The Dragon Mistress: Book 1 (The Eburosi Chronicles 8)

by R. A. Steffan

  When I was situated, I wrapped my arms around his torso. “Sure you want to keep trouble this close?” I teased.

  I couldn’t see it, but I could hear the grin in his voice as he replied, “Oh, trust me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  We headed out, a silent caravan of two, keeping to backstreets and alleys. The city was such a maze, it was amazing to me that anyone could find their way around in daylight, much less at night. The roads we were following weren’t lit with the street lamps that seemed ubiquitous in the more traveled areas. No doubt that was part of the reason Aristede and Eldris were using them.

  The horses’ hooves sounded loud on the cobbles, but aside from a couple of instances when our two guides rode into the deeper shadows and halted the animals while the glow of a lantern—presumably carried by guards—moved past, we didn’t see anyone. Whatever else could be said about it, Safaad didn’t seem to be a city with much in the way of nightlife. This was in stark contrast to Rhyth, where my brother lived. There, it seemed like the city woke up when the sun went down. Here, the atmosphere of sleepy indifference was almost palpable as we made our way to the outskirts.

  As with every city of a certain size that I’d ever come across, Safaad had a river. When we came to it, we left the roadways completely in favor of scooting down the steep bank. I gathered that it flowed down directly from the mountains, so even in summer it was still running strong. We splashed through the shallows, following it upstream.

  Safaad fell away behind us, and the banks turned rocky and sheer. The moon illuminated a bend in the watercourse. We had been largely silent, even though there was no particular reason to remain that way now that we were out of the city. I felt Eldris draw in a deep breath and let it out as he reined his horse to a halt on a small, sandy jut of land at the base of the rock walls.

  “I hate this part,” he said conversationally as Aristede and Nyx arrived next to us.

  “We all hate this part,” Aristede agreed, and nudged Nyx. “Down you get. You, too, Frella.”

  Chapter 12: Reunion

  ALL FOUR OF US dismounted, crowded together on the cramped sandbar. I eyed the river course ahead of us, with its steep, unscalable walls. “Does that mean what I think it means?” I asked.

  “We’ll have to swim it,” Eldris confirmed. “It’s not as bad in summer as it would be in the springtime. That’s just fucking dangerous. Let’s get everything that won’t stand getting wet off the horses, and get this over with.”

  “You don’t want to wait until morning?” Nyx asked uncertainly.

  “Not so you’d notice,” Aristede replied. “We’re not that far from the city yet.”

  I sighed, leaning down to pull off my boots and stockings. I’d done this sort of thing on a handful of occasions over the course of my life. At least it wasn’t cold tonight.

  “Hand me a pair of saddlebags,” I said, figuring I could stick my boots inside and balance them on my head to keep the contents dry.

  Eldris balked. “You don’t need to do that, sweet thing. The three of us can carry our stuff.”

  I turned to him and gripped my breasts, lifting them until they pointed in the general direction of his face. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve seen these already, right? Well, guess what? They float.”

  A choked laugh came from behind me—Aristede, at a guess. Eldris shook his head at me, but a smile twitched his lips.

  “Seriously,” I went on, “I’m a good swimmer. We can each hold onto one side of a horse. It’ll be fine. You just have to keep your legs out of the way of their legs.”

  Aristede handed me his saddlebags, and I jammed my boots and stockings in the already tightly packed space. The others grabbed the remaining pair of saddlebags and the two bedrolls, readying themselves. Not surprisingly, the horses weren’t too keen on the plan. Eldris gave Aristede’s mare a smart slap on the rump with the end of his reins when she balked, and the startled animal plunged forward into the water.

  His gelding followed more readily, and I stayed even with the horse’s left shoulder, while Eldris stayed on the right. The bottom dropped away quickly, and soon we were swimming. Not surprisingly, the horses wanted to turn around and head back downstream, and we had to keep shooing them in the direction we wanted to go.

