Hidden Dragons (4 page)

He wondered if she was sitting by a
fire, or maybe lying in her bed. That thought led to much naughtier
thoughts of her lying in
his
bed. Preferably naked.

“
Are you going to help set up or
stand their dreaming all night?” Bear asked, shouldering past
Robert with a pack in his hands.

“
Sorry.” Robert shook his head to
try and clear it. They had work to do.

As the lights in the village went out one by
one, Robert and Bear crept down into the town, beginning their
evaluation of the people who lived there. The dragons were up in
Isabelle’s barn, just a mental shout away if their knights ran into
trouble, but this job was just a little too small in scale for
their large bodies.

Robert and Bear were used to skulking around in
the darkness. They examined the layout of the village, confirming
most of what they’d seen from the air and learning new facets that
could not be seen from above. For one thing, the largest home in
the village was more or less hidden under trees, keeping it
invisible from dragon overflights.

And it was a really big home. Incongruous given
the general poverty of the homes around it. Robert was instantly
suspicious. Hidden from view, the big house in a comparatively
unfriendly village was something quite out of the
ordinary.

“
I think that place bears further
scrutiny,”
Bear said into Robert’s
mind.

“
Without doubt, my friend. Shall we
check it out?”

They spent the next two hours listening at
every window they could access and peering in wherever it was
possible to do so without being seen. They also took a brief
inventory of the outbuildings. There were three small sheds behind
the main house in addition to a large barn that housed quite a bit
of livestock including a number of horses that didn’t look like any
farm horse either of the knights had ever seen.

The rest of what they learned was equally as
troubling. Silently, they agreed to halt their activities for the
evening, heading back to Isabelle’s barn as covertly as they had
left it hours before.

The dragons were waiting when they arrived back
at the warm barn. Luckily, the rain had held off for the most part.
Only a light drizzle had dampened the mens’ dark garments and the
heat from their dragon friends soon had them dry and warm once
more.

“
Do you think this village is the
one?”
Tilly asked as they settled in for
the night.

They were using a small camp lantern they had
brought with them for light. There was no need of a fire, since the
dragons would keep everything toasty warm just by their
presence.

“
I’m afraid so. Whoever lives in
that big house is definitely a traitor,” Robert said. “Those horses
are war-trained. Not a one of them has ever seen a plow. What does
a farmer have need of a war horse, much less a dozen of them? And
where would he get such a beast this far from any training
grounds?”

“
So it really is this easy? The
second town we look at is the one we want?”
Growloranth asked the question they were all
thinking.

“
Well, in all fairness, we were
only given five towns to check,” Robert pointed out. “And we still
will need to check the other three after we finish here. However, I
think we’ve found what we were looking for, and we’re going to have
to act on it.”

“
But what about Isabelle?” Bear
asked, clearly concerned.

“
Aye.” Robert shook his head.
“We’re going to have to sort things out for her before anything
happens here. Otherwise she could be directly in the path of
danger. For now, I think we should just stick close to
her.”

“
You’ll get no argument from me.
She seems in need of our help, even if we can’t ultimately convince
her to come with us to the Lair. We can probably convince her to
let us use her barn for the next few days while we continue our
mission,” Robert said, looking around at the dilapidated
structure.

“
Do you think she knows what’s
going on in the village?” Bear asked the tough question that was
hovering in all of their minds.

“
I sincerely hope not,” Robert said
with intense feeling. “I want to believe the best of her, but if
she knew about this and didn’t tell us…”

“
She could just be protecting
herself,”
Tilly offered.
“After all, she believes she still must live here
after we fly away. She has to get along with these people. Her life
here is tenuous enough as it is, from all appearances.”

“
Nevertheless,”
Growloranth interjected,
“while you
are scouting tomorrow, I will keep an eye on our hostess. Robert is
too enamored of her already to be objective.”

Robert wanted to argue with his dragon
partner’s assessment of his state of mind, but he couldn’t.
Growloranth was right. He wanted to believe the best of Isabelle
and wasn’t very objective when it came to anything about her. It
had been a very long time since a woman affected him so
strongly.

“
While you’re out scouting, I can
stick around here and try to make things a little more
comfortable—and sturdy—for her, while keeping an eye on the
village,” Robert added. “Growloranth can watch her. I’ll watch the
village, while I add some bracing to this barn’s roof. Between the
two of us, perhaps we’ll come up with something useful.”

“
Sounds like a good plan to me,”
Bear replied.

They fell asleep shortly after the conversation
drifted to a natural conclusion. The dragons kept watch. Nothing
could sneak up on them with a dragon dozing nearby.

Nothing happened for the rest of the night as
the rain poured down in earnest. It was a quick moving storm that
was gone by the time dawn broke, waking Robert and Bear.

After what they had observed the night before,
they were eager to get moving. Bear and Tilly took off shortly
after dawn, on their planned scouting mission. They were going to
fly over the border with Skithdron, to look for any telltale troop
movements that might indicate an imminent attack.

That left Robert and Growloranth to work on
watching the village. They would start by shoring up the barn that
looked like it might fall down at any moment. It was a rather
oblique method of surveillance—watching from afar while
accomplishing something else—but it was what was called for in this
particular situation. Plus, Robert really wanted to help Isabelle.
He could repair her barn for her, which gave him an excuse to hang
around, but it also meant that he, Bear and their dragon partners
would have a sturdier place to sleep while they were
here.

