by G. A. Aiken
“By the gods of forge fires,” Rhona laughed. “Do we really have time for this?”
“If you want us to ride horses.”
“He’s never going to let you ride him now, you idiot!”
Vigholf lowered his bruised hands. “Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t like you. Can’t you tell?” She held up her hand before he could answer. “You’re a hardheaded Lightning male. Of course you can’t tell.”
“What does that mean?”
A tall white mare stood by Rhona’s side now and the two females looked at each other, shook their heads.
“I know,” Rhona told her. “Pathetic.”
Vigholf’s eyes narrowed when he saw that damn stallion sneer at him. He was sneering at him! At Vigholf ! A true Northlander and a commander of the Olgeirsson Horde Armies was being sneered at by a prey animal! The damn thing should be roasted by Vigholf’s lightning and torn to pieces by his comrades.
And what was the She-dragon doing? Chatting with the bloody stallion’s female!
“I don’t know what you expect,” Rhona told Vigholf. “You’ve probably terrified the poor thing.”
“He ran me over! How terrified could he be?”
“Well, you can stay here and fight if you like. I’ve got a ride.” She easily mounted the mare, using the mane as reins, and headed off.
“Can you believe those two?” Vigholf asked the stallion. “It’s like we don’t even exist.”
The horse shook his head, long mane tossed about.
“I’d let the ungrateful wench go off on her own, but she’s female and inherently weak. Who knows what will happen to her if I’m not there to protect her. And we can’t expect that mare to watch out for her either. Two females together? Could anything be so useless?”
Vigholf shrugged, sighed. “Guess we better follow them.”
The stallion nodded and took off.
“Wait! This would be much easier if you let me ride on your back, you difficult bastard!”
Once they had the horses, they made excellent time. Cutting fast across the Western Plains and reaching the forests that would lead them to the Western Mountains.
It was late when they finally decided to stop by a freshwater stream. And while Vigholf built a small pit fire and hunted down something to eat for dinner, Rhona found an apple tree and was able to feed the horses. When she returned to their campsite, Vigholf had already eaten his portion of the wild boar he’d slaughtered, but he’d left half of it for Rhona.
She walked over to the small pit fire and sat down hard with a sigh, her back resting against her travel bag. “They’re settled for the night,” she told him of the horses.
“Think they’ll take us as far as the Provinces?”
“Perhaps. They’re still wild, so they could decide they’re done with us whenever they’d like. There’s no point in trying to tame them, we’ll just hold on as long as we can.”
“How did you learn so much about horses?”
Rhona smiled, remembering. “My grandmother and grandfather. When you spend as much time as the Cadwaladrs do fighting as human, you need to learn how to ride and care for horses. My grandmother, Shalin, especially had a way. She used to breed the most amazing war horses.” She frowned a bit. “Although all the males seemed to loathe my grandfather.”
Rhona motioned to the carcass. “That’s mine, yeah?” Vigholf nodded and Rhona blasted the carcass with her flame. When it was cooked to her taste, she began to eat.
“You don’t eat your food raw?”
“Sometimes. But I prefer cooked. Besides, at least my face isn’t covered with blood.”
Vigholf touched his jaw, wincing when he felt the sticky remains of his meal. “Sorry.”
Rhona shook her head. “Don’t apologize. I like a dragon who enjoys his food.”
After Vigholf finished cleaning off his face and clothes, he picked up his weapons and began examining them.
“You’re like the triplets,” she said with a laugh.
“Short, adorable, and vicious on the battlefield?”
“No. You check your weapons, I’m assuming, for any damage from recent battle.”
“Do it every night.”
“That’s how I taught my siblings,” she said. “To always check every night. Most do, too.”
“You raised them all, didn’t you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I see how they treat you and how they treat your mother.”
“Which is?”
“She’s the general and you’re their mother. A mother they adore.”
She shrugged, pretending not to enjoy hearing that. Seemed a little disloyal to her mum.
“My father give you that?” Rhona asked rather than respond to Vigholf’s observation.
Vigholf held up the good-sized steel warhammer.“Yes.” He shook his head. “Your father . . .”
“My father what?”
“He does amazing work, Rhona. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She smiled, feeling a daughter’s pride. “I know.”
Holding the weapon between his hands, Vigholf said, “I saw you yesterday. At your father’s forge.”
She blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Well”—she shrugged—“it’s good to have some skill there in case you have to fix your weapon and there’s no blacksmith around.”
Vigholf gazed at her, smirked. “I saw you, Rhona.”
“You saw what?”
“You. Enjoying yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw the gleam in your eye. The excitement. You want to do what your father does, don’t you?”
The question struck her like a physical thing.
“Wait,” he said after a moment, “I didn’t mean to upset—”
“You didn’t. And you’re right. The first ninety years of my life, when I wasn’t raising my siblings, I was at my father’s side, working the small forge he’d built me near his own. Without a doubt those were the best days of my life.”
“Why did you stop?”
