Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 2-2

“I hunger now,” she insisted.

He dismissed her complaint with a wave of his hand, then began to stack the wood into a complicated heap. When he was done, he opened the box that rattled from within and withdrew two small grey stones. These spat sparks when he tapped them together. One landed in a pile of dead, dry leaves and began to grow. Pieter blew on it until it sprouted a little yellow tongue.

“It won’t be long now,” he told Lathwi then. “Pan bread and beans sound good to you?”

“What that?” she demanded, suddenly suspicious.

“Food. You know, like stew, only with beans instead of venison.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits, an accusation of duplicity. “Stew not food.”

He answered her scowl with one of his own. “See here, Lathwi. If you don’t like my cooking, feel free to go and forage for yourself.”

She needed no further encouragement. Without a backward glance, she went off in search of something tasty.

He lobbed a good riddance in her direction, then started the beans. There was nothing wrong with his cooking, he told himself. Lathwi was just ungrateful, a pig-headed barbarian. He went to groom Buck then, and as he ran the curry-comb over the mule’s hide, his list of grievances grew: she was selfish and lazy; a quick-tempered thief; and her persistence rivalled that of a starving tick’s. And Dreamer, her habit of hissing at everything was nerve-wracking!

He was so wrapped up in his spleen-venting, he did not hear the footsteps closing in on his back until Buck shifted nervously and laid her ears flat. By then, it was too late. He turned to find three men standing in his camp. They were a hard-looking lot: dirty and travel-worn, poorly dressed but well-armed. The reek of outlawry clung to them like a second shadow. One of them—a brown-bear of a man whose eyes were like tobacco-stained callouses—tossed him a cat-and-mouse grin.

“Greetings, neighbour,” he said, in a voice as deep as a river. “Mind if we share your fire?”

Pieter swallowed hard, trying to douse the clutch of hot rocks that had ignited in his stomach. Calm, he chattered to himself. He had to stay calm.

“Help yourself,” he replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m cooking up a batch of beans and pan-bread if you care to join me for supper.”

A pock-marked blond with a ragged black patch over his left eye rubbed his belly. “Mmm, beans. My favourite.”

“We appreciate your offer of hospitality,” the third man said, while absently stroking the tangles of his greasy red beard, “but don’t go to any trouble on our account. I think we pretty much found what we were looking for. True, Tebo?”

“True, Jasper.” The voice came from behind Pieter. As he pivoted toward the sound, a wiry, black-haired man slung a double bundle of furs onto Buck’s back.

“Nice work, trapper,” this Tebo drawled. “These ought to fetch a pretty sum in Compara.”

“My thought exactly,” Pieter said, although the effort to remain glib was straining his nerves to their limit. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to leave them with me.”

“You suppose right,” the one named Jasper said, with an obscene sort of cheerfulness.

“Then how ‛bout I fair-fight one of you for ‛em?” Pieter asked, as Tebo led his fur-laden mule away.

“Mister, if we wanted to be fair about these sorts of things, we wouldn’t be travelling in a pack,” Jasper told him. “Besides, you might get hurt in a fight, and that would upset Drell.” He grinned at the bearish man with the tobacco-stain eyes. “He likes you, trapper. He thinks you’re pretty.”

By now, Pieter could not care less about losing his mule or those damn furs or even his dignity. All that mattered to him was staying alive. So as the outlaws started toward him, four against one, he drew his hunting knife and then howled a name.

G

The forest abounded with tempting game: birds, rodents, wild boar and deer. Lathwi toyed with the idea of lying in wait for one of the larger prey-beasts, but decided that she was much too hungry for that kind of hunting and so followed a rabbit’s tracks back to a clump of bramble-bushes instead. The plenitude of droppings in the area told her that there was a feast hiding within. She hid herself downwind from the warren, then withdrew a claw from her belt and waited.

A short time later, a fat buck poked his head into the clearing. His nose was twitching furiously, his ears were primed for the slightest sound of danger. She held herself completely still. The rabbit hopped past the brambles and toward her—closer, then closer yet. She was right on the verge of pouncing when a melting cry disrupted the forest’s silence.

“Lathwi!”

In spite of herself, she started. The slight movement was enough to send her prey bolting back into the warren.

Annoyance rippled through her. Why was Pieter shouting? Did he not understand that she was trying to hunt?

“Lathwi!”

The cry’s urgency roused her curiosity. There had to be a reason behind such vigorous squawking. Perhaps he was ready to resume her lessons. She eyed the warren, debating her appetites, then went bounding back toward the knoll and up its gentle slope.

As she neared the top of the hill, a string of strange noises snared her attention: scuffling feet, muffled grunts, a groan of pain or pleasure. Doubly curious now, she began to stalk the sounds. They led her straight to Pieter’s camp and a most peculiar sight. Three unfamiliar men were holding Pieter belly-down on the ground. A fourth was pawing at his trousers. Pieter was bucking and squirming in an attempt to get free, but the others would not let him go.

Her mouth curved into a grin. These strangers must be Pieter’s tanglemates, come to play with him. And Pieter must have called because he wanted her to join in on the fun. How clever of him! She liked games.

As she crept up on the cluster of bodies, she sized up her would-be opponents. The yellow-haired man was almost as scrawny as Pieter, and therefore no good match for her. Nor was she very impressed with the two men who were kneeling on Pieter’s arms. That left the big, brown-haired man. He was the largest of the tangle, and promised the best sport. She bugled a challenge and then launched herself at him. He went tumbling. So did she. An instant later, they were both back on their feet and brawling.

