Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 7-6

“Never see pink eyes before,” she said. “They hurt?”

The albino blinked. His polite smile curled into a look of wonder. More to himself than to her, he said, “Now here’s a rare bird. Plenty of people have taunted me about my pink eyes, and plenty more have tried to cheat me because of them, but this is the only one who ever wondered if they hurt.

“What’s your name, stranger?”

“Lathwi.”

He muttered the name several times as if trying to adapt the foreign sound to his own palate, then said, “Strange name for a strange person. But since you asked, Lathwi, I’ll tell you. Yes, these eyes of mine hurt, especially when they’re exposed to bright light. Which is why you won’t often catch Zill in the sun.”

“Hey, Pink-Eyes!” a big man with a braided beard yelled. “Quit cozying up to the b***h and her panderer. We need more beer over here.” To emphasize his point, he slammed an empty tankard against the table. His table-mates sniggered as it shattered in his hand.

“Southerners,” Zill hissed, giving the word a thousand jointed legs. “I’d piss in their beer if Kyle didn’t need their gold so badly.”

“Ignore them,” Pieter advised, meaning to practice what he preached even though he did not appreciate being called a panderer. “Maybe they’ll go away.”

“Easy for you to say, Blue-eyes,” the albino said, and then grinned to take the sting out of the retort. “But what can I get for you two tonight?”

“We’ll both have a plate of whatever’s on the spit,” the trapper told him, “and a tankard of beer to wash it all down. Ask the carver to make Lathwi’s portion as raw as possible.”

“I’ll do the slicing myself,” Zill said with a wink, and then shuffled over to the Southerners’ table. They subjected him to another round of loud insults, many of which were lewd innuendos involving Lathwi. Pieter scowled, offended by such behaviour, then tried to distract himself with small talk.

“Zill is a good man,” he told Lathwi. “We’ve known each other for a long time now.”

“You be brothers?” she asked.

“Not in the physical sense of the word. But people can be born of different mothers and still be friends, you know.”

“What ‛friends’?”

“Friends are people who share a special affinity for one another,” he replied. “In times of peace, they stay together simply because it pleases them to do so; in times of trouble, they stick together to guard each others’ back.”

“This special affinity formed at birth?” she wondered, thinking of Shoq and her other tanglemates.

“Not necessarily. People can and do form friendships throughout their lives.”

Just then, Zill reappeared at their table with two mugs in one hand and two platters of meat in the other. As he set Lathwi’s dinner in front of her, he cast her another wink.

“It’s cooked,” he said, “but just barely. If you like it and want more, let me know. I took a whole joint off the spit just in case.”

“Thanks, Zill,” Pieter said, but the albino was already on his way to another table. He turned his smile to Lathwi and her heaping plate. “Speaking of friends, it looks as if you made one tonight.”

Lathwi shrugged. Having a friend felt no different from not having a friend, leastwise not while she was hungry. She examined the mound of pinkish flesh in front of her then. It smelled a little smoky, but not as foul as jerky. It did not scorch her fingers when she touched it, either. She popped a small morsel into her mouth and chewed warily. Encouraged by the sweet warm juices that trickled down her throat, she then started to feed in earnest. An instant later, Pieter started to pester her.

“Lathwi,” he whispered, “civilized people eat their meat with a knife when they’re in a public place. Like this,” he urged, as she glanced up from her plate. He carved himself a bite-sized strip, then lifted it to his mouth with the tip of his knife. “Go ahead, give it a try.”

She hissed, immensely annoyed with him for interrupting her while she was trying to feed. Nevertheless, she slipped the not-claw from her belt and hacked her meat into inelegant slivers. When she was done, she began to prong those slivers into her mouth one right after the other.

“Stupid people,” she rumbled between bites. “What be so civilized about slashing tongue to ribbons?” A moment later, she turned her scowl to her untouched mug. “What this?”

“Beer,” he said.

“Civilized people eat that with knife, too?”