In a way, it was very useful that Isabelle’s
home was so far out on the very edge of the forest. There was a
clear approach to her place—a path that wound up from the
village—that would make it easy to see if anyone was heading this
way long before Growloranth could be spotted against the leafy
backdrop of the forest.

Even so, the dragon would hang back, staying
mostly to the cover of the trees while Robert stayed closer to the
house and barn. Robert found an ax by the woodpile behind the house
and took it out to the nearby woods to find a few small trees he
could cut down that would work for shoring up the old timbers of
the barn.

By the time Isabelle had come out of the house,
an hour after dawn, Robert had already made good progress on fixing
up the barn. She seemed surprised to see what he’d done.

“
You’ve been busy,” she observed,
walking up to him as he propped the timber he had cut under the
sagging roof. Growloranth was helping, his strength making the
otherwise difficult task an easy fix.

“
It is the least we can do since
you opened your home to us,”
Growloranth
answered before Robert could speak.

She didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so
Robert stepped in, dusting his hands off as he moved closer. He
smiled, hoping to put her more at ease.

“
Did you sleep well, mistress?”
Robert asked conversationally.

“
Very well, thank you. And you?”
Back on firmer ground with the exchanges of polite conversation,
she seemed more at ease.

Robert grinned. “Much better than if we had
camped the way we originally planned. It poured down rain in the
hours before dawn.”

“
Is that what woke you so early?”
She moved into the barn, looking around at the progress he had made
in the last hour. “You’ve been
very
busy.”

“
We are early risers in the Lair,
for the most part. Working with Tilly, we are often assigned day
shifts because of her color.”

Had he said too much? Robert couldn’t bring
himself to suspect Isabelle of knowing about the treason in the
village…and yet…he had to keep an open mind. More than just his
mission depended on it.

“
It is easy to see why she is best
suited to daytime work. But what of your dragon partner? Doesn’t he
stand out against the blue, daytime sky as much as his lady
blends?” she asked, nothing but curiosity in her tone that he
couldn’t fault, even if her questions were almost too
astute.

“
I do,”
Growloranth answered for himself, coming out of the darkness
at the rear of the barn, where he’d been doing his best to blend
into the shadows. Isabelle jumped a little and one small hand went
to her chest.
“Apologies if I frightened
you, mistress. Actions sometimes speak louder than words, so I
thought it prudent to show you one of my talents. I blend in very
well with forests and dark spots.”

“
So you do, Sir Growloranth,” she
agreed, smiling a bit at the dragon’s theatrics. “You do that very
well indeed.” She chuckled, the sound musical and light, then
turned back to Robert. “I came out to see if I could offer you
breakfast, but I see I am too late for Sir Bernard. Did he and Lady
Tildeth go somewhere, or will they be back in time to eat with
us?”

“
As I think we mentioned yesterday,
we were sent here to do a survey of the land in these parts. That
is Bear’s specialty. He and I agreed he would start work while I
did a few repairs to repay you for your kindness in letting us
sleep here last night,” Robert stated. Now he had to find a way to
get her to let them stay longer. Chatting over breakfast might just
be useful in that regard. “I haven’t eaten yet, if the offer of
breakfast is still open,” he volunteered.

“
It is,” she agreed, smiling. “It
is only oat mash, but it is hot and filling.”

“
It sounds perfect. With the chill
in the air, it’s good to have hot cereal of a morning,” he said
heartily, wiping his hands as he followed her toward the
house.

When he stepped inside Isabelle’s house, Robert
was impressed by the hominess of the place. There was a table with
two chairs off to one side of the hearth and Robert noted the iron
pot keeping warm on the flagstones.

Two wooden bowls had been laid on the table,
along with two wooden spoons of intricate carved design. There
seemed to be two of everything, which made sense if Isabelle had
lived here with her mother. It was a good thing Bear was already
gone or Robert suspected Isabelle would have gone without, while
she insisted they ate from her only place settings.

“
Please have a seat,” she said
calmly, as if she was trying to remember how to entertain guests.
Robert cringed inwardly, realizing this poor waif had probably not
had much friendship from those in the village.

Robert took the seat farthest from the hearth.
It was a chilly morning and she was wearing long sleeves and a
shawl. Even so, the fabric was thin and she was probably cold. She
would benefit more from the heat of the fire, and it was his
impulse to want to see to her comfort.

He watched her graceful movements as she served
him the lion’s share of the oats. When she sat across from him with
her own small portion, Robert reached into his pouch and removed a
small wrapped bundle of dried berries.

“
I think these would go nicely with
the oats, don’t you?” he asked, producing the treat. He saw the way
her eyes lit.

“
They are out of season,” she
observed quietly. “And they aren’t abundant in the forest around
here, though I like them tremendously. I tried to cultivate a bush
in my garden, but it never took. I don’t have the same way with
plants that my mother had.”

“
Then you shall have them all,”
Robert decided, pouring the small scoop of purple berries he’d had
left, directly into her bowl, over her protests. Left with no
choice, she accepted the gift with good grace.

The dried berries plumped up nicely when they
came into contact with the hot, wet oats. Robert saw the enjoyment
on her face as she took a bite and the burst of flavor from the
berries hit her tongue.

Of course, his mind strayed to other things he
would like to do with her tongue, but it was too soon. They had a
long way to go before he would broach any sort of intimacy with
Isabelle. For one thing, he had to be sure she understood the full
implications of mating with a dragon knight.