Highland Dragon Warrior

by Isabel Cooper

  “Most likely,” said Sophia, turning back to the bowl of water. Even dismayed, Cathal couldn’t help watching the sure, steady motions of her hands and the rhythm of her movements. “I’m afraid we’ll have to trespass on your hospitality longer than anyone expected, and if I don’t return, I ask that you give Alice shelter and protection until she’s well enough to travel.”

  “I… Yes,” said Douglas, blinking. Cathal watched, torn between pride and fear, as he went on. “Do you mean to say you’ll go with my brother, then?”

  “Of course. There’s little else to do, considering the situation. I wish I weren’t the one who knew how to make potions, and I hope he doesn’t have the resources to summon another demon while I’m there, but…well, if I fail, I doubt that will matter very much, will it?” She turned back to Alice. “I’ll begin packing as soon as I’ve finished here.”

  Twenty-nine

  When she’d thought about leaving Loch Arach, Sophia had always pictured herself and Alice joining a group of travelers once more. She’d hoped they’d be triumphant, recognized they might be defeated, and never once considered that dragons would still be involved, nor that the journey would be not the end of her mission but, with good fortune, the beginning of the final stage.

  The very word preparation was a bad jest. Nonetheless, she tried. It was probably for the best, as she told a skeptical and still-groggy Alice, that she’d done so much damage to her clothing. Scorch marks from braziers could be souvenirs of forgetful moments in the kitchen; holes from vitriol could point to soapmaking. She could look the part of a servant or a peasant girl.

  She bought an old tunic and hose from Munro as well. Nobody would mistake her for a boy in good lighting, but at night, with her hair up and a cloak to hide most of her body, perhaps she could fool a man at a distance. Even if not, it would be easier to run in male costume.

  Running was the second-to-last thing Sophia wanted to do. Unless she revised the list to include death and capture, fighting was at the very bottom. She felt like a porcupine with all her knives—the innocent-looking one at her belt, one in each boot, and a tiny one between her breasts—but despite Munro’s lessons, she had no confidence in her skill with any of them.

  “You stabbed the demon,” Alice said when Sophia was packing and fretting.

  “Yes, and that did me very little good,” Sophia said, though the reminder was bracing.

  Men bled more, they hurt more, and they died more easily. She tried to keep that in mind. As a source of reassurance, it turned her stomach. It was all very well and good to say that Valerius’s sworn men were nigh as bad as he was, but that didn’t preclude a wretched gamekeeper or night watchman who simply wished to save his own skin, or his family’s. Sophia thought she’d use the knives, or try, if she had to, but such self-knowledge made her no happier.

  She turned to other sources of comfort. In the small bag that she’d carry, she packed two of the armoring potions—both wrapped with the greatest care, and then more usual herbals on top of them for camouflage and in case circumstances arose on the journey. She took Douglas up to the tower room, a long and slow process, and showed him the golden goblet and the potion within it: Fergus’s solar elixir, waiting for the final ingredients, in the last stable state in which she could leave it.

  “Should I not return,” she said, and the words stuck in her throat, such that she had to look away and cough while Douglas politely took no notice, “I’ve written out the instructions here. The processes, the hours and days, the substances…enough to make it over again. For this one, start at the second paragraph. The powdered topaz is in the wooden box with the stars on it, in the trunk. I don’t know… Forgive me, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to complete the work, but if you can, it should buy you time.”

  “Aye.” He looked at her gravely. “I’m obliged to you, mistress. My brother all the more so, I’d imagine.”

  There was a quality in his voice that was like Alice’s tone when she’d lectured Sophia about Cathal: not the same, but similar, copper and gold. Sophia flushed. “My lord, I assure you that I have no designs on your brother.”

  Her blush was in part because she didn’t quite speak the truth—but she was close enough. What matter that she dreamed of Cathal by night and could barely see him without wanting to touch him? She’d not try to trap him in marriage, nor turn him against his brother, and that was good enough.

