature, he'd seen too much of the world for that. Roderick untied the wonderful sword and held it at the ready... er... just in case... then crept stealthily back into the dragon's lair.
He peered cautiously around a large boulder, and saw that the dragon was watching him attentively, but it made no move to attack him. Roderick took a shuddering breath, and let it out slowly. Maybe if he just moved slowly and non-threateningly... dragons were just another kind of animal, after all. The baby was sitting, playing in the sand at the end of the cave furthest from the dragon. Roderick crept forward again, and as he approached the child, the dragon's eyes narrowed. Roderick froze. The baby was now taking an interest in the proceedings, eyes wide but unafraid, mouth just a little bit open. The dragon growled down at him threateningly, but still seemed reluctant to attack, for some reason. Roderick took another step towards the child, and the dragon loosed a jet of flame at him. Roderick yelled, and jumped back, falling as he did so, and scrambled for the cover of the boulder. The dragon hissed a sustained blast of fire at the boulder, then waited, watching the boulder suspiciously. Roderick needed a new plan. And fast.
Roderick listed what he knew about the situation. One, the dragon didn't like him, and was clearly dangerous. Two, the dragon hadn't eaten the baby yet, but would probably do so in the near future. Three, someone had left the baby here, presumably with evil intent. Four, he was scared to death of this beast. Wait a minute... The dragon hadn't attacked the baby, though it was clearly a closer target than Roderick was. What if the dragon had no interest in snacks at the moment, and it didn't see the baby as a threat. Maybe it was the sword. Whoever had last used this weapon had probably been attacking the dragon. Roderick edged to the side of the boulder just far enough to see what was going on in the cave. The dragon was sitting on it's haunches, wings partly extended, and head down. It looked ready to pounce on him the moment he tried again. No wisdom lay in that direction. The baby was looking at him soulfully, and was ignoring the dragon completely. Roderick ducked back behind the boulder, cursed, sighed, and retied the sword to his pack, trying to think of a plan. Nothing come readily to mind. The baby got tired of waiting to be picked up, and whimpered at him.
"Please don't let it start crying..." Roderick whispered, to any god that would listen. The baby whimpered again, louder. Roderick knelt at the edge of the dragon's field of vision, and called, "Uh... come here, little one..." The baby looked at him, puzzled. Roderick beckoned with his hands, and repeated his invitation, a little more confidently. The baby understood, and smiled broadly, pleased with itself.
"Come on, then..." encouraged Roderick, beckoning again. The baby crawled towards him, confidently. "That's it, that's it, good... come on..." Roderick glanced up at the dragon. It's attention was on the baby, who was almost to the boulder. The baby, following Roderick's gaze, stopped and looked way, way up, at the dragon. "Hey!" The baby looked back at Roderick. "You're almost there, come on..." encouraged Roderick. The baby crawled the rest of the way over, and reached his arms up in a 'pick me up' jesture. Roderick picked him up. The baby wailed at the touch of Roderick's cold, wet, sleeve and shirt front. "Sorry, little fella, but it's me or the dragon." The baby started crying. The dragon snarled, and lunged for the boulder.
"Time to go, then-" Roderick bolted out of the cave, and heard a roar from the dragon behind him. Gods, that beast was fast. Their only chance was to hide, and pray it wouldn't find them. Roderick found a clump of lichen-covered boulders with a little space in between them, and squeezed in. The baby was still crying, and there was no chance of hiding like that. The dragon burst from the mouth of the cave, flying out into the rain and the wind with a bellow of frustration and rage, slitted eyes roving the rocks below. Roderick put his hand over the baby's mouth, firmly. He was positive that was a bad idea, but if he didn't do something, both of them would be dragon-bait. The dragon circled overhead a few times, searching. Roderick could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. Finding nothing, the dragon flew north along the jagged hillside. Roderick waited until the dragon was a ways away, then took his hand off the baby's mouth, half dreading that he would cry, half fearing that he wouldn't be able to. The baby was silent for a long moment, his blue eyes unfocused and dull. Then he remembered to breathe, and started crying again.
"I know, I know, shhhh... we must be long gone when that dragon returns." Roderick wrapped the baby in his cloak, quickly, and set off back the way he had come. The skies darkened above him, as somewhere behind the clouds, the sun set.
It took Roderick until almost midnight to reach the village he'd set off from that morning. The creek through the center of the village was lapping over the top of the bridge, as he crossed it. Roderick picked a hut at random, and leaned on the door frame.
"Hello? Anybody home?" he called.
"*....Huh.... Who's there?" a sleepy voice replied, from within.
"Roderick of Devon, and a child." Roderick replied, wearily. The door-cloth was drawn aside, and the cooking-fire on the floor of the hut was stirred to life. The man who'd drawn aside the door was short, and bearded.
"By Lugh!" he exclaimed, eyeing the sodden traveler and the equally sodden child in his hands, "Come inside, quickly." Roderick was happy to oblige. The Kellsman's family was waking up as well, a woman and two little girls. The woman, dark of hair soft of chin, took the baby from Roderick swiftly, and began fussing over it as she dried it off. The baby was too exhausted to object much, but he whimpered a few times. When she got to the baby's right arm she stopped and looked closer. There was a dark red mark there, in the shape of a squiggle and a crescent. The two little girls looked too, and the older one whispered something into the ear of the younger one.
"What's this?" their mother asked Roderick sharply. "Is he hurt?"
Roderick shook his head.
"I don't know... I don't think so, though." The woman examined the baby's arm again, and the baby didn't seem to mind. She finished drying him off, talking to him kindly, and wrapped him in a soft red blanket. Safe and warm at last, the baby fell asleep at once.
"What were you doin' out on a night like this?" asked the Kellsman, handing Roderick a blanket of his own.
"I was just looking for shelter from the rain..." began Roderick.