  Also, while the current wasn’t dangerously fast, making headway against it was a challenge. It was clear that Aristede and Eldris were angling across the waterway toward the far bank to try and minimize this, but the far bank felt like it kept getting farther away, since we were negotiating a bend in the river at the same time. We couldn’t rely on the horses to tow us along, or they wouldn’t have been able to make progress at all against the flow. So we kicked and paddled, while also trying to keep the burdens balanced on our heads dry.

  All in all, it wasn’t the most fun I’d ever had.

  By the time our feet touched the steep bank on the far side, I was shaky enough from the exertion that I came perilously close to getting tangled up with Eldris’ plunging horse—and we still couldn’t get out of the water completely. Even here on the far side, the rock wall came right down to the river’s edge.

  Eldris and Aristede got the animals stopped, standing stiff-legged but calm on the sloping bottom. I was on the lower side of the slope, trying to keep my balance on the shifting gravel with the river lapping at my chin.

  “Let the horses blow for a few minutes and we’ll make the final push for the trail leading out of the canyon,” Aristede said, coughing a bit. From the sound of his voice, he’d taken on a bit of water at some point.

  Eldris snaked an arm under his horse’s neck and snagged me. “Get on the high side, short stuff. You’re making me nervous down there.”

  I scrambled toward him, trying not to smack the poor gelding in the face with the saddlebags as I switched sides. The horse shook its head in agitation and sneezed, blowing snot all over me.

  “How much further?” I asked through gritted teeth, after I’d found a relatively stable spot to stand on that put the waterline a few inches above my waist.

  “About a quarter league’s travel until we can get away from the river,” Eldris said. “Last time we came through here, there were a couple of spots where we had to swim again and a few where there’s enough of a bank to get out of the water completely. It changes all the time, though.”

  “It’s a tricky area to negotiate,” Aristede said, sounding more himself now. “But, that means most people don’t try, which is to our advantage. The terrain at the top of the cliffs is all bare rock and boulders, crisscrossed with gullies and crevasses that a horse could easily fall into—especially at night.”

  I shuddered, unexpectedly blindsided by early childhood memories of my father’s death in just such a crevasse. He’d been traveling in winter during a snowstorm, and had blindly fallen into a deep ravine in the rocks. He’d died instantly, and his companions hadn’t been able to retrieve his body until the following spring.

  By that time, all they’d been able to bring back to my brother and me was a bundle of gnawed bones. That had been my second lesson in the inevitability of loved ones leaving me. I’d been four years old at the time.

  I took an unsteady breath. First, a reminder of how much I hated heights. Now, a reminder of how much I hated travel over dangerous, rocky terrain. This was shaping up to be a lovely night so far.

  “Are you all right, Frella?” Nyx asked in his barely-there voice. “You’re shaking.”

  I dragged myself back to the here and now. “Yeah, no. I’m fine,” I lied. “Just a bit chilly. Are we ready to press on yet?”

  Eldris’ eyes wandered down from my face to a place not too far above the water line. Where, I realized, certain parts of me were, in fact, proclaiming that they were a bit chilly. Proclaiming it rather clearly through my soaking wet, white linen tunic.

  “At least they float, okay?” I snapped.

  Dark eyes jerked back to my face, a bit sheepishly if I was any judge. But, on the positive side,
the flush climbing up my chest and neck warmed me up.

  “Perhaps we should get moving,” Aristede suggested.

  “Perhaps we should,” I muttered, and started slogging upstream.

  Eldris’ earlier assessment was fairly accurate. There were stretches where the sand and rocks had accumulated and we could walk rather than wade. There were stretches where we had to feel our way along the river bottom and try not to slip on the steep drop-away. And there was the big, invisible hole where I, with my stubborn insistence in stalking off to take the lead, promptly disappeared underwater, barely managing to keep the saddlebags from taking a dunking with me as I held them outstretched with one arm over my head.

  “Thought those tits were supposed to float,” Eldris called from behind me, once I’d surfaced, sputtering and coughing up a good lungful of river water. If I hadn’t needed my free arm to keep from going under again and drowning, I’d have tested whether rude hand gestures were ubiquitous across cultural lines.