  “Mistress Sophia,” said Douglas, “if you’ll pardon my bluntness, I give not a single damn for your designs. Have them or no. My worry is that he’ll endanger himself for your sake. He wouldn’t heed me on the matter of safety when Mistress Alice was the one going. With you, he’ll be ten times worse.”

  “Ah…” Sophia said, glad and dismayed and disbelieving all at once.

  “I doubt you can persuade him. I’ll not ask you to. But bear that in mind when you’re asking your questions. It’s more than your neck on the block.”

  “Yes, of course, my lord,” she said, dazed, and with a curtsy, fled.

  It would have helped had she been angry at Douglas for so burdening her, but—no. Upon consideration, Sophia found that he’d said nothing she wouldn’t have said in his place, as incongruous as it was to think of Cathal and her brothers in anything like the same context. She kept silent, therefore, and worried, and when she had finished her packing and there was nothing else to do, she prayed that if she couldn’t succeed, at least her failure might not doom Cathal and his kin.

  And then it was the night of their departure, the sky thick with clouds and Cathal waiting in the clearing where she’d first seen him transform. Sophia had embraced and kissed Alice already, and her eyes were still red from that leave-taking. She was glad of the poor light, particularly since Douglas was also there, a sturdy length of rope coiled between his hands.

  “We don’t have riders often,” Cathal said with an apologetic gesture. “I don’t have much to hang on to. But I won’t let you fall. You’ve my word on that.”

  “You don’t need to give it,” said Sophia, wanting to say more with those green eyes holding hers, unable to do so perhaps even if Douglas hadn’t been standing there. “I… We’ll speak again when we arrive, I’m sure.”

  The transformation was as fast as it had been before, though slightly less painful to watch, as if bits of her mind had started to relent. She was clearly set on looking at things human beings weren’t meant to see, they seemed to say, so who were they to interfere? Sophia still saw little, or little that she could recall: there was Cathal, and then there was…dragon-Cathal, putting his neck down so that Douglas could tie the rope around it.

  He made many knots in it, and complicated shapes, so that the end result was a kind of harness, with loops for hands and feet and a larger circle for the waist. “It’d be best if you still held firmly,” Douglas said when he was done, “but this should take your weight if your arms grow tired. Ready?”

  Sophia stepped forward in answer, not trusting her voice. That Cathal wouldn’t deliberately hurt her remained as true as it had been, but now, close up, she was aware of just how horrible a sudden clumsy move on his part could be for her. He might have been aware of it too, for he might have been a statue as she got herself into the makeshift harness.

  No statue was ever so warm, though, save in the hottest of summer noons, and a statue wouldn’t have thrummed beneath her with—breath? Heartbeat? Both? Trying to figure it out stopped some of her fear. Heedless of indelicacy, which might not even apply in this instance, she leaned forward against Cathal’s neck, wrapping her arms as far around it as she could get. That helped too.

  “Very well,” she said before she could lose her nerve.

  “Be careful, both of you,” said Douglas.

  The huge body beneath her gathered itself. For the space of a heartbeat, Sophia felt the bunching muscles. Knowing what was to come, she held her breath. Then they were sho
oting upward, and the ground below trying to tug them back down, a pull that she could actually and unexpectedly feel. As the harness jerked tight around her body, she clutched at Cathal’s neck, trusting that she wouldn’t do any damage that way and desperate for a handhold.

  Immense wings snapped out behind her, pushing the evening air back behind them with small thunderclaps. The wind streamed past Sophia’s face, yanking her hair out of its confinements and sending it snarling behind her, and she shut her eyes against the pain of it. Just as well, for she couldn’t bear to look down.

  This is normal. He’s done this before.

  And yet, had he done it with a passenger? And how would she know if all was proceeding normally? She had no way to speak with Cathal, and even such information as his expression in dragon form might give her was now invisible, as all she could have seen with her eyes open was the back of his head.

