
by
GRACE DRAVEN
Amber Quill Press, LLC
http://www.amberquill.com
http://www.amberheat.com
An Amber Heat Book
Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-60272-034-3
Cover Art © 2007 Trace Edward Zaber
Layout and Formatting
Provided by: ElementalAlchemy.com
Published in the United States of America
Arena
Blackbird
Draconus
The King of Hel
For Lora Gasway.
Ever patient, always funny. A lovely friend.
Elsbeth calmly nocked an arrow into her grandfather's crossbow and wondered which of the villagers she'd have to shoot tonight.
"Come out, Angus Weaver! 'Tis your doing that the beast is attacking!"
Her door shivered beneath hard blows as the mob outside beat their fists against it and shouted their anger.
"Aye, Angus, come out! You're not welcome here no more!"
She waited until there was a pause in abusing the door before jerking it open to face her adversaries. A line of surprised villagers met her gaze. As one, the crowd took a step back at the sight of the crossbow pointed at them. Elsbeth was no marksman, but at close range she could hit what she aimed for. At the moment, her sights were leveled on the mob's ringleader, Malcolm Miller. Big, muscled, with a shaggy head of dark hair and an equally shaggy beard, he reminded her of a bear--brutish and quick to use sheer force to get his way.
Torchlight bathed the crowd in dancing shadow, lending it an eerie, swaying quality, as if it were a single creature, darker and far more malevolent than the beast that terrorized their village these days. Malcolm's features looked especially cruel in the flickering light, a Fool's Day mask to scare small children. Elsbeth suspected the light revealed much about Malcolm--the beast lurking behind the human facade.
"Move aside, Elsbeth." He stepped closer, but hesitated when she raised the crossbow a little higher.
"Or what, Malcolm?" Her finger tightened against the crossbow's trigger at the crowd's restless movements. Rivulets of sweat tickled her ribcage. The lump of fear wedged in her throat made it difficult to breathe, but she wouldn't move from the doorway. "Why have you brought these good people out into the night to beat my door down and disturb my grandfather's rest?"
Malcolm sneered, his small eyes glittering with malice and an avarice that sent shivers down Elsbeth's arms. "You know why, woman. We want Angus. He's the reason the dragon is destroying this village and wiping out our livestock." He turned from her to face the crowd. "Is it not so, friends? We had no trouble with dragonkind until Weaver came here telling his tales of slaughtering such a beast and showing his dragon armor to all and sundry."
A chorus of "Ayes!" answered him, and the crowd surged forward again, driven by Malcolm's words to punish the one they considered the harbinger of their misery. Once more they hesitated at the sight of Elsbeth's ready crossbow.
The ringleader jeered at his companions. "It's just one woman with a single bolt! She can't stop us!"
Elsbeth raised her voice to match his. "Aye, just one bolt to kill one man. Which of you lads is willing to take that bolt in the gut so your brave friends can drag a crippled old man out into the cold and hang him?" Her lip curled in derision when Malcolm himself made no move to rush her. "You, Malcolm? Give me an excuse. You've been nothing but a thorn in my ass since we came to live in Byderside."
Her grip tightened on the bow as Malcolm growled and took a threatening step. So be it. The miller's son would go down first. Elsbeth had never killed a man before, and her stomach churned at the prospect, but she didn't hesitate to take aim.
A hard, commanding voice rang out, freezing everyone to stillness. "Stop this! Hold, I say!"
A ripple of motion parted the mob, revealing a small silver-haired figure dressed in a night rail and tattered robe. Ireni the Elder strode to the front and blessed Malcolm with a withering look. His shoulders hunched, and he looked away, shame-faced before the diminutive elder. She glowed with an aura of authority and power, and Elsbeth wondered how such a small woman could quell an angry crowd more effectively than her loaded crossbow. Whatever worked, she thought, heartily grateful for Ireni's sudden appearance.
The older woman stood close to her. "How are you, girl?" Her voice was low, for Elsbeth's ears alone.
"Terrified. Thank all that is sacred you came when you did. I thought I'd have to shoot Malcolm."
"'Tis a pity you didn't. It might shut him up for once." Ireni's faded blue eyes twinkled with amusement, and Elsbeth smiled, despite her grim circumstances.
Ireni leveled the same damning glare on the villagers. Like Malcolm, many bowed their heads and shuffled their feet. But a few refused to be shamed and shouted their grievances.
"That dragon is killing our livestock and burning our fields!"
"It's vengeance for its kindred. Angus killed one of its own!"
Ireni snorted in disdain. "And ye thought to stop it by swinging a dying old man on a gallows tree?" She crossed her thin arms over her chest. "Come straight from Will's tavern, didn't you, lads?" A few mutters answered her, but none spoke up to argue, not even Malcolm, who alternately glared at Elsbeth and undressed her with greedy eyes.
"Go home," the elder ordered. "If you wish, we'll hold council tomorrow to talk of this, but we won't be doing it here in the cold night while a frightened woman holds off a mob of drunkards far gone in their cups!"
Elsbeth held her breath and kept a tight grip on the crossbow. Please, she prayed. Let the elder's words be enough. It was soon apparent they were, for the men slowly wandered away, a few leaning on each other in stuporous camaraderie as they stumbled home.
Malcolm was the last to leave. Sober and sharp-eyed, he bared his teeth in a feral smile. "This isn't over between us, woman."
Fear burned a cold fire in Elsbeth's belly, but she met his eyes and curled her lip in disgust. "We've yet to start anything, Malcolm." She kept the bow trained on his midsection. "And we never will."
He glowered at her, and then spat at her feet before turning and walking away, his hulking body casting a sinister black shadow on the moonlit ground. The two women watched him go, and Ireni's voice ran deep with worry.
"Watch yourself, girl. Malcolm has coveted you since you first came to Byderside. His interest grows dangerous."
The bow in her hands suddenly felt heavier than a cart shaft. Elsbeth's shoulders sagged as she lowered it to her side. Tears stung her eyes. "May the gods bless you all your days, elder. I think you saved us this night."
Ireni gave another of her signature snorts and patted Elsbeth's arm with a wrinkled hand. "Bah. You did fine on your own. I thought for sure Abelard would piss his trousers when you swung that bow his way." That elicited a weak laugh.
"Then he was not alone. I nearly pissed my skirts when Malcolm rushed me." The humor eased some of Elsbeth's tension, soothed the fear that scraped jagged edges along her nerves. She opened the cottage door wider, spilling firelight from the hearth into the darkness. "Please come in and get warm, elder. I've plum tea from the south. A barter gift from a merchant in Durnsdale."
Inside, the house offered comfort and sanctuary. The main room was warm, redolent with the scent of the dried herbs hanging from the rafters. A fire burned in the small hearth, heating a cauldron suspended over the flames. Smoke twisted upward in lazy spirals, venting through the chimney Angus had built to keep the house clear of haze. A scuffed table and pair of benches took up most of the room, sharing space with a loom tucked into a corner and surrounded by baskets of bright wool thread. The loom held a half-finished rug sporting a celestial design woven in colors of blue, black, and deepest burgundy.
Elsbeth unloaded the bow and set it in its place near the door. She checked the door's crossbar, making certain it was wedged well into place. For the first time since their move to Byderside, the barred door did not feel so invulnerable. She doubted she'd see the back of her eyelids this night. Despite Ireni's edict and the villagers' obedience, she didn't trust they wouldn't congregate again and pay her another visit before dawn's break.
Ireni made her way to the loom for a closer look at the rug. The woman's wizened face crinkled into a map of care-worn roads as she peered closely at Elsbeth's work. "This is lovely, girl. One of your finest I've seen." Her faded blue eyes gleamed with admiration. "What city merchant with a fat purse and a spoiled wife commissioned this one?"
The heat of the hearth fire felt good on Elsbeth's chilled arms. She stirred the coals and lowered the cauldron to boil the water for tea. "A spice trader ready to spend a good profit from a loaded ship. That's my second one for him. He's commissioned three." She straightened and sighed. "Who knows if I'll finish the third now."
Ireni met her gaze with a worried one of her own. "The village will want a solution to this by council session tomorrow." She left the loom and settled onto the bench Elsbeth prepared by the fire. Her fragile bones creaked as she sat.
Elsbeth pulled two cups from her small chest of dishware, keepsakes from a mother she didn't remember. She allowed the anger to seep into her voice, the indignation. "Angus and I have broken bread with these people for five years gone, elder. Before he took to his bed, he was always welcomed at the Hound and Hollow for an ale and a smoke. I've quilted with the women and taught two of their children how to weave. I've played my fiddle at their handfastings." She prepared the tea, pausing every few moments to wipe the tears from her eyes and off her cheeks. "And yet they turn on us like a pack of dogs catching the scent of the weak in their midst."
The cups rattled together. "I almost had to shoot someone tonight." Her voice shook as much as her hands.
The old woman's touch, soothing and soft, halted her frenetic movements. "'Tis a natural thing to be frightened, Elsbeth, and angered. Malcolm and his lads were lucky you didn't kill one of them. I never saw that bow waver in your hand. But they're not all bad folk, girl. They're just frightened, and fear can turn civilized men savage."
"I know, but it still feels like the worst betrayal." Elsbeth poured their tea and took a seat next to Ireni. "Do you believe the dragon is doing this out of vengeance for my grandfather killing its kindred?"
"What a pile of horseshit."
Elsbeth almost spit out a mouthful of tea. Ireni muttered another string of oaths and pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. "If that were so, every other town and dale would have been reduced to an ash heap years ago." She paused and delicately sipped her tea. "I know a little of dragonkind. It seems to me if they were all flying about fulfilling blood vengeance for a dead relative, there wouldn't be many of us left."
Elsbeth's eyebrows rose. "Their strength is legendary, as is their magic and wisdom. But their numbers seem few. Wouldn't they seek retribution for men killing them off?"
Ireni shook her head. "I don't think so. You never hear of dragon towns or communities. Their lairs and caves house only a single dragon. I think they are solitary beasts, little concerned with a brethren's welfare." She patted Elsbeth's arm once more. "To my way of thinking, the dragon troubling this area is here for an easy meal or two. How hard can it be for a beastie like that to take down a ewe or cow, eh?"
"True, but it doesn't solve my problem. The villagers think Angus is responsible, and I doubt they'll listen to reason now." Elsbeth rose to refill both cups. "We can't leave, elder." She cleared her throat of its betraying warble. "He's too weak to move. He wouldn't survive a journey to another town, not even to one as close as Durnsdale. If the men will only wait a fortnight, they won't have to bother with lynching him." Bitterness laced her tone.
A hacking cough coming from the only bedchamber punctuated her remark. Elsbeth bowed before Ireni. "Excuse me, please."
The room was shrouded in semi-darkness, its only illumination a half-burned candle set on a chest against the wall. Angus Weaver half-reclined in his bed, huddled beneath a mound of blankets. Candlelight sallowed his shrunken features, dulled the white hair resting on his bent shoulders. Elsbeth sank to her knees by the bed and took his hand, touching the fingers twisted by the bone sickness.
"You should be asleep, Papa. It's late."
He peered at her with rheumy eyes. "I heard someone knock. Who comes?" His voice, once strong and filled with ready laughter, whispered in reedy threads.
Elsbeth kissed his palm, grateful Angus's hearing was as poor as his eyesight these days. That had been more than a knock at the door. "It's only Ireni, Papa. She came to visit." It wasn't a lie.
"At this late hour?"
"Yes. She knows of a nobleman, newly married, who is building another home for his bride. His factor is seeking craftsmen to furnish the home. He might be interested in a rug." That was a lie; one she told with ease. Angus would never know of this night's sad work if she could help it.
Angus sighed and touched Elsbeth's hair with a trembling hand. "Give her my regards, would you? I'd greet her, but I'm afraid I..." He trailed off, his hand falling to the covers, his eyes closing in an exhausted slumber. Elsbeth kissed his palm again before placing it under the blankets. His breathing was harsh, stuttered--the rattle of bones in a soothsayer's cup.
She pinched the candle before leaving, plunging the chamber into darkness. He'd sleep well enough until morning, when she'd brew a medicinal draught to ease his chest and give him nourishment.
Ireni had abandoned the bench to stand in front of the hearth and warm her backside. Her voice held a quiet sympathy. "How is he?"
Elsbeth shrugged. "Well enough, all things considered." Her mouth turned up in a rueful smile. "He wanted to know who knocked at the door."
The elder eyed Elsbeth closely. "It's times such as these when it helps to have a man in the house. A young, healthy man," she qualified when Elsbeth opened her mouth to argue there was a man in the house. "Don't be daft, girl. You know what I mean."
"A man like Malcolm?"
"No, of course not. You'd kill him within a month." Ireni grinned, and Elsbeth couldn't help grinning back at the ridiculous image of her felling the hulking Malcolm Miller with a skillet on her wedding day. Ireni's expression turned earnest, questioning. "I'm old, Elsbeth. I've earned the right to meddle and ask indelicate questions. Why haven't you taken a husband? We've had no wars in decades. There are many men to choose from here in Byderside and Durnsdale, and you're a handsome woman. Do you want to reach my years with no companion or children? Do you want to face down village mobs on your own?"
Elsbeth resumed her place on the bench and stared into the fire. Bright memories, always skating the surface of her mind, bloomed before her in the flames. A solstice celebration, the eve of her twenty-second birthday, a dark-haired man with a voice of silver and eyes that caught the moonlight and reflected back lightning. Caressing hands and the heat of a mating fever.
For two miraculous days, she had loved and been loved by the wanderer Alaric. When he packed his belongings and set out for the road, he'd offered his hand. "I cannot stay, Beth," he said. "Come with me."
Elsbeth had stared at that hand with a terrible longing. She wanted to reach out, grasp his fingers and follow his paths, sleep beside him beneath the flicker of stars and a waxing moon. But another man waited in her village, one who had loved and cared for her since she was a child, one who needed her in his illness. "I cannot leave," she said.
He'd kissed her then, a hard possessive kiss that branded and claimed her as his, though he would leave her and not return.
That memory had left its mark--a scar never forgotten, a pain never dulled with time. She shrugged. "There was a man once, one I'd have gladly shared a life with then. But it wasn't fated." Her laugh held a touch of sorrow as well as amusement. "No mob would have dared visit this house had he lived here."
Ireni's face was grave. "But there is no such man, and the mob waits for council. The old dragonslayer cannot remain if the dragon does."
Elsbeth rubbed her hands over her eyes and sighed in frustration. "What should I do, Ireni? March out and beard the beast in its lair? I've no warrior's skill, and this creature is formidable. News is that it's already killed five men and their horses for challenging him."
"Then face it with another weapon, girl."
"What?" Elsbeth gaped at the elder.
Ireni's smile was pure satisfaction. "Remember, I know a little of dragons. Those foolish boys set out to fight the beast and kill it. You, my girl, will play for it and bargain."
Elsbeth stared at the village elder and grimaced. "I'm going to die."
"No, you're not." Ireni watched with an eagle eye as her grandson, Ewan, helped Elsbeth don Angus's notorious dragon armor.
"And then I'm going to be eaten." She grunted in protest when Ewan pulled the straps on the breast plate tight against her ribs.
"No, you're not," Ireni repeated. She thumped Ewan on the arm. "Here, you're working too fast and overlooking things, you nitwit. You missed a buckle there." She pointed to a spot somewhere near Elsbeth's hip.
The boy jumped to do his grandmother's bidding, cinching another piece of armor to Elsbeth's thigh.
Elsbeth looked down at herself, trussed up in layers of dull gray dragon scale, and groaned. "Ireni," she said. "You're sending me to my death. I'll never survive this meeting--if I even find the creature."
Ireni thumped her on the arm then. "Hush. You'll live through this and come away with a bargain that ensures the villagers leave Angus in peace, and the dragon leaves us in peace. I have every faith in you, girl."
She beamed as Elsbeth took a turn about Ireni's solar. The dragon armor made only a faint whisper as the scales rubbed against each other with her movements. Angus's boasts about the armor's superior qualities weren't empty. Stitched and held together by a mixture of leather and chain mail and lined in silk, the suit was lightweight, flexible and nearly silent--certainly compared to clanking plate armor. It resisted fire, spear point and a broad sword's vicious slash. Elsbeth thought it a wonder anyone had ever killed a dragon with that kind of natural protection covering its body.
She spread her arms. "How am I supposed to play my fiddle in this?"
"You won't. If you reach such an accord that the dragon asks you to play, you'll no longer need the armor."
"If?"
Ireni's mouth turned down. "There are no guarantees, girl, but it will work." She patted her back. "Trust me. Besides, you faced down an angry crowd last night. What's different?"
Elsbeth scowled. "They weren't planning to devour me."
"I wouldn't assume that of Malcolm. Think if you were off to face him alone with naught but your armor and fiddle?"
The elder had a point. Elsbeth made one last adjustment to the armor. "I'd want the entire dragon with me, not just the armor.
By the time Ewan loaded the dragon scale shield and supplies into the waiting cart outside, a sizeable crowd had gathered in the elder's garden. Elsbeth tucked Angus's helmet under her arm, took a deep breath and marched out to greet her spectators.
Raucous laughter broke out among the multitude, but was quickly silenced when she asked, "Any of you brave souls care to follow me to Maldoza?" She smirked at the sudden quiet. "I thought not."
They cleared a path for her as she passed, some offering wishes of good luck, others shaking their heads in disbelief at the foolishness of her endeavor. Ireni stayed close beside her, vigilant and narrow-eyed, daring anyone to scoff.
Elsbeth strode to her waiting cart and pony, pausing only once when Malcolm stepped forward and blocked her path. His blunt features were shiny in the morning heat, as if he'd bathed from an oil jar. Remnants of breakfast hung in his beard and decorated his teeth when he smiled. She shuddered at the sight, but held her ground.
"I trust your charms, Elsbeth. You'll come back, and I'll be waiting."
She skirted around him, ramming an elbow into his arm for good measure as she passed. "Then you best be waiting with your sword on, Malcolm."
He laughed at her warning and returned to the crowd. Elsbeth didn't look back. She'd deal with him later. Malcolm Miller had been a nuisance since she'd known him. Even when his wife lived, he had always watched her, made known his interest in her. Ireni was right. She'd have to step carefully around him. Since his wife's death that interest had turned to a strange, malevolent obsession, spurred on by her cold rejections to his overtures. A dragon waited for her at the cliffs of Maldoza, and a wolf in man's clothing waited here in the village. Elsbeth wasn't sure which of the two was most dangerous to her.
