Koradan looked from one woman to the other. “You don’t have a man of your own trapped in the mine, do you?” he asked Lynette, as the sudden insight hit him.
“What makes you say that?”
“If you did, I think you’d be more willing to put yourself on the line in order to get him back. Your friend’s husband is trapped there,” he said, nodding towards Morgan. “But not yours.”
“My husband died ten years ago,” Lynette told him. “And if you want me to look at your dragon before we all die of old age, I suggest we do it now.”
Her husband’s death was still a sore spot, then. Koradan made a mental note of that, but said nothing more on the topic.
“Come over this way,” he said, leading the two women down the road a short way. Bnaa came lumbering over, Melowin at his side. “This is Melowin,” Koradan introduced him. “He’s Bnaa’s rider. He’s just going to keep Bnaa calm and still while we treat him.”
Lynette looked up at Melowin, who stood nearly a foot taller than Koradan, and winced, taking a small step backwards. Melowin, to his credit, seemed to take no offence to her reaction, but Koradan could understand her apprehension. And for perhaps the first time in his life, he was grateful that he lacked the large tusks that most of his species bore. For humans, with their small teeth and soft mouths, the tusks must look monstrous.
Lynette cleared her throat. “Um… Melowin, was it? Nice to meet you.” She was doing as good a job as she possibly could of appearing polite and amiable, and Koradan had to admire her courage.
“I’ll stand by Bnaa’s head,” Melowin said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“It’s his left wing that’s damaged,” Koradan said, gently lifting Bnaa’s wing. He stretched it out a little, revealing the gaping hole the spear had left.
Despite her declaration that she wouldn’t be going near the vreki, Morgan was lingering nearby, helpfully holding the lantern aloft, while Lynette stood back, staring at the vreki with undisguised fear. “Um… You realise this is going to hurt him,” she said, grimacing as she caught sight of the tear in his muscle.
“I know. And Bnaa knows. But he’s a battle steed. He’s tough. He can deal with it.”
Koradan realised he’d made a strategic error with that statement as Lynette’s eyes opened wider. “Abattle steed? A totally tame, utterly non-dangerousbattle steed.” She dumped the leather pouches on the ground. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I’m not going one step closer to your fucking beast.” Leaving the herbs lying on the ground, she turned and marched away, Morgan quickly falling in behind her. But as Koradan’s heart sank at his own screw-up, it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t the only one with a vested interest in getting Lynette to cooperate.
“Lynette, no, please, wait,” Morgan called after her, dashing around to stand in her path. “Don’t give up yet. We need them. We can’t get the road clear without them. Or we’d have to send for horses from the next town, and they’d take another day to get here, and even then, they probably couldn’t move the boulders, and our husbands and our sons and our fathers are going to die trapped down that mine. Imagine if it was Paul down there. Another couple of years and he’ll be old enough to start working the mines. What would you do if it was his life on the line?”
Lynette stopped, not agreeing to come back and treat Bnaa, but also not moving any further away. “You’re talking about treating a fucking dragon,” she muttered to Morgan. “Did you see the size of the claws on that thing? We’re making deals withdemonsand now you want me to basically stick my head in a dragon’s mouth? This is insane!”
“You actually could stick your head in his mouth,” Koradan said. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Prove it,” Lynette snapped, turning to glare at him. “How aboutyougo stick your head in his mouth?”
Koradan shrugged. “Okay,” he said. He moved up towards Bnaa’s head, raising an eyebrow at Melowin to ask permission. Melowin nodded, not looking the slightest bit concerned about it.
“Open up,” he said to Bnaa.
Bnaa obligingly opened his mouth, rows of razor sharp teeth on display.
“They’re actually mostly herbivores,” Koradan said, carefully inserting his head between Bnaa’s jaws. He turned his head to look at Lynette as he spoke, feeling slightly amused at how ridiculous he must look, hunched over sideways with Bnaa’s drool sliding down his neck. “They eat leafy vegetation, plus fish, when they can get them. And they eat sea grasses as well. Or at least, they did in Chalandros, before the oceans started drying up.” He removed his head from Bnaa’s mouth, having made his point. “If you’ve got any leafy vegetables, that would go a long way towards making friends with him.”
“Vegetables,” Lynette repeated, looking decidedly dubious about the idea.
“Exactly.”
She looked around. There was an abundance of plants growing nearby, but Koradan had no idea what most of them were, or which ones might be suitable for a vreki to eat. Or for a human to eat, for that matter. Lynette marched over to a low fence and grabbed a ball-shaped growth off the ground, twisting it to detach it from its stem. “Hey, Bnaa. You like cabbage?” she asked, stepping over to Bnaa’s head with surprisingly little hesitation. She held the ball of leaves out.
Bnaa leaned forward and sniffed the offering. His tongue was wide and flat with a pointed tip, and he stuck it out to flick the end over the leaves, testing the flavour. Then, in a slow and gentle movement, he tilted his head and gripped the entire ball with his teeth, tossing it back into his mouth to crunch on it noisily.
“I think he likes it,” Koradan said. Amazingly, he saw a faint smile cross Lynette’s face.
“It seems he does,” Lynette agreed. She glanced at his claws again, then at the curved hooks on the tips of his wings, then back to the wound where his wing was sagging a little. “Okay, let’s take another look at this. But if he so much as snarls at me, I’m out of here.”
“Understood,” Koradan agreed, knowing that Melowin would have already relayed the absolute necessity for good behaviour to Bnaa.
Lynette eased around behind Bnaa’s wing, lifting the webbing to get a better look at the wound. She grimaced as her hands found the slick trail of his blood, but then she pulled her hand away in alarm. “Great gods, his blood is blue!”
“Uh… yes,” Koradan agreed, not quite understanding the significance of the statement. “What colour is human blood?”
