by Resa Nelson
“Because we used to be brigands,” Broken Nose added. “And we conquered the monster before.”
“And I’m the monster you conquered?” Astrid pressed her lips together, willing herself to quell the anger that threatened to rise up inside her. Quietly, she said, “I’m disappointed in both of you.”
“It was his idea and all,” Lumpy said. “How was we to know you be showing up again?”
The villagers talked behind them, straining their necks to watch the confrontation.
Broken Nose turned to face them. “No need to fear. The monster will be leaving soon.” Turning back to Astrid, he said, “Why don’t you give them a good growl? Give them a bit of a start, at least.”
Astrid suppressed a smile as inspiration struck. “Do any of your people eat dragon meat?”
Lumpy shuddered. “Everyone be saying dragon meat’s enchanted, and no good comes from enchantment. We have none of that mischief here!”
Astrid considered her options. If Lumpy, Broken Nose, and their people rejected the notion of eating lizard meat, then they all saw Astrid’s true form: a one-armed woman covered with scars. No matter what Astrid did to change her shape, none of them would see it.
But there were other ways to impress them.
Rolling up the sleeve of one arm to expose bare skin, she pulled Falling Star from her belt and waved it above her head. “Behold!” Astrid cried out in the most menacing voice she could muster. “My magical dagger!”
The crowd looked at the dagger questioningly then at Astrid as if waiting for something to happen.
Lumpy squinted. “What be magical about it?”
Astrid’s heart sank, realizing she’d forgotten she had both a real arm and a spirit arm. She’d meant to make the dagger seem to float in mid-air, but she obviously held it with her flesh-and-blood arm, not her spirit arm. Thinking quickly, Astrid handed it to Lumpy. “See how it bears the same qualities of a dragonslayer’s sword.”
Lumpy gasped in delight. “So it does!
“Like a snake,” Broken Nose murmured, looking over Lumpy’s shoulder and pointing at the dagger’s blade. “Crawling right down the middle.”
Lumpy gazed at the blade with admiration. “Like a pretty blue snake hidden inside! Like magic!”
The people behind them crept up to catch a glimpse of Falling Star.
At the same time, Astrid rolled up the sleeve of her spirit arm and snatched Falling Star out of Lumpy’s hands with a hand that would appear invisible to everyone else. “And I control the magic—because I am a monster!”
The women shrieked, and one of the men fainted. The others pointed at the dagger Astrid held high above her head. “It’s an enchanted dagger!”
Lumpy’s eyes welled with tears and he sank to his knees, looking at Astrid in wonder. “My pretty pony girl be an enchantress!”
But Broken Nose crossed his arms, unimpressed.
The villagers screamed, shielding themselves with their arms and stumbling away from Astrid.
“She’s turning into a dragon!” one of the village men shouted, wide-eyed in horror. He stepped bravely in front of the women.
“By the gods,” Broken Nose murmured, paling while he stared at Astrid’s chest. “What have you gone and done to yourself?”
Baffled, Astrid looked down to see the baby lizard Slag poke its head sleepily from the makeshift cloth pouch she’d tied around her chest. Slag struggled to free its front legs and let them dangle over the edge of the cloth while he yawned, opening his jaw impossibly wide.
“That’s a dragon.” Lumpy’s voice trembled. He clung to Broken Nose’s arm. “Why there be a dragon poking out of your chest?”
Determined, Astrid addressed the villagers cowering behind the brigands. “Behold my power to transform into a dragon! This is only the beginning. If you refuse to help me, I’ll complete my transformation and breathe fire on you and your harvest!”
One of the villagers dropped to his knees. “Please, no! Tell us what you need and we’ll help you!”
“Monsters need food!” she shouted to the villagers. Quietly, to Broken Nose and Lumpy, she said, “I’m tracking a merchant named Sigurthor.”
“Big man?” Lumpy said. “Red hair? Stinky?”
Astrid nodded. “Yes. That’s him.”
Lumpy climbed back to his feet and shrugged his shoulders. “Haven’t seen him.”