When she clambered up to the cart seat, Ireni was there to hand her a water skin and a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about Angus, girl. Ewan and his friends will bring him here later. We'll take good care of him. Even Malcolm won't cross my boundaries unwarranted."
Elsbeth took the woman's hand and squeezed. "Thank you, Ireni. I still think this is a fool's errand, but I'll do whatever needs doing to keep Angus here."
Ireni gripped her fingers in return. "The gods shelter you, Elsbeth." The villagers edged back when she turned and shooed them away with sharp words and flapping hands. Elsbeth clucked to the pony and started her dangerous journey with the silly image of a goose girl herding a flock of stubborn geese from her door.
The village roads soon gave way to the more rutted country paths. Elsbeth ignored the rolling pasture lands and fields of wheat and barley surrounding her. Instead, she focused on the towering rise of pock-marked rock in the distance. It would take her most of the day to reach the cliffs of Maldoza, and truth be told, she wasn't in any great rush to get there. Too practical to believe every ghost story told around a campfire or village gathering, she understood why many believed the cliffs were haunted.
Rising in steep ascent from the plain below, they jutted into the morning blue in sharp, obsidian spires. Elsbeth admired them most at mid afternoon, when they sparkled in the slanted rays of the sun, giving the illusion of a jeweled veil on a rich woman's headdress. The face of the cliffs was scarred with holes, lidless eyes that looked out onto the fields below with an unblinking stare. Many a tale had been told to scare children about those dark caverns--how haints and banshees roamed their shadows, screeching and howling with the fury of the early spring storms.
Elsbeth eyed the cliffs as she guided the cart closer to their base. Ghosts didn't scare her, but dragons did, and somewhere in that honeycomb of caves one waited and possibly watched her approach. She shivered, despite the thick padding of dragon armor and the warm morning sun rising to heat the day.
It was shortly after noon when she finally stopped to rest. She coaxed the pony to a grassy hillock overlooking Donal Grayson's southern pasture. Below them, a small pond reflected the rolling clouds and swathes of sky on its mirror surface. After watering the little mare at the pond, she refilled her water bottles and ate her lunch.
Elsbeth doubted she'd eat later. Camped out alone on the winding paths that cut through the haunted cliffs guaranteed another sleepless night and little appetite. Part of her urged her to abandon such a foolish journey, return to the village, and pack their things. If she was careful and slow in the going, Angus might survive the trip to Durnsdale. They had enough money saved to afford a decent inn for a few days until she could find more permanent quarters. But another part, the one indignant at being forced out of their home because of a false charge leveled against them, insisted she make this journey. If not only to help her grandfather, but to show the inhabitants of Byderside just how stupid they were acting.
And contrary to her protestations, Elsbeth thought Ireni's unusual idea might work. The gods knew that knights on horseback, with their spears and gleaming swords, had failed in ridding the countryside of the dragon. They had done nothing more than anger the beast and get themselves killed and eaten in the process. Or so everyone assumed. None of the men who rode off to Maldoza in search of glory and treasure ever returned.
Ireni's advice echoed in her mind. "Why not try something different?" Elsbeth smiled and took a drink from her water skin. A woman dressed in old dragon armor carrying nothing more than a crossbow and a fiddle was certainly different.
Ireni swore dragons liked music. "Trust me. I know a little of dragons," she'd said with an enigmatic smile. It was an odd statement, and one Elsbeth puzzled over as she ate her meal. How the fragile elder of a rural village knew about dragons begged many questions, but in the frantic events of the past few hours, she hadn't thought to ask. Fighting off drunken men wanting to kill Angus, plotting with Ireni over how to save him and get rid of a dragon, and wondering how she'd survive this insane scheme had left her head spinning.
It would be good to have Alaric at her side right now.
As soon as the thought occurred, Elsbeth tried to squelch it. This was no time to indulge in such foolishness. The fact was she hadn't seen or heard from her erstwhile lover in eight long years, and he wasn't here now. She could thank Ireni for inciting such thoughts. Her question of why Elsbeth hadn't married had awakened a long-buried yearning for a man she had loved and refused.
The clear image of laughing gray eyes glittering with moonlight rose in her mind's eye. Alaric had charmed every man, woman and child when he entered the village of Ney-by-the-Water. Elsbeth had been no more immune than the others, though she tried to hide it, still mistrustful of the bard suddenly in their midst. He had brought with him an amazing cache of stories, and the villagers fought with each other for the right to invite him for supper and hear his tales told in a voice as rich and luxurious as priceless silk. He had taken her heart and left her with nothing more than memories.
He was amused by her reticence to accept him as the others did. "You're a suspicious one, Elsbeth Weaver. What evil do you think I plan for your friends and neighbors?" His smile teased her, a gentle mockery of her wariness.
He confronted her outside her home while she sat in the afternoon sun and wove a new rug on her loom. Elsbeth had almost run into the house when she saw him approach, but refused to let him see he disturbed her.
She answered his question with one of her own. "How long will you stay in Ney-by-the-Water, Master Alaric?"
"Another fortnight, maybe. Why do you ask?"
Elsbeth arched an eyebrow as the storyteller folded his long legs and sat down next to her, uninvited. Her fingers paused on the loom's shuttle. She didn't want him this close. He'd surely notice her blush, the way her breathing sped up when he drew near. Just like the other silly maids in the village who flirted and batted their eyelashes each time he conversed with them. His knowing smile made her bristle. A bard's words were his trade, and not a few village maidens had succumbed to such treacherous skill only to be left with a fatherless babe as a reminder of their folly. She had no intention of falling into such a trap.
"A fortnight? How fortunate for you that our village is so welcoming to strangers, and you've a skill for spinning tales. You'll be well-fed by the time you leave."
Alaric draped his arms over his knees and bowed his head. Elsbeth admired the sheen in his dark hair, the way the sunlight revealed russet highlights in the long locks. His wide shoulders rippled with muscle, and her fingers itched to trace swirling patterns over the smooth golden skin revealed by his sleeveless vest.
She frowned and slammed the shuttle down against the loom, wrenching the rug's weft and warp. Too handsome by far, and he knew it. Elsbeth hoped he'd caught her not so subtle barb about leeching off the generosity of others. It might be an unfair accusation--it was customary for villages to house traveling bards--but she wanted him gone. He was far too dangerous to her senses, and Elsbeth had no intention of feeding his vanity with her admiration.
Alaric raised his head and gazed at her with eyes the color of storm clouds. His smile was not so easy this time. "Aye, the women in Ney-by-the-Water are fine cooks. Your men are lucky." He reached out to touch her arm, but halted when she scooted away from him. The smile disappeared. "Your people have been kind to this traveler, Beth. All save you."
Elsbeth flushed, shamed. He told no lie. She had purposefully avoided him and kept her replies short to the point of rudeness on those few occasions when he tried talking to her. Not once had she invited him to a meal since his stay, despite Angus's hints it would be a fine thing having the storyteller at their table. It was the height of discourtesy, but she'd counted on Alaric's popularity with the villagers not to be called out on it. And honestly, she never imagined he'd notice, though she'd often caught him watching her as she ran errands in the village or visited neighbors.
"I'm a poor cook," she said. The shuttle cracked against the loom. "You miss nothing but burnt stew and hard bread."
Alaric shook his head. "Untrue. I miss the company of a fine woman I've admired since I came here." Her hand froze on the shuttle. "You may not reveal your true self to me, Beth, but I've watched you with others and heard you play your fiddle. You make magic with your music, and you've a smile like the sun after a gray rain." His voice deepened, the words rolling off his tongue as he coaxed her. "I want you to smile that way for me."
Again, that suntanned hand reached out to touch her. Elsbeth stiffened but didn't move away this time, too stunned by his words to do anything more than stare at the long finger tracing a delicate line down her arm.
"I'm not your enemy, Beth. Invite me to your table," he said.
She jerked out of his reach and scrambled to her feet. "Don't call me that. It's not my name."
Alaric remained seated and stared at her with eyes gone frosty. "My apologies, Mistress Weaver. I meant no disrespect."
Elsbeth huffed out a long breath. She was usually good-natured, possessing a ready laugh and an appreciation for a well-told joke. But something about Alaric brought the shrew out in her.
"You've a smile like the sun after a gray rain."
The man had a tongue coated in poisoned honey, and the sensible part of her mind warned her not to give in to such deadly charms. Still, Alaric's compliment warmed her. And it was only fair that she and Angus feed him at least once. Elsbeth ignored that internal sensible voice. It was only supper after all.
"I'm serving lentils and a bit of pork tonight. There's always more than my grandfather and I can eat."
Alaric's eyes warmed, and his delighted smile highlighted his prominent cheekbones.
Elsbeth frowned. "I'll serve at the sixth hour. If you're not here, we won't wait."
He rose gracefully. Elsbeth was a tall woman, but Alaric towered over her when he stood before her. She caught his scent, an intriguing combination of warm sunlight and a cool sharpness--pine, cedar or some other evergreen that grew on the shadowed slopes of Findley's Mountain. Her nostrils flared. He smelled as good as he looked.
She moved away, warning him with a narrowed gaze that he stood too close. Alaric raised his hands in surrender and stepped back a few paces. His smile widened to a grin, his gray eyes alight with pleasure at her invitation.
"I'll be there. And lentils are my favorite."
Elsbeth snorted in disbelief. "Oh, I'm sure they are, Master Alaric."
He laughed, a low vibrant sound. It caressed her ears and sent a tingle down her back. If she didn't escape into the house soon, he'd see the blush crawling up her chest to her face. She hurried to the door.
"Will you play your fiddle for me, Beth?"
She halted and looked over her shoulder. "Supper and music, storyteller? You ask a lot for a story or two."
The intensity darkening Alaric's eyes belied his casual smile. "Ah, Beth, I'd ask for much more if I thought you were inclined to give it."
A hot blush flooded her cheeks moments after she shut the door behind her. She closed her eyes, and tried to catch her breath. If this kept up, they'd have to eat in the dark so Alaric couldn't see her red face.
The pony's wuffling snapped Elsbeth out of her nostalgic musings. Tater, so named because of her rotund belly and dull brown coat, wandered closer to her, grazing on a thick carpet of grass near where she sat. She nudged Elsbeth none too gently out of her way.
Elsbeth rose and dusted the crumbs of her lunch off her hands and armor. "Idiot," she muttered. "Wasting good daylight mooning over a man long gone or long dead."
She repacked her supplies and harnessed Tater to her traces. The pony's ears suddenly flattened against her head. Her eyes rolled, and she stamped her hooves. Only Elsbeth's firm grip on her halter kept the diminutive mare from bolting as the cart rattled with her struggles.
The hairs on Elsbeth's nape rose. The fields, with their birdsong and the chittering music of insects had gone silent. From the corner of her eye she saw the shadow of great wings pass over the pond's glass surface. A concussion wave of air bowed the stalks of wheat and rippled the still waters. Tater squealed and lunged in her traces, nearly jerking Elsbeth off her feet. She held on to the halter with one hand and reached for her crossbow on the cart seat with the other. It wouldn't do her much good. Elsbeth couldn't nock the bolt and hold onto the pony at the same time, but it calmed her rising fears having the weapon in hand.
She looked skyward and saw nothing, only a blue emptiness broken by a scatter of drifting clouds. Whatever had flown above them and sent the pony into a panic had flown away or turned invisible by some arcane magic.
Elsbeth waited. Tater shivered and sweated, but made no further attempt to escape. Soon the first birdcalls resumed, and the fields came alive with sound once more.
A shadow of wings and the pressing weight of air. A dragon had flown over them, low and fast. Elsbeth had no doubt, though she had seen nothing as it flew by save a flicker of reflection in the pond. Magic. Surely it was. A beast so large would be a target for every spearman in the surrounding counties. It would employ a means to hide itself in plain sight for protection. She took a deep breath and said a heartfelt prayer. By some divine grace, the dragon had not noticed them, even when the pony squealed and shook the cart to its pins.
Maldoza, rising ahead of her in its jagged majesty of sparkling rock, no longer held a strange beauty for Elsbeth. It was merely a haven for a monster. Fear soured her stomach. Only the memory of the mob at her door and her grandfather wasting away in his sickbed kept her from leaping onto the cart seat and turning the pony homeward. Angus, who had loved and cared for her since she was a child, would have turned apoplectic if he knew of this insane plan she and Ireni had hatched. But Elsbeth adored her grandfather. He was worth any risk she might have to take in order to protect and ultimately save him.
She patted the pony's sweaty neck. "Come on, lass. Just a little farther and you'll be safe and sheltered with Master Grayson."
The remainder of the journey to the cliffs' base was uneventful. Elsbeth kept the crossbow in her lap and watched the skies. When she guided the cart to Donal Grayson's door, she found him waiting for her, flanked by a pair of sharp-eyed sheepdogs.
Short and bent by age and years of laboring in his fields, Donal was the last of the border farmers remaining on their homesteads. He'd resisted moving to Byderside once the dragon attacks started. "I'll not give up my farm over some lizard planting his fat ass in the cliffs and eating a stray cow or sheep. This is my land, and I'm staying on it." The village elders had finally given up, calling him stubborn and stupid for not listening to reason. Still, Donal had defied their dire predictions of becoming a dragon's next meal. He planted his fields, harvested his crops and kept a close watch on his sheep.
He helped Elsbeth from the cart and smiled at her from a lined face sun-cured to the patina of old saddle leather. "Well, if it isn't Angus's lass. What are you doing here at the ass-end of Byder County, Elsbeth?" He eyed her armor curiously.
Elsbeth hugged him. She liked Donal and always invited him to their house for a meal when he made the rare visit into Byderside. "Help me unhitch my pony, Master Donal, and I'll tell you my news."
She stayed only long enough to put Tater in one of Donal's paddocks, unload her supplies from the cart and recount the events of the previous night.
Donal scowled when she finished her tale. "Never could abide Malcolm Miller, or his da for that matter. I'd lay a harvest's worth of profit on it the boy killed his wife." He pointed a gnarled finger at her. "You watch yourself around him, Elsbeth. He's a nasty piece of work."
Elsbeth nodded and stayed silent when Donal continued. "I'd think Ireni gone daft, but her idea has merit. I've seen a parade of knights and their horses riding to the cliffs and never returning. Sometimes the beastie leaves their swords in my fields as payment for a sheep or two. You should see the ruby I pried out of one hilt."
Her eyes widened. "Wait. Are you saying you two bargain?"
The old farmer flashed her a black-toothed smile. "In our way. You notice my fields aren't scorched, my barn not burned. I'll put a ewe or two out in my south pasture for him. The beastie takes 'em, no trouble. And sometimes he drops a shiny stone at my door."
Elsbeth was stunned. Even though she'd agreed to Ireni's plan, it had been more out of desperation than faith. "Ireni was right."
"Of course she's right. Ireni knows a thing or two about dragons."
She eyed Donal. "That's what she said. How is it that a Byderside elder knows so much about dragons?"
He gave her the same knowing smile Ireni had. "That's Ireni's story to tell, lass. Now, let's get you back on the road. I'll show you a shortcut to the cliffs that's also easier to climb, especially with you being on foot and all."
Donal's shortcut was less steep and a quicker way to the cliff's upper levels, but the path was covered in a low-growing web of plains scrub vine sporting thorns as long as a man's finger. Elsbeth pushed her way through the twisting vine, grateful for the armor and its protective scale. Without it, she'd be stripped bloody by the clawing plants.
Another hour of walking, and she cleared the last of the clutching vine. The sun beat down on her, plastering the garments beneath her armor to her skin. Elsbeth stopped, panting from the heat and the steady uphill climb. Too bad she'd left the pony with Donal. Going by horseback was infinitely easier. She smiled and took a drink from her waterskin. Tater might pull a cart well enough, but she was no warhorse. The mare would bolt at the first scent of dragon and likely throw Elsbeth off the cliffs in the process. Above her, a hawk glided through the endless blue in hunting flight. Elsbeth wondered if the field mice and shrews hid in their burrows, away from their winged predator's sharp eyes. She was like one of those mice, small and weak against a much larger, deadlier opponent. Only she chose to confront this hunter.
"Nice, Elsbeth," she said. "You haven't the wits of a field mouse."
She continued her ascent, accompanied only by the suffocating heat and the droning chorus of cicadas. By the time the sun set, she was sticky with sweat and exhausted by the climb. But she'd made it to the middle face of the cliffs, where the largest caves punched dark holes into the sheer rock. She found a stony outcropping jutting upward from the parched ground. It split into a V shape, creating a shelter from the rising wind and a place to rest her back. The cicada chorus had faded, leaving only a stillness that almost breathed into Elsbeth's ears. She shrugged off her pack, sighing with relief at the sudden lightness against her back and shoulders. If only she could shed the armor, but that would have to wait.
Dry brush and scrub vine littered the ground surrounding her camping spot. Elsbeth carefully gathered an armful and built a small fire. It gave off comforting light and offered protection against nocturnal predators smaller than dragons. She settled back against the rock's niche and ate a supper of bread and dried beef. The water in her waterskin was tepid and stale, but felt good against her parched throat as she drank.
The moon rose, flooding the fields below in silver light. The cliffs cast a pointed crown of shadows against the backdrop of roads and the far candle-lit villages and towns. Haunted it might be, but Maldoza offered the most breathtaking and encompassing views of the countryside Elsbeth had ever seen. No wonder a dragon had chosen the cliffs for sanctuary.
The night held a waiting stillness, like the last breath before the onslaught of a storm. The few straggling clouds had vanished, leaving only a dark sky festooned in a thousand glittering stars. Elsbeth didn't like the quiet. Even at night, things rustled and whispered in the fields and forests. But here, on the bleak paths cut into the cliffs, nothing moved. Even the fabled haints didn't howl--a small thing for which she was glad.
Ireni had filled her ears with advice. "There's no sneaking up on the beast, Elsbeth. Walk as if you're off to visit a friend, not steal from him. Sing, speak loudly, even play your fiddle. Dragons are great lovers of music, and it will see you long before you see it. Give it cause to wonder, not attack."
Her nerves stretched beneath the unending silence. She'd take Ireni's words to heart. A little music would calm her and maybe draw the dragon out. She was here to bargain, not pilfer or kill. Elsbeth prayed the creature would be more curious than hungry when it spotted her, if it hadn't already done so.
She pulled her fiddle case from her pack. Inside the case nestled her most treasured possession. Her father's before it was hers, the fiddle was the only thing that connected her to her parents, dead these many years. Angus had taught her to play, just as he'd taught her to weave. Ever patient, ever encouraging, he'd smiled and hid his flinches as she snarled the threads on her loom and sawed her bow against the anguished strings.