“Just shut up and eat,” he growled, beginning to rue the whim that had prompted him to invite an ignorant barbarian to dinner. “Use your fingers if you want. Or perhaps you would prefer to gobble straight from the plate like a dog.”

Just then, one of the Southerners plowed his way over to their table. He was a huge man, more than a hand taller than Lathwi and maybe half again as broad, with piggish brown eyes and a humpback nose. His greasy brown beard was twisted into a snake’s nest of tiny random braids—a southern affectation which marked him as a man of status. Pieter was not happy to see that, for in the south, men moved up in the rank and file by murdering their superiors.

“What’s the matter, little man?” the stranger jeered, in a loud baritone which was all slushy from gish. “Didn’t your poppa teach you how to keep your merchandise in line?”

“You must be thinking of somebody else, Mister,” Pieter replied, all politeness and frost. “I have no merchandise at this table.”

“Oh?” the man countered derisively. “Where I come from, only one kind of woman shows herself in an inn. And only one kind of man accompanies her.”

Pieter ground his teeth against an urge to toss his beer in this bastard’s face. He did not want any trouble tonight, he reminded himself. Did not, did not, did not.

“That may be,” he said then. “But as it happens, things are different in this part of the world. So why don’t you go back to your beer and leave us to ours?”

“What if I don’t want to leave? What if I tell you I’ve taken a fancy to your scar-faced b***h? What if I give you a little something for her use?”

Up until that moment, Lathwi’s only concern had been the meat on her plate. But even as she went to stab another bite for herself, something hard hit the table and then bounced to a stop in front of her. To her amazement and delight, it was a dazzling blue-white diamond. Hunger forgotten, she put her not-claw away.

“That’s twenty times her worth,” the Southerner bragged to Pieter then. “But I’m hard up, and the other laddies will want to use her, too, so take your fee and run along. We’ll send the woman home tomorrow.”

“The woman comes and goes as she pleases,” Pieter said, eyeing the diamond as he might a poisonous snake, “so if you have a proposition, make it to her, not me.”

The Southerner despised Pieter with a look, then turned to dominate Lathwi’s view. “Well, woman?” he asked. “Do you want the diamond or not?”

Fast as a striking dragon, Lathwi grabbed the Oma-stone. An instant later, the man with the broken nose grabbed her by the elbow.

“All right then, let’s go,” he said. “I’ve got a room upstairs.” When she ignored him, he gave her arm a hard tug. “Move it!”

She twisted free of his grip and hissed a warning, then went back to admiring to the diamond. It was her first, and therefore auspicious. With it, she could start her own nest.

“It looks like she’s not in the mood for your company after all,” Pieter said.

“I’m not paying her to want my company,” the Southern retorted, “I’m paying her to f**k it.” He seized Lathwi by the elbow again. “Now come along, wench. This is the last time I’ll be asking you nice-like.”

Her annoyance swelled to Shoq-sized proportions. Could this fool not see that she did not want to play? She snaked free of his grasp, then gave him an emphatic shove. Rendered clumsy by a bellyful of gish, he stumbled backward and into a suddenly vacant table. He swore gustily, then stalked toward her again with a look like daggers in his eyes. Pieter tried to block his way, but the Southerner brushed him aside like a pesky gnat and then closed in on Lathwi.

“So,” he rasped at her, “you like to play rough. Good. So do I.”

Then he dealt her a resounding slap to the face.

A thin scum of silence settled over the room only to be broken by the sound of customers scrambling for safer ground or perhaps a better view. “Three dilucs says he gets her to his room before I finish my beer,” a voice from the vicinity of the now-crowded bar cried.

“No bet,” another sneered. “Everyone here knows you’re the slowest drinker this side of the mountains.”

Meanwhile, Lathwi gave her jaw a speculative rub. She was not angry at the man for striking her—it was a feeble blow compared to some that she had received from Shoq. But his contempt for her warnings was intolerable. She set her Oma-stone down on the table, then stood up to teach him the meaning of respect.