  The rope was holding. They were still going upward. Sophia clung to those facts as she clung to Cathal himself. She would have screamed, she was sure, despite her best intentions, save that her body refused to move even that much. Instead, she rode upward, silent, frozen, and rigid.

  When a cold mist enveloped her, she did force her eyes open, just long enough to see a gray fog surrounding them.

  Fog?

  No—clouds.

  They’d talked about flying above the clouds—the plan had depended on it—but Sophia hadn’t fully comprehended that until just that moment, when she looked left and right to find herself in a place no human she’d heard of had ever been.

  “Oh,” she said, or rather, her lips made the sound. If terror and speed hadn’t taken her breath away, wonder would have.

  “Oh,” she repeated, a moment later, as they broke through the clouds and a sky full of stars spread out over her head, closer and more brilliant than she’d ever dreamed of seeing them, with the clouds smooth and gray below. Her grip didn’t loosen, nor did her heartbeat slow, and the copper taste of fear still flooded her mouth, but now fear had a rival in wonder.

  Cathal’s flight shifted then, slowing and becoming level. The wings beat less often, though louder each time, and the pull of the earth slackened. Sophia felt the pressure of the rope decrease, though it was still a comforting weight, and the wind died down. They’d reached the height Cathal had wanted, she thought; they’d put the clouds between them and any observers on the ground. Now they were going forward.

  For the first time since they’d left the ground, she took a deep breath. Breathing was hard here, but no worse than it had been crossing some mountain passes. The air around her was very cold, despite her layers of clothing and Cathal’s proximity, and she knew this was no place for humans to remain very long.

  But oh, it was beautiful.

  Above her she could see Arcturus and Leo, Castor and Pollux: old friends from summer nights, but never as clear as this, nor as bright. Around the constellations, other stars glittered against the rich blue of the night sky. Sophia thought that she felt their light as well as saw it. She was almost vain enough to believe it greetings and best wishes for her journey, and even knowing herself to be insignificant, she sat up enough to smile in return, though waving would have meant freeing a hand from the harness.

  She discovered that her balance was sounder than she’d feared. Cathal’s neck where she sat was no wider than the back of a horse, but neither was it narrower, and in level flight like this he barely moved. Once in a while he would turn or bank with the wind; betimes he’d rise and fall with a draft; but the movements were, to Sophia, very slow and steady. There was only the wind blowing past her face to remind her what a pace they truly were setting.

  Around her, all was starlight—and silence, for no birds ventured to such a height. She was alone, save for Cathal and the stars, but she felt no loneliness. As they went on, even fear fell away from her, lost in the clouds below.

  It was not that she knew herself safe. Even assuming that she and Cathal landed without incident, safe wouldn’t be true for days, if that. Up above the clouds, she couldn’t feel that it mattered.

  Should I die, at least I’ll have seen this. I’ll have been here. Whatever Valerius does to me, this is worth any price.

  She leaned forward, not out of fright this time but to rest a hand against Cathal’s neck, a gesture she didn’t even know if he could feel. Together, they flew on through the night.

  Thirty

  Carrying a passenger was a new experience for Cathal, made doubly tense by the urgency of their errand and triply so because it was Sophia astride his back. He climbed above the clouds as smoothly as he could, and as quickly, since hesitation wouldn’t be useful. When he leveled out and felt Sophia’s weight still securely in place, with her breathing steady next to him, relief ran through him like strong drink.

  Navigating by the stars, he flew slowly toward the south and Valerius’s lands, avoiding when he could any winds that would make him rise or fall too steeply or angle too sharply. It was not the most exciting bit of flying he’d ever done, but he wasn’t eager for it to end. Having Sophia close, even when he wasn’t in human shape, with the stars arcing overhead and the whole wide sky spread out before him… He could have stayed for far longer.

  In time, reluctantly and more gently than he’d ascended, he dove back under the clouds to look for landmarks. He noted the small flecks of light from manors and stayed as far away as he could. Cottages were only lumps in the darkness, far harder to avoid, but they mattered less. Any peasant could claim to have seen a dragon, but it would take far longer for the story to reach anyone who knew its significance, and by that time, God willing, they’d be gone and Valerius dead.

