Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

The next morning, Pieter rose early. As he rolled out of bed, his eyes strayed toward the hearth. Last night’s log had long since been consumed, but even so, there was still a tiny flicker of fire dancing among the ashes. That blatant confirmation of Lathwi’s sorcerous abilities reinforced his decision to go to Compara. He frowned at the still-sleeping woman, then padded out of the cabin.

Outside, the ground was sodden: it squished and oozed beneath his boots as he strode across the clearing which he laughingly called his yard. No more rain was forthcoming, though—the dawning sky was as cloudless as a maiden’s conscience. He thanked The Dreamer for small favours, then went to fetch his mule.

“Come on, hay-burner,” he said, as he stepped into the shed, “it’s time for you to earn your keep.”

She was a homely creature: jug-headed and knobby-kneed, sway-backed, pot-bellied and slightly cross-eyed. But if The Dreamer had stinted her as far as looks were concerned, then it was most likely because She had been doubly generous with regard to brains. Buck was smarter than any horse, most dogs and even a few men he could name. Her ears flattened against the slope of her head as he approached with her gear, but she let him harness her with a minimum of resistance. When she was set to travel, he led her out of the shed and toward his workshop. There, he tethered her to a sapling and left her to graze.

Except for the faint yet lingering stench of old blood, mashed brains and tanning acids, his workshop seemed quite mundane: the racks on which he stretched and cured his hides were presently empty, his traps and knives were all carefully stowed away. He smiled, ever-pleased by its deceptive look, then strode over to a corner and scuffed at the layer of wood shavings and dirt which covered the floor. A grip appeared, then the outlines of a trap-door. As he tugged it open, a breath of cool air spiced with the scents of leather and fur caressed his face. His smile broadened. This secret cellar, designed to preserve his work from heat and thieves, hid two seasons’ worth of pelts. He had not planned to market these pelts so early in the year, but since he was going to Compara anyway, he might as well profit from the trip.

One by one, he carried his precious bundles out of the cellar and secured them to Buck’s back. When he was done, he restored the workshop to order and then headed for the door. On the way out, though, he remembered that Lathwi had not yet returned the dagger which he had thrown at her and so doubled back to raid his cache of work-blades. He strapped a hunting knife to his leg, then tucked a smaller blade into the top of his boot for good measure.

As he was leading Buck back toward the cabin, Lathwi appeared in the clearing. Without warning, her look of minor irritation turned to one of terrifying l**t.

“Food!” she shrieked, and then came charging toward him with one of those obsidian-like knives of hers in hand. His heart slammed into his rib-cage. His hand darted toward his hunting knife. Then his mule went suddenly skittish, and he realized that Lathwi was referring to Buck and not him.

“No!” he shouted, throwing every ounce of authority that he owned into the word. “Not food! Definitely not food.”

She slowed to a trot, confusion stamped into the folds of her frown. Almost white-eyed with panic, Buck continued to shy away. Pieter tried to soothe the mule with calming noises, but when she refused to settle down, he clouted her on the nose.

“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded.

“It prey,” Lathwi said, coming to a stop alongside of him. “It know it need run or I eat.”

“This,” he grated, shaking Buck’s lead-rein in her face, “is a mule. A pack-beast, not a prey-beast. Not food. Do you understand?”

She eyed him dubiously, wondering if this was another of his tests. No, she decided then, convinced by the fierceness of his scowl. For some strange reason, he valued the beast’s presence. The notion affronted her superior sensibilities. She had expected Pieter to be more discriminating about the company he kept.

“Not food,” she said then, a sullen concession. But she was curious, too. “Why mule have furs on back?”

“We’re going to Compara,” he said, and then motioned her toward the cabin. As they walked, he watched her out of the corner of his eye, for he was still half-afraid that she was going to turn and pounce on Buck’s unprotected flank.

He need not have worried, though. As soon as he uttered that last unfamiliar word, she lost all interest in the mule.

“Who Compara?”

“Say ‛what’, not ‛who’,” he told her, tired of hearing that screech-owl sound all of the time.

“What Compara?”

“Compara’s a city.” He elaborated then, simply because he knew that she would badger him half-crazy with questions if he did not. “A city is a place where many people live—”

“What many?”

“Many is a crowd, like the stars in the evening sky.” An image of a cave overflowing with humans formed in her mind. She hissed her disapproval. “Not good,” she told him. “Why mothers not send olders away?”

He laughed—a short, fox-like yip that startled her but not the mule. “Some mothers do, some don’t. It doesn’t make that much difference overall. For every man who leaves, ten others arrive. They come from all over the continent in the hope of finding fortune or fame—”

She hissed again, this time to express her delight. For while she still had no clear idea as to what a city might be, she knew what fortune was! And if it could be found in this Compara, then that was where she wanted to go. How smart of Pieter. In spite of his peculiar short-comings, he was quite a clever man.

“How get fortune in city?” They were back at the cabin now. Pieter tied Buck to a hitching post, then grabbed a set of saddlebags and went inside. She followed on his heels. “How, Pieterzatrapper?”

“Lathwi,” he said, in a tone that reminded her of Taziem when she was in no mood for anything but meat, “if you don’t shut up and let me pack, we’re never going to see Compara.”

She clamped her mouth shut, then hunkered down by the hearth. As she watched, he began stuffing things into those hard leather pouches that he had carried in with him. This, she guessed, was packing, but its purpose eluded her. What need had he of a small, flattened kettle or fat, dried seeds; strips of wizened, foul-smelling flesh or a small wooden box that rattled from within?