She blew out a breath and replied, “Cadwaladrs fight. They join Her Majesty’s Army. They become Dragonwarriors. They do not spend their lives making weapons for Dragonwarriors.”
“I see no shame in it. Plus your father does it.”
“My father’s not a Cadwaladr. He’s not even a Southlander.”
Vigholf sat up, gazing at her across the pit fire. “That’s right. Keita mentioned something about that.”
“He was hatched and raised deep in the Black Mountains, near the southern Borderlands.”
Vigholf thought a moment and asked, “The Black Mountains? Near the salt mines?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“They’re volcanoes.”
“Aye.” She smiled. “Daddy doesn’t breathe fire, he spews lava.” She leaned in a bit and added, “So can I when I put me mind to it. But Mum hates when I do that. If I’m not careful, it sprays, ya see.”
“To be honest, I didn’t notice a difference between your father and any other Fire Breather.”
“The other dragon breeds can’t tell the difference either. All you lot scent is heat and fire. That’s mostly what lava is made of. Well, that and some melted rocks.” She smiled a little thinking of her father’s kin. “They’re not very friendly, my father’s kind. But they’ve built whole worlds under those mountains and are some of the best blacksmiths and glass blowers you’ll ever know. It’s the alchemy, you see. They’ve mastered it.”
“Alchemy?”
“Aye. For the Volcano dragons, it’s in their blood. Those with the proper training can change one metal to another.”
“Can you?”
“Can I what?”
“Can you change one metal to another?”
“When I have to.”
He grinned. “Show me.”
“I’m not a dancing monkey.”
“Come on. Show me.”
She held her hand out
. “Give me a coin.”
Vigholf tossed her a brass coin. Rhona placed it on the ground, cleared her throat, and unleashed a bit of lava at the coin.
“Ow!”
She cleared her throat again, but this time so she wouldn’t laugh. “Sorry, but I warned you it sprays,” she reminded him while he rubbed his eye.
Rhona held her hand over the coin and whispered the words only the best Dragonsmiths of the Black Mountains knew. The words her father had taught her before she could fly.
Grinning, she handed the coin back to Vigholf.
He stared at it. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean that’s it?” She snatched the coin and held it up for him to see. “I changed this from brass to glass.”
“Yeah . . . but I thought you’d change it into gold.”
She threw the coin at his head. “Glass is just as amazing.”
“Is glass even metal? I don’t think it is.”
“Look,” she cut in, annoyed, “I haven’t been taught how to change anything into gold. But I can do amazing things with steel and I can turn gold into—”
“Not gold.”
“Choke on that coin,” she ordered him.
Vigholf chuckled. “You make it too easy. I could torture you with this all night.”
Rhona tossed the bones of her meal out into the dark forest behind her for any animals that may have use of them and tried not to pout. “Daddy wanted to send me to one of his cousins for an apprenticeship where I could have learned all sorts of things like changing things into gold.”
“But your mother said no?”
“She figured it was a waste since clearly her eldest daughter would be a Dragonwarrior just like her mum.”
“You need to tell her.”
“Tell her? Tell her what?”
“That you want to be a blacksmith. That you want to follow in your father’s footsteps.” He held up the hammer, his appreciative gaze moving over every detail. “That you want to stay in the Northlands after the war is over and make me and mine steel weapons like this. That’s what you need to tell her. What you should tell her. As soon as we’re done with this current nightmare.”
She fought hard not to smile, even biting her lip a bit before she said, “So this is all about you then, eh?”
“Not all about me, but my brethren. I’m thinking of the Horde, not just myself. That would be selfish and we of the North are never selfish. We have a Code.”
“And your Code says not to be selfish?”
“Probably. I’ve never been one for a lot of reading and that bloody Code book is huge.”
Rhona laughed and Vigholf loved hearing the sound of it. “You’re not like the other Northlanders, you know?”
“You mean serious and boring and patiently waiting for my glorious death on the battlefield? Yeah. I know. But why go through life being miserable? What’s the point of that?”
“There is none.” She yawned. “Guess we better get some sleep. We have a lot of hard riding to do tomorrow.”
“We’re running out of dried beef,” he pointed out.
“Because you don’t pace yourself.”
“I don’t even know what those words mean.”
“I realize that.”
She turned on her side and rested her head on her travel pack.
“Shouldn’t we sleep closer together?” Vigholf asked, working hard to sound at least remotely innocent.
“Why? Because we did it before when I was a bit drunk?”
Well . . . yeah. “Of course not! For safety. It can get dangerous in these woods at night.”
“How would you know? You’ve never been this far west.”
“True, but aren’t all dark woods near mountains the same?”
“I guess you can sleep over—”
With his travel pack in hand, Vigholf clambered over the fire and settled in right beside Rhona.
“Do we really need to be this close?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And why is that?”
“Safety.”
“Are you just going to keep throwing that word at me, hoping I’ll ignore the fact that you’re just using any excuse to snuggle up close to me again?”