“Now you’re being sensible,” he said. “You took me by surprise last time; you wouldn’t be that lucky twice. Come on, let’s go up to my room and play in private.”

She bared her teeth at him, his final warning. “I not want to play.”

“Oy!” he laughed to the audience at large. “You should see the teeth on this b***h! What a wild ride this is going to be!”

Still chuckling, he grabbed her by the waist and took a step toward the door. She tripped him in mid-stride. As he lurched forward, she seized a fistful of his beard and slung him with all of her might. Boosted by an accidental pulse of Will, he went sailing halfway across the room and into a nest of chairs. Wood splintered. Mugs shattered. The Southerner shifted as if he were trying to get up and then went suddenly limp.

For one astonished moment thereafter, the whole room was quiet. Even the hearth-fire seemed to hold its breath. Then the Southerner’s accomplices went scrambling over to check on him; and everyone else started chattering. As this commotion built up steam, Zill appeared beside Lathwi. He was grinning from ear to ear. “You’ve given Pink-Eyes a delightful treat tonight,” he told her in a low, excited tone. “But now it’s time for you to go. I don’t imagine that that piece of southern s**t will be a lot of fun when he wakes up.”

Pieter was very much inclined to agree; and so without pausing to consult Lathwi, he plucked the diamond from the table and hurried off after his albino friend. Lathwi went loping after them—through the kitchen and out of the back door.

“Be sure to visit again when next you come to Compara,” Zill urged them from the doorway. “But stay away until then. Those Southerners will no doubt be looking to carve the price of a diamond from your hides.”

Pieter pressed three shiny gold coins into Zill’s palm. “For the damage,” he said. “And until next time, fare well.”

They took the back way home—through alleys and over fences, past a party of derelicts feasting on garbage and a pair of skulking lovers. Pieter ran full-speed out of fear for his hide; Lathwi kept up with him simply because he had her stone. By the time they reached the safety of Liselle’s courtyard, he was sweaty and huffing for breath. Lathwi was barely winded. He muttered about that as he opened the door to the house.

Liselle was still sitting in her rocking chair by the hearth when they came spilling into the kitchen. As she set her book down to look at them, a pleasantly surprised smile curled across her heart-shaped face.

“You’re home early,” she commented. Then she noticed Pieter’s heaving chest and sweaty brow, and the corners of her mouth went flat with instant dread. “What happened?”

“Lathwi happened,” he growled. With a cumulus frown, he dug the diamond out of his back pocket and slapped it down on the table. Then he began to pace back and forth in front of the hearth. Now that he was safely home, he could afford the luxury of annoyance. “She draws trouble like horseshit draws flies.”

“Tell me what happened,” Liselle demanded, as Lathwi came hurrying over to reclaim the diamond.

Lathwi did not understand why the sorceress was so keen to hear about such a tedious event. It had hardly been worth her own notice even as it was happening. And all she wanted to do at the moment was admire her first Oma-stone. Her gaze strayed toward the diamond then. Its firelit facets drew her toward communion.

“Well?” Liselle prompted. “I’m waiting.”

“Man with broken nose give me Oma-stone,” Lathwi replied then, just to shut Liselle up. “He want me to play, but I no want, so I make him go away. Zill say it time to go then, so Pieter and me run home.”

Having said all that she meant to say, she then strode off to the attic to contemplate her newfound prize in peace. Liselle scowled at Lathwi’s receding back, then turned to her nephew.

“Well?” she asked archly. “Would you care to elaborate?”

Pieter was astounded. That damned Lathwi had made their run-in with the Southerner sound like a holiday outing in the meadow! As he paced across the floor, he began to babble.