  Eventually, we made it to a place where the canyon opened out, a steep trail leading up to the higher elevations. We stopped long enough to rest for a few minutes and put our boots back on. Despite my years of going barefoot around the village half the time, I suspected that the soles of my feet would be planning their revenge on me for the next week, at least.

  “What about all the ravines and crevasses up there?” I asked warily, eyeing the uplands at the top of the trail.

  “Mostly behind us now,” Aristede said.

  Mostly. Oh, good.

  I wrung out my tunic as best I could, only to have Aristede’s mare soak me again with a violent, full body shake. Eldris snorted, but was smart enough not to laugh outright.

  “Hop up in the saddle,” he said. “You take the mare, and Nyx, you can have my gelding. Ari and I’ll hang on behind for the climb.”

  It made sense—Nyx and I were the lightest, and it was easier for a horse to pull a heavy load up an incline than carry it. As long as they were trained to accept it without getting pissy and kicking at you, holding onto a horse’s tail was a good way to get up a steep hill.

  We stowed the supplies and headed up, reaching the top a few minutes later. From there, our travel did become considerably less fraught, despite my paranoid scanning of the footing ahead of us in the uncertain light of the moon. To spare the horses as much as possible, we switched off riding and walking instead of trying to ride double again.

  For the most part, the climb was steady but not as ridiculously steep as the trail up from the river had been. It was still wearing, though, to someone more used to riding than walking. Now that we were beyond the reach of all but the most stubborn and prescient pursuers, we did stop every few hours to eat and grab a bit of restless sleep.

  Still, it was a grueling journey, made more so as the air grew thinner in the higher elevation. I’d experienced that effect before when crossing the Southern Mountains on Eburos to travel between Draebard and my brother’s home in Rhyth, so I wasn’t surprised when my head began to ache and my breathing labored, even with steady walking.

  The landscape changed, growing greener, with trees and shrubs burgeoning amongst the plentiful springs and mountain streams. It was beautiful, even if I was too tired to appreciate it to the fullest extent.

  We walked and rode through the day and into the next night, taking a final rest for a couple of hours beneath a stone overhang. We’d chanced a fire, the others being confident now that we were well beyond the threat of Prince Oblisii and his guards. I awoke abruptly, certain that I’d heard the rustle of large wings overhead.

  “What was that?” I slurred.

  I was exhausted and still half asleep, but I could have sworn I saw Eldris exchange a look with Aristede before the latter shrugged and said, “Who knows? There are all manner of things up here. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

  It might have been gone, but the horses pawed restlessly and were skittish for the next stretch of travel. The landscape changed again, forest interspersed with grassy valleys where our mounts stretched their heads down and ripped at any tufts they could reach as they walked along.

  I judged it was getting close to dawn when we crossed one such valley with a still, spring-fed lake mirroring the stars above. A rocky cliff bounded the far side of the grassy expanse, and I could see a strange orange glow emanating from it. I blinked, trying to force the view to make sense in my sleepy mind. It took an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was firelight coming from inside the mouth of a cave.

  “There he is,” Eldris said. “Told you we could make it here in a bit more than a day.”

  “So you did,” Aristede agreed easily. “Now, do we think he’s awake in there?”

  “No telling.” Eldris whistled, a louder version of the call Aristede had used at the window of the room in the Purple Cloak. A horse nickered from somewhere out of sight in the dark—presumably Rayth’s stallion hobbled nearby to graze at night.

  We continued to approach, Eldris and Aristede whistling the same complicated, birdlike warble at intervals. Eventually, a similar whistle sounded from the cave. Nyx and I had been riding, and we dismounted as a figure appeared at the entrance to the cave. He was silhouetted by firelight, his shirt half-untucked and a crossbow held casually in one hand, hanging at his side.

  “What the bloody blazes are you two doing up here?” Rayth asked, sounding either sleep-befuddled or hung-over. Or both, I thought uncharitably. His posture tensed as he noticed that there were four people at his doorstep, not two.