“The idea is to get rid of her so we prove our value as landowners who can protect their workers,” Broken Nose said through his clenched teeth. To Astrid, he said, “He stopped by earlier today. We traded, he left.” Broken Nose looked her up and down slowly. “Shameless woman.”
Astrid ignored him, letting her spirit hand and Falling Star drift down to her side. She tucked the still-sleepy Slag back inside the cloth pouch. “Which way?”
Broken Nose pointed toward the mountains. “We can give you food,” he said loudly, glancing back at the villagers behind him. “If you agree not to devour any of our babies!”
One of the women began to weep.
Astrid didn’t care. She needed to find Sigurthor, reclaim Starlight, and go back home to Guell. If anyone could be stupid enough to see Astrid as a baby-eating monster, then so be it.
“Agreed,” Astrid called out. “Provided you give me a horse.”
“You can have his horse,” Lumpy said.
Broken Nose groaned.
Cheerfully, Lumpy added, “But it could be days before you catch up with Sigurthor, and your horse needs to eat—you should take a cart, too.”
Annoyed, Broken Nose turned to Lumpy and said, “Why don’t we just give her the entire crop we harvested?”
Lumpy looked at him blankly. “I don’t think it can all fit in the cart.”
A short time later, despite an invitation from Lumpy to stay and get a good night’s rest, Astrid left their settlement, driving a cart led by Broken Nose’s small but sturdy horse. Astrid stopped the cart when she heard Lumpy calling her name.
Breathless, he raced to catch up with her, leaving the others behind in the wheat field. He ran down the dirt road. “Wait!” he called, pulling up to stop alongside her cart, resting his hands against its side panel.
Astrid stared at the brigand struggling to catch his breath.
“You ever been outside Scalding territory?” Lumpy’s chest heaved. He placed one hand over his heart, as if that might help slow his labored breath.
Astrid shook her head.
Lumpy’s brow furrowed with worry. “Could be days before you catch up with Sigurthor—maybe weeks. That means you be heading toward danger.” He pointed at her breasts. “It be best to bind up your ladies. You already got your hair chopped short. If people mistake you for a boy, let them. You be safer that way.”
A chill ran down Astrid’s arms, flesh and spirit alike. “Why do you care what happens to me? You and your friend helped destroy my home and my people.”
Lumpy looked at her for a long moment. The moment he spoke, his voice softened. “We killed no one in Guell. We was told to take you and keep you safe. It be no good excuse, but no one told us folks would be murdered.”
“And neither of you has killed before?” Astrid’s voice came out hard and cold. It hadn’t been long since she’d witnessed the destruction of what Guell used to be before the blacksmiths rebuilt it. Most of its original villagers had been killed that day.
Lumpy looked down, studying the side of the cart and ran his fingers alongside it. “This be the first real home I ever had. I got a nice woman and we be having a baby soon. And some nights I can’t sleep for wondering what I’d do if someone took my woman or the baby away and did them harm.” He shook his head slowly, unable to speak.
Astrid sighed. Like dozens of other brigands, Lumpy and Broken Nose had been paid by her brother Drageen to destroy Guell, but she had to admit she hadn’t seen either man kill any of her neighbors. Lumpy had extended a certain degree of kindness to her when they captured her. Despite everything, she had a soft spot
in her heart for him. But that didn’t change the fact he was a brigand and therefore a potential threat. “And you expect me to believe you’ve changed your ways? That you’re just a simple farmer now?”
Lumpy looked up again, wiping his eyes as if the wind had blown dust into them. “Just be careful, is all. The world out there—it ain’t nothing like what you ever known before.”
As he walked back toward the wheat field, Astrid drove forward toward the mountains into which Sigurthor had disappeared.
Somehow, they loomed even larger as the brigand’s warning haunted her.
CHAPTER 14
For the next few days, Astrid drove the horse and cart along a dirt road through mountains that rose sharply on either side. It looked as if a god had dragged a giant plow through the ground, forcing the dirt up into mounds now hardened into rock, towering toward the sky. Gray clouds hung so low that they brushed across mountaintops while they drifted by. White fog and mist clung to the mountains like smoke. Astrid shivered, trying to shrug off the clammy chill that seemed determined to penetrate her bones. Even her teeth ached with the cold.
