by Dave Freer
Díleas seemed to prefer keeping watch.
The job still took a good three hours. Fionn then thatched the rick in the only manner he knew, which was centuries old and cultures away. But it was a fair method for keeping the water off.
He then walked back to the house, with the hayfork, having thoughtfully thrust a few haystalks in his hair.
“You’re not much of a sticker,” said the farmer’s wife. “Three hours’ work and you’ll be looking for me to feed you. There’s still a good bit of daylight left.”
“Well, I’ve done the hay, and I came to see what else you could use a hand with. Looks like the woodpile could use a bit of splitting.”
“You’ve never raked up all the hay!” she said incredulously.
Fionn shrugged. “Come and have a look.”
She did…obviously ready to exercise a shrewish tongue. And gaped at the field and the neat stacks with their plaited caps. “And stacked! Well…well I’ll be…”
Looking at her, Fionn was fairly sure she had been.
“I’ve never seen stacks like that,” she said.
“Old custom in my parts. Holds the stack together and keeps the rain out as well.”
“You’ve earned a good feed, shepherd. That lord of yours was daft to let them take you,” she said.
“I’ll split a cord or so of wood for you. That green wood needs to dry or those babies will get cold this winter.”
Fionn enjoyed splitting wood, so it was not a chore for him. Also he’d been aware of the fear, bordering on desperation, in her eyes for all her brash talk. His Scrap had had something of the same feeling about her when he’d first met her, trying to rob him and nearly getting drowned. Perhaps it was a human thing.
The farmer’s wife had plainly been feeling the isolation as well as the fear. She talked almost nonstop. Partially about the farm, but more about the war.
“I’d like to know,” she said belligerently—a tired woman who had had a little more cider with supper than usual, seeing as she was feeling just a little better about winter and surviving—“just how this Mage Spathos knows when the Ways will open. You ask me…he’s in with them. Letting our men be taken for slaves.”
Fionn subtly found out a little more about Mage Spathos, who it appeared was driving war preparations and recruitment to fever pitch. He was based in Goteng, and lived very well.
Later that evening the farmer’s wife indicated that there was other work the farmer wasn’t doing.
Fionn had to wonder at his desire to get too closely involved with this species. Fortunately they weren’t interfertile, even if other dragons had mixed with them. The thought of dragon-human crosses with the proclivities and abilities of both was quite alarming.
He left early the next morning, before cockcrow, with the deep hop-picking basket he had bought from her the night before. He left a little extra silver on the table, because winter would probably be harder and longer than she guessed, and having a baby seemed to be something humans found harder than dragons found laying fertile eggs.
***
A few miles down the road he came upon a placard nailed to a tree. Obviously they had some sort of rudimentary printing press now in Annvn. Fionn was all in favor of cultures learning to print. It meant more books, which he found entertaining, and it tended to make for a broader, more entertaining society in time.
He didn’t approve of it being used to reproduce pictures of himself and Díleas, and offering a reward.
The farmer’s wife could have earned a lot more than the paltry amount of silver he’d left her.
Paid by one Mage Spathos.
“It’s time,” said Fionn, removing it, “for us to experiment with flight and dogs. I suggest you climb into the basket, and I will try a short, low hop. Try to stay in the basket. Climbing out while we’re flying will probably kill you, and I am trying to avoid that. Your mistress would get upset with me, and against all logic I am becoming fond of you myself.”
They did a very short few hundred yards of quite hard work—wing muscles and magic and no thermals, keeping very low and slow, in which Díleas decided that sitting up in the basket was a bad idea and curling uncomfortably into the bottom was a better one.
The landing, where the basket touched ground first, spilled Díleas out into a somersault or three. The sheepdog did appear unhurt, but very unimpressed.
“Yes. All right. A slower landing and keeping the basket up. And stop looking at me like that. I’ve seen you do somersaults when chasing your own tail. I’m sorry, right? It’s just going to be faster and safer. And I think putting some distance between here and us is called for. Now, exactly which direction are we going?”