The hush around her thickened, as if the cliffs themselves watched and waited to hear her play. Elsbeth stood against the rock, tucked the fiddle beneath her chin, and ran the bow hairs once across the strings. They answered her summons with a plaintive call, the sweet notes drifting into the silence. The night sighed.
Elsbeth paused. What to play? There were the old songs, tunes every fiddler learned at their teacher's knee. They played them at weddings, funerals, solstices, and child-blessings. She knew them by heart, could play them in her sleep and had set villagers to dancing into the wee hours in spinning kaleidoscopes of colorful skirts and garlanded hair. Still, such lively music seemed out of place here, beneath Maldoza's glimmering shadow and the wheel of stars above her.
She thought of Angus, slowly dying in a sickbed in Ireni's house. Her throat ached with unshed tears. No matter how much she might wish otherwise, her grandfather would not live much longer. Memories of his teaching her to play, the summers when he was the fiddler at the solstice celebrations in the barley fields, and she danced with the other village children beneath the bright sun, made her eyes water. Elsbeth again set the bow against the strings.
"For Angus," she said. "May your spirit live young all the days of the world, grandfather."
The fiddle sprang to life beneath her bow, and she played while she cried. A tune of love and nostalgia, its plaintive notes flooded the moonlit pathways carved into the cliffs. The flames of her campfire flickered in rhythm to the song. Elsbeth closed her eyes, lost to the music and the bright images of her childhood.
The tune segued into another and then another, and her memories changed, turning again to Alaric and that blissful summer nearly a decade earlier.
Despite her initial reserve, she'd fallen for him. He'd won her, not with florid compliments or boasts of great deeds, but with things more prosaic. After that first reluctant dinner invitation, Alaric had returned a half dozen times to eat with her and Angus.
Elsbeth was taciturn at first; content to let conversation between Angus and the bard flow around her while she served their meal. The fact he ate her food, not with barely suppressed distaste but with gusto, astounded her and delighted Angus. He didn't look like he was starving, and it was the only reason she could think of that might inspire someone to wolf down her cooking so enthusiastically.
He was at ease in their humble house. Other, wealthier families had hosted him, their homes far more gracious than Angus's. But Alaric had sat with Angus at their beaten table, shared a smoke, told his fascinating tales and listened, enraptured, when Elsbeth played her fiddle.
And she observed his interactions with her fellow villagers. No idler content to find a shady spot and watch others work, he often volunteered his help to work in the fields and on the threshing floors. Once, at a barn raising, a brawl almost broke out between the younger village women over who would sit near him at lunch. Elsbeth had not joined in the competition, satisfied to admire him from afar.
She'd invited him for supper a second time at Angus's urgings. Alaric accepted, unhesitating, though his smile was rueful. "And you, Beth. Do you want me there?"
Elsbeth didn't pretend coyness. She disliked it in others. "Yes," she said before walking away.
"You warm my heart with your eagerness, Beth," he'd called after her in a laughing voice.
And you frighten mine with your charm, storyteller.
Dinner had transformed after that. Her food was still burned or undercooked. Alaric still had two or more helpings. She played her fiddle for him afterward, but he no longer shared a pipe with Angus. Instead, he escorted her around the edge of the village, making idle talk as they admired the summer moon.
The villagers, ever curious of their neighbors' doings, soon talked of Alaric's courtship of Elsbeth.
Theirs wasn't an incorrect supposition. Talk soon turned to kissing in the concealing shadows of the village's neighboring stand of trees. Tentative at first, she'd finally shed her reserve and returned Alaric's kisses with a passion long hidden. Elsbeth, on the cusp of spinsterhood by Ney standards, had experienced her share of kisses and more, but none like these. Alaric kissed her with his body, not just his mouth. He was generous in his affections but not overwhelming, always taking what she gave him, only asking for more in small portions.
"You are too good to be true," she teased him one evening. They sat together on a flat rock overlooking the stream that gave her village its name. Elsbeth savored the warmth within the circle of his arms. His chest was a solid wall against her back, his heartbeat a faint and soothing lullaby.
"You mean I didn't live up to your first assumptions." His voice was somber, no reciprocal teasing lightening his tones.
Elsbeth shifted so she could see his face. The play of moonlight brought his features into high relief, accentuating the cut of his cheekbones and line of his nose. He stared at her with eyes that drank the light.
"No," she said, her face heating at the mild rebuke in his tone. "You didn't. And I was wrong to make such assumptions." She stroked his neck, the hollow of his throat. "I hope you'll forgive me. I judged you by the behavior and crimes of others before you."
"And yet, I follow their path, Beth. I sit here with a village woman in my arms, one with no protector save an old man half-crippled with a bone sickness." Alaric slid a finger under her chin and tilted her face to him. "I won't lie, Beth. I want you. Want to make love to you, want to mount you here on this rock, feel your legs around me as I take you." He smiled briefly at her wide-eyed surprise. "I'd tell you I loved you if I thought you'd believe me. But loving you won't keep me here, no matter how much I wish it otherwise. I can only be what you first condemned me with in your eyes--a man wanting a woman so badly he can taste her, and no future to offer her. I will leave Ney-by-the-Water in two days."
Elsbeth, caught in a tangle of emotion, closed her eyes. Desire, despair, anger, elation--all these things ran through her at once. His words, seductive in their graphic honesty, made her ache. She wanted those things, too, wanted more than to recline here in his arms. Her elation over his oblique reference to loving her fell before the knowledge she had only two more days with him.
The fates are laughing now, she thought. Elsbeth Weaver, so proud, so sure of her own heart and intelligence that she'd not be taken by the smooth charm of a handsome nomad, had fallen deeply in love with one. Knowingly, willingly. And she did not regret it for a moment.
Elsbeth turned fully in Alaric's arms so that she faced him on her knees. "You're not like them," she said. "You've seduced me with your honesty, not your lies." She smiled when his eyes flared. "You can't give me a future. But are you willing to give me two days?"
He didn't return her smile, but his hand rode her back, pulling her closer until she fell against him. The intensity in his voice made her shiver. "We can live a life in two days, Beth." He stared at her. "Do you understand what you're saying?"
"Yes."
She kissed him then, taking slow delight in the curve of his lips against hers, the taste of his mouth--mulled wine she'd served with dinner. Alaric groaned, opened his mouth more to deepen her kiss. Elsbeth sucked on his tongue, passed hers along his teeth and the roof of his mouth. She wanted his taste, his scent, all of him. Her hips rocked, pelvis setting a slow grind against him. His cock, swollen and stiff, rubbed against her cunus, and Elsbeth moaned into his mouth.
There was a flurry of heat and hands, of tangled clothing and ripped seams. Alaric suckled her breast, his tongue laving her nipple in short and long strokes. Elsbeth held his head close, fingers weaving abstract patterns through his silky hair as he almost brought her to climax.
She returned the caress, trailing kisses down his neck until she reached his small nipple. A delicate kiss, a warm teasing breath that made him hiss in anticipation. His fingers dug into her hips when she took it into her mouth, swirled her tongue over the tip, promised with every silent stroke she'd do the same to his cock.
Alaric pulled her away from him. "Beth," he said in a tight voice. Sweat beaded his forehead. "Not slow this first time. I won't last for slow." His hands shoved her skirts up around her thighs, even as hers were busy unlacing his trews. "Later, I will savor you."
Elsbeth couldn't agree more. She moaned her approval, when finally freed from his trousers, he filled her hand. He was hot and hard and smooth to her touch. Trickles of semen smeared her fingers as she touched the head of his penis. Alaric sucked in a breath, lifted her and spread her thighs.
He lay back on the rock. Moonlight gilded him silver. "Ride me, Beth. Hard."
She sank down on him and moaned her pleasure. The slow slide of swollen cock into her wet cunus sent a tingling heat racing down her spine and over her legs. Alaric gripped her hips in hard hands, guiding her until they set a quick rhythm. There were few words between, only an occasional gasp, the wet sound of skin meeting skin as she rode him.
Alaric pulled her head down, mimicked the thrusts of his cock with his tongue in her mouth. His hands roamed her body, caressing her breasts. "Gods, Beth. Two days. I could fuck you a lifetime. I need more than two days." With that, he rolled, putting her neatly on her back while still retaining their connection.
Elsbeth whimpered and clutched at him when she felt him withdraw. "No, don't."
He reassured her with a hard thrust, he was going nowhere. Elsbeth eased her legs over his shoulders, desperate to pull him deeper. He was a big man, endowed with both length and girth to please any woman. Her need to bring him closer went beyond the physical but was limited to it.
Alaric slowed his pace, turned his head and kissed her right shin, then her left. He cupped her cunus in one hand, looked down to where his shaft, glistening from their combined pleasure, thrust in and out of her body. He spread the outer lips of her cunus, exposing her clitoris to his touch and his gaze. Elsbeth gasped when he licked his lips.
"This," he said in a voice gone hoarse, "this is what I've longed to taste." Alaric's gray eyes blazed silver. "For now, I'll simply touch."
"Simply touch" was an understatement. He drove Elsbeth mindless with the play of his fingers on her clit. She panted and thrashed against him, sure she'd incinerate in the heat of her approaching climax. Alaric pumped her hard, bending her legs until she was curved fully against him and could see herself impaled on his thrusting cock. Could see his fingers delving into her curls. Sweat dripped off him onto her, sliding across her belly and breast. His face was thinned, drawn tight, as if he hovered on the brink of ecstasy. It was enough to drive her over the edge.
"Now," she groaned. Her back arched, her legs tensed against his shoulders. A spiking heat thundered through her, centered between her legs where his fingers played, and his cock filled her.
"Yes," he said in a breathless voice. He thrust twice more, hard enough to drive her across the rock, and climaxed. Elsbeth tightened her legs and moaned her approval at the slick warmth pulsing within her.
Her legs slid off his shoulder. She was a boneless heap of sweating, quivering muscle, no longer capable of thinking much less speaking. When Alaric collapsed on her, she made only a token protest. He adjusted his position so as not to crush her.
His face, revealed in moonlight, was peaceful, satiated. Elsbeth smiled. "You look like a cat who's found the cream crock." She caressed his back with lazy strokes.
"I believe I just put cream in the crock." He clutched her hips when her laughter threatened to push him out of her. "Careful, lass," he said. "It's a touch of paradise in there. I'm not ready to leave it just yet."
He stroked her face with gentle fingers. "Two days, Beth. I hope you have nothing else to do because it'll be me occupying your time. Take care of Angus, weave your rugs, but I'll have you to myself every spare moment." He glided a hand down her side and hip. "I'll have my cock in you in every way, too." His kiss was hard, possessive. "A claiming, Beth. I for you, you for me. I need the memory to carry with me."
Elsbeth shivered in his arms, from anticipation and no little trepidation. She wanted him in all ways; just some were more unfamiliar than others. Still, she trusted him, knew he wouldn't hurt her. And she needed a memory as much as he did. She caressed his hair, never tiring of its silkiness against her palm. "Then why are we talking? You're wasting precious time, storyteller. Give me that lifetime you promised."
She played until her arms ached, and her jaw felt permanently attached to the fiddle's chin rest. Perspiration dampened the hair at her temples and made her neck itch. Elsbeth lowered the fiddle and took a deep breath. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping onto her dusty boots. She wiped them away with a grimy hand.
"I will offer you the wealth of kingdoms if you but play once more."
Elsbeth screamed and dropped the fiddle and bow. The voice, resonant and deep, surrounded her. She grabbed her crossbow and shield, pointing the crossbow in a slow sweep before her. There was no true target for her to aim at, and terror coursed a river through her veins. It was a futile exercise. Even with the moon illuminating miles of farmland and the cliffs' pathways, she could see nothing beyond the periphery of her campfire. All was obscured by darkness thicker than treacle. Elsbeth's nostrils flared as she hid behind the shield. That gloom carried a distinct scent, brittle and sharp like the morning air after the first frost. For some strange reason, it made her think of Alaric.
"You've not much respect for so fine an instrument when you drop it on the ground in favor of that sad toy. What are you hoping to kill? A vole?"
From the corner of her eye, she saw something shift, a blacker shape among shifting shadows. A sibilant hiss, like sand sliding against sand punctuated the entity's question. Elsbeth swung the crossbow to the spot where the sound was loudest.
"Who are you?" She cringed inwardly at the warble in her voice. "What do you want?"
Laughter that was more a steady growl made the ground vibrate beneath her feet. "I might ask you such questions." Dry humor laced her visitor's words. The sand-slipping sound grew louder. "What is a solitary woman doing on the cursed cliffs of Maldoza dressed in armor and playing a fiddle?"
The heavy darkness lightened, revealing fingertips of moonlight that skated along curving black scales. Elsbeth whimpered and backed away, trying to merge herself with the rocky shelter as a monstrous reptilian head loomed above her and regarded her with eyes the size of silver serving platters.
"Dragon," she whispered.
The great head swung to and fro in the murky darkness. Its elliptical pupils dilated, reflecting back the pale moon. Elsbeth swore the bony ridge of metallic scales running the length of its snout wrinkled in a frown.
"Hardly," it said and snorted its disdain in a puff of blue smoke belched from its nostrils. "I am a wyvern."
What was the difference? Elsbeth wondered but didn't dare ask, afraid the creature might be insulted by her question.
The spell-born mist cleared completely, revealing the wyvern in all its majesty. It was enormous. Like her grandfather's description of the dragon he'd slain, it sported a pair of giant bat-like wings tucked tight against its back. Teeth longer than her arm and sharper than sabers gleamed ivory in the firelight. Scales rippled as its claws carved furrows into the hard ground. Unlike the dragon of Angus's adventure, this beast possessed no back legs. Its serpentine body rippled with muscle as it wrapped a grasping circle around the stony outcropping, trapping Elsbeth within its confines.
Those silver eyes measured her, narrowed a moment. Elsbeth cringed behind the shield when the wyvern's head swung close. Its breath, smelling of peat fires and scorched wood, heated a path down one side of her body. Had she not been wearing the armor, it might have blistered her skin. It sniffed her, reared back as if in surprise. "It cannot be," it said, and lunged forward to catch her scent once more.
Elsbeth thought she might faint. "Please don't eat me," she said softly. Some small part of her still capable of coherent thought raged at her situation. Ireni and her insane suggestions! She should have never listened to the old crone!
Again, that growling laughter, now laced with a hint of annoyance, vibrated the ground. "It's well known amongst our kind that humans taste foul. I might kill you, but rest assured I won't eat you."
The wyvern sniffed her a third time. "Dragon armor and a fiddle. Strange combination, but so familiar."
Elsbeth didn't have time to ponder such odd remarks. She dropped the crossbow and scampered halfway up the outcropping when the beast suddenly smashed a clawed foot onto her fire, smothering the flames.
The moon and the wyvern's silver eyes were the only things offering illumination. Why had it killed her fire? Such a small flame was no threat to a creature that surely created bonfires when it sneezed.
As if it read her mind, the wyvern answered her unspoken question. "All things are clearer when revealed in the dark."
A cool wind spun off the fields below, bringing with it the moans of the mythical haints bound to the cliffs for generations of time. Elsbeth climbed slowly off the outcropping, still crouched behind the shield, and bent to retrieve her fiddle and bow. She left the crossbow where she dropped it. The wyvern watched her, light eyes growing darker with each passing moment. The serpentine body tightened its coil, muscles twisting in agitation. A swift slide of scales hissed in time with the wind's plaintive call.
The wyvern's voice took on a lyrical cadence. Elsbeth was mesmerized, despite her fear. "I knew a woman once," it said, "who played such an instrument as if the gods danced along the bow hairs." The silver eyes were almost completely black and reflected a strange intensity not present earlier. "Tell me your name, fiddler, and why you are here."
The council house, packed to the walls with villagers, erupted into pandemonium, Elsbeth at its center. She sat next to Ireni and crossed her arms. Such a stance kept her from lashing out and swatting one of the shouting villagers.
Ungrateful bastards. She'd risked her life traveling to Maldoza with nothing more than a damn fiddle and sat through the night in hot dragon armor negotiating with an enigmatic wyvern for her grandfather and the villagers. She'd come away with a fair bargain, odd though it was in some respects. Now the villagers fought with each other over who would have to give up a portion of their livestock for the wyvern's tribute.
Next to her, Ireni put her fingers to her mouth and blasted a whistle that left Elsbeth's ears humming. "Enough! Enough!"
The council hall fell abruptly silent. All eyes turned to the small elder. She stood on the council dais, hands fisted at her hips. "What are you doing? What more do you want?" The crowd shuffled and rumbled its discontent, but no one interrupted.
Ireni paced the dais. "The beast is here for another month, maybe less. We can give up a dozen cattle or sheep if it means our village is left in peace."
One of the villagers spoke. "But who, elder? There are some among us who can't afford to give up more than a single ewe. And what of those who own no herds? What do they sacrifice?" His gaze slid to Elsbeth, accusing.
A red haze passed over Elsbeth's vision. She forgot the courtesy afforded an elder and jumped in front of Ireni. "How dare you, Manny Howe." The villager dropped his gaze before her indignation. "My grandfather is dying. Instead of spending the next three weeks tending to him, I get to entertain a wyvern. I'd give over three herds of cattle if I could make such an exchange and stay home with Angus."
Her eyes watered with frustrated tears. She didn't want to argue; she just wanted an accord. If the village rejected the wyvern's bargain, Elsbeth would pack her grandfather and their necessaries and be gone from Byderside by first light. Angus might not survive the trip, but she'd be damned if she'd sit idly by and watch the world around her reduced to cinder heaps because a few greedy farmers refused to give up a head of cattle.
No one countered Elsbeth's remarks. With the confirmation that Angus's armor was not the harbinger of their problems, many felt ashamed of their behavior toward him and Elsbeth.
"What about a lottery?"
As one, the crowd turned. Donal Grayson stood near the door and puffed on his pipe. He spoke around the stem. "Those families with livestock enter their names. If you can only afford one sheep or one cow, put your name in once. If you can afford more, put your name in twice or more." His eyes narrowed, and he took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed the stem at the crowd. "And don't think we don't all have a measure of each other's worth."
"What of those who don't own more than chickens or a sow?"
Elsbeth answered that one. "We buy one from a neighbor who does and give it over. If you haven't the coin for that, then barter something. A thing you've made or your service in a fellow man's fields at harvest time."