“Yes.”
She settled down, her back to him. “Well, at least you’re honest. My male cousins would have outright lied.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “That’s the Cadwaladr Code, I’m afraid.”
“Which is why I didn’t bother lying to you. You can spot liars a league away.” Vigholf stretched out, his hands behind his head, his eyes gazing up at the stars above his head. “Gods, I’m hot.”
Rhona sat back up, gawking at him. “There’s snow on the ground. I’m wearing a fur cape. I can see my own breath when I talk or just breathe. This is winter here.”
“Northlanders would call this spring. Ice Landers, the Spikes . . . a miserable summer.”
“I have nothing to say to any of that.” She settled on her side again, and after a few minutes, Vigholf turned on his side and put his arm around her, snuggling in close.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Keeping you warm. Don’t want you to freeze in the night.”
“I’m a fire-breathing dragon. I’ll never freeze in the night.”
There was a painfully long pause, and Vigholf expected her to throw his arm off or, possibly, castrate him with her spear. But then she finally admitted, “But you do have an amazing amount of body heat. And my human form does get quite chilly.”
Grinning, he snuggled in closer.
“Don’t get too friendly, Lightning. Just keep me warm. That’s it.”
“It would probably be better if we were both naked and—”
“Not on your life,” she quickly cut in.
“Then how about a kiss,” he suggested.
“I can’t believe the Northland balls on you.”
“We might as well just get it over with.”
“There’s nothing to get over with.”
“We both know you’ll kiss me eventually, Sergeant. I’m irresistible.”
“I’ve been resisting you for five years.”
“Because you’re stubborn and unreasonable. I thought we already established that.”
Rolling to her back so she could look him in the eye, the She-dragon warned, “You just watch where you put those hands and keep your lips and your cock—”
“When did I mention my cock?”
“—well away from me or I’m going to use that ax my father gave you to start chopping things off.”
“Fine, fine. No need to threaten the important bits of me.”
“We have a long trip ahead. I feel it’s good to establish boundaries now.”
“Right. Boundaries. On our long trip together—alone.”
“It can’t be that long, Northlander. We have a war to get back to.”
“And we will.” Vigholf settled down again, tightening his arms around her since she didn’t stop him from doing so. “I doubt it will go on without us. And before you say anything, yes, I think we’re that important.”
“Not quite as arrogant as my royal cousins,” she murmured, already falling asleep, “but surprisingly close.”
Chapter 16
Where are you, brother?
Ragnar’s voice in his mind woke Vigholf, and he sat up, yawning, and scratching his head. Another day and a half from the Western Mountains. Did you contact Keita?
No. I’ve been unable to contact her or anyone at Dark Plains. In fact, I’ve been trying to contact you, but this is the first time I’ve gotten through. I think it’s because you’re neither in Dark Plains nor here. The areas are being blocked from one another, but I’m not sure why or who is doing it.
There’s a problem, Ragnar.
What’s wrong?
The Tribesmen attacked after we arrived, Vigholf told him, but quickly added, The Kyvich are guarding the gate and the Cadwaladrs are kicking arse. All’s fine.
What about the children?
Queen Rhiannon was not happy with Keita’s idea, so they’re staying put. But everything is fine, including Keita.
Good, but . . . why are you in the Western Mountains, brother? I know you wouldn’t just leave during an attack.
You’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you.
Tell me anyway.
It’s Annwyl. She’s gone off.
Her nut?
Vigholf chuckled. You could say that. She’s gone off to find the Rebel King.
Gaius Domitus? Ragnar sighed. If that wench is killed and Fearghus finds out we didn’t tell him or Briec about why we originally sent Keita back, giving Fearghus the chance to find his mate himself . . . I’m a dead dragon, brother. You do know that?
We’ll find her, Ragnar. I swear by the gods of war, we’ll find her.
Are you traveling alone?
No. This was Rhona’s mission. I simply tagged along.
Why?
I figured I could do more good here than just being one of the troops at Garbhán Isle.
Is that the only reason? Ragnar asked, sounding curious.
No. I couldn’t let her go alone.
Vigholf looked down at a sleeping Rhona. She slept on her side, hands tucked under her cheek. She’d let him hold her through the night, and he’d never slept so well before.
I’ve become . . . attached, he admitted.
And has she?
She will.
And even without being able to see his brother, Vigholf knew Ragnar was rolling his eyes.
How long will you be? Ragnar asked.
Don’t know. But we won’t be back until we find Annwyl.
But if Gaius Domitus gets his claws on her . . . Ragnar warned him.
We’re hoping to reach her before she reaches the Rebel King. Stop her and bring her back to the Valley.
Let’s hope you do. Gaius Domitus is not welcoming of strangers.
Neither is Annwyl.
Ragnar chuckled. You do have a point. But there is something else—in the Provinces. Thracius has a Dragonmage. A formidable one. Avoid him at all costs, Vigholf.