“The inn was crowded when we got there. And almost as soon as we set foot inside, some Southern bastard went after her. Don’t ask me why—he was mean-drunk and looking for a fight. She snapped up the diamond he offered her as w***e’s wages, then told him to get lost. He tried to bully her into going upstairs with him then, but she—” Pieter didn’t know if he wanted to laugh, curse, or cry now. “—she tossed him across the room.”

“Was he a small man?” Liselle asked. “A dwarf perhaps?”

“He was twice my size!” Pieter bleated. “Not only that, he outweighed her by at least thirty pounds.”

“And she pushed him away.”

“She threw him halfway across the room, I tell you. Ask Zill, if you don’t believe me. Ask anyone who was there.”

“That’s all right,” she murmured then. “I believe you.”

With that conviction came a wave of fresh fear. Because it was obvious that Lathwi had used sorcery to defend herself tonight; and while she’d had every right and reason to do so, Liselle was afraid that she’d escaped one danger only to set herself in the path of something even more perilous.

“I don’t know,” Pieter said then, misreading his aunt’s troubled expression. “Maybe bringing Lathwi here wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked warily.

“She’s too wild for city life, too unpredictable. What’s going to happen to you when I leave?”

“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself,” she told him, although inwardly she was squirming with doubts. “When you leave, I’ll miss you terribly and think of you often, but believe me, life will go on.”

“I must’ve taken a wrong turn on the way home tonight,” he said, fixing her with an incredulous stare, “because this doesn’t sound like the aunt I know and love. That wonderful woman prefers an orderly, uneventful life. She doesn’t like surprises or disruptions.”

“Things change. So do people—even me, I’m afraid.”

“Have you gone mad?”

“I’m learning to take care of me and mine. If that’s madness, then the whole world’s crazy.”

“I’m beginning to think so,” he said, still eyeing her suspiciously. “Are you sure you want her here?”

“My life may be orderly, Pieter,” she told him, “but it is rarely uneventful. And at this particular point in time, Lathwi belongs here with me. There are things that we need to teach each other, things which may prove to be important in the not too distant future. Because of that, I’m willing to put up with quite a number of surprises and disruptions.

“So stop fretting, nephew. Lathwi and I will manage.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now run along. I’ve still got some reading to finish.”

Although he was not totally convinced, he did as he was told. He still had a couple of days left in Compara; and so would see for himself how the two women managed. And if he did not like what he saw, he would find a way to send Lathwi packing.

G

“The golden-haired man is some sort of an exalted lackey for the fool who rules this dung-heap. As far as I can tell, he has no significant ties to The Recluse.”

A look like hunger streaked across Malcolm’s face as he eyed the woman in front of him. She was undeniably stunning, a black-haired fantasy with bold hips and full breasts. Her long, come-hither lashes shaded a pair of sly, cinnamon eyes. She was everything a man could possibly want—so long as he could overlook the fact that she was not a woman at all.

“And what of her other visitors?” he asked, making it clear that his l**t was for knowledge rather than the naj’s illusory physical charms.

“The female is still a puzzlement,” it said, affecting a winsome pout. “She does not often leave the house, and when she does, it is always in the company of others. My guess is that she is a stranger to this place.”

“Perhaps,” Malcolm murmured, and then paused to consider another report that he had received. One of his drudges had shadowed this mysterious female to an inn last night. While she was within, magic had been done—nothing dramatic, only a faint puff of Will. Afterward, she and the red-haired man had gone racing back to The Recluse’s stronghold. Why? Had they been fleeing magic? Or had magic spelled their escape?

“Continue to watch her,” he said, voicing his decision even as it formed in his head. “There is something about her which I mistrust.”

“It will be as you say,” the naj said, breathing the affirmation like an innuendo.

“Now tell me of the red-haired man.”

The naj’s simper abruptly chasmed into a blood-thirsty grin. “He is kin to the Recluse, Blackheart. Moreover, he has unlimited access to her house. I am of the belief that he can be used.”

“Indeed he can,” Malcolm rumbled, already in the process of devising a plan to fit the ingredients at hand. “Indeed he can.”