A mumbling grew among the villagers, this time less combative, and many nodded their heads in agreement with her and Donal's ideas. Elsbeth clutched her skirts, praying they'd consent to the lottery.
Ireni patted her arm, her pale eyes warm with approval. She and the other council members conferred for a moment before facing the villagers once more. As always, Ireni acted as spokeswoman.
"Thank you, Donal and Elsbeth. Those are fine ideas." She addressed them all. "What say you? A lottery tonight? Council will visit each of you and assess your holdings. For those who are chosen and have no livestock to give, you may parley with a neighbor who does and decide between you a price. If you deem it necessary, council will mediate."
More nods among the villagers, and Elsbeth breathed a cautious sigh of relief.
"What say you?" Ireni repeated.
The chorus of ayes was loud and sure, if not enthusiastic. Side discussions followed the agreement until one of the elders convened the meeting and urged the villagers outside. A few stopped to embrace Elsbeth or shake her hand and express their thanks.
One, the village healer and midwife took her hand and squeezed. "You did a fine thing, Elsbeth. For us, yes, but mostly for your grandfather. I'm not so sure my grandchildren would brave a fire-breathing beast in its lair for me."
Elsbeth smiled. Despite its surface telling, her grand adventure had been nothing more than a long, sweaty walk up and down the cliff paths and a strange evening talking to a creature more articulate and shrewd than any aristo politician. She pictured the villagers gaping at her in astonishment if she told them that once she got past her terror of the wyvern, it had made her laugh a few times with its dry wit and acute observations of human nature.
Her humor faded. Were it not for her grandfather's failing health, she might look forward to the three weeks spent in the wyvern's company. It had not asked much from her personally. Twenty days as a "guest" to play her fiddle and keep it company. But those were twenty days away from Angus, and in that time she would fret and wonder if he would be alive when she returned to fetch him from Ireni's house.
She sighed and turned to Ireni. "I'm off to see Angus. I want to spend as much time with him as possible before I go. Will it be all right if I don't attend the lottery tonight?"
Ireni patted her hand. "Do you have to ask? No one will begrudge you this time, Elsbeth. If they do, I'll be boxing a few ears to set them straight."
"Thank you. Also, if you can put my name in the lottery for me, I'd appreciate it. We only have a nanny goat, a pregnant sow and a small coop of hens, but I can sell a rug or two and buy a ewe or tup from Donal."
Byderside had not selected the diminutive Ireni as an elder because of her retiring nature. She swelled with awesome indignation. "I most certainly will not. You've given your tribute, Elsbeth. You're part of it. No one expects you to participate in this lottery."
Maybe not, but Elsbeth wanted no mutters of unfairness or short shrift. She had money saved from sales of her previous rugs. She could afford to buy livestock for the tribute if necessary. Malcolm was the wealthiest man in Byderside, with several herds of cattle. He'd sell her a cow or bull without hesitation, but for a price she was unwilling to pay. She'd buy a ewe from Donal instead. He was a friend and a good man who'd made his own bargain with the wyvern and done well by it.
She hugged Ireni briefly. "Please. I don't want any more trouble. If my name is picked, I'll give you the coin for a sale. Buy from old Donal, not Malcolm."
Ireni huffed, reluctant to relent. "I'll think on it. And I wouldn't buy a jeweled purse from Malcolm Miller if he offered it to me for a ha'penny." She returned Elsbeth's embrace before pushing her toward the door. "Get going, lass. Angus has driven me to distraction with all his complaints and wanting his ale warmed just so and his toast buttered on a particular side." She gave Elsbeth a wink. "It's your turn to put up with him before you leave me to his mercies."
"Elsbeth, why didn't you tell me?"
Semi-reclined in his bed and looking even grayer and more fragile than ever, Angus stared at his granddaughter with accusatory eyes. Elsbeth sat next to him, holding his hand. The lies about to pour from her lips were enough to earn her an eternity of damnation.
"I'm sorry, Grandfather. I didn't want to worry you. When Lord Tybalt's factor expressed interest in the rugs, it was on the condition I present them for his review. He insisted on meeting the weaver." She squeezed his fingers gently. "It was only to Durnsdale, Grandfather. You and I have made that trip many times. I knew the roads, knew the town. And it looks like we'll have a profitable sale, but..."
"But what?"
"Lord Tybalt has offered to sponsor me as an applicant to the weaver's guild." Elsbeth could hardly meet Angus's gaze. "I could be accepted, but only if I agree to three weeks of review and demonstration of my skills."
Angus's eyes lit with joy, and he gripped her hand with a strength that startled her. "My sweet lass, this is grand news! Tell me more. I knew the guild would recognize your worth one day!"
Almost two hours passed in which Elsbeth spun her tale of guild acceptance and swallowed tears as Angus waved his thin arms enthusiastically and gave her snippets of advice on how to present herself at the first guild meeting and what the masters looked for in apprentices. By the time she took her leave, he was exhausted and half-asleep. She kissed him on the forehead and stared at him for several moments, trying to memorize his sunken features in case he was gone when she returned.
A blaze of late afternoon sunlight greeted her when she left Ireni's house for her own. Elsbeth, used to the candle luminescence in Angus's room, was almost blinded by the brightness. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes and found herself face to face with Malcolm.
He blocked her path, a hulking darkness that smelled of sour ale and violence. She tried to step around him, but he matched her movements, holding her captive in the village square's open space.
"What do you want, Malcolm?"
His flat black gaze was suspicious. "'Twas an easy bargain you made up there, Elsbeth. Armored knights on warhorses couldn't conquer the serpent. And all you needed was a fiddle?" He reached out a hand to touch her hair, and she jerked away, repulsed by the idea of his hands anywhere on her.
Elsbeth shrugged. "The wyvern was reasonable enough. I didn't come at it with a javelin and an empty jewel purse waiting to be filled, so it was willing to listen."
She tried to sidestep around him, and once more he blocked her. "Get out of my way. I've a house to close, supplies to pack, and my grandfather waiting for me. You're wasting my time, Malcolm."
"Easy, lass. I just want to talk a moment."
Malcolm didn't just talk. He bullied, fished, and prodded. If that didn't work, he used his fists. Elsbeth didn't think him bold enough to try and harm her in the public square, but she never underestimated his brutality. Like Donal, she thought his wife had come to a premature and purposeful end.
She crossed her arms and looked for the first opportunity to escape. "Then talk and be done with it."
He smirked and ran a paw-like hand over his beard. "You say it ain't a dragon, but something close." His small eyes gleamed. "Did you see its treasure? Were there jewels? Gold?" He leaned closer, knocking her almost senseless with breath that smelled of rotting mutton and ale.
Elsbeth gagged, but saw her chance to flee. She whipped around him while he was off balance, and was halfway across the square before he'd straightened and turned to follow. "Nothing," she called over her shoulder. "No gold, no jewels. Just a wyvern waiting to slaughter you if you've a mind to pay him a visit."
She made it to her house in two more strides. Elsbeth had never been so glad to see her humble home. Malcolm still stood in the square, watching as she turned and closed the door on his malevolent gaze. She leaned her forehead against the wood. Too bad the wyvern eschewed humans as food, otherwise Elsbeth would find a way to replace a hapless ewe with one Malcolm Miller as part of the tribute.
Less frightened and hesitant about her second trip to Maldoza, Elsbeth made quick time to Donal Grayson's land. She'd left Byderside at dawn with good wishes this time instead of derisive laughter. Somehow, it didn't make her feel better. The villagers were placing their faith in her now, faith that the wyvern would uphold its part of the bargain. And faith that she would uphold hers well enough to please it.
She found Donal on his roof, rethatching a section blackened with scorch marks. Her stomach dropped. Had the wyvern abandoned its unspoken accord with the farmer and given his house a warning taste of fire?
Donal saw her and waved, disappearing over the side of the roof and remerging around the corner. "Welcome back, lass," he said with a smile. "How's Angus?"
"Well enough to annoy Ireni." She eyed the roof. "What happened to your thatch?"
He shrugged. "Bit of a mishap with me hearth. Nothing a little more long straw can't fix." He laughed at her sigh of relief. "Worried about the lizard, eh? You needn't. He's been behaving himself."
As before, they stabled Tater and stored the cart. Donal pointed to her clothing, an ensemble of long tunic and trousers in homespun brown. "You'll have a hard time getting up the cliffs by way of the shortcut. That scrub vine will tear you to ribbons without your armor."
Elsbeth adjusted the pack on her shoulders. The dragon armor had been useful, but it was hot, and she didn't miss wearing it. "I'll take the long way this time. The climb is steeper but clear, and the wyvern gave no set time for my arrival."
She promised Donal she'd be careful and set out for the cliffs well before noon. A light breeze, smelling of hay and wildflowers, blew off the stretch of fields before her, swirling dust clouds on the road in its wake. In the distance, the low chorus of cattle lowing accompanied the buzz of insects. Maldoza, sparkling in the sun, cast its pointed shadow over pastureland, a reminder of things darker and more mysterious than Byder county's peaceful countryside. Elsbeth wondered if the wyvern watched her from the sanctuary of one of the caves. She hoped so. It would know she honored her part of the bargain.
While it might take her longer to reach her destination, the low path winding up the cliffs was clear of the vicious scrub vine. Elsbeth had only taken a few steps before a rush of air buffeted her back, and the sun cooled. She turned and nearly jumped out of her skin at the wyvern looming over her, folding giant wings against its back.
In full sun, the beast was even more imposing. Scales that had shown black beneath the moon's luminescence were crimson in daylight. They flexed over massive, rippling muscle like a tapestry of rubies. Its underbelly and neck were mottled gray, streaked with blues, pale yellows and pinks. The colors deepened or faded with the changing light. Elsbeth's curiosity overrode her surprise. Camouflage. Like a lizard, the wyvern's skin changed, adjusting with the play of light so that it blended with sky and clouds as it flew. Anyone looking up might see it only as a fast-moving drift of clouds or a trick of the eye.
"Mistress Weaver," it said, and a murder of crows burst from a nearby withered tree, startled to flight by the resounding voice. "You've kept your end of the bargain. Does this mean you trust me not to devour you?"
Prior to her first meeting with the wyvern, Elsbeth didn't think such a creature capable of amusement, but humor laced its question, and she responded in kind.
"I trust that you want a fiddler to play for you more than a meal to eat. I can't play if you're chewing on me."
The armored skin around the wyvern's muzzled tightened, stretched back. Silver eyes, rimmed in black, grew darker, and streams of smoke swirled out its nostrils on a deep huff of what sounded like laughter.
"Well said. I shall enjoy your company, mistress, and your conversation." It lowered its head, drawing close enough so that Elsbeth could see her reflection in the elliptical pupils. "If you could touch the sun, would you?"
She stared at the wyvern, baffled by the question. "Forgive me. I don't understand you."
"You can walk up the cliff paths. By the time you reach our meeting place, the sun will have set, and you'll be thirsty and tired. I can fly you there in a matter of minutes."
Elsbeth's eyes widened. Fly? On the back of a wyvern?
"It would be a very short trip, and I'll fly slowly. You can use the down scales on my neck to hold on." The wyvern blinked once, twice, pinning her in place with a silver-coin stare. "Or, if you're afraid, you can go the hard way." She stiffened at the faint challenge in his words. "Your choice."
What a tale fantastic to tell--one among many she was quickly gathering to her. Elsbeth, the rug weaver who flew with a wyvern and played it a tune or two on her father's fiddle. She might plunge to her death on the way to the cliffs, but oh what a way to die. To do something no living man or woman of her acquaintance had ever done--fly like a bird--it was too amazing to refuse. Exhilaration and no little fear surged through her veins in a heady mix.
"You won't drop me?"
The wyvern's stance changed, straightening. It looked down at her from its impressive height with an equal measure of affront and approval. "No, I won't drop you."
Elsbeth inhaled, belted the pack more tightly around her waist and swallowed to fight down the butterflies fluttering madly in her belly. "Never let it be said I'm a coward."
Again that reverberating huff of laughter. The wyvern lowered its head and stretched out its neck, an invitation for her to mount. "I think only a fool would say such a thing about you, Elsbeth Weaver."
She had never been so deliciously frightened in her life. The wyvern was true to its word, flying slow, if not low, over the fields ringing Maldoza. Elsbeth sat in front of the wyvern's wings and clutched the softer down scales for purchase. Wind whistled past her ears, lifting her braid so that it whipped behind her. The tip snapped against one of the great wings that beat the air in powerful rhythm. The wyvern's neck flexed beneath her legs as they veered away from the cliffs, soaring higher into the sky. Below them, Byder county, mundane, bound by the seasons of planting and harvest, took on a magical appearance. Fields and pastureland spread out in a patchwork quilt of green and gold. Small herds of cattle and sheep grazed peacefully, undisturbed by the great predator flying past them in the summer haze.
They finally landed on a plateau crowning one of the escarpments jutting from the cliffs. Elsbeth slid off the wyvern's neck to stand on shaking legs. She grinned when it swiveled its enormous head and regarded her with an unblinking stare.
"That was the most frightening and wonderful thing I've ever done," she said, and laughed.
"Is it?" The wyvern folded its wings. "I'd think walking the paths of Maldoza at night to confront me would be your most frightening moment."
"My second most frightening experience then, and one I'm glad I had." Elsbeth smiled at the wyvern. "Thank you..."
What was its name? During their negotiations, she'd never thought to ask its name. She didn't even know if it was male or female. Elsbeth blushed, feeling unaccountably rude. The wyvern might be helping itself to valuable livestock and angering towns and villages for miles, but it had been courteous to her in every way.
She raised her palms in a supplicant gesture. "Forgive me, I don't know your..."
A certain tension rose between them. Elsbeth held her breath, waiting for something she couldn't name but knew would once again alter her view of this fascinating creature.
"Names," it said in a gruff voice, "have great power. They pin a spirit to earth, give it form and weight. Make it beloved or hated, remembered or reviled." The silver eyes turned nearly black. "My given name means 'kingly' and is too difficult for the human tongue to pronounce. You may call me Alaric."
The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and she gasped. The memory of storm-cloud eyes soft with laughter filled her mind. Her Alaric had been a bard not a king, but there had always been something noble in his bearing, something powerful in the way he moved and how he measured a person with a penetrating gaze. Elsbeth smiled, despite the ache in her chest, a longing never lessened over the years. It was fitting somehow that he and this extraordinary creature bore the same name.
The wyvern watched her in silence for a moment. Thin streamers of smoke drifted from its nostrils. "A name not unknown to you, I see." The crimson scales along his back rose in a spiky ridge, much like a cat bristling its fur in warning. "Beloved or reviled?"
His reaction puzzled her. Elsbeth knew nothing of wyvern behavior save what she'd learned in the few hours spent in this one's company, but her instincts warned her answer to his question was crucial, even pivotal to how they might deal with each other over the next three weeks. The stiff scales rose higher at her hesitation, spreading to the ones behind his ears until they created a flared mane.
Alaric repeated the question, his words making the ground tremble beneath her. "Beloved or reviled?"
"Beloved," she said, "and never forgotten." Her smile was rueful. "I sometimes play for him, though he does not hear."
Alaric's raised scales smoothed down, and his eyes were again silver. "Are you sure? Mayhap he hears your music in dreams."
Elsbeth shrugged. "Mayhap, if he's still alive." This strange conversation made her uncomfortable, though she couldn't explain why. She changed the subject.
"Is this where we'll stay?" She waved an arm over the plateau and the patchwork fields below them.
"No. Only dragons are vain enough to make themselves open targets by basking on an upland perch. Not a few have found themselves made into suits of armor because of it."
The bony ridge above one of Alaric's eyes rose, and Elsbeth blushed.
"I've a lair deep in the cliffs. Difficult to find if you don't know the way, but you'll find every comfort there for your stay with me."
Elsbeth had her doubts. She'd explored a few caves in her lifetime. Some were dry, most were damp and covered in fungus. All were dark and usually decorated in bat guano. She prayed Alaric's idea of comfort matched her own, and she didn't have to spend three weeks in some dank, foul-smelling pit.
The hiss of scales rubbing together whispered in her ears as Alaric coiled his long tail around her. It slid against her calf, almost a caress in its slow glide.
"Trust me, Elsbeth. You'll be pleasantly surprised."
If anyone asked her why, she couldn't have given them a satisfactory answer, but Elsbeth did trust the wyvern. Alaric was a menacing combination of belching fire, monstrous black claws and teeth like sword blades. Until her meeting with him, he'd terrorized Byderside and Durnsdale, stealing cattle, killing knights and burning down barns. Still, she no longer found it difficult to reconcile the image with that of the courteous, often humorous creature before her. Maybe he was right. Names had power. His had certainly affected her view of him. Alaric, the wyvern, reminded her of Alaric, the man and erstwhile lover. And with that comparison came a measure of reassurance.
She laid a tentative hand against the wyvern's glossy neck, fascinated by the heated smoothness beneath her palm and the paleness of her skin against the burnished scales. A great shiver rippled from Alaric's neck to his tail.
"I trust you, though you'll have to watch that I don't wander off and lose my way."
"Don't worry, Elsbeth. I'll not lose you." Alaric's silver eyes went black. "Never again."
His answer confused her, made her wonder.
Elsbeth sat cross-legged in front of the wyvern with her fiddle resting on her lap. The glow of warm light from an unseen source surrounded them in the large cave where her host made his home. "Tell me more of these beasts you hunt in your homeland, the ones who wander in herds and have noses that swing and curl and can pick up trees." She tuned the strings on her fret board and gave Alaric a doubtful look. "Though I think you tease me with such tales, Master Alaric."
Alaric lay on his belly, tail wrapped tightly around him so that his head rested on the coils. A treasure, beyond anything in a king's treasure house surrounded him. Gold coins were heaped in mounds and spilled across the cave floor in glittering streams. Rubies, sapphires, and emeralds--jewels of every type--reflected colored fire that danced across the walls. Wyverns weren't dragons, he'd told her, but they shared an obsession for treasure and keeping it close.
"I, a wyvern, tell tales of fantastical beasts?" He watched her tune the fiddle. Smoke streamed from his nose.
"Good point. Why one such as you might make up stories about fabled creatures makes little sense." She smiled. "You could just as easily talk about yourself."
After two weeks in her host's company, she'd learned to read a few of his expressions. In some ways they were almost human. The bony ridge above his eyes rose, much as a person's eyebrows, when he was doubtful or surprised. When he smiled, his silver eyes narrowed at the corners, and his scaled cheeks tightened. Elsbeth liked it best when he laughed. It came from deep in his chest, a low vibration like a giant cat's purr. Never loud or grating, his laughter thrummed the ground beneath her, and she often found herself laughing with him. Only the glimmer of razor teeth sometimes made her uneasy.
