Dragon's Keep (19 page)

"I saw the gash beneath Lady Charsha's
eye the night you met on Morgesh Mountain. She told me of your sign."

Sign?
I'd never heard my curse called that before. But Marn
had warned me that dragons twisted everything. I could say it was a lie, that
there was no sign, but all he had to do was strip my glove to see the claw. And
if there had been nothing but a maidens hand under the gold, would my mother
have let him abduct me without a fight? The dragon knew. And this was why he
had delayed in eating me: He planned to gloat on my affliction first.

Now my flesh burned. I
interlocked my fingers. He'd have to
tear
the gloves off if he had a mind to gloat.

"Remove your gloves," said the
dragon, flexing his claws in the sand.

I said no word but looked into the fire.

"Show me your sign."

"Nearly all those
who have seen what lies beneath my glove
have
died," I said.

"I have no fear of that," he
growled. "Your mother is not here."

I looked into his eyes,
which were like molten honey. He was
twisting
things again. "She has nothing to do with death," I said.

He blinked. "Twice when I hunted in the
night my prey was murdered by another's hand. I smelled the one who stole my
meals, and I never forget a smell."

"What murders?" I choked.

"The
first?
Midsummers Eve.
I like to taste human flesh after
some fool stuffs himself at the fair. It adds
a certain
sweetness."

He flicked his tongue. "So I crouched in
Witch's Hollow where a drunkard was sure to pass until a red-haired woman came
up the
path. She was nearly in my jaws when
the queen rushed out from
behind a willow tree and knifed her in
the—" "Stop! You lie!"

"Why lie when the truth is
sharper?"

I hugged my knees and shuddered, remembering
Brain's
words concerning Tess.
There
were dragon signs there. Aye, the beast
had come to Witch's Hollow, but this killing was not his.

The dragon shook his head, the ruffles behind
his ears rattling. "So I waited for dawn and made do with a drunkard."
He flicked a stray log into the fire. "Again your mother took my meal: an
old woman walking near the moat. Bony-armed, but plump about the middle—"

"No more!" I screamed.

The wall I'd built between myself and the
truth about my mother crumbled. I threw myself against the one who'd told me,
howling like a death wraith. My screams echoed
through the cave
as I bashed my fists against the dragon's belly. I
would beat the devil until he swallowed me!

_Burningstone

Sand stung my face.
I awoke from my faint, brushed the grit away, and
looked about. The smell of rotting hide and the earthy smoke of burningstone
filled my nose.

Spitting grit and blinking in the firelight,
I ducked as another clawful of sand flew over. The dragon turned and snatched
a piece of burningstone from the flames, pinching the glowing orb in his black
talons then dropping it in a small pit by the sand mound. Covering it with
sand, he patted here and there the way a mother pats a babe. Crouching low, he
dug again.

Dark outside.
I'd been unconscious a long while. Seeing me awake,
the dragon assessed my huddled form, his slit eyes like uplifted swords at
sunset.

"Fetch more burningstones while I
dig."

"I cannot lift a glowing stone," I
said hoarsely.

"Such weak flesh," he sneered.
"And nails flimsy as rose petals.
Dig, then!" he
snorted, his flaring nostrils sending out twirls of smoke.

Beneath his towering shadow, I crawled over
to the sand mound and looked about for a stick.

"With your hands!
And over there next to my last
pit!"

"But my gloves will be torn if I—"
"Dig!" roared the beast.

I bent to the task like a dog.

"Deeper!" said the dragon, holding
the burningstone so close to me I could feel the heat of it at the base of my
neck. I scooped out the sand and reached in again.

"Stop now," he ordered and dropped
the burningstone down as I pulled my hand away. "Cover it and begin a new
pit there!"

"What ritual is this?" I asked, but
knew before the asking. Here was a mound of sand warming to the task of
sacrifice. He would not eat me quickly as a creature in the wild, but truss me
as Cook would a peacock on Saint Crispin's day. It was my own slaughter-mound I
was warming.

My fingers, tender to the task, ached beneath
my gloves, but I dug the pits.

The dragon dropped a burningstone into my
pit. "Cover it," he growled. "And start another."

I buried the red, hot stone, feeling its
warmth through my gloves as I patted down the sand. The heat spread beneath me,
burning my knees through my soiled May Day gown. I crawled to the next spot,
cupped my gloved hand, scooped, and tossed the sand behind me.

We had encircled the sand mound with
burningstone. Now, damp with sweat, I rubbed my pounding ankle and checked my

gloves
. The right one was torn. How
Mother would have scolded
me if she'd
seen the tear, shutting me in my solar, and ordering the weaver to make another
pair. I brushed away the flecks of sand embedded in the golden weave.

"You will remove
the gloves now," said the dragon, his head
swaying above me.

I was on my knees, unable to stand and bear
weight on my
splint. It was clear he wished
the gloves removed before devour
ing me.

"It is the gold of them you seek?"
I said.

"I have gold of my own," he
growled.

"Aye, stolen from
Queen Evaine."

The dragon blinked; his tongue slid out and
in, bright red as the ribbon on the Maypole.

"Let me die as I am with my pride,"
I said with chattering teeth. "My family would wish it so."

The dragon lifted his
head and breathed a silky stream of fire.
The
top of the cave turned the blue of a summer's day. And as the heat of the
flames spread across my flesh, sweat rolled down my neck and back and soaked
into my gown.

I rocked and prayed and
held the cross Father had given me.
The
glittering threads of my gloves shone blue in the strange light. The beast
lowered his great head. "Take them off," he ordered.

My heart pounded in my throat. So many years
I'd dreamed of destroying my gloves, but never had I thought I'd give them to a
dragon.