  “We found a bit of trouble in Safaad,” Eldris said. “Decided to bring it along with us. More fun that way.”

  Rayth stood unmoving for another beat before he turned and retreated into the cave, which appeared to be massive. “Get inside,” he threw over his shoulder. “And then you can explain this properly.”

  “I believe that was to be your job,” Aristede murmured to Eldris as he brushed past. “As we agreed at the inn.”

  I followed the two of them, aware that Nyx was hanging back nervously. The inside of the cave had obviously been in use for some time. There was nothing fancy—no surprise since anything brought here would presumably have to be lugged along the same tortuous route the four of us had just ascended. Still, there were supplies and basic furnishings made from local materials.

  There was also a rather startling amount of game hanging against the back wall—fowl, rabbits, what looked like beavers or muskrats, and even a decently sized stag. Apparently, we would at least be eating well while we were here.

  Rayth’s eyes landed on me as I entered the cave. “Oh,” he said flatly. “So it’s that kind of trouble.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” I replied, my mood not terribly buoyant after the last few days.

  Rayth grunted and scrubbed his free hand through his tousled black hair. I heard footsteps behind me as Nyx finally decided to brave the circle of firelight and join us. What happened next registered more as a confused jumble of movement and sound, rather than a sequence of discrete events.

  Both Nyx and Rayth froze as though turned to stone, staring at each other as if they’d each seen a ghost. The blood drained from Nyx’s face, even as Rayth’s grew ruddy, rage twisting his handsome features.

  “You—” Nyx gasped, as though the word had been punched from him.

  Rayth said nothing, but murder flashed behind his eyes. The crossbow that had been hanging casually by his right thigh swung up to point at Nyx’s heart, and my mind registered the bolt nocked in place and ready to fly.

  Without even thinking, I stepped into the path of the arrow and glared into that coldly murderous gaze. A throwing knife was already in my hand. Quick as a flash, my wrist snapped and the point of the small dagger was embedded in the meat of Rayth’s left bicep.

  He yelped in surprise, his other hand jerking uncontrollably as I had known it would. With a twang, the crossbow bolt shot harmlessly over my head, the metal point clattering against the rock wall above the cave
entrance. Behind me, I heard Nyx hare away into the gray pre-dawn, boots pounding against the hard-packed earth.

  “Don’t point weapons at people who saved my life,” I growled at Rayth. He was gaping at me, open-mouthed, his right hand clamped to his injured arm and the crossbow lying at his feet where it had fallen. I pinned first Eldris, and then Aristede with my angry gaze. “Keep him from following us, or I’ll aim someplace more vital next time.”

  They, too, had apparently been rendered speechless. I pivoted on my heel before they could recover, and stormed off after Nyx.

  Chapter 13: Revelation

  NYX WAS A DARKER smudge against the gray of early morning as he ran through the valley. In his panic, he was retracing the same path we’d followed to the cave, the grass bent and broken from our horses’ recent passage.

  I jogged after him, cursing my exhaustion and sore feet; hoping that he would be similarly unable to keep up such a pace for long. Indeed, as he reached the wooded area opposite the cliff wall and cave, his gait slowed to an agitated walk and I began to catch up to him.

  The light was growing brighter as I followed him into the trees. I’d been trusting our route to Eldris and Aristede in the dark as we ascended, but now I could see that our path had followed an animal trail. Nyx’s overwrought state apparently precluded his being quiet, and I could easily hear him crashing through the branches and underbrush ahead.

  I chewed on my lower lip, briefly debating the merits of marking our trail versus the merits of making it more difficult for Rayth to follow us. Of course, Rayth had other things to worry about right now, and while this was a path, of sorts, it was intersected by numerous other animal trails. The very last thing we needed was to get lost out here.

  I still had four blades left. Pulling one of them from my belt, I used the edge to gouge an arrow into the bark of a twisted tree trunk, pointing back the way I’d come. I picked out a tree further along the trail but within my line of sight and did the same thing, repeating the action over and over while trying not to let it slow me down too much.