Díleas showed him with his nose.
“Well, it wants a half hour to sunrise. It’ll be hard work, but fast. Into the basket again, young dog. We’ll go a fair bit higher this time. And I’ll take great care, setting you down.”
They took to the wing again. Fionn noticed a poacher fleeing the woods, dropping his pheasants. Too bad. He probably would talk and wouldn’t be believed. And it was good to be above the world again, where a dragon belonged, watching the sun lip the far horizon.
They flew for less than half an hour, as Fionn wanted to set down in a good spot, where they could land unseen. And there was a town not half a league ahead, so Fionn picked a field and actually slowed to a hover before setting down the basket as light as thistledown.
Díleas did not emerge from the basket. Fionn peered anxiously into it. Had he dropped the dog without knowing?
Díleas was there. Shivering. Uncoiling from his tight ball slowly. “By the First…I had forgotten how sensitive to cold you mammals are. I was generating lots of heat, flying.”
Fionn took the basket and the dog at a run to the edge of the woods. Dragon breath kindled a fire. He could even make rocks burn, if need be. He cradled Díleas against his still-flight-hot body and in front of the fire. Gradually the dog emerged from his tight ball and stretched.
“I am sorry. It was more complicated than I realized. It’s cold up there, and the basket lets the wind through. And you couldn’t exactly tell me you were freezing.”
Díleas stuck out his tongue and licked Fionn on the dragon nose. They sat there. Then Díleas got up, stretched, shook himself and did a little tentative bounce.
Never had a dragon been so glad to see a dog bark at him. “Yes. All right. We’ll walk though. And I will change my appearance, which is harder work, as I am used to the Finn visage. Blond and a beard, and a little shorter and broader, I think.”
Díleas watched intently as Fionn’s visage and appearance changed. “I know you’re an eye dog, but this staring is quite disconcerting,” said the new Fionn, tousling the dog’s fur. It was a good thing, he thought, that it was so thick. It had probably stopped him from actually freezing up in the cool thin air. Fionn would never have forgiven himself for that.
They walked on to a minor road, heading towards the town. A pair of bored soldiers were checking papers as people crossed a bridge, but as Fionn had heard them well before, he and Díleas were able to go around and swim the river. It was deep and fast, and fairly cold. Not, as Díleas’s look informed him, anything like as cold as flying.
They dried off and then walked on. The town offered a chance to relieve a thief of some loot—a merchant who had thought to doctor his scales—and to use some of it to purchase some black hair dye, and a loaf of good bread, a sheepskin with the wool still on and a couple of fine blankets. It was amazing how easy it was to spend other people’s money. And there were plenty of posters and several agents of the local military in plain clothes, looking for draft dodgers. They were rather obvious and inept at it, to someone of Fionn’s experience, and so it was his pleasure to pick their pockets and acquire their papers.
Fionn was quite skilled at altering documents subtly.
He left the walled town cheerfully just after curfew, by means of a little private door from the house of ill repute. Som
e things are very predictable.
Díleas was very impressed with the sheepskin basket liner and the warm thick blankets for sleeping on that night. Less so with the idea that they might be used to keep warm in flight. But he braved that again, somewhere the wrong side of midnight. They did not fly so long or so high, and Díleas was actually panting a little from heat when they landed, gently, to have another snooze before dawn. And walked on again…
There were more wanted posters.
These showed a blond man with a beard, and a black and white sheepdog. And a reward, payable by Mage Spathos.
Dead or alive.
CHAPTER 16
The knockers had all slipped away into a fissure in the rock, far too narrow for humans. Meb gripped the axe, and they waited. There was nowhere to run.
The search party from Dun Tagoll was twelve strong—and by the way they pressed together, swords out, lanterns held high, they felt they were still twenty too few.
They came on cautiously. Soon they were shining their lights onto Meb and Neve, sitting huddled, holding their breath…
And were not seeing them. “Well, we can get out of here,” said their leader, relieved. “It wasn’t to be thought they’d really still be here.”
