“Where be Spark?”
“Who?” she asked, as she wiped the table with a dry cloth.
Orin could not help smiling. The beast was a handsome piece of horseflesh, but there was something otherworldly about him. “Spark be a copper-colored horse that Vika wishes to save from Toal MacMorgan’s cruelty.”
“Well, good luck to you both. Lord Toal should not be welcome here, but the elders claim we must serve him and his men. They all stink, and their hands do a bit of unwanted roaming, if you understand.” She leaned closer, and winked.
Orin set his hand on her hip, and inhaled the scent of apples and meat pies. It was either her fragrance, or the room’s, but it was a soothing scent all the same. “We met one of his men. The bastard whipped the horse and tried to steal our kills.”
“Kills?” Unna shivered, and slapped a petite hand on her buxom chest.
Forcing his eyes back up to her face, he said, “Aye, we killed several deer, numerous rabbits, and a huge wild boar. We shall not go hungry this winter.” His stomach rumbled.
She beamed down at him. “I shall bring you one of our fresh baked meat pies. You look like you need filling out before winter comes.”
She was gone in a flash, and he was all alone, once more. He did not wish to hurt her feelings by disappearing before she brought the food, but he worried about Maeve. In the light of the tavern, her skin had looked too pale, and her lips were tinged blue. The unnatural colors were due to blood loss, which he prayed was her worst injury. A fever could take her within days.
His stomach won out.
He was still growing, and dreamed of the day he could find his own way in the world. Unfortunately, the world he thought he knew was fraught with dangers he could never have imagined.
“Dragons? How can I explain them to the other villagers, or the elders?”
“Telling fairy tales again, young Orin?”
He glanced up, ready to share the truth of what he witnessed. The man at his shoulder, however, was Sinna. Orin jumped to his feet. “Why be you not watching me cart?”
“Calm yourself, lad. Another warrior said an elder sent him to relieve me, so I could eat me supper.”
“Bloody Hell! He lied!” Orin raced from the tavern, knocking into Unna, and upsetting her tray. The meat pie went flying, and she cursed beneath her breath.
“Sorry, lass, but I fear me life and future be in peril!” With Sinna’s steps thundering close behind, he raced toward the barn.
The burning barn.
***
“Do you smell smoke?” Vika tugged on Evan’s arm, as she pointed to the horizon. An orange glow filled the darkening sky, an ominous hue rising from the village.
“I fear your village be on fire.” Evan prayed his fire-breathing brothers were not involved. All he could do was race as fast as Vika could follow.
“Dear Lord, ‘tis not the kind of thing to welcome us home. I pray no lives shall be lost.”
They approached the outer gates within moments.
“There should be a guard to block our way. Has the fire pulled him from his post?” Vika said.
The smell of freshly spilled blood pulled Evan to a stop, just inside the fence. He increased his grip on her hand.
“Why stop? We must help the villagers!”
“Someone has been hurt, or killed. Can you not smell it?”
Vika squeezed his hand, and he released her. “Evan, all I smell be smoke. What be you havering about?”
“This.” He pointed to the pair of boots barely visible beneath a mound of straw. He feared the guard was dead.
“Who did this?” she cried.
Evan kneeled beside the straw, and uncovered the man’s face. “Dead. Do you know him?”
“Aye, but not by name. He be a warrior, and must have guarded the village. The elders always post a guard at dusk.”
“We cannot help this man, now, but we must protect the village. I shall block the gates, until the village authorities post another man. Me thinks the fire might have been set by whoever killed this man.”
After pushing the doors closed behind them, Evan rolled several barrels into place, and lifted half a dozen boxes on top to give any further intruders no way to quickly escape.
“How can you lift so much weight?”
“I be stronger than I look. Hurry, lass. We must see if your brother has made it to town. I have a feeling the fire could be another of Toal’s plans to win the wager.”
“Nay! I cannot believe he would be so evil. Besides, he could not have gotten here ahead of us.”