When the road elevated and dipped, Astrid spotted a thin strip of grassland forming a valley in the distance below. The road wound around an upcoming corner and then descended toward the valley.
The horse hesitated, snorting as if worried about what lay ahead.
In the distance, Astrid noticed something move. Squinting, she tried to get a better look, but the distance proved too great. Something indeed moved, but she could make out nothing more than specks.
Astrid murmured, “DiStephan?” even though she expected no answer. She hadn’t sensed his presence since she’d encountered the brigands harvesting their wheat. She’d heard tales of animals sensing ghosts easier than humans could, and she suspected that DiStephan didn’t want to spook the horse. A frightened horse could overturn a cart and hurt its driver.
She placed a hand on each weapon tucked under her belt, just to make sure they were still in place, before urging the horse to continue their journey toward the valley below.
* * *
Later that day, the horse whinnied in protest while Astrid coaxed it into the narrow valley. She kept a close eye on her surroundings, gazing from the road to the mountains to the grassy valley as the cart bumped along the road. Finally, she noticed a figure lying in the grass up ahead.
The horse stopped suddenly, and no amount of coaxing made a difference. Astrid called out and signaled it with the reins, but the horse ignored her. It edged toward the side of the road and nibbled on grass instead.
Astrid hopped out of the cart, faced the horse with the reins in hand, and tried to reason with it. “I’m right here with you,” she said to the horse. She ran her hand over the coarse mane that draped along one side of the horse’s neck and poked stiffly across its forehead like the haircut of a rakish boy.
She’d forgotten to ask the horse’s name, and the brigands hadn’t told her. She assumed it had a name because she remembered hearing the brigands talk about their horses before. She struggled to remember the name Lumpy had given to his favorite horse.
“We haven’t been properly introduced,” Astrid said, glancing nervously at the motionless figure up ahead before returning her attention to the horse. “My name is Astrid, and I’ll call you Blossom, because that might be your name, even though you belong to Broken Nose. Blossom is Lumpy’s favorite name for horses.”
Blossom paused before yanking a mouthful of grass free from its roots.
“Stay here. I will find out who—or what—that thing is and then we can be on our way. But you must stay here and wait for me.” Astrid patted the horse’s neck.
Blossom shook its head and took a step away from Astrid, continuing to feed on the grass.
Astrid kept a steady but cautious pace down the center of the road, still glancing from side to side while she approached the motionless figure. At the moment she came close enough to recognize him, she ran, forgetting her caution.
“Sigurthor!” she said, kneeling next to the man lying on his back and staring vacantly at the sky above. She touched his face but withdrew her hand quickly. His skin looked as gray as the clouds and felt as chilled as the air. She could do nothing to help him—he’d been dead for hours.
Panic seized Astrid, and she struggled to push him onto his side and then onto his front. She’d assumed his body had been lying on top of it. However, no weapon lay beneath him.
Starlight had been stolen from Sigurthor.
CHAPTER 15
Norah loved being alone.
Until several months ago, she’d spent her entire life inside a cage on top of Tower Island, the stronghold and home of the Scaldings.
Evil people.
Norah snorted and shook her long black hair in disgust at the thought of them. Keeping her locked up, feeding her just enough to keep her alive, and leaving her caged on top of the island’s tower even when the bitter winds of winter ripped through its bars. She shivered at the memory, chest heaving and eyes watering.
Their negligence left her struggling to learn language, even now. “Safe now,” she whispered to herself. “Safe here.”
She curled up on the stone floor of her nook inside the ocean-side cave carved by the clan of dragons to which she belonged. Despite having enough room to stretch out, she rarely did. In varying shades of brown, the stone felt smooth to the touch. She found comfort in the distant lapping of the sea against the shore and the heaviness of the warm salt air.