“But by the dead Fomoire and the blood trail to the sea, she must have come that far.”
“Did you see what she did to that one? I’m glad we didn’t find them. I don’t care what anyone says, the prince made a mistake.”
“Shut your face, Hwell,” said another warningly as they began to walk away.
“I reckon that the Fomoire must have had a boat and taken them. It’s a pity. She was a good lass, and that Neve was a gamesome little kitty. I fancied her.”
Neve snorted, but they did not hear.
***
A little later the knocker Jacks came back. “Ahem. Lady Meb,” said the chief Jack. “We…we was wondering…if you’d mind doing a few more tricks for us? A couple of the younger ones will fetch the little ones. It would be something for them to see, I reckon. It’s not entertainment that has come our way before.”
Meb had seen Fionn work the crowd before. She smiled. “I’d love to. But look at poor Neve. She’s so cold and hungry. I’ll have to hold her to keep her warm. And I am so famished I might fall over if I tried. Besides, they might come looking for us again.”
“We’ll post a watch, and give plenty of warning. Anyway, the tide is coming in. They won’t be able to get here without getting their feet wet, soon enough. Besides we’ll pelt them with rocks. Drop a piece of the roof on them. And we’ll bring hot soup and hot food and hot apple wine and honey for you. And a good blanket of mink fur for the young lady.”
Meb smiled. “Bring them.”
She really enjoyed the next hour or so. She stretched herself a little too, performing a trick Fionn had done—but she’d no idea how he’d done. She cheated and did it magically—making the juggling balls glow as if lit internally by different-colored lanterns. The knockers—at her order—put out their lanterns, and watched, spellbound, the dance of the lights, as she made patterns in the darkness with them. She noticed, in the light of the balls, that Neve’s face was every bit as delighted and rapt as the smallest knocker child.
“Ach, it’s better than a piskie dance!” said the chief Jack, when she had finally stopped, lanterns had been lit again, and the clapping had stopped. “You’d best not tell them I said that, though. They’re inclined to be spiteful.”
A smaller Jack popped his head out of a fissure. “There are men coming along the sea trail. They got dogs a-smelling.”
“Illusions won’t hide us from dogs,” said Meb, worried.
The chief Jack laughed. “But the water will. Tide’s in enough. And so will we. Lend us your shoes…and we’ll lead them there. If the dogs smell us and try and climb into our holes, it’ll be the worse for them.” The expression on his face said that the dog that tried to eat a knocker was going to regret it for the rest of his life.
“Try not to hurt their noses too much,” said Meb.
“It’s their ears we hurt. The little ’uns can let out a squeal that no man can hear, but it surely upsets the dogs.”
They sat and waited in the darkness. Faintly they could hear the mournful baying of the dogs. And a yelping.
A little later the knockers came back, cheerful. “They’re thinking you went into the water. And they’re fair afraid because the dogs won’t go more than under the first overhang.”
“Still,” said Meb, finding a very small knocker tugging at her skirts and looking hopefully up at her, and picking it up and putting it on her lap, “I think we’d better leave when we can.”
The chief Jack shook his head, looking at the littlest knocker babe happily sitting on her lap. “Now they’ll all be wanting to do it.”
“One at a time they shall,” said Meb, doing a single-handed toss for the small one. They had hours to darkness, and longer still to the low tide.
The chief Jack looked at her with what could only be respect. “You’ve the gift, to turn what is yours to command into a pleasure for us to give. We’re long-lived and we don’t have that many young ones.”
“When I was very little, a gleeman sat me on his knee and did a few tricks. I never forgot it. How could I not do the same?” she paused. “And it was another gleeman who saved my life, who taught me to juggle. That gleeman was your black dragon.”
“Aha. Well, he did a fine job,” said the chief Jack. “Although, like most of the things he did, we’ll be cursing for months as these young cloth-heads all make the tunnels and shafts echo with dropped pebbles and rocks that they’ll be trying to juggle with.”