He was intelligent, humorous and appreciative of her music. Elsbeth never grew tired of stories involving his travels. Nomadic by nature, Alaric had traveled the world and seen things Elsbeth could only begin to imagine. Listening to him tell of far, exotic lands with their great temples and ancient rituals made her sigh with longing. What would it be like, she wondered, to see the whole world and experience its riches? Were it not for Angus's failing health and her fear she might not return to him before he died, Elsbeth would greatly enjoy her time with the wyvern.
"Were I a dragon, I'd fill your ears with every vanity imaginable. From my esteemed bloodlines, to the mates I've taken, the offspring I've sired, the knights I've killed and the treasure I've hoarded." Alaric shrugged, causing his wings to lift. "Wyverns boast enough, but for dragons, it is high art."
One of his statements pricked her curiosity. "When I first met you, I assumed you were a dragon. We all did. What makes a wyvern different?"
"Many things." He flexed his wings. "For one, we are much larger and faster flyers." His tail uncoiled. "Dragons have four legs. We have two, but our tails are longer, more useful." He sniffed in disdain. "And we are far more intelligent."
He scraped the floor with one curved claw. "That armor you wore came off an adolescent dragon. Most that die in confrontations with men are. Older dragons, and wyverns for that matter, know how to hide, use their magic for defense or are formidable fighters. A feeble human male is no match."
That startled her. Elsbeth had never viewed Angus's dragon armor as anything more than proof of bragging rights. She was proud of her grandfather. He was brave to face down an adversary superior to him in size and strength, but she didn't always understand the motivation to seek something out and kill it for trophy. Alaric's remark certainly humbled Angus's accomplishment.
"Those scales were from a young dragon?" The idea made her little sick.
"Aye. Probably no more than seventy-five or so in human years. No older than a hundred years."
Her eyes widened. "Young at seventy-five? How old are you?"
Alaric chuckled. "In human years? Six hundred and four."
Over six hundred years old! Elsbeth could hardly grasp such an age for any living being. She hesitated in asking her next question, not wanting to offend. "Are you old?"
The chuckle turned to an outright, booming laugh. "No. I'm considered in my prime, with full mating rights and offspring to carry my bloodline."
She ignored the small voice inside that warned her not to pry, that it was rude. But Elsbeth was far too fascinated by the details of wyvern culture to pay heed to the rules of courtesy. She cleared her throat. "Do you have a mate now? A wife?"
He snorted. "Mating is seasonal. Wyverns are like dragons in that we don't bond with our kind. Females choose their males amongst the fastest flyers, the best fighters. It ensures strong offspring. Beyond that, we are solitary creatures, barely tolerant of each other."
How sad, she thought. To come together only for the purpose of creating young, never for companionship. It seemed a lonely existence. "Do wyverns not love?"
Alaric's silver gaze turned pewter. Elsbeth paled, afraid she'd asked a question considered taboo amongst wyverns. He answered in a low, growling voice.
"We love, just not our own. Like dragons, we are most vulnerable to humans because we form bonds with them. We take human form and walk amongst you. You are a passionate, creative and sometimes colossally stupid race. You burn brief, but you burn bright. It's what draws us."
Elsbeth blinked, stunned by his revelations. "You live among us as people?" The idea gave her pause. How could one tell if a man was not truly a man, but a beast ensorcelled? Would he have a ravening appetite? An urge to set fire to things? Would one find him gnawing on a whole sheep? Raw?
Rumbling laughter snapped Elsbeth out of her musings. Alaric gently blew a stream of smoke at her.
"Humans are so expressive. Your faces give away your thoughts. Let me guess. You were listing off those farmers and merchants of Byderside who might be hiding draconus heritage right under your very noses."
She blushed and smiled ruefully. "Well, it crossed my mind."
"I can assure you, none are there. We would have clashed over territory by now if that were so." Alaric's humor faded. Elsbeth was sorry to see his eyes darken once more, a sure sign something troubled him. "Wyverns are nomadic. We assume the guise of wanderers, never staying in one place more than a month. We can only hide our true nature for so long. The magic used to change us is both powerful and draining."
"Have you ever..." Elsbeth paused, remembering something he said when they first met on the cliffs.
"I knew a woman once who played such an instrument as if the gods danced along the bow hairs."
At the time, she'd registered very little beyond his menacing size and her own fear at coming face to face with a notorious creature of legend. Now, safely entrusted to his care and comfortable in his presence, she recalled his voice. Melancholy and filled with yearning, he'd spoken of the human woman who played a fiddle as if he lost the most precious thing he'd ever had.
"Forgive me," she said. "I don't mean to pry."
Alaric's wings rose in a shrug. His eyes were almost completely black now. Elsbeth saw her reflection in the obsidian pools--red hair tangled about a thin face flushed with the heat of her embarrassment.
"You aren't," he said. "I took on human form years ago and met a village woman who played her fiddle. She enchanted me with her music and all else about her."
"You loved her," Elsbeth whispered. A small ache blossomed in her chest.
"I love her still." Alaric dark gaze never wavered.
The strangest sense of anticipation settled within her, a gladness she neither recognized nor could explain. Elsbeth reached out, skated her fingertips across smooth scales. "I'm so sorry, Alaric." She sighed. "For what little it's worth, I understand your sadness."
His eyes remained black, and the telltale shiver rippled his scales. He suddenly rose, towering over her. She scooted back, clutching her fiddle to her chest.
"Come," he said. "And bring your fiddle. There is a place within the heart of the cliffs open to the sky. You may play there and remind me of better days."
They traveled swiftly through the labyrinth of tunnels that cut deep into the cliffs. Elsbeth carried a small torch by which to see as she followed Alaric into the blackness. For one so massive, he moved incredibly fast, and she had to maintain a steady jog just to keep up. Passageways that seemed too small for him to fit offered no obstacle. The warping feel of magic passed over her each time they moved through one, a sign that Alaric either altered the corridor or himself to get through. The ability to wield such spells left all of Maldoza's interior open to him. Elsbeth understood more than ever why no knight had yet been successful in confronting and killing Alaric.
Five turns and a double-back later, and she was completely lost. Alaric looked at her over one wing. "It's not much farther, Elsbeth. Do you wish to ride?"
"No," she panted. Elsbeth was no delicate flower or some aristo woman used to being carried everywhere. And for reasons she chose not to delve into, she didn't want Alaric to think her weak.
The tunnel in which they passed grew lighter, and she heard the sounds of bird calls and rushing water. Elsbeth no longer needed the torch as they drew near an archway. She walked up next to Alaric and gasped. The corridor opened onto a massive, roofless cave. Sunlight streamed down in wavering stripes of gold and pale yellow, illuminating thousands of birds nests crowded in the layered rock. An underground spring bubbled up from the floor, spilling water in meandering rivers. Unlike the lair she shared with Alaric, this one was cooler, misty with the flow of water and a gentle breeze that swirled inside and ruffled her hair.
"This is part of Maldoza?" She stared around her in wonder. "No one would guess from the outside this place exists."
"It is well-hidden and only visible from above. I chose Maldoza as my temporary home specifically for this cave. It is safe from intruders, easily guarded."
Alaric's rumbling voice sent nesting birds into flight. They flew skyward in a protesting din of screeches and chirps. Only their echoes remained and the underground spring's quiet burbling.
"Come," Alaric said, and led her down an easy path to the cave floor.
Elsbeth leapt nimbly from rock to rock, holding her fiddle case tightly in one hand and the torch in the other. They rested at the cave's perimeter, and the wyvern indicated a flat rock for her to perch.
"Here is a good spot." He didn't settle next to her but rested on his haunches and watched as she doused her torch and opened her fiddle case.
Elsbeth quickly finished tuning the fiddle and ran the bow across the strings in a few experimental passes. The cries of the strings filled the cavern, but they were muted, softer. She frowned at Alaric. "This is a beautiful place, but my music won't sound as good. Are you sure you want me to play here?"
At his nod, she rose and began to play. A lively wedding reel--it had always been Angus's favorite. Muffled by the cave's mist, the tune filled the chamber with a softer cadence, as if she played the reel in a dream.
Alaric had not moved during the song, neither to stretch out beside her nor tap a claw in rhythm to the music. Elsbeth was dismayed to see his eyes were still black, and he watched her, unblinking.
She cleared her throat. "Forgive me," she said. "Does my playing displease you now?" A slow dread rose within her when his scales bristled. What if he no longer enjoyed her fiddle? She still had a week remaining. Would he abandon their bargain and start terrorizing the countryside once more? "Is there another tune you'd like to hear?"
"Do you have a husband?"
Elsbeth almost dropped the fiddle. "What?"
"When I found you at Maldoza, you played your fiddle as if you mourned a friend and serenaded a lover. You've not played that way since." The scarlet scales expanded more, stretching from behind Alaric's head to the tip of his tail. "What lover inspired you to weave your soul into your music? That's what I want to hear, not some melody you've performed at every harvest dance."
She stared at the wyvern, shocked by his words. What was she supposed to say? His admonishment had nothing to do with her skill and everything to do with the heart of her playing. Those spiking scales were a sure sign he was displeased with her. Elsbeth gave everything to her performances, no matter how mundane the celebration or how removed she was from the people celebrating. She played for strangers with the same enthusiasm she played for friends.
"I don't understand what you're asking," she said.
"Play as if your lover stands before you and waits to hear the songs you created for him."
His request was making her uncomfortable, as was the intensity of his gaze. "I have no husband, and only the memory of a lover."
Alaric's scales subsided slightly. "Alaric the man, beloved and not forgotten?"
Elsbeth gave a tentative laugh at his reminder of their earlier conversation. "Yes."
His scales smoothed back into place. Alaric lowered his head until he was almost nose to nose with Elsbeth. "You played for him that first night on the cliffs. I could hear it on the wind, feel it in my blood. All the passion you carried for a man now lost to you." His long tail curled around her feet. "That is what I want to hear again, Mistress Weaver--your soul in the bow."
The knot in her throat threatened to choke her. Elsbeth breathed on a shudder and blinked away tears. It took two swallows before she could speak. "You ask more of me than you know."
His faint huff of laughter was devoid of humor. "Oh, believe me, I know of what I ask."
Elsbeth suffered a brief moment of anger--anger at being forced to bare an unrelenting pain to the wyvern. He was no longer a stranger to her, but even Angus only guessed at how badly Alaric the Bard's departure had hurt her. She'd indulged in a moment's maudlin nostalgia on the cliffs when she played with him in mind. She'd been lonely and frightened. She never imagined the reviled creature haunting Maldoza and terrorizing Byderside might be so sensitive to her music.
Wyvern and woman faced off in silence. Elsbeth almost refused, then remembered Alaric's own confession, one given willingly and without hesitation. Like her, he'd loved and lost.
"One song, Master Wyvern, and then something else." Her voice turned pleading. "I beg you."
"One song, Mistress Weaver. And then you may play your harvest tunes."
She nodded, placed the fiddle under her chin and closed her eyes. An image of her Alaric rose in her mind. His dark hair, silvered by moonlight, was soft against her fingers. He twirled her around the solstice fire, gray eyes hot and promising all manner of seduction once he whisked her into the shadows. Elsbeth held that image and put bow to fiddle.
Her surroundings faded, buried by the power of her music and the emotion fueling its fire. She played as she had on the cliffs, pouring nearly a decade of love and memory into her song. She'd composed it shortly after Alaric left, a tribute not to the sorrow of his leaving, but to the joy he'd given her in the time he'd lived among them and made her his lover. The strings thrummed beneath her fingers, alive with a magic even wyverns could not create. When she played the last note and opened her eyes, she was stunned to see the cave once more and the wyvern watching her.
"Beth," he said, voice reverent and deep, "had you played that at Ney-by-the-Water, I would have never given you the choice to stay."
Elsbeth gaped, unable to believe what she just heard. The blood rushed to her head. "Who are you?"
Pinpoints of light glimmered along Alaric's scales, coalescing until they covered his body in a ruby nimbus. The light pulsed twice, flashing off the cavern walls and the flow of water beneath his feet. Elsbeth turned away, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness.
A voice, still deep but quieter than the wyvern's, spoke. "Look at me, Beth. You know who I am."
She didn't want to turn, didn't want to look upon the reality of a man who, for eight bleak years, had been no more substantial than her most treasured dreams.
"Beth."
Where Alaric the wyvern once stood, Alaric the man now faced her. Her stomach flipped; her heart thundered in her chest. Dressed in nothing more than the sun-burnished skin that made her palms ache to touch him, he stood within a haze of sunlight, unchanged since she'd last seen him walk the roads leading away from her village.
His next words were not those of a poet romancing his love, nor those of a bard coaxing a reluctant maid to his arms. They were the words of a warrior, a conqueror returning to reclaim what was his and no one else's.
"'Tis a good thing you have no husband, Beth, or I'd have to kill him."
Elsbeth, who'd faced down an angry mob and bargained with a wyvern at the haunted cliffs of Maldoza without turning a hair, fainted.
She awakened to a subtle warmth seeping through her clothing along her right side and the familiar scent of spruce and snow. The cavern's spring no longer bubbled in the background, and she lay on the pallet she'd brought with her. She was again in the wyvern's lair.
Afraid to open her eyes, she lay still, basking in that heady warmth. She didn't want her dream of meeting Alaric again to fade, didn't want to find herself alone with only a puzzled wyvern wondering why she'd fallen asleep on him.
"You have to open your eyes sometime, Beth."
That voice, so loved and so missed, breathed gently in her ear. Elsbeth kept her eyes tightly closed.
"No, I don't," she said. "This is a good dream. I don't want it to end."
The warmth along her side shifted until it pressed down on her from shoulder to ankle. Elsbeth felt the heavy weight of a solid chest against her breasts, long thighs sliding between hers. Fingertips fluttered across her cheekbones and drifted into her hair.
"Does this feel like a dream?"
Elsbeth moaned softly and finally opened her eyes. Alaric, the bard who had given her days of happiness and eight years of loneliness, stared down at her and smiled. He rested on his elbows and forearms, keeping much of his weight off her. He was so close, she could see the fine lines fanning from the corner of his gray eyes, the curve of his eyelids. Black hair, streaked russet by the cave's ambient light, fell across his forehead. It was shorter than she remembered, touching his neck instead of falling below his shoulders. A stubble of beard graced his cheeks, accentuating the line of his jaw.
"Are you truly here, or am I just wishing you to life?"
His bare shoulders, golden and smooth, flexed. He lowered his mouth to hers and brushed her lips in the faintest kiss before pulling away. "Ah, Beth, if such wishing worked, I'd have wished you to my side years ago."
Held spellbound by Alaric's smoky gaze, she could only stare at him for several moments, drinking in the sight of him as if he were cool water on a sweltering summer day. She'd missed him. Dear gods, had she missed him.
Elsbeth touched him then, a tentative caress of fingers and palms tracing the slope of his shoulders and neck. Alaric's eyelids lowered to half mast, and his breathing hitched. He shut his eyes when she ran a fingertip over his cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose. A strong, handsome face with a generous mouth that smiled easily and had brought her to delirium with a simple kiss. A beloved face.
"I was afraid you were dead," she whispered, curving her hand against his cheek.
Alaric opened his eyes and turned his head to kiss her palm. "I was dead," he said, "until a fortnight ago when I heard a fiddler's music on the cliffs." Another breathless kiss danced across her lips. "I didn't think it possible, but you've grown more beautiful with time, Beth."
Beth. Only Alaric had ever called her Beth. Sometimes teasing, sometimes passionate, it belonged strictly to him. Elsbeth blushed.
"Oh, yes," she said and smiled. Her fingers sketched delicate patterns on his arms. "All these new lines on my face become me so well."
Hands, both graceful and rough, slid into her hair, cupping the back of her head. Alaric no longer smiled, and his gray eyes narrowed. "The woman who bewitched me eight years ago had only half the grace and beauty she has now. You will grow lovelier with every passing year. If you live a wyvern's lifespan, you will only enthrall me more."
Blood, heated by desire and elation, ran hot in her veins. She slid her arms around him, embraced him fully. He was naked against her, a perfect study of male beauty that begged her touch. Elsbeth spread her thighs wider, bringing Alaric fully against her so she could feel his erection through her trousers. He moaned, hands tightening against her head, hips thrusting lightly in response to her silent invitation.
His lips teased hers with half kisses. "We've much to discuss, Beth." The sweep of his tongue on the underside of her upper lip sent tingles dancing down her arms and legs. "I came back for you."
Elsbeth dug her fingers into Alaric's back at that confession. She wanted to know, desperately wanted to know what happened to him during those lost years, why he had not found her when he returned for her, and who was this man that wore the guise of a wyvern?
Her hands slid over the ridges and valleys of muscle, moving lower to caress his lean buttocks. "Not yet," she whispered, trying to capture his mouth for a deeper kiss. Her legs wrapped around his; her hands gripped him, pulling him closer into the juncture of her thighs. "Not yet. Give me this. Convince me this is real. That you're real. That I won't wake up alone in the fallow dark, with nothing but the memory of you against me."
Alaric offered no protest. He traced his tongue across her lips, held her head still and opened her mouth to stroke and plunder. New and yet familiar to her, he tasted and felt as good as she remembered. She helped him remove her tunic and trousers, pausing when she lay before him, covered only in the mage-light illuminating the cavern.
"I'll say it again. You're more beautiful now than you were eight years ago."
He stood and helped her rise. Elsbeth blushed as he did a slow turn around her. She knew he viewed her with partiality. Eight years had brought the inevitable changes. She was not so firm in some places, a little wider in others. But she chose not to point them out, content to let him see her through complimentary eyes.
Alaric, on the other hand, was as flawless as she remembered. The gift of wyvern magic, she supposed. Lean and muscled, he moved with a feline grace, unaware of his extraordinary effect on her senses. Or so she thought. He met her gaze with an amused one of his own. Not only was he aware of her perusal, he reveled in it.
"Like what you see?"
"I'd be blind not to," she said, gaze drawn to his cock, stiff and jutting from a nest of black curls. "If my memory serves, I liked the feel and the taste, too."
He brought her into his arms, against his beautiful body. Elsbeth sighed in sheer pleasure at the feel of his skin on hers. "Eight years," she said. "Yet this still feels the same."
"No," he said, and bent to kiss the sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met. "This is better."