Dim light danced through the arched entrance to her nook. Twisting passageways filled the rest of the cave and intertwined into a multi-tiered catacomb. Norah listened closely, and she could make out the granular sound of the fall of sand below, thin sheets of sand sliding over a stone wall like a waterfall and slipping into a pool infested with snaking tree trunks. She liked the way the trees rose above and sank beneath the rippling water, even though she rarely ventured down to see it.
Norah preferred to stay alone in her nook. Here, she could count on being warm and dry and well fed by those who brought fish to her. Among her own kind at last, Norah still flinched at the thought of letting any of them near. She understood herself to be a dragon, like them, but she didn’t understand what that meant. If she was a dragon, why did she prefer to look like a woman?
A dark shadow rippled through the light dancing in the archway.
Instinctively, Norah scuttled on all fours across the stone floor, backing into a corner and hissing through bared teeth at the shadow.
“I believe you have healed enough,” the shadow said. Slowly, Taddeo stepped through the archway into her nook.
Heart racing, Norah sank onto her haunches, nestling her back against the safety of the stone wall. Taddeo had freed her from the tyranny of the Scaldings. He’d pried open the bars of her cage, even though the iron burned his hands, which still bore the scars. He’d pulled her from the cage and leapt with her from the tower, plummeting into the ocean below, ultimately bringing her here to their clan’s secret cavern. She trusted Taddeo, even though his presence always startled her.
Taddeo hesitated, seemingly thinking better of taking a step forward. Instead, he sank to his knees, looking straight across the room at Norah instead of down at her. “We are dragons of the water, not of the earth. This is a place of rest and refuge for us, but our true strength lies in the sea and the rivers and the rain. Not here.”
Norah shook her head slightly. “Safe here.”
“Yes,” Taddeo said patiently. “But there is more to life than being safe.”
Norah shook her head again, pushing herself deeper into the corner.
“Do you remember the dragon we freed from Dragon’s Head Point?”
Norah frowned.
“It is the place where the Scalding girl fought her brother. One of our kind was trapped in the rock by a Scalding many years ago…”
“Scalding.” Norah hissed, her eyes narrowed with anger.
“But now
the Scalding brother is trapped in the rock, and the dragon is free of it.” Taddeo gazed at Norah, and his tone softened. “It would be a great service if you were to help this dragon.”
Norah frowned. How could she possibly help anyone?
“He spent many years trapped inside the rock—far, far longer than you were trapped inside the Scaldings’ cage.”
Norah felt something soften inside her. Someone else had been caged, too, inside a rock instead of behind iron bars. Did that mean he couldn’t move within the rock? Had it been impossible for him to eat? For all their wicked ways, the Scaldings had shown some decency and given Norah enough food to keep her alive.
Taddeo sighed heavily. “There is a Dragon’s Well near the Southlands. Any dragon that drinks from it will be healed in whatever way is most needed. It would be of the greatest help if you could travel with him and make sure he drinks from it.”
Norah didn’t understand where the Southlands were and was too embarrassed to show her ignorance. Could the Southlands be the place at the bottom of the cave where the sand fell into the pool of snaking tree trunks? Norah liked it there. “Here?” she said hopefully. “Below?”
Taddeo pondered her question for a moment. “No,” he said quietly. “I have sent Astrid to find it, as well. The ghost of the last dragonslayer drank from the well and can show her the way.”
Horrified, Norah wrapped her arms around herself. “No.”
“You know Astrid’s scent as well as you know your own. Simply follow her trail. There is no need for her to see you or be aware of your presence.”
Norah shook her head in refusal, glaring at Taddeo. She pointed at the entrance to her nook, gesturing toward the depths of the cave. “Others!”
“No one else can succeed in performing this task. No one knows the girl’s scent better than you. Anyone else—including myself—would lose her scent too easily.”
Norah wasn’t convinced that Taddeo told the truth. She shook her head again.
“The fate of all dragons depends on you. I promise the dragon you help will keep you safe. Now that you’re free of the Scaldings, we will make sure no one lays an unwelcome hand on you again.”