By the time darkness and the low tide came, Meb was very tired of small knockers. She noticed Neve had gone from terror of them to cuddling and rocking the smaller ones to sleep. The coracle, never the largest of vessels, now had sufficient food for a few days: oatcakes, a small crock of honey, some dried meat, some dried apples, a metal flask of apple wine, a blanket sewed of mink strips and a knocker lantern, with a magical flame that came when you tapped three times on the metal, a couple of small bags—to knockers they would have been very big bags—and a very good supply of good will. They paddled out cautiously, edging between the rocks.
“Can you swim?” asked Meb.
“No, m’lady.”
“Well, that’s two of us then. We’d better not tip this up or our drowned bodies will wash up with the Fomoire after all.”
“No, m’lady. The current will bring the bodies into Degin bay. Always does with those that drown around here,” said Neve.
“That’s so cheerful. Let’s just paddle carefully.”
“Yes, m’lady,” said Neve, dutiful as ever. “The knockers are quite different from the stories, aren’t they?”
“Some things are,” said Meb, paddling. “But at least we know we can get food and shelter if I can find an audience who don’t just decide to kill us first. And the knockers will help us and hide us if they can.”
“So where are we going to go and what are we going to do, m’lady?” asked Neve.
“Well, I’d thought getting away from where they were trying to kill me, where they all hated me, spied on me and were willing to make you murder me, was a good start,” said Meb, yawning. “We’ll need some place to rest later tonight, hide for the day, and then get a bit further away. Then we need to find some breeches, because it’ll be hard enough for men traveling in these times. Then I thought we might go north, just because Prince Medraut’s demesnes are east, and the South is where that earl who tried to kill me came from, the sea is to the west, and I know nothing about the north. Vivien said there are other Duns. We can find ourselves a better place than Dun Tagoll, even if it isn’t as magically protected and fed.”
“The north parts…it’s wild, m’lady. Forest and mountain and forgotten people up there,” said Neve warily. “I’ve never been there, of course.”
“Wild and forgotten sound good
to me, right now. Mind that rock.”
Despite their inept paddling of the loaded little vessel, they got across to the shingle on the far side of the narrow inlet without any mishap. They pulled it up, and at Meb’s insistence, carried it to under the cliff, tripping over rocks in the darkness. They left it between two boulders and covered it in dried seaweed. It took time, but there was no point in telling some sharp-eyed guard, first thing in the morning, just where the prince’s men should start looking with the dogs. It took more time to move around the cliff edge in the darkness, lit by a bare sliver of moonlight. They found a gully that took them up to the top. Then they made their way away from the coast where the salt wind kept down the trees, to look for forest and shelter. At first they walked through the dew-wet grass, and then, with wet shoes, and wet clinging skirts and cold legs, through heather and gorse. Finally they came to a little V-shaped valley with a thick stand of trees and the gurgle of a stream.
“Enough,” said Meb. “We’re probably not more than a mile from Dun Tagoll, but I am so tired that I don’t care if they catch us. Let’s light the light, make a fire and try and dry our shoes a bit and eat something.”
So they did. Meb had had her experience of living rough with Fionn to turn to…and poor Neve fell asleep, wet feet and all. The axe was better, Meb thought, for carving up anyone that tried to molest them, than cutting firewood. It didn’t have much bevel on it. But there was some dry deadwood, and using the knocker lantern, and splinter to take flame from it, she managed a respectable fire. She ate some of the dried meat the knockers had provided—she had no idea whether it was dried miner or rabbit, and couldn’t care right then—put their shoes to toast a safe distance from the fire and snuggled in next to Neve, blessing the knockers for the fur. Their skirts, however, were too cold and damp. She managed to remove Neve’s and hers, and hung them on a branch near the fire. And tried lying down again, wrapping the fur around numb, cold legs and toes that she’d tried warming at the fire. The axe she kept in her hand.