Alaric made slow love to her then. Unlike the first time they coupled, this wasn't frenzied, desperate. He took his time, and Elsbeth savored his touch. He kissed and licked her everywhere, leaving no part of her untouched by his mouth. When he spread her thighs and lowered his face to her curls, she'd sucked in a breath, eager for his tongue on her clit and inside her cunus.
His tongue played havoc with her body and her senses. He stroked and sucked gently on her clit, rolling it with the tip of his tongue, pausing here and there to dip into her wetness, lick her thighs made slippery by his pleasuring her. When he brought her to orgasm, her cries carried to all parts of the cliffs' interior.
She returned the favor, pleasured herself by taking his cock in her mouth. He stood before her, hands buried in her hair as she knelt, sucking him leisurely. It was a slow torture she performed. Her tongue ran the length of his shaft, the sensitive vein along its underside. His bollocks were cool in her hands, his taste salty in her mouth. It wasn't Elsbeth on her knees who was the supplicant, but Alaric whose thighs shivered beneath her palms and whose hands clenched her hair in an effort not to fuck her mouth in hard, mindless thrusts.
His climax was as intense as hers, his knees buckling. He filled her mouth. Cum trickled from the corners of her lips as she swallowed and licked him clean.
They loved through the long hours of the afternoon. Alaric reasserted his claim from eight years earlier, taking her cunus, her mouth and her ass. During a short nap, exhausted by their excesses, she'd awakened to the feel of oiled fingers sliding between the cleft of her buttocks. Half-asleep but eager for more of his touch, Elsbeth bent a knee, bringing her leg higher to give Alaric better access.
She moaned at the slide of one finger into her ass. Another joined it, stretching her anus to accommodate its intrusion.
"That's it, Beth, open for me," Alaric whispered in her ear as she pressed against his hand. He fucked her slowly with his fingers for several moments, allowing her time to adjust to his invasion. When he released her, Elsbeth gasped in protest, wanting more.
She didn't have to wait long. Alaric turned her from her side to her stomach and raised her to her knees. His cock, as slippery and oiled as his fingers, followed their path. He spread her buttocks. Elsbeth felt the tip of his penis press against her anus and pushed back.
His cock slid in her ass smoothly, an inch at a time. Elsbeth groaned at the feel of it, the stretching, the pressure bearing down on her cunus from behind as he breached her bottom and slowly impaled her on his shaft.
"Tell me if it hurts, Beth. I'll stop."
It didn't hurt, but it was agonizing. Agonizing in the way that intense pleasure could be painful. Elsbeth arched her back, wanting more. Wanting to be fully breached, wanting to be possessed in the most primal way.
"No," she said on a groan. "Don't stop. I want it all."
Alaric's hands tightened at her waist. "A claiming, Beth," he gasped out and thrust hard, burying his cock in her ass to the hilt.
It was a loving debauchery. Elsbeth's fingers dug into the pallet, her body rocked by Alaric's thrusts, her senses overloaded by his possession. That pressure grew, swelling to encompass her entire body. She reached down, slid her fingers between the lips of her cunus and stimulated herself. In seconds, she orgasmed.
Alaric immediately followed her, his bollocks caressing her thighs as he thrust twice more into her before filling her. The sounds he made were guttural, incoherent.
In the aftermath, they lay spooned together. Elsbeth, tired to the point of exhaustion, was almost asleep once more. Alaric's fared no better. His voice was faintly slurred when he spoke. "Do you want a bath?"
It was an effort to respond. "Later," she mumbled sleepily. "I like your scent on me."
He hugged her close and chuckled. The sound soon changed to a gentle snore. Elsbeth fell asleep to its steady lullaby.
"Why didn't you tell me in Ney that you were more than a man?" Elsbeth crouched in front of the wash bowl Alaric had given her and sponged herself clean. She tossed him the wash cloth.
"Because you might have thought me less of a man if I did." He caught the sponge and dipped it into the water. "Think on it, Beth. I had a difficult enough time convincing you to even speak to me, being that you thought me nothing more than a drifter with a glib tongue and evil designs on innocent village maids." His mouth turned up in a faint smile. "You were wrong about that you know."
Her eyebrows rose. "What? The part about your glib tongue, or the evil designs on village maids?"
Alaric laughed and danced tickling fingers down her ribs, making her wiggle and laugh as well. "The last. I had designs only on one woman, and she did not fall easily to my charms."
"That's because you used the wrong charms at first. I fell quickly enough after you ate my cooking without complaint. Had I known then you could just as easily enjoy an uncooked haunch of ox, I might not have been so complimented." She toweled off with a dry cloth and returned to their pallet, keen to have him against her once more.
"And you've still the sharp tongue to go with that fiery hair." He joined her, reaching out to curl a lock of her hair around his finger. "The wyvern is who I am, Beth. The man merely an enchantment. One that took me nearly three hundred years to master and another fifty to grow comfortable with."
She captured his hand and kissed the back. "But the heart's the same. Do you know there were times when I'd watch your face and see something beyond the scales and those horrendous teeth--an expression, especially when you made some joke, that reminded me of Alaric the bard. I thought it just the wishful yearnings of a lonely woman. I wanted to see similarities simply because you shared the same name."
"I considered taking you from Ney, despite your wish to stay. You almost saw the wyvern then, ready to swoop away with you."
"I shame myself and my grandfather's devotion by admitting I was tempted to say yes when you asked me to go with you."
Alaric kissed her palm. "But you stayed anyway. There's no shame there. You honor Angus. You stayed for your family. I left for mine."
He'd led to the question she'd wanted to ask for almost a decade. "What happened? Where did you go? You never fully explained it to me, only that your kinsmen needed you."
"That was only a half-truth. This enchantment I wear, it's taxing and requires great strength to hold it for long periods. When I met you, I'd already worn the guise of a man, uninterrupted, for four months. I knew I'd have to change back to my true form while I could still control it. Transforming from man to wyvern in the middle of a human village unexpectedly wouldn't bode well for me."
That last made her shudder. Had such a thing happened, he'd have sent the villagers screaming and running into the woods in terror. But not all. Ney boasted, and rightfully so, of brave men. Good hunters and seasoned fighters who wouldn't flee, but find the nearest crossbow or javelin with which to kill the beast.
"The stuff of nightmares," she said and hugged him more tightly to her. He kissed her forehead. "But that isn't what kept you away so long. Tell me of those who needed you."
"My brethren rarely fly these skies. Our lands are in a far country, one very different from here. With those strange beasts I told you about and others like them. We were struck by a plague. Wyverns dying in mid-flight from some unknown sickness, eggs never hatching, their shells consumed by a black rot. It took our young first, and then the old guardians."
Plague. The hairs at her nape rose. Every person's worst fear. Death came on silent feet and without warning. It held no code of honor, taking the young, the weak, and the old first. The greatest warriors couldn't vanquish a foe that made no stand but passed nameless and unseen in the streets.
"What was it?"
He shrugged. "We never found out. A council was called to discuss what to do." That same horror making her skin crawl softened his voice. "So few of us left. The pestilence had killed a good half our number."
"I'm so sorry, Alaric."
His handsome features were drawn; his eyes darkened to the color rain clouds. "The plague burned itself out eventually, but not before taking a few more of us with it."
"Such suffering. Humans have dealt with plagues as well. Families destroyed, children buried. I assumed you'd forgotten me when you left. After dealing with such horror, I can see why you might."
She squeaked in protest when Alaric crushed her to him. His brows lowered in a scowl, though he loosened his grip. "Never. You flow through my blood like the magic I wield. I came back to Ney, Beth, three years later, but you and Angus were gone. Daldan, the blacksmith, said you'd moved south. I searched but never found you. Too many villages and none knew of a redheaded fiddle player."
He'd returned for her! Made the journey to Ney once more to seek her out. How strange that it was when her faith in his professed love for her had been at its lowest. She kept that to herself. "I rarely played then, only for my grandfather when he asked. I hadn't the desire at the time."
"And how is the old dragon slayer?"
The post coital languor had vanished with Alaric's telling of the wyvern plague. But Elsbeth had only wanted to hold him closer, grateful he had not succumbed to the disease, grateful she'd been given this blessing of a chance to reunite with him. His inquiry after Angus served to remind her that this joy was on someone else's borrowed time.
Alaric's eyes narrowed at her silence. "Beth?"
"He's dying, Alaric. It will be a blessing of merciful gods if he's still alive when I return to Byderside."
He went rigid against her, every muscle tense. Elsbeth stared at him, shocked by the sudden change. His mouth thinned to a tight line. He stared at the cave's ceiling for several minutes, and it was she who puzzled over his silence this time. "Alaric?"
She took a startled breath when he suddenly rolled onto her and kissed her senseless. She sank into him, opening her mouth to welcome his tongue, stroking his in return.
Alaric slowly lightened the kiss, nibbled the corners of her mouth before raising his head. "Why didn't you tell me before this?"
Elsbeth ran her fingers through his silky hair. "Because you were a wyvern before this, and I knew you as nothing else. What interest would you take in my life beyond my music and what inspires it?" She smiled. "Besides, were you me, wouldn't you be cautious about singing the exploits and praises of someone who wears the hide of a relative, distant though it may be?"
He didn't return her smile, only gazed at her with a troubled expression. Her smile faded as well. "What's wrong?"
Alaric sighed before rolling off her and rising to his feet. Elsbeth gasped. Gods, what a beautiful man. She shook her head. Or wyvern.
He held out a hand to help her up. "Come. We'll dress. I want to show you something, proof of merciful gods."
He took her back to the open cavern. Night had fallen since they'd made love in Alaric's lair, and the cavern was doused in shadows. Above them, the roof of bright stars glimmered, reminding her of Maldoza itself, with its sparkling of tiny rocks imbedded in its pocked façade.
Alaric raised his hands and breathed on his fingertips. Captured moonlight, silvery and cold, spread from his hands. It passed along the floor, trickling along the rocks like the underground spring. Shadows fled to the corners of the chambers, leaving the high silhouettes of birds sleeping in crevices in their wake.
Elsbeth sucked in a small breath. Here in the blue glaze of mage-light and stars, Alaric's sculpted profile was ethereal, peaceful. He turned at her soft exclamation.
"What?"
She smiled. "You've the look of a man well satisfied and content with his world."
He smiled in return, traced a meandering line down her throat with a gentle finger. "And you're a woman well-loved." The smile faded, and his eyes darkened. "I put all my faith in your silence, Beth. You must tell no one of this."
Tell no one of what? Elsbeth blinked, confused. She'd assumed he wanted this cavern kept secret and had no intention of remarking on it when she returned to Byderside. Angus had often accused her being more close-mouthed than a hermit monk under a vow of silence. He didn't exaggerate. She touched Alaric's arm. "I would never betray you."
He nodded, took her hand and led her across the cavern's rocky floor to a sliver of darkness wedged between two walls of jagged rock. From one angle, it looked like nothing more than a long shadow cast by the play of illumination on the cavern walls, but when Alaric brought her around to the second wall, she saw it was a tunnel.
Too small for him to enter as a wyvern, it was large enough to accommodate several people with ease. She peered into its darkness. Alaric sent more of the pale mage-light into the tunnel, and Elsbeth gasped at what it revealed.
"An egg!" She didn't wait for his permission to enter, but stepped onto the raised ledge and hoisted herself into the tunnel for a closer look at Alaric's newest secret. The egg was massive, nearly twice the height of Alaric in his human form. Save for its size, it looked like any bird's egg, with a pale blue shell mottled with brown spots. It lay in a nesting of black rocks and flushed a lavender shade at intermittent moments, as if keeping time with a silent heartbeat.
The nesting place was hot. Where Elsbeth had shivered in the cavern's main space, she now broke out in a sweat. She looked at Alaric, eyes wide. "Is this...?"
His expression was cautious, as if he was unsure of her reaction to his revelation. "Wyverns mate every other spring. The females bear a single egg, and it is the males who hatch them. A female's fire isn't hot enough to keep the egg warm. When she hatches, I'll return her to her dam."
"She?"
Seeing that Elsbeth was more fascinated than put off, he climbed into the tunnel with her. His hand stroked the air just above the egg's surface. "See the color of the shell? The blue cast marks it as female. Were it browner, it would be a male." He waved a hand to the main cavern. "This cavern offers not only protection, but space. When she hatches, she will have the room to practice her flight in preparation for her journey to her dam's territory."
Elsbeth walked slowly around the egg, admiring the miracle of a life in the making before her. Alaric's child. Offspring through the mating with a female wyvern. She smiled to herself. Somehow, she could find no jealousy within her. It was hard to see a creature a thousand times larger than her and possessed of scales and wings as competition. "What will you name her?"
He followed her as she continued her perusal of the egg. His face was soft, approval and admiration for her shining in his eyes. "I won't. Wyvern council will. The wyvern matriarchs always name the offspring. Only then are they recognized as members of the wyvern tribe."
Hearing Alaric's explanation of wyvern culture made her pause. She stared at him, seeing a tall, broad-shouldered man, finely made with a handsome face any human female would admire. Yet it was only an illusion--one that went deep to blood and bone, but still an illusion worked by powerful magic. Yet the heart and the spirit were the same, and it was these with whom she fell in love.
"Did the matriarchs name you as well?"
Alaric gave her a formal bow, one meant for monarchs. "I am Alaric out of Goetia by Caratacus."
Elsbeth laughed and curtsied in return. "And your name means kingly."
"Yes."
"How very fitting." She reached out, gliding her hand just over the egg's surface as he'd done. "May I touch her?"
He pulled her hand away. "It's too hot. You'll burn your hand. And it will get even hotter in a few moments. Would you like to see me warm the egg?"
"Yes, I would," she said, delighted.
Alaric hesitated. "I will be wyvern again, Beth.
There was something poignant about his uncertainty, as if he still found it hard to believe she accepted his shape shifting so easily. She shrugged. "You never stopped being wyvern, Alaric." She eyed him with a scowl. "You have little faith in me. How is it that you, a wyvern, can love a human woman and yet doubt this same woman can love the wyvern in return?" His arms encircled her, pulling her close. Elsbeth rested her arms on his shoulders and tilted her head back. "I prefer this form because I can embrace you, love you, and make love with you. However, if I could turn wyvern myself for you I would. But I have no magic. So you only get this puny human."
She pulled him down to her then, opening his mouth with her lips and sliding her tongue inside for a brief caress. He groaned at her touch, fingers massaging the muscles in her back.
"It is all I want," he said against her lips. "You are all I want."
They kissed again, and he filled her mouth with his tongue, stroking, sucking, intimating with leisurely thrusts what he would do to her when they returned to his lair. Elsbeth opened to him, wrapped her legs around his waist when he cupped her bottom and hoisted her higher against him. She rubbed against his cock, swollen and straining against his trousers. She wanted him again, craved the feel of him in her cunus, her mouth, the warm, wet slide of his seed trickling down her thighs or pulsing against her throat in a salty stream.
"Mine," he murmured against her throat and gently suckled the skin there.
Elsbeth moaned. She tilted her head back to encourage more of his nibbling and caught sight of the wyvern egg in the corner of her eye. "Alaric," she whispered, brought back to earth.
"Hmmm?" Alaric continued kissing her neck.
"The egg, remember? You're supposed to warm it."
He halted his worship of her skin abruptly and lowered her to the ground. Elsbeth clutched him for a moment, trying to steady legs gone more wobbly than an old loom.
"You are a dangerous distraction," he said, his expression caught between a frown and a smile.
"And you are no less guilty of that than I am."
He bowed once more before nudging her toward a large boulder at one side of the cavern. "Stand there. It's protected."
"Against what?"
"A very large fire."
He stripped where he stood, much to her admiring eyes and gave her his clothing for safekeeping. As when he'd first revealed himself to her, Alaric invoked a silent magic, shape shifting from man to wyvern. The roofless cavern, with its canopy of stars, burst into movement as frightened birds took flight and circled the opening, protesting the wyvern's presence with loud whistles and chirps.
Alaric arched one of the bony ridges above his eyes and favored Elsbeth with one of his odd smiles. "I'm not so welcomed here in this shape."
Elsbeth watched as the displaced aviary settled slowly back to Maldoza, perching along the cave's jagged top. "If they only knew they are in more danger of me shooting and eating them than of you feasting on them."
A huff of laughter was his response. "Indeed. I haven't much use or appetite for something no bigger than a fly is to you."
He approached the cave housing the nest, and Elsbeth marveled at the grace of a creature so massive. Alaric checked to make certain she was still safely behind the rock. Satisfied with her position, he faced the smaller cave, took a deep breath and blew hard.
"Gods' mercy!" Elsbeth yelped as scarlet and orange fire shot out of Alaric's mouth. Her first instinct was to scream for him to stop, that he'd literally cook his own offspring amidst the gouts of flame jettisoning from him. But she remembered a comment he'd made about wyverns. Only the male's fire was hot enough to keep the egg warm.
He blew on it twice more, sending back drafts of scorching air into the main cavern. Elsbeth huddled behind the rock, grateful for the shelter and happy not to have her eyebrows singed off.
When he finished, his chest heaved like great bellows, and residual smoke poured out of his nostrils. His voice, always resonant but also smooth, was now hoarse. "That will be enough for another day or two." He arched his long neck, peering at her from his far height. "Are you well, Beth?"
She came out slowly from behind the rock, clutching his clothes. "I'm fine." She shook her head. "What madness makes men challenge creatures like you? We stand no chance against you in a fight."
Alaric shrugged his wings and recited the spell that changed him to human form. Elsbeth handed him his trousers and shirt wordlessly.
"It is because you fight us that you lose." He slid the trousers over his legs, pausing to leer at her as she watched him dress. "There is a recent legend amongst both dragon and wyvern kind of a dragon who took a human woman, a singer renowned among her people for her wondrous voice, as his favorite. He was killed in a territorial battle by a rival--a firedrake even larger than the greatest wyvern. In revenge, the dragon's human lover seduced the drake with song and slew him in his sleep. We call her Irenya Firekiller.
Elsbeth almost forgot to hand him his shirt. "What was her name?"
Alaric pried it out of her fingers. His voice was muffled as he pulled the shirt over his head. "Irenya. She'd be an old woman now. The knights who came here to challenge might have learned a thing or two from her on how to battle a draconus and win."
"I know a little about dragons."
Ireni's face, care worn and etched by the numerous lines of more than sixty years of living, rose in her mind's eye. Elsbeth had thought her statement strange, but hadn't dwelled on it, too caught up in the heat of her own crisis. Now, when she thought back on it, the elder had said that with a secretive smile and a distant sorrow in her gaze. Was Ireni the Elder also the Irenya Firekiller dragons and wyverns spoke of with admiration?