“This means he had men in the village with forewarned plans to create havoc.” Evan growled, and spit at the ground. The air was thick with smoke, and the cries of animals and humans grew louder.
“What should we do? How can we help stop that bastard?”
Evan could not give her an absolute answer, not until they discovered what buildings the fire was consuming. As they raced toward the tavern, they passed the stalls near the riverbank. The building was fine, but the animals housed beneath the lean-to were straining at their tethers, and crying out in fear. They could smell the fire’s acrid odor. As they ran by, the stable lad began releasing the animals.
“The flames be coming from behind the tavern. Look!” Vika pointed toward the night sky, where tendrils of orange and yellow swirled toward the clouds, spitting embers toward all the buildings. They rounded a corner, and came face to face with the fully evolved roof of the village’s main stables.
Praying that Orin was safe elsewhere, Evan’s prayers were unanswered the moment he spied an older gentleman, calling the lad’s name.
“Please do not tell me Orin be inside that inferno!” Vika’s scream echoed amid the thunderous roar of breaking rafters. Evan inhaled a deep breath and tried to distinguish the lad’s scent from the others fighting the blaze, but the smoke was too thick. When Vika started to move toward the open stable door, he grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her back into his chest.
She struggled, but he would not allow her to tempt fate. He could not let her die before they had a chance to mate. “Nay, lass. I will go.”
She shook her head, but he pushed her at the older man. When the man wrapped an arm around her waist, she melted into his body.
Evan shouted toward the old man, “Orin be in there?”
“Aye, he and the warrior, Sinna, were seen running inside just before the flames were spotted. They had yelled something about a thief.”
Vika glanced at Evan. Fear for her brother’s safety had morphed into loathing, and he sensed the one she thought of was Toal. When a beam fell across the main doors’ threshold, Vika gasped.
“I shall try around the back!” Once out of sight, worry for his human shape had him willing his dragon form to resurrect. He believed Orin would not fear him, should he and his companion still be inside the burning structure, but what would the warrior do?
Dropping his plaide and belt to the ground, he called for the transformation. When completed, he was nearly bowled over by the old pony. Old Gray ran screaming from the smoke-filled barn into the night. Evan bounded through the door, tossing burning timbers from his path, and headed toward the center. What he saw took his breath, and a ferocious roar echoed off the burning rafters. Several yards ahead of him, Orin struggled to pull the cart by himself.
“Be you friend or foe, I must get the cart and Sinna to safety, or all be lost!” Orin lost his footing, and tumbled to the ground. Hot embers rained down on them.
When Evan stepped closer, he spied the body of a man sprawled across the canvas that covered the meat. Blood seeped from a head wound, but his chest rose and fell. Evan’s first instinct was to gather both men in his talons and escape through the hole he had spotted in the roof. When he remembered what would happen to Vika, Orin, and Spark if the fast-moving fire consumed their cart of meat, he came to his senses.
With no way to communicate with the lad while in his natural state, he hoped Orin would understand. Strid
ing closer, he ignored Orin, and gripped the cart’s hitch in his teeth. As he pulled, Orin rolled out of the way. When Evan and the cart headed toward the open back door, Orin jumped to his feet, and ran to the rear of the cart.
Evan did not need the lad’s help pushing the cart, but he was glad they headed as a group to safety. As they passed through the open doors and into the night, more timbers fell to the barn floor, igniting the straw-covered ground. With a whoosh of hot breath, the building succumbed to the fire’s onslaught. A few minutes more, and Vika would have had another family member to mourn.
“You saved us,” Orin said, and walked to the front of the cart, breathing in fresh air. Evan opened his mouth, and released the cart. Orin’s face blanched, and Evan quickly closed his fang-filled maw. Leaning down, he sniffed the lad. When Orin raised a hand, and let it slide down the scaly ridge between Evan’s eyes, a purring rumble escaped.
“You like that? Not so fearsome, huh?”
Evan lifted his head, snapped his wings, and stood on his hind legs. With his talons glistening in the light of the flames, he showed the lad how fierce he could be.
