WYVERN (2 page)

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.