  For a while he could hear owls and bats, the few among his fellow creatures of the air who went abroad at night. Like most animals, they stayed well away from him, but he knew their cries as part of a familiar chorus.

  As they approached Valerius’s lands, that chorus faded. They didn’t travel in silence as they’d done above the clouds, but the night birds’ calls were few, and many sounded weaker. Odd: he’d have expected more bats and owls near the sorcerer’s domain. Most said they were creatures of the devil.

  Granted, most said that about dragons too.

  Near the same time, the air changed. Cathal didn’t think anyone human would have noticed the faint staleness to it, or the slight suggestion of rot, but both were there, and got stronger the closer he flew. The colors of the land below him were muted too, even for early spring, and about them there was a hint of grayish-red, like a wound gone bad.

  The land is poisoned, Lady Bellecote had said.

  No wonder the birds sounded unhealthy; no wonder the crops never did very well. Even the edge of Valerius’s domain was wrong, though wrong in a way few humans could have pinpointed or even spoken about. Cathal didn’t think he needed to view the place through magical sight. For certes, he desired no such thing.

  With everything in him, he wished to turn back. The thought of setting foot on the corrupted land was repugnant, and the idea of sending Sophia alone into it was worse. He felt his lips pull back into a snarl, exposing his teeth as if he could threaten Valerius from this distance—or rip his throat out—and he knew both impulses to be futile.

  Only one course of action stood a chance of helping.

  Near the border was a small stand of trees, far enough from any cottages that Cathal doubted anyone would come here until high summer, if that. He circled slowly down to a landing, wincing at the first contact with the earth.

  It didn’t hurt, precisely. But it felt more yielding and more clinging than snowmelt or rain would explain, and he thought of how Sophia had described the earth in her dreams.

  He could have no doubts about whose land they’d found.

  Holding still, he felt Sophia extracting herself from the harness, then watched as she slid to the ground. Their surroundings didn’t seem to disgu
st her. She smiled brilliantly up at him. “That was wonderful. Amazing. I-I would write a book, would anyone believe me, and did it not expose you and yours too greatly. I… Well, I thank you.”

  On the last, she ducked her head, her dark lashes long against her cheeks, and then began to undo the harness until Cathal shook his head at her.

  “Oh? Very well,” she said and stepped back.

  He changed. The world became bigger and higher; as always, it took a moment or two before he felt as though he moved right. He was standing in the middle of the harness, within a loop quite large enough for his body. Sophia comprehended, and laughed quietly.

  “I believe I can get it back on when I return,” she said. “I hope, at least.”

  “It won’t matter so much then. We’ll likely not have to hide on our way out, so I’ll not need to go so high so fast.”

  “Oh,” Sophia said, and smiled again, equally brilliantly. “It’s almost a disappointment, truly. But then, if it’s in the day, it might be just as interesting to see the world from on high—and I suppose I shouldn’t be anticipating anything just yet,” she added, the smile dying.

  Cathal wished he had the words to bring her smile back, or that it would be just to do so. All he could do was nod. “Seven days?”

  “I should think that time enough, or as much time as we can afford. It’s not a large place.” They’d planned all this at the castle. Now they confirmed it, as much because a plan was reassuring as to keep the details fresh in their minds. “Should I need to stay longer, I’ll do my best to come back here and give you that message. And if I’m not back in seven days, you will go back to the castle.”

  It was not a request, nor even a recommendation. “You’ve been speaking with Douglas.”

  “He told me nothing I couldn’t have reasoned out for myself. If I… If the worst happens,” she said, and smoothed her hands over her skirt, “you’ll need to get word back, and it’ll do no good to have you come in breathing fire from above, most likely. If you go back then, you and your family can perhaps send men in, or come yourselves, or…or try the sorts of magic you know.”