“Beg pardon, dragon. I thank you for helping me. I must get Sinna to the healer. Will you guard me cart?”
Evan nodded his scale-covered head, and watched silently as Orin hefted the unconscious man onto his shoulders.
“Please don’t eat our kills.”
Evan smiled, which must have showed off his fangs once more, because the lad hurried toward the tavern. The lad was stronger than he appeared, and might have gotten the cart out of the burning barn in time by himself, but Vika would be devastated if he had gotten trapped inside.
Evan gathered his discarded clothing, pulled the cart toward a shadowy corner of the village, parked it beneath thickly leaved branches, and stood guard. He prayed that Vika would be so caught up in finding her brother alive, and tending to the injured man, not to notice his human persona had not returned.
CHAPTER 14
Vika’s heart was in her throat from fear. Loosing Spark was nothing compared to watching her brother burn to death. As she and the old man watched, more villagers arrived with buckets of water, but the deluge could not contain the flames that ate the building from the inside out. More timbers fell in a roar of swirling flames and thunder.
Evan still had not reappeared, and her chest constricted at the thought of losing both him and Orin. When she shook her head, Elder Kinnon loosened his grip.
“Stay calm, lass. Orin has strength despite his years. He will not stay inside a burning building long enough to lose his life.”
“I hope you speak the truth. ‘Tis that silly wager that made him run inside.”
“The wager? Oh, aye, the hunt that Toal MacMorgan insisted on. I do not understand why he wished to wager with you.”
“I do. When he abducted me, the bastard told me himself.”
“What be this you be spouting?” The old man pushed her far enough away so he could speak to her face to face. The nearby flames flickered in his gaze, but she knew he was sincere in his query.
“Toal stole me away to his manor. His man tried to steal our cart, and whipped me horse.”
“Dear Lord! The horse you wish to save?”
“Aye. Last I saw of him, he was bleeding. He had already saved us and our kills from the man, and wolves, and I owe him a great deal.”
“Mayhap ‘tis why Orin assumed a thief was after your cart, and why he rushed inside.”
Vika’s heart rate climbed, and her breathing grew shallow and forced. What if the fire was deliberately set to make sure their meat-filled cart would have no chance of winning the wager?
Before she could voice her concern, a hulking form rounded the corner. “Evan?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, sister mine.”
“Orin!” She raced toward him, but slid to a stop when she realized he carried a body. “Who?”
“Have no fear, ‘tis only Sinna. A falling timber gave his hard head a glancing blow.”
“He breathes?” She ran a hand through the warrior’s hair, and it came away bloody. “Get him to Mistress MacFingan. But, where be Evan?”
“Evan? I have not seen him. ‘Twas you I thought I had lost. Where did he go?”
“Where did he go? He went into the barn to find you!”
Orin’s face paled, and his eyes dropped to his feet. “Sorry, lass, but I saw no one.”
When he turned and walked at a brisk pace toward the tavern, Vika trembled at his words. Was Evan dead, or had he lied to her, and run away to avoid injuring himself? Also, what happened to their cart filled with their hard-earned kills? If it burned along with the barn, Spark was doomed.
So was she, if Toal had his way.
“What a disaster. Seems you shall not win our wager, lass.”
Vika’s blood ran cold, and her hands fisted at her side. She turned toward the man who she assumed caused the fire that nearly killed her only brother. He stood alone, with his arms crossed over his chest. His stench overwhelmed the fire’s smoke, and his all-knowing sneer filled her with rage. She nearly bent to retrieve her sgian dubh from her boot, then remembered she’d lost it on the trail.
Elder Kinnon had stepped away to talk with several others on the village council, leaving her alone with the one man in Scotland who turned her stomach.
“I do not see the spoils of your hunt, Toal. Did you neglect to pay your men enough to hunt for you? Was burning down the entire stable in order to keep me from winning worth the cost to the village and its people? Rebuilding will cost a fortune, and you nearly killed me brother and a warrior. Real men.”