"Beth?"
Alaric's still rough voice brought her out of her musings. He was fully dressed and shod. He held a hand out to her. "Are you ready? We should leave now. It's late."
Elsbeth gripped his hand and let him lead her past the nesting cave. They halted briefly so she could take another look at the egg. The cave was too hot to enter now, and the egg glowed like an amethyst on its bed of heated rock. "May we come back tomorrow so I can see her?"
His gray eyes lit with a combination of delight and desire. "If you wish."
They picked their way across the rock floor to the tunnel leading back to Alaric's lair. Behind them, the cavern darkened until all that remained was a crimson patch of smoldering rock nestled in a cleft of cliff wall and the rush of wings as birds returned to their nests.
They made love twice, and Elsbeth was reminded of her two days with Alaric in Ney. There had been an aura of desperation cast over their time, and it was here again. She didn't fall asleep until very late and stirred restlessly against Alaric.
She awakened in the blinding dark, struggling to breathe as a strong arm slowly crushed the air out of her. Behind her, Alaric twitched in his sleep, muttering incoherent words until he said, "Not yet, Beth. Not yet." He squeezed her harder.
"Alaric," she wheezed, praying he'd awaken before he suffocated her.
His strangle hold loosened immediately. "Beth?" His voice, sleepy and confused, tickled her ear.
Elsbeth stroked his arm, troubled by his sleeping words and the clutching desperation of his embrace. "You were dreaming. Go back to sleep."
He didn't protest, only tucked her more closely against him and slid into a restful slumber.
When she next woke, Alaric was already up and dressed. A small fire burned in one corner, and he tended a makeshift spit holding a roasted fowl.
"The birds are not as safe from me as you thought," he said with a smile. Fat drippings from the roasting bird popped and sizzled in the fire. "There's warm water for a quick bath there." He pointed to a tall ewer made of beaten gold, encrusted with sapphires. "After breakfast I'll take you back to the cavern."
She hastened to bathe, dress and eat, eager to see the egg again. They returned to the open-air chamber. An early morning mist hung in the air, shrouding the crevices and ledges in a damp, white veil. Elsbeth made her way to the nesting cave and peeked inside.
"You can go in. It's cool enough now." Alaric gave her a quick nod of encouragement.
The outer cavern was cold, but inside the nesting cave she felt warm enough to remove her heavy outer tunic and drape it over her arm. The egg had returned to its beryl shade. Elsbeth walked around it slowly, occasionally holding her hand out over the surface to feel its warmth. A mark, different from the brown specks mottling the shell, caught her eye. She crouched near the nest of rocks for a better look.
"Alaric," she said from her place near the egg's tip. "Come look at this. There are two small cracks here."
She barely had the words out before he was in the cave beside her. Unlike her, he didn't hesitate to put his hand against his shell, nor did his palm burn from the contact. The illusion of a man, she thought. It was brought home to her many times in small ways.
Alaric rose and made a thorough inspection, pointing out three more cracks. "She'll hatch very soon. Maybe tonight." He didn't look happy about it. His face had taken on a bleak cast.
An icy dread trickled down her back. "What's wrong?"
He gazed at her, eyes gone dark. "Beth, you can't come back here now, not even with my protection."
"Why not?"
He ran a caressing hand over the shell. "When wyvern young first hatch, they are sharp-eyed, fast and ravenous. Adults won't eat humans, but our young know no better. She'll smell your blood and see you only as prey. I can fend her off, but she'll only need one chance at you. And you'll die from it. I'll not risk it."
That dread lightened to disappointment. Elsbeth was drawn to the egg. It was life in the making, and this was Alaric's child. Still, she had no wish to be someone's first meal. If he felt it no longer safe, she'd do as he asked and stay away from the cavern. But his grave expression puzzled her.
Her unease returned full force. "There's something else, isn't there?"
Suddenly taciturn, he took her hand and kissed it. "Come," he said. "We must return to my cave."
"Alaric."
"My cave, Beth."
Elsbeth didn't argue. They made the short journey back to his lair in silence. A good thing, as she didn't think she could talk around the hard knot that had suddenly lodged in her throat.
She almost yelped in surprise when, reaching his lair, Alaric halted abruptly and pulled her into his arms. Taken aback by his quick actions, Elsbeth didn't immediately return his hard kiss. Like his sleeping embrace of the night before, the kiss tasted of desperation, of melancholy, of farewell. Her stomach twisted, even as she returned his ardor with her own.
Alaric buried one hand in her hair and used the other to strip her of her tunic and trousers. He took her against the wall, with her legs around his waist and his hands cupping her bottom. He'd given her only enough time to steady her legs and stumble to her pallet before he took her again.
Afterward, Elsbeth stroked his damp hair and took in her surroundings. The lair, with its soft light and the familiar scatter of her supplies and his treasure, had quickly become a second home to her. Some would be aghast at such a thought. Some would think her daft. Elsbeth Weaver, happy in the depths of haunted Maldoza with only a savage wyvern for company.
She knew, with a true instinct, what Alaric was about to tell her. Knew it in her bones and blood. A small part of her sighed in relief. But the greater part mourned. Their time was over.
His warm breath cascaded over her breasts. He kissed a gentle curve and spoke against her skin. "I release you from your bargain."
She said nothing, and he raised his head to look at her. "The egg will hatch, and these cliffs will be too dangerous for you to inhabit, even if I keep her confined to the cavern." He rose on his elbows, leaning over her so that he might see her better. His handsome face was sharp with a silent grief. "And your grandfather needs you, Beth. Almost as much as I do, but my time is not so limited."
Truth and necessity were pitiless companions. They demanded much and offered little in return. Elsbeth wanted to return to Angus, had fretted over her time away from him, wondering if he still lived or if Ireni had overseen his burial in the village cemetery. Still, she didn't want this too-brief time with Alaric to end. A life of loneliness and the lingering pain of missing him, was something she'd grown accustomed to over the years. No more. It would be so much harder a second time.
Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. "Fate and family separate us once more."
Alaric kissed each tear as it fell. "You cannot stay."
"And you cannot leave."
The irony of those words, repeated eight years later, wasn't lost on her.
"Merciful or not, the gods have a poor humor." Alaric smiled, but a spark of anger kindled in his eyes. "I'll leave with my young in a few days." He gripped her shoulders with hard hands. "Wait for me. I will return. Don't leave Byderside, Beth. I'll search the world for you this time, but I'd rather find you safe in your village."
His insistence warmed her. His promise pushed back the emptiness blossoming within her. She even teased him a little.
"What if you choose to stay with your female wyvern?"
Alaric laughed, a touch of real amusement in the sound. "Then I best prepare for a bloody brawl. Damoshin is a fierce female, unwilling to share her lands. She'd challenge me if I dared stay more than an hour or so after returning our offspring to her." He kissed her lightly. "Remember, we do not bond with each other in that way."
Elsbeth ran her finger down his nose, stroked the curve of his cheekbone and the hard line of his jaw. "I'll wait, but confess I'm afraid. I want more than another handful of empty years, Alaric."
He captured her hand and kissed her knuckles. His voice was fierce, determined when he answered her. "Then you fear for nothing. I came back for you once. I'll not lose you again."
"If Angus were not so ill and your little one not so perilous, I'd insist you let me stay."
"There'd be no insisting, Beth. I wouldn't let you leave."
They didn't speak again, save for murmurs of encouragement and pleasure as Alaric took her again, this time leisurely. Afterward, they bathed each other with the tepid water remaining in the ewer. Elsbeth ran her cloth over Alaric's body with the reverence of a votary. She savored the feel of him, the curve of each muscle, the smoothness of his bronzed skin. Committed them to memory in case he did not return, and she had nothing more than an image undimmed by long years.
He helped her pack and dress in that same silence, as if by not speaking, time would slow and give them a few more hours together. Elsbeth was the one to break it first. She shouldered her pack. "I'm ready."
Alaric gave her a grim smile. "Then that makes one of us." He pulled her into his arms, heedless of the cumbersome pack. "I will fly you to the farmer's land, the one near Maldoza's base."
Elsbeth was tempted. Anything to prolong her time with him. But his obligations were as important as hers. Someone depended on him as well. "No. You need to be near your daughter. I've walked the cliffs twice now. I'll be fine." She stared at him, swallowing hard to hold back tears. "I love you. Be safe."
Alaric crushed her to him, kissed her as if he would draw her soul from her body and hoard it as he did his treasure. When they came up for air, his gray eyes were turbulent. The flush of passion graced his cheekbones. "Keep faith, Beth," he commanded in an unyielding voice. "Nothing will stop me from returning to you this time. Do you understand? Nothing."
She almost fell off the cliffs twice. The tears she'd held at bay when saying good-bye to Alaric, refused to be squelched any longer. He'd promised to return, and she believed him. But it didn't make their parting any easier. Elsbeth smeared the tears on her cheek and admonished herself.
"Foolish watering pot. No better than Anya Smith who cries over a broken fingernail."
Her self-reproach did the trick, and the tears dried. She smiled. Anya might be the silliest, most empty-headed twit in all of Byder county, but she at least had the sense to watch where she was going. Elsbeth slowed her descent down the main cliff path.
The sun was near its midday climb. The heat was stifling, relieved only by a slightly cooler breeze from the north. Elsbeth paused to enjoy its touch. Suddenly, she heard voices, familiar ones carried on the same breeze. She looked around for a place to hide and spotted a cleft in the rocks, one that offered an overhang by which she could view her fellow travelers without being seen.
Her heart jumped a beat, then sped up when she saw Malcolm trudging up the path, followed by his two toadies, Galen Horn and Jamie Knowles. They were heavily armed, weighted down with hand axes, sickles, crossbows, and quivers bristling with quarrels.
Elsbeth stifled an outraged gasp as they drew closer. All three sported pieces of Angus's dragon armor. They'd stolen Angus's prized armor! She kept still in her hiding place, but the desire to march out there and confront them was almost overpowering. How did they get the armor? And were Angus and Ireni all right? Such desire was tempered by fear and acknowledgement of her position. She was a woman alone on the cliffs. Matched against three armed men, there was no contest. Elsbeth shuddered to think what they'd do to her if they found her.
She leaned farther out on the ledge, hoping to hear more clearly what they said to each other. Malcolm cursed Galen, admonishing him. His words made her blanch.
"Keep quiet. We'll light one torch and keep one close at hand. If we trap it in a small cave, it won't have room to fight. A dozen poison arrows will take any beast down, even one that big."
Dear gods, they'd come to kill Alaric. Her stomach plummeted to her feet.
Galen, a ferret of a man who feared his own shadow unless accompanied by a bully like Malcolm, spoke. "What if it breathes fire on us?" His voice shook.
"Hide behind that bit of dragon scale you took off old Angus's armor. And stay out of the way."
Jamie, far more intelligent than Galen but as easily led, gave Malcolm a sly look. "What about Elsbeth?"
Elsbeth recoiled in disgust at Malcolm's lecherous smile. "The beast has probably eaten her by now. I know I would have. Nice bit o' tart that one, but never learned her place."
"What if she's alive?"
"Then I'll teach her to mind that disrespectful tongue by shoving my cock in her mouth. No hunched old crone to protect her here in Maldoza."
The image his words elicited made Elsbeth want to vomit.
Galen licked his lips. "I'd like a go at her myself. All that nice red hair. I wonder if her cunt hair is the same color?"
He screeched when Malcolm suddenly rounded on him, a deadly skinning knife in his hand. "I'll be feeding you your own bollocks if you so much as touch her, Galen. I'll share the treasure, but the Weaver woman is mine." He turned to Jamie. "Same goes for you."
Jamie held up his hands in surrender. "Yours for the taking, mate. I don't like redheads."
Elsbeth, sick to her stomach at their conversation and lightheaded with fear for Alaric, eased her way back down the ledge as quietly as possible. Her mind raced. She couldn't stay here, hidden away while Malcolm and his cronies marched into Maldoza with their greed and poisoned arrows, ready to ambush Alaric.
If she left her hiding place, they'd spot her immediately. Elsbeth knew she could outrun Malcolm, but wasn't so sure about Galen or Jamie. Both were whip-thin men, light on their feet and likely fast. That is if they even bothered to try and catch her. They might just fire a bolt into her back and have done with it.
She could follow them from a distance, staying far enough back so they wouldn't hear or sense her behind them. If her luck held, they'd choose another tunnel to enter, and she could parallel them, following the track now familiar to her and warn Alaric of their coming.
The second option was truly her only one. Elsbeth crouched in the deep shadow of the crevice and said a silent prayer as the three men walked past her. They didn't slow or stop, oblivious to her presence. She trailed behind them, letting them almost out of her sight and staying close to the sheltering outcroppings jutting up from the path.
They kept a steady pace. Only once did Jamie slow and look back over his shoulder. Elsbeth froze behind a monolith of sparkling rock and hoped no else heard the thunder of her heartbeat. When they finally reached the caves, she sighed, relieved. Malcolm and his minions chose one of the larger caves to enter.
During her fortnight with Alaric, she'd learned to navigate some of the tunnels, but not all. Such an endeavor would require a lifetime. Anger and disgust welled up inside her. She prayed they got hopelessly lost, condemned by their own greed to die in Maldoza's black maze of corridors without food or water. Elsbeth had never been one to wish such a fate on anyone, but these three threatened the man she loved and the child he cherished.
Galen was the last to disappear into the cave, taking reluctant steps until an impatient Malcolm yanked him inside by his shirt front. Elsbeth waited a few moments more before shedding her pack and sprinting into the smaller tunnel that led to Alaric's lair.
Inside, the tunnel was obsidian black, a smothering darkness that might have overwhelmed her had Alaric not taught her how to feel her way along the walls for markings in case she ever lost her torch.
Elsbeth was almost to the lair when her luck ran out. Too focused on reaching Alaric before Malcolm did, she'd grown careless and not noticed the faint flicker of light to her right. She'd plowed head first into Jamie, knocking them both down in a tangle of limbs. A flash of steel caught torchlight. Elsbeth screamed and rolled, desperate to avoid being split gullet to belly by Jamie's wicked boning knife.
She was yanked to her feet and shrieked again at the scorching pain ricocheting across her scalp. Malcolm's blunt features swam before her eyes. He clutched most of her hair in one beefy hand. His breath, more rancid than ever, wafted across her face. Elsbeth gagged.
"Well, if it isn't the fiddler queen of Byderside. So brave, so noble. Too good for me, but you'll bed down with a great lizard."
Elsbeth clawed at the hand almost scalping her. "Your own swine in their muck are too good for you, Malcolm." She spat on him. "Wife-killer."
Malcolm only smiled, revealing yellowed, broken teeth. He wiped her spittle from his cheek, licking it from his fingers. Elsbeth's stomach churned in protest. "Aww, Elsbeth, you shouldn't believe all the stray talk you hear. My Olwen was content. A slap and a tickle now then, a good meal. And knowing who her master was. She forgot sometimes, and I had to remind her sometimes." He shrugged, unrepentant. "Accidents happen."
His features, bestial in Galen's flickering torchlight, sharpened. Elsbeth groaned, and tears of pain trailed down her cheeks when he tightened his hold on her hair. "Now, you tell me where the treasure is, and don't lie. Why else would you be running through the tunnels, eh? You saw us and want to hide the gold. Saving it for yourself, were you? You'll have to share now." He reached out a hand to touch her breast. "Treasure and more."
Elsbeth fought him, striking and kicking at him despite the agony racing down her spine from her scalp. She didn't stop until Malcolm subdued her by wrenching her arm up behind her back and cuffing her. Black stars exploded behind her eyes when he struck her. He no longer held her hair, but the pain in her face from his blow eclipsed it. Her vision narrowed as her eye swelled shut.
Malcolm kissed her ear. "Give over, lass. I want the treasure."
"You can have the treasure," she said. "I've no use for it."
"Good." He let go of her arm and shoved her ahead of him. "Then get going."
Elsbeth stood for a moment, at a loss for which way to go. If Alaric was in his lair, she'd lead his would-be killers right to him. However, if the egg was as close to hatching as he thought, he'd be in the open cavern, keeping watch until his youngling hatched. She chose the lair.
Malcolm shoved her a second time. "Standing there will only anger me, Elsbeth. Shall I give you a taste of Olwen's medicine?"
She shivered. "This way. It isn't far."
With the torches lighting the path, she no longer had to run her hand along the wall for guidance. She smirked at Galen's nervous commentary.
"It's a maze in here. How do you find your own ass in a place like this?"
She might have laughed at Jamie's answer if her circumstances weren't so dire. "Galen, you'd have trouble finding your ass standing in the middle of Crosshill Road."
All talking ceased at a strange, piercing scream echoing through the cliffs' warren of tunnels.
"What was that?" Galen raced ahead of her, looking wildly around him.
Elsbeth didn't know, but she could guess. The egg had hatched. She shrugged, as if unconcerned. "Just a bird. Sometimes they fly in and get lost. They usually die in the dark." Like you will, you greedy bastards.
Malcolm wasn't fooled by her indifferent response. "That's no bird." He cuffed her again, hard enough to drive her to her knees. This time Elsbeth spat blood. "Deceitful bitch! It's protecting its hoard, and you're leading us away from it."
Elsbeth raised her hands to shield her face from another blow. "No! I swear, the treasure is this..."
"Hold your tongue, bitch." Malcolm hauled her to feet and gripped her arm hard enough to numb her fingers. "Jamie, you lead. Galen will take up the rear." His yellow teeth gleamed in the half light as he smiled a malevolent smile. "If she escapes me, shoot her."
They no longer relied on her for direction. Instead they followed the myriad screeches and chirps resounding throughout the tunnels and growing louder as they moved deeper into the cliffs.
Elsbeth swallowed a sob of defeat when they emerged from one of the tunnels on the opposite cavern from where she and Alaric had come on their earlier visits. The sudden quiet made the hairs at her nape rise. The birds nesting on the stair-step ledges had flown once again, and only the spring's lively bubbling broke the silence. They were being watched, and it wasn't a friendly perusal.
Jamie must have sensed that predatory scrutiny. He raised his crossbow and did a slow turn, gaze passing over the many caves and concealing clefts cut into the cliff walls.
Galen, oblivious to any danger, whistled. "Would you look at this. No one would guess such a place sits in the heart of Maldoza."
Malcolm growled at him. "Just keep your eyes open. Something that big can't hide for long."
