Rhiana. Michele Hauf
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a big bird shuffled out in nervous mutters.
“It is a dragon!” Christophe de Ver snapped. He’d sought to join the garrison, but his awful eyesight kept him from earning his spurs, and resulted in more than a few tumbles and visits to Odette for stitching. “You killed one this very morn, my lady. Why are you so keen to keep this one alive?”
So word of her kill this morning had already breached the masses? Couldn’t have been Guiscard’s doing.
“It is but a babe,” she said. “Can you not see it is helpless? Was it you who shot it?”
Christophe nodded proudly. Rhiana must, for once, be thankful that the man’s myopia had altered his aim.
The newling mewled. It struggled to sit its hind legs. Its wounded wing shivered and stretched. It was completely black, the scales shimmery, yet supple. Easily pierced with an arrow.
“Bring it to the armory,” she heard Paul say. “We mustn’t keep it overlong.”
“We must kill it!”
“No!” Rhiana stood and bent over the newling. “We will remove the arrow and tend its wound. Then we must release it, or its mother will come looking for it.”
“Its mother?” Someone spat. “There are more dragons?”
“She will come anon!”
“And whose fault is that?” She could not argue with the idiocy of these people. And their cruelty. To bring down one so small? “Paul, can you lift it?”
Her stepfather knelt before the newling, and sweeping his arms around the thing, managed to cradle it into his embrace. Vision blocked by the spread of a good wing, Paul hoofed it quickly to his shop. Mewls scratched the sky, and the circle of villagers followed their steps to the armory. Rhiana closed the door on the curious faces and followed Paul into the warmth of the shop.
He set the newling on the wood floor before the brazier where solid ingots of iron waited his coaxing. “It may like the heat,” he suggested, and stepped back to stand beside Rhiana. The twosome shook their heads as the creature stood, and then stretched out its good wing. It squeaked loudly as its attempts to stretch the wounded wing resulted in it wobbling and stumbling to land on its tail. Then, with wide black eyes that seemed to beg for tenderness, it scanned its surroundings.
“This is not good.”
The newling rubbed its hind legs together. The horny projections on the backs of its legs created a piercing stridulation.
“Immensely not good,” Rhiana agreed. “Let’s get the arrow from its wing and send it on its way. That sound it makes… I think it is calling for its mother.”
Rhiana tried to hold it carefully without embracing overmuch, or making it feel captured, while Paul cut the wooden arrow with a clipper and carefully drew it from the wing.
The newling continued to stridulate. And Rhiana kept a keen eye to the open window. She looked beyond the horrified stares of the villagers and to the sky. Clear. For now.
“There.” Paul stood back, holding the two pieces of arrow. “Set it free.”
“Should we not cauterize the wound? It could become infected.”
“Rhiana, I want that thing out of here.”
“Very well, but what if it cannot fly?”
The newling stretched out its wing and shrieked.
“Then it can walk home. Take it to the parapet and release it. Or shall I do it?”
“No,” she said. “I can.”
The newling dropped to the ground like a rock.
Leaning out over the crenel between two merlons, Rhiana cried out. She should not have expected the small dragon to be able to fly with a hole in its wing. Yet, it wobbled off, away from the battlements, stridulating occasionally.
“Be quiet,” she said, but knew the hope was fruitless. “I should have carried you home. Oh, what—”
A cloud soared overhead, streaking the parapet Rhiana stood upon in a fast-moving shadow. Much too quick for rain—
Tensing at the shiver shimmying up the back of her neck, Rhiana did give no more time to wonder at the weather. ’Twas no cloud. Nothing could move so swiftly. Save, a dragon. And not a small, wounded newling, but mayhap…its mother.
CHAPTER FIVE
Steps picking up to a run, and skirt clutched to allow for longer strides, Rhiana headed down the spiraling stairs to the bailey. As she ran, yet another dark shadow crept across her path. A violet-winged creature dove toward the ground. Inside the castle walls.
Shrieks filled the air, both of the dragon kind and from humans.
Rhiana cursed her lack of crossbow and the cumbersome skirts. A glance to the shadows of the tower where they’d found the fallen newling spied the sword she’d found in the chapel. Lunging, Rhiana grabbed it. Drawing the sword from its sheath, she abandoned the leather slip in her wake.
The rampant’s wings flapped, swirling a gush of wind throughout the bailey. Dry, dusty earth coiled up in small tornadoes. Its cry was as a thousand eagles. Looking for her newling? Had it not seen the small creature wobbling along the battlements?
Likely, it had, and now it sought revenge for the injury done to her offspring. Stupid Christophe, to have shot at the newling!
Landing briefly, the rampant filled the bailey with a wingspan that stretched from the outer steps of the castle to the cooper’s shop that sat across the way. The violet beast lifted up from the ground and flew away as quickly as it had landed. The struggling limbs of a man dangled from its maw.
“Inside!” Rhiana yelled to all those foolish enough to yet be out in the streets. “Close your doors and hide under your beds. Grab the children. Run!”
She passed Myridia Vatel who cradled her newborn son to her bosom. Her house stood around the corner; she would make it.
Thudding to a halt before the castle steps, Rhiana searched the grounds. Deep gouges from the rampant’s talons carved out the pounded dirt amidst meager hoof marks left previously by horses. No sign of a struggle. The beast had simply lighted down and plucked up its meal. Make that her meal. The rampant had been another of the boldly colored females.
A distinct chill scurried up Rhiana’s spine. She had seen two shadows move overhead.
Sweeping her gaze across the sky, she searched for the second shadow.
“My lady, seek shelter!” Antoine, the cooper, cried as he closed up his shop window, dropping the hinged canopy with a deft release of the screw and bolting the slats securely.
“Anon!” Rhiana called, having no intention of going anywhere.
“Where are you?” she muttered, her eyes fixed to the sky. No clouds. Blinding sun. Pale blue, this day. Gripping the sword firmly, she yet held it down along her leg. “Show yourself, pretty lady. We had no intention to harm your youngling. Scoop it up into your wings, and fly from here. If you do not…”
Rhiana would be forced to make an orphan of the newling.
She could sense the presence in her blood before sighting a dragon. The pulse beat ’twas like a war drum heard long before it marched into sight. Though she had not remarked the danger when she’d set the newling to flight. Awe had lessened her focus.
Now her blood tingled beneath her flesh. Yes, two of them; one, flying away, a man clutched in its talons, but the other was yet close.
The sun’s brilliant touch suddenly ceased. Impulsively ducking, Rhiana knew but one thing could block out the sun so swiftly. A creature swooped overhead. Indigo scales glinted as if jewels. Another female.
Instinctively falling forward, Rhiana landed in a