He didn’t like her watching him, though. It made him nervous.

“Are you ready to go?” he demanded. She shrugged, then reached for her stone. He flinched as she went to pop it in her mouth. Dreamer only knew where it had been! “Wait,” he blurted. “I think I’ve got something for you.” He rummaged through his belongings, then tossed a soft leather purse at her. “Put it in there instead.”

She picked the purse up, but did not seem to understand how it worked.

“Like this,” he said, and bustled over to show her. He opened the drawstring with a flourish, then went to pluck the stone from her fingers. She hissed, an unmistakable warning. Quick as thought, he got out of her way.

“Suit yourself,” he snapped then, throwing the purse to the floor. “I was only trying to be nice.”

“Now get rid of that damn fire, would you? It’s making my skin creep.”

The hearth went dark. That gave him the creeps, too. He grabbed his saddlebags and bed-roll, then stomped out of the cabin.

In the meantime, Lathwi retrieved the purse and dropped her stone into it. Now that she knew its purpose, she had to admit that it was a practical device-—especially for those who did so much talking with their mouths. She strode out of the cabin then. As she did so, the mule brayed a warning and tried to lurch free of the hitching post. Pieter yanked at her lead-rein, but Buck refused to calm down.

“Blessed Dreamer!” he grated. “We’ll never going to get to Compara at this rate!”

Alarmed by that prospect, Lathwi decided to take action. She flung herself to the ground, then rolled back and forth until she was thoroughly covered with mud. Then, because she could still smell traces of her dragon-scent, she hunted down a mound of fresh mule dung and rolled in that as well. When she stood up again, she flashed Pieter a feral grin.

“Mule go now,” she announced.

As if by magic, Buck stopped fidgeting and slowly raised her ears. And while her glances at Lathwi remained wary, her eyes no longer showed their whites. Pieter grabbed her lead and headed for the woods, too confounded for words. He knew that what he had just witnessed was only a trick and not true sorcery, but it was unsettling just the same. Lathwi had not only rolled in that dung, she had enjoyed herself while doing it! People—especially those of the so-called gentle s*x—weren’t supposed to behave like that.

“How get fortune in city?” Lathwi asked then.

He sighed. This woman was like a bad tooth—no amount of wishing was going to make her go away. And since she was all but impossible to ignore, he decided to try and make the best of the situation.

“It depends on the person,” he told her. “Take me, for example. I have no need for the furs on Buck’s back, but there are people in the city who will pay handsomely—”

“What pay?”

“Pay is what one person gives another person in exchange for something that the first person wants but cannot get for himself.”

She understood most of the words that he was using, but even so, he was not making any sense. “Why not first person just take from second person?”

Pieter’s mouth stretched into a thin, disapproving line. “That’s called stealing, Lathwi. It’s wrong. Illegal. You can be hanged for it. Do you understand?” he went on, almost certain that she did not. “People will kill you for stealing from them.”

She shrugged. A thief who got caught should expect to be killed. That was what made the stealing so exciting. She fingered the little pouch that held Taziem’s stone and smiled to herself. Not getting caught had its thrills, too.

“Tell more about fortune,” she urged him. “How I get?”

“I know someone in Compara who is like you,” he said, although it was becoming painfully clear that she and his aunt were nothing alike except for their s*x and vocation. “She might be able to answer that question better than me.”

Pleasure surged through Lathwi’s veins like dragon fire. She had gotten the impression that Compara was exclusively a man-place. To learn that it was home to her own kind as well was a reason to celebrate. Unable to take wing and dance her delight, she filled her lungs with air and bugled instead.

Buck bolted into the brush, dragging Pieter behind her. Lathwi thought he was having some new kind of fun until she caught up with him.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he snarled, and then stomped away with the mule firmly in tow. The stiff span of his back warned her to keep her distance.

Humans, she decided, were a very moody lot.

They walked in silence throughout the morning and well into the afternoon. Then, as the sun started to dip toward the horizon, their path intersected a deer run. The musky scent tweaked Lathwi’s salivary glands and tickled a grumble from her stomach. She caught up with Pieter, then tapped him on the back.

“I hunger,” she said, as he turned to face her.

His gaze flicked from her to the sky, then to their surroundings. After a moment’s thought, he pointed to the top of a nearby knoll. “That looks like a good place to make camp for the night.”

She did not know what ‘camp’ meant, but she obligingly followed him up the little hill. There, she waited patiently as he tied Buck to a sapling and began rummaging through his saddlebags. When he looked up from his puttering to find her standing idly by, the corners of his mouth twitched downward.

“Since you don’t seem to have anything better to do,” he said, “why don’t you go and find some firewood?”

“I hunger,” she iterated, more firmly this time.

“I know, I’m hungry too, but we’ll need a fire first, so go and get some wood.”

As she combed the area for dead fall, she wondered why he wanted fire. It was not edible, and he did not look as if he were cold. She exhumed a branch half-buried by leafy debris, then speared the beetle that went scuttling up her arm with a nail. An instant after she popped it into her mouth, though, she spit it out again. Vile tasting thing. She wanted meat. Fresh, warm meat. That thought boomed through her head again and again, ruining her patience. She returned to Pieter with a meagre armful of branches and dumped it at his feet.