Jamie never took his eyes off the three caves diagonal to him. "Whatever it is, it knows we're here and is watching us."
"Smart lad. Certainly more so than the lackwit next to you."
Everyone, save Elsbeth, jumped at the new voice amongst them. Her knees almost buckled in relief at the sight of Alaric standing across from them, looking no more concerned than if he'd encountered them at a handfasting or in a tavern. Three crossbows, loaded with poison-tipped bolts, were pointed at his heart.
Malcolm jerked Elsbeth in front him. "Well now," he said. "Who are you?"
Elsbeth didn't call out, but pleaded with her eyes Alaric's forgiveness for leading his enemies here. He gave her only a brief nod of acknowledgement.
His voice, polite and even, belied the black anger in his eyes. "I might ask you the same."
Malcolm raised his bow. "That's no business of yours, friend."
Alaric never looked away from Malcolm, though he tensed when Galen and Jamie walked the course of the walls on either side of him, intent on getting behind him. "And who I am is none of yours. I'll say it once and only once. Release the woman and leave while you can."
Malcolm laughed. "Is that so? And who made you king of the cliffs? Seems to me, we have the advantage here, unless you've a fancy for taking an arrow in the gut." He squeezed Elsbeth. "And you," he sneered, fetid breath almost making her faint. "So noble, so long-suffering. Saving Byderside by doing a lizard's bidding." Shards of agony lanced her bruised jaw at his bruising grip. "Getting tupped by a drifter is more like it."
"Let her go."
Malcolm smirked. "Come and get her, lad."
Alaric shrugged and vanished.
Elsbeth's surprised gasp was lost amid the shouts of her captors. Galen swung his bow in a wild arc, heedless of whom or what he aimed at. "Did you see that? He just disappeared!"
"You just don't look in the right places."
Galen's features paled at the realization that Alaric had reappeared directly behind him. "What...?" was the last thing he uttered before Alaric snapped his neck in a quick sheering motion. His lifeless body struck the rock floor with a soft thud.
Jamie, round-eyed with terror at witnessing his companion's death at the hands of a sorcerer, took aim at Alaric. Half strangled by Malcolm's clutching hold, Elsbeth cried out.
"Alaric! Their bolts are poisoned!"
Malcolm hissed and clapped a hand over her mouth. It did neither him nor Jamie any good. Alaric's smile was chilling. He strode toward Jamie, undeterred by the crossbow's sights leveled at his chest.
Jamie cursed and fired. Elsbeth screamed behind Malcolm's hand. At the moment the bolt would have struck Alaric full in the chest, he disappeared a second time. The arrow shot through empty air and hit the opposite wall before falling harmlessly in a puddle of water. Alaric had disarmed Jamie through nothing more than temptation and fear.
"No!" he bellowed, scrambling to reload before Alaric reappeared. His hands shook as he struggled. Like Galen, he had only a second to stare as Alaric meted out a similar fate.
Alaric disappeared a third time. Malcolm, now alone with Elsbeth as his hostage, backed against the cavern wall. He dropped his bow in favor of his skinning knife and held it tight against Elsbeth's throat.
"Show yourself, you sneaking bastard! Face me if you have the bollocks!"
Alaric's voice echoed within the cavern. "Fine words from a cur that uses a beaten woman as a shield."
Malcolm pressed the blade against her skin even harder. A stinging pain and the warm trickle of blood froze her in place. Elsbeth didn't dare breathe hard. Malcolm's grip on the knife was hard, but terror made his hand shake. He could easily slit her throat by accident.
A low snarl resonated through the cavern. "Harm her again, and you'll be dead before you take another breath."
Malcolm jerked her off her feet when Alaric suddenly appeared almost on top of them. He lashed out, jerked Malcolm's knife hand away from Elsbeth and hurled the man several feet to the side. The knife slid across the ground until it came to rest near the bolt from Jamie's failed shot.
Alaric addressed her without taking his gaze off Malcolm. "Elsbeth," he said softly, and she was startled by his use of her proper name. "My offspring is watching all this from that cave directly across from you. She's deciding which of you to attack." Her mouth went dry at his words. "Whatever you do, stay in place. Don't run unless I say so. Prey runs."
Elsbeth nodded and swallowed, fighting down the instinct to do exactly what he said not to do. She looked to the cave he indicated, saw the shift of dark shadow among lighter shades and the brief glow of silvery eyes. So intent was she in watching for any movement from the hatchling, she almost forgot Malcolm until he started shouting curses at Alaric.
The villager held up his fists. "Come on then. No magic tricks. If you have any balls, you'll fight me fair."
Alaric's eyebrows rose in disbelief. "Fair? What do you, with your armed henchmen and my woman as your hostage, know of fighting fair?" He closed the distance between them in two strides.
His first blow shattered Malcolm's nose and sent him careening against the wall. Malcolm howled but regained his feet, blood pouring down his face. Alaric gave him no chance to recover. Another strike, followed by the brittle snap of bone, made Elsbeth wince. Malcolm's right arm hung loose at his side. Alaric continued his brutal pummeling. The two men were of equal size, but Alaric had the strength of a wyvern and used it on his adversary with merciless intent. He batted Malcolm around the cave much as a cat with a captured mouse, herding him ever closer to the cave where the hatchling watched and waited.
Finally, Malcolm fell to his knees, breathless and wheezing with pain. "Mercy," he pleaded in a voice clogged with blood. "Don't kill me."
Alaric cocked his head. "I'm not going to kill you." Elsbeth shivered at his smile, empty of all humanity. He looked to the cave, where an excited chirping began. "She is."
Malcolm followed his gaze. His eyes rounded in horror. "No!" he screamed. "No!"
The newly hatched wyvern leapt out of the cave. Scarlet-scaled, with a whip tail and tightly folded wings, the young female stared at her prey with the silver eyes she'd inherited from her sire. She slammed a clawed foot down on Malcolm, pinning him in place.
Alaric turned away and sprinted across the cavern. He grabbed Elsbeth's hand. "Run now, Beth, and don't look back," he shouted over Malcolm's agonized screams.
They raced into the tunnel leading to Alaric's lair. Elsbeth easily kept pace with Alaric, terror and Malcolm's screeches at her back giving her feet wings. They stopped only when they reached the lair. Elsbeth leaned over and took several deep breaths, grateful to no longer hear Malcolm's cries.
"Dear gods," she panted. "I'll have his screams in my nightmares for years to come."
Alaric's silver gaze was pitiless. "If he didn't serve a more practical purpose, I'd have ripped him apart myself." He brushed gentle fingers over the uninjured side of her face, traced them to the cut on her neck. "He put his hands on you," he raged in a quiet voice.
"I'm well enough." She touched a sore spot on her jaw and winced. "Well, my teeth hurt a little."
Alaric cupped her face in his palms. Elsbeth jerked instinctively away, trying to avoid more discomfort. "Peace, Beth," he said. "Let me do this."
A silky warmth flowed from his hands. Elsbeth sighed as it seeped into her skin, easing the ache in her mouth, the swelling of her eye. He caressed her face and throat for several minutes until the pain was completely gone, and she could see fully from her injured eye.
She touched her face gingerly, no longer felt the swelling or lacerations. "More wyvern magic?"
Alaric smiled and kissed her. "It's not all stealth and illusion you know."
Elsbeth took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "I am so sorry, Alaric." The words poured from her in a rush. "I saw them on my descent and tried to warn you. They caught me in the tunnels. I thought if I led them here, they'd be too busy stealing your gold to bother with you and the egg. Then we heard her chirp, and..."
He placed a finger against her lips to halt her babbling. "Beth, stop. You did a brave thing coming back." He hugged her to him, and his tone was admonishing. "Brave and foolish. You could have been lost in those tunnels, and I'd never have found you. "His hands slid down her back, cupped her bottom. "Don't ever do something like that again, or I'll redden your backside."
The events of the past hour struck her then, and she shuddered in delayed shock. "Don't worry. I'm not very good at playing the valiant. You're on your own the next time." She was only half teasing him.
They embraced in the dim lair, surrounded by the scatter of gold and gems Malcolm and his companions had died for. Elsbeth savored Alaric's warmth, his scent of winter cedar, the feel of him against her. She couldn't stay, and he couldn't leave. Not yet.
A series of whistles and anxious chirps drifted toward them. Alaric stiffened, alert to his offspring's call. Elsbeth stepped away and gave him a small push back toward the roofless cavern.
"You best go back. I know nothing of wyvern young, but she sounds frightened at being alone." At his hesitation, she nudged him again. "I'll be fine, Alaric."
His handsome features tightened. "Tell your villagers those men are dead, killed by me. Others will be reluctant to challenge. If you tell them otherwise, some might come and search. I've no longer the patience, nor the time, to fend off greedy humans lurking where they shouldn't."
Elsbeth nodded. "Go. She needs you. And Angus needs me."
Alaric lifted her in his arms. He made love to her mouth, tongue sweeping in to lay claim, to imprint, to enforce his memory on her. "Wait for me, Beth," he said against her lips. "I'll return by next summer."
"I'll wait."
"Swear it."
"I swear."
He set her down and strode toward the tunnel's darkness. He didn't look back.
Spring in Byderside was a busy season. There were the fields to attend and the sowing to do. And there were always weddings and the infant blessings after the long winter. On this particular April day, Elsbeth sat on a bench in the village square and tuned her fiddle in preparation for a performance that night. Ireni sat next to her, puffing on the curved stem of her favorite pipe and calling out pointers to those who decorated the square for the ceremony.
"Old Angus would have had plenty to say about this union, my girl. The widow Aelis, marrying that young pup from Hallowfaire." Ireni chewed the pipe stem. I can hear him now." She lowered her voice in a fairly accurate imitation of Angus's. "What's that woman doin' marrying a lad still wet behind the ears? Can't find herself a real man?"
Elsbeth laughed. "That's jealousy talking. He never admitted it, but I think he was sweet on Dame Aelis. Besides, Duncan Pharr is only two years younger than Aelis, hardly a stripling."
"That, and he's rich and handsome. Aelis improved her lot the second time around."
"He's also kind. I've watched him. He dotes on her." Elsbeth played a few experimental notes, satisfied with the tone. "He's asked me to play Gundrig's Ballad for her tonight. Very romantic."
Ireni sighed around the pipe. "I do like that one. Could once sing it to make angelis spirits weep."
"And seduce dragons and drakes?"
She looked askance at Elsbeth. "I never thought of myself as a legend. Maybe your wyvern lover exaggerated."
Elsbeth chuckled. "Not likely. Alaric was quick to tell me that dragons, not wyverns, embellished their tales. But about themselves, not others. Irenya Firekiller is much admired among the draconus."
She smiled when Ireni chewed harder on her pipe stem and muttered a short, "Hmpf."
They remained on the bench another half hour, chatting while Elsbeth rosined her bow and checked her fiddle one last time. The square gradually filled with people, dressed in their finery and eager to celebrate Aelis and Duncan's union with dance, song and plenty of good ale.
Elsbeth rose. "I'm off. I need to change and dress. I'll see you later. Do you need anything before I go?"
"No. Get along. We can't start the dance without the fiddle and the flute. Ewan will come searching for you if you're late."
Back home, Elsbeth rifled through her small chest of clothes, deciding what to wear. She paused and lifted a length of amber silk from the chest. Alaric's gift to her, along with a priceless emerald. She'd found both nestled in her pack when she returned to Byderside.
The silk, a long tunic dress, belted with an embroidered kirtle, flowed across her palm soft as warm butter. It caught the light of her candles in a burnished sheen reminiscent of Alaric's gold.
In nine months she'd heard nothing of him. No whispers of a wyvern or dragon returning to the county, no admiring comments of a skilled bard visiting the nearby towns. Elsbeth tried not to fear that silence. Nine months was a small passage of time compared to eight years. But it was so much harder now, with Angus gone and her only company the vibrant memories of her fortnight with Alaric at Maldoza.
She took the tunic and kirtle from the chest and brought it to Angus's room, now hers since his passing. It had taken her weeks to adjust to sleeping in the room, and there were days when she walked in, fully expecting to see him reclined in the bed, sipping his medicinal tea or softly snoring.
Elsbeth missed him as much as she missed Alaric. Angus had died three days following her return from Maldoza. He'd held her hand and slipped away with a sigh just after dawn. She had mourned him and still did, but his death had been a blessing--a rest from the draining sickness that left him crippled and bedridden.
She touched the tunic with reverent fingers. Angus would have been ecstatic to see Alaric again. He'd always been fond of him and had not bothered to hide his disappointment when Alaric left Ney-by-the Water almost nine years earlier.
Voices from outside, chattering and cheerful, floated to her. Elsbeth hurried with dressing. She plaited her hair, weaving a beaded black ribbon through the plait to dress it up. There was no mirror for her to check her appearance, but the admiring looks from some of the men and the envious ones from the women told her the tunic suited her.
"Well, lass, aren't you a fine sight this evening?" Donal Grayson took her hand and bowed over it in a courtly gesture. "You'll outshine the bride I think."
He'd exchanged his tattered farmer's clothes for colorful coat and trews, and Elsbeth returned his compliment. "I think you'll outshine the groom." She eyed his garb. "And here I thought you only owned clothes in shades of brown and...brown."
He laughed at her teasing and offered to escort her back to the square. The wedding was a success, with only a minor mishap when Duncan spilled a little of the union wine on his new wife's bodice. Aelis, ever good-natured, only laughed and joked he'd have to lick it off when they were alone.
The celebration after was a merry affair. Lanterns, strung on ropes and hung from low tree branches, lit the square. Tables, mounded with rich foods cooked by some of Byderside's finest cooks, were flanked by barrels of wine and crocks of warm ale. Guests from Byderside, Durnsdale, and Hallowfaire feasted and drank and finally called for the fiddler and the flutist to play.
Elsbeth took her place next to Ewan at the edge of the dance area. Ewan looked to her for guidance. "What do we play first?"
She tucked the fiddle beneath her chin. "Gundrig's Ballad, then Merry Alice. After that, we'll play whatever the spirit wills us to play."
Guests began dancing as the first chord was struck. Elsbeth played with gusto, as lost to the music as the people who moved to its rhythms. She and Ewan played eight tunes straight before taking a break.
He gave her a sheepish look. "I have to relieve myself, Elsbeth."
She swatted him lightly on the arm. "Well don't just sit there telling me about it, Ewan. Get going. I can play a tune or two without you."
Ewan dashed off, leaving his flute in her keeping. Elsbeth gazed at the crowd surrounding her, laughing, drinking and celebrating the marriage of Aelis to Duncan. A tall, imposing figure caught her eye. Elsbeth sucked in a breath at the brief glimpse of broad shoulders. She rose, her heart fluttering in her chest. The crowd parted, revealing a blond stranger, from either Durnsdale or Hallowfaire. Her sudden exhilaration died a quick death.
Elsbeth returned to her seat. The dull despair she had fought off for months seeped into her soul with an insidious chill. Alaric had promised he'd return, and she believed him. But sometimes it was difficult, especially now in the middle of a wedding celebration.
She smiled weakly when Ireni caught her eye. A few of the guests called out to her, requesting a lively reel or a more sedate cotillion. Elsbeth took up her fiddle. The tune she chose was not a favorite of Angus's, nor one she'd written for Alaric. She'd composed this one for herself and her memory of a past summer day when she'd flown on a wyvern's back, breathed in the wind and saw the green lands stretched out below her.
A hush fell over the crowd as she played. Many who'd come from the nearby towns whispered their admiration of her skill, the way her music captured some indefinable wish or emotion or memory. Those of Byderside were quick to boast it was she who'd saved the village by bewitching a wyvern with her fiddle.
Elsbeth remained oblivious to them. She wakened from the haze of her memories to enthusiastic applause and a voice that made her knees weak. Had she not been sitting, she would have fallen.
"The gods still dance upon your bow, Elsbeth Weaver."
She looked up, and this time another tall, broad-shouldered man stood before her. Not a blond farmer, but a dark haired bard with the summer storms trapped in his gray eyes and wyvern blood in his veins. He wasn't of Hallowfaire or Durnsdale, but a far country where mythical beasts roamed rolling plains, and ancient kings, descended of gods, built temples to their dead.
The first question to her lips was not one she expected to ask. "What did they name her?"
Alaric laughed, a joyful sound that turned a few heads their way in curiosity. "She is Peregrine, out of Damoshin by Alaric."
He plucked the bow and fiddle out of her hands and set them on her chair. Elsbeth threw her arms around him when he lifted her, uncaring of the neighbors who stared at her in open-mouth amazement.
"You came back," she whispered.
He crushed her to him and brushed a delicate kiss across her lips. His features were more somber, his shoulders tense. "Wyverns may mate with women and bond with them. But they cannot breed with them. I can't give you children, Beth."
Elsbeth stroked the line of his nose with one finger. "I can't give you six hundred years, Alaric."
He rested his forehead against hers, his relief palpable. "I will love you until the end of both our days, Beth. That will be enough."
She thought of her most recent tune. "Will you take me flying again? Far from here. To the great oceans and the land of your birth."
"You're not afraid?"
"Only if you let me fall. Only if you stop loving me."
Alaric tightened his embrace. "The world itself will fall before that ever comes to pass, Beth."
Grace Draven is a Louisiana native, living in Texas, and is a financial analyst by trade. She is the member of a large on-line network of writers, as well as a member of a site that archives fiction works. In the spare moments between working a full-time job and caring for three small children she writes romantic fiction. Grace has lived in Spain, honeymooned in Scotland, hiked through the Teton Mountains, ridden in competition rodeo and is the great, great-granddaughter of a Nicaraguan president. She is an avid fan of medieval history, Renaissance faires, Russian culture and the culinary arts.
If you would like to contact Ms. Draven, please e-mail her at grace@gracedraven.com. 
available at AmberHeat.com!
Castil il Veras, a dowerless scribe born of lesser boyars, attends the wedding of her best friend to the notorious cursed king of Helenrisia. It is at the prenuptial celebrations that she becomes bewitched by the mysterious magus king, even as she recognizes that he is forbidden to her.
Doranis of Helenrisia travels south to Caskadan, bound by duty to secure trade agreements by marrying a woman who loathes the sight of him. Marked by the ancient magic of the Waste, he is surprised to discover one who finds him fascinating instead of repellant. But Castil is beyond his reach, cut off from him by birth, circumstance and distance.
But Fate would have it otherwise, and a beseeching letter from a dying queen will bring them together again in a land rife with an ageless power.
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