He flinched, and she wondered who he was thinking about. Had he or one of his men had anything to do with the dead warrior at the gate? He stared down at his feet, then scanned the area around the burning mass of timbers and straw. Men strove to dump water on the farthest corner of the structure.
“Admit that you lost, lass. Me kills be counted as we speak. I bribed a council member to state that I arrived before you. Did anyone verify your hunt’s kills? You have before midnight, of course, but I fear they went up in smoke.”
She had no answer to give, since she neglected to ask Orin about their cart while her brother carried a man across his shoulders. Getting the injured warrior to the healer was imperative.
While Vika was distracted by the commotion, Toal pulled her into his chest. His stench made her gasp, which proved costly. Toal’s mouth and teeth pressed against her open mouth, and his tongue forced its way inside. The urge to gag was strong, and she prayed her struggles would stop him in his boots.
“Unhand her!”
Toal pushed her away, and she tumbled to the ground. Hot embers peppered her hair, and she waved her hand in front of her face to keep them out of her eyes. When she spotted Evan nose to nose with Toal, she struggled to her feet. Toal’s hand fisted around the hilt of the dagger at his hip. Evan was unarmed.
“Stop! ‘Tis not the time to show your aggressive natures. People have been hurt and killed, this night!”
“Killed! Who has died?” Elder Kinnon asked. He and the various council members must have noticed the brewing conflagration between the two men, and hurried to see what was happening.
Vika grabbed the old man’s elbow. “When we had spied the flames over the village, we entered through the unmanned gate, where we found the guard, dead. The killer had shoved the his body beneath straw.”
“We?”
“Evan Brown and I,” she answered, and pointed to him. When Evan glanced at her, she beckoned him to join her.
“Elder Kinnon, he be a stranger to our village, but rest assured he has been of great help to me brother and I, and saved me life. I trust him with our lives.”
“Do not be fooled by the wench. This man most likely killed the guard for nefarious reasons. Kill him!” Toal said.
“Toal MacMorgan be a liar. Evan saved me after Toal had taken me to his manor against me will. Evan Brown and I entered the unman
ned gate together. He could not have killed the man.
“A liar! I take offense, lass. I merely wished to talk with you about our wager, and our betrothal.”
“You kidnapped me! I shall not be forced to wed the likes of you. You disgust me!” She slapped him, and he raised his dirk as if to strike her dead. When he disappeared in a shower of cinders and smoke, a hot wind shoved her into the crowd of council members, and they all tumbled to the ground.
“What happened?” Elder Kinnon asked.
Evan still stood, but he was gazing up at the night sky.
“Evan, did you see what became of Toal?”
He hesitated, then smiled down at her. “I believe a myth has taken him far from here, but I do not feel sorry.”
“You mean, ‘twas a dragon?”
“A dragon? What be this silly talk?” Several men shouted, as they struggled to their feet.
Vika helped Elder Kinnon to his feet, and brushed dirt off his shoulders. “Orin and I witnessed many strange things in the woods, and I must admit the story would sound incredible if I had not seen it myself. Besides wolves, and Toal’s nasty henchmen, I came face to face with two huge dragons.”
The elder’s eyes closed, and he slapped a hand against his bony chest. Worried that he might faint, Vika grabbed his elbow and led him back inside the tavern. “Let me fetch you a tankard of ale, and Evan, Orin, and I shall explain all that occurred these last few days.”
“I saw your brother with a young lass. She was ill, or injured. Mistress MacFingan be caring for her, and the injured warrior,” the old man said with a shaky voice.
“Aye, we be fortunate to have such a talented healer.” Vika patted the man’s wrinkled hand, and found a seat near the hearth. She wished to speak to Evan about his absence, but she worried about the old man, as well as the young lass, and Orin.
“I be glad your brother returned with a cart laden with meat, but I fear you might have lost it in the blaze.”
“You saw our cart?” She prayed Toal had not managed to bring his kills in, in time. Then she recalled how he boasted that he had bribed a council member. Could Elder Kinnon be the one?
Spark (Clan of Dragons Book 1) Page 12