He smashed his ham-sized fist into her jaw. She blinked back a swarm of floating stars, then countered his punch with one of her own. It collided with his nose with a satisfying c***k. As he sniffed back a trickle of his own blood, one of his tanglemates grabbed her from behind. She elbowed him in the ribs, then danced around and kicked him in the groin. As he doubled over, she squealed.

This was fun!

The big man had a knife in his hand now. He flipped it from hand to hand as he circled her. She grinned, delighted with the trick, then hauled the not-claw from her belt. But before she had a chance to try the manoeuvre for herself, her adversary rushed in and slashed at her. Her scales deflected the blow. He lashed out again, aiming at her eyes this time. With a derisive hiss, she side-stepped the clumsy attack and poked her not-claw into his side. It slid in all the way up to the hilt. He stumbled backward, then fell to the ground. He did not get up again.

Now there was a surprise! She had assumed that he was scaled beneath all of that stinking leather. Why else would he be playing with something as sharp as a not-claw? As she marvelled at such foolishness, a hairy forearm wrapped itself around her neck and tensed.

“b***h,” a voice snarled in her ear. “You’re going to pay long and hard for that.”

The statement confused her. Why was he talking about pay? None of these men had anything that she wanted.

“Let go,” she told him. “Not want play with you.”

“Too bad,” Jasper said, giving her neck another squeeze, “because play-time’s just begun.”

His obtuseness irked her, but she did not bother to tell him that. Instead, she sank her teeth into his arm. With a screech, he released her. Then, as she quick-stepped out of his reach, he unsheathed a knife.

“I’m going to carve you up,” he informed her. “Then I’m going to feed the pieces to the birds.”

Her annoyance dissolved into a lethal composure. Such unswervingly stupid persistence could only mean one thing: a challenge. She did not comprehend his reasons for wanting to turn this into a real fight—she had no territory to claim, and no fortune beyond Taziem’s stone—but she did understand that he would not leave her alone now until she killed him.

So she bugled a formal acceptance of his challenge and then charged. Caught off-guard by her aggressiveness, Jasper hesitated. In that instant, she was on him, nails poised to rend. Her first swipe raked a set of b****y grooves in his beard; the second savaged his right eye. With a howl of pain and fury, he stabbed at her shoulder. The tip of his blade chipped as it struck her scales, leaving only a deep bruise behind. She kicked his legs out from under him then. An instant after he hit the ground, she leapt on top of him and began to bend his knife-hand toward the hairy wattle of flesh beneath his chin. He pitched and wriggled in a desperate attempt to unseat her, then abruptly shunted all of his strength into his arm.

The blade’s downward progress skidded to a halt, then trembled in the space between them like an accusing finger. He tried to twist it upward and into her face, but could not make it budge.

“What in hell are you?” he demanded then, in a tone rich with newfound fear.

Her contempt for him soared to new heights, for that was a question he should have asked before he made his challenge. Still, she could not quite resist the chance to let him know exactly how stupid he had really been.

“I woman,” she told him.

Then she pressed down on his knife-hand again; and this time, she used the strength she had developed while sporting with her own tanglemates. The blade trembled for a moment, then dipped downward. An instant later, it dipped again and plunged into his throat. The half-formed protest on his lips became a liquid sigh. Hearing that and nothing more, she got up and walked away.

Back at the camp, she spooked Pieter as he was pulling a knife from the blonde man’s chest. He spun around, ready to strike, then forced himself to relax. His harried expression turned to one of complicated relief.

“Did you get them both?” When she nodded, he managed a wan smile and said, “Thanks. I wouldn’t have stood a chance without you.”

“You brothers play stupid games,” she commented, as she glanced from one unmoving body to the next. “Not know when to stop.”

“Those bastards weren’t my brothers,” he grated. “And they weren’t playing games. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, they would’ve—” He paled, then flushed anew. “—they would’ve murdered me.”

He wiped his boot-knife off on the blonde man’s jersey. As he did so, Lathwi remembered her own not-claw and went to fetch it. Pieter caught up with her just as she was passing Jasper’s corpse.

“I thought you said you weren’t a warrior,” he said, as he admired her handiwork.

“I not,” she replied, completely serious. “Not-brothers be soft. Stupid, too.”

His grim chuckle slurred off into rigid silence as they drew to a stop alongside of Drell. Although the big man was b****y and his eyes were shut, his laboured breathing declared him to be very much alive. Pieter booted him in the head to get his attention.

“Get up,” he said. “Get up so we can hang you.”

With a bone-deep groan, the outlaw opened his eyes. He stared at Pieter, but did not seem to recognize his would-be victim. His face was slack and grey.

“Mercy,” he mumbled. “My innards are all on fire.” His whole body tensed then. His expression was one of pure pain. “It hurts. Ah, Dreamer, how it hurts!” He glanced at Pieter again. “Please, Mister, I’m begging you for mercy.”

With a scowl as vast as a storm-front, Pieter unsheathed his hunting knife, then crouched down and showed it to Drell. “Is this what you want?”

Drell managed a feeble nod.

“Bastard,” Pieter grated. “It’s more than you deserve.”

He cut the outlaw’s throat then. Lathwi added mercy to her list of man-words.

“Come on,” Pieter said afterward, “let’s get our stuff and get out of here. All of this meat is bound to attract wolves, and I don’t want to spoil their feast.”