The beast was not used to waiting, it seemed.
He opened his

jaw
, the more to show the sharpness of his teeth.
Trembling, I
pulled off the right glove. My
fingers were raw and pink as cherry
blossoms from digging in the sand.

The dragon licked his jaws but did not move
from his place. He hung over me like a great cliff rock over the shore as,
finger by
finger,
I tugged on my left glove.

I dropped the gold glove and held out my
naked hand, the fourth finger cursed as ever. The scales on my claw shone in
the firelight, and my clipped black talon reflected the flames as a shiny
rook's wing will answer to the sun.

As the dragon looked on it I saw his eyes
soften the way a candle flame softens when there's no wind about. He did not
blink nor move as I held up my hand. I'd seen this trance before when I'd bared
my hand to the female dragon on the cliff, though at the time I'd thought my
hand wielded some magic power against her. Now I saw the moment stripped of
wizardry. The dragon gazed at my talon, small, but in all other ways, very like
his own. And he saw it with delight.

"Lovely," he
said.

Tears stung my eyes. He loved my hideous
claw. He thought it beautiful! It had always been my secret hope that my hand
would one day be looked upon with love. And by that one look, my curse might be
broken.

I shook there in his gaze, like a small
shadow under a great lamp. Outside the waterfall tumbled, and my ears rang with
the sound.

"Pity," said the dragon.

A cold blade split me with the word.

"A thing so beautiful
growing from a putrid form.
Like a
flower growing from a crippled branch."

"A crippled
branch?"
I said. "This
is how I look to you?" "All humans are detestable to dragons: soft
skinned, color
less, snoutless,
flat-toothed, hairy, wingless, tailless, graceless, and
foul
smelling."

"I disgust you, then."

The dragon's nostrils twitched. "Not all
of you." He started for the cave entrance then turned to look back.
"You will call me Lord Faul. All your life
you have been Rose, but
here your thorns exposed so I will call you
Briar." He snorted at his little joke, then added, "Crawl outside to
relieve yourself,
Briar. I keep my dwelling
clean." With a flick of his tail he left me
in the cave, the
roaring of the waterfall outside echoing against the rocks.

I was not to die straightaway as I had
thought but stay on Dragon's Keep awhile and live with one who scorned me. Lord
Faul had delayed his kill, though his
reasons were a shadow game
to me.

After a time I crawled
outside the cave to relieve myself in the
grass.
Squatting in the dark woods, I heard the pine trees above swaying in the
night's wind. Before me the waterfall tumbled black as ink.

There was no sign of Lord Faul, but I did not
try escape. Even if I could cross miles of roots, stones, and bracken to the
sea, there would be no ship there yet to rescue me. I must stay

alive
till Mother's knights came. It would take them three
days at least to sail to Dragon's Keep.

I crept toward the water, bent to drink, and
saw my face reflected there. In the night's pool shone the beauty of my
mother's high forehead, her cheekbones, and her firm chin. Mother killed to
keep my beauty and hide my beast mark from men's eyes. If I'd been born here,
hatched from an egg, suckled by Faul's lady,
would
they have covered me in golden sacking? In secret and dis
gust would they have wrapped all but my claw
against their dark-
slit eyes?

I sobbed and laughed in turn until the
night's chill brought me back to the fire in the cave. In came Lord Faul not
long after with a trout impaled upon a stick.

"Eat," he growled. I sat up, took
the stick he offered, and held the trout above the fire till the flesh was
scorched.

Lord Faul looked on, all approving of my
meal. He had not
offered me a knife to pick
the flesh away, so I supped like a wild
beast.

Morning brought a ray of sunlight to my sandy
bed. I crawled outside and saw Lord Faul sunning on the hill beside the cave.
From there he watched me creeping round the forest floor. Find
ing a pine bough, I stripped the foliage from it,
fashioning a cruel
crutch.

Hopping like a one-legged beggar, and in full
view of the dragon, I set out on a hunger-hunt. I must have looked a sight in
my rose cloak and torn blue gown, hobbling about the forest,

using
Marn's woodland lore to forage food. But I found wild
onions growing in a patch near a willow tree. Digging plump white bulbs from
the darkened soil, I feasted on them raw.

Later in the day I
gathered mushrooms. Still, after a full day's
foraging, I limped to the cave hungry and was grateful for the trout
the dragon tossed. With the falling of the dark I sought my sleep but found
little. Lord Faul shook me awake and bid me dig more pits for his
burningstones. I worked the sand, my flesh rubbed raw with digging, but Faul
would not let me rest until the mound was encircled with hot stones again.

While I dug the pits I came up with a plan.
If the dragon should try to eat me before my rescue came, I would use my father's
cross to cut my way out of his belly, as brave Saint Margaret had in times of
old. I
shuddered
thinking on this. To achieve the feat
I must avoid his fire and sharp teeth and leap down his throat. The dragon must
swallow me whole.

_The
Breaking

It
rained my third day
on
Dragon's Keep and Lord Paul kept
well
inside the cave. I knew
dragons
hated rain. Never had
we
heard of dragon attacks in the rainy
months, and some said it was
because the water downed them. I hoped that
this was true as I planned my escape.

I waited until the dragon fell asleep, his
snores rattling my ears like a hundred sawyers in the forest. Heart pounding in
my mouth, I slipped on my cloak and grabbed my gloves. Here was my chance to
try for the shore. I might find a cave to hide in there and await my rescue.

In stealth I crept past the sleeping beast.
Outside the cold wind splashed rain across my face. Crutch wedged in my
armpit,
I hobbled on the soggy ground, following the trail
that ran beside the river. I must somehow make it to the shore and win my
freedom.

God's bones, my
progress was slow! I fought against the wind,
battling mud and roots with every step. The trail climbed higher,
a steep ravine extending from the edge down to
the rushing river.