“Right away,” Henrietta said, hurrying away.
“Who’s Nerik?” Lynette asked, as Samuel gathered his things and led them down the hall to the supply room.
“A messenger boy. Well, I say boy, but he’s in his twenties now. Showed up here about… three or four years ago? Said he was from some village up in the mountains. Most days he’s busy delivering parcels all over Minia, which means he knows half the city by name, and if anyone would have an idea of where to find a horse and cart at this hour of the morning – and one that would be willing to go and visit a dragon – it would be Nerik.”
“You’re okay with this, then?” Lynette asked. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”
Samuel was piling supplies into a large bag, and he paused at her question and gave her a stern look. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to think. And if it was anyone else asking, I’d likely tell them they were out of their mind and send them on their way. But you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and living as close to the gate as we do, I’ve seen enough oddness in my life to know that things aren’t always what they appear to be. So like I said, I’ll give this a chance, but I haven’t quite made up my mind about it all just yet.”
“Well, I appreciate you keeping an open mind. Believe me, it took me a while to get my head around it all.”
They worked in silence for a few minutes, Lynette helping Samuel pack whatever herbs and tonics she thought would be helpful to ease Markon’s pain for the journey, and then the door opened, Gosta bursting into the room, with Henrietta and a young man whom Lynette assumed was Nerik at her heels. Gosta looked Lynette up and down like she’d never seen her before in her life, despite the fact that they’d worked together for years.
“You rode here on adragon?” Gosta asked without preamble, her forehead furrowing deeply. So clearly, Henrietta had already filled them in on the situation.
“Yes. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. But I promise you, they’re not dangerous. They’re perfectly tame.”
Gosta’s eyes narrowed even further. “You rode here on aperfectly tamedragon.” It was clear she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Yes,” Lynette replied, not knowing what else to say. Gosta had always intimidated her, her harsh demeanour implying that anything Lynette did was never quite good enough. And even though Lynette had grown a lot in the intervening years – and though she was absolutely certain of her own assertions regarding Ashd and Bel – it was still difficult to stand up to Gosta’s intense scrutiny.
The older woman huffed a little and stepped back. “Well. I suppose that’ll be a sight to see. And this patient of yours has a broken leg? What have you been using to treat him?”
“Pain relief herbs. That’s about it. He was trapped in a collapsed mine for a few days before we could get him out, so there’s been very little I could do.”
Gosta brushed past her to collect another three or four vials from the cabinet, adding them to the collection already in the bag.
Meanwhile, Samuel turned to Nerik. “Sorry to drag you out of bed so early, given the chaos last night. But I was hoping you might know someone who’d lend us a horse and cart to bring this patient back. A very placid horse.” He glanced at Lynette. “The gods only know what’s going to happen when we get out there.”
Nerik stood there for a moment, his arms folded, his lips pursed. He was taking the news awfully calmly. But then again, a youth of his age would probably think the whole thing was a grand adventure, rather than a dire quest that could end in bloodshed and death. Paul had been much the same, jumping at the chance to meet a dragon, rather than scared of the consequences.
“Just out of curiosity, what does this dragon look like?” Nerik asked Lynette. It seemed an odd question. Were there different types of dragons? Lynette had never really thought about it, never having seen one in person until she’d met Ashd and his companions, though she’d heard plenty of stories from Kai. But… were there other species? Or were there different kinds of vreki, in different colours, maybe? Koradan had never mentioned anything like it. But on the other hand, she’d never asked.
“Black,” Lynette told Nerik. “Like a really large lizard. Maybe three times the size of a horse? And they’ve got great big wings, like a bat.”
Nerik nodded, his eyes going unfocused as his thoughts wandered off. “I reckon old Stanley would be up for that,” he said, after a few moments. “His horses are some of the best trained I’ve ever seen. And he never complains about keeping odd hours. Want me to go ask him? He’s out in the sticks a bit, but I could have him back here within the hour if I run.”
“Please do,” Samuel said. “I know it’s a bit of a delay,” he added, addressing Lynette, “but the average horse would just bolt if they got within a hundred metres of a dragon. Stanley knows his stuff, for all that he can be a little cantankerous at times.”
“He’s perfectly polite,” Gosta said, her tone sharp and her face dour. “He just doesn’t put up with any nonsense.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” Samuel said, his tone gentle. “I’m just making the point that he does things very much his own way. Now, we’ve got a little time to kill, so Lynette, how about you come over to the kitchen and have some breakfast – I’m assuming you haven’t eaten yet – and you can tell us more about this fractured leg.”
“And about Paul,” Henrietta said eagerly. “And Varismont. And Koradan. Who’s this mysterious man who’s training dragons? Just a friend? Or something more?” She waggled her eyebrows at Lynette, who just about managed a smile. She was fairly sure she’d rather be grilled about how they’d captured a dragon than on her confusing and convoluted relationship with Koradan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Nearly three hours had passed since Lynette had left, and Koradan’s patient wait had slowly turned into a mildly anxious wait, and then into a tense session of pacing up and down the clearing, and finally to tossing around contingency plans for if something had gone terribly wrong. By his own rough estimate, it should have taken her half an hour to walk into town, plus maybe another half an hour to round up some help, and another half an hour to walk back again. Maybe add another half an hour to that, if things went slowly in town, but that still meant she should have been back nearly an hour ago.
Koradan had done his best to keep Markon comfortable, feeding him sips of water and a cup of cold herbal tea that Lynette had prepared before they’d left Varismont, but aside from that, he’d felt fairly useless.
The road to the east had been deserted so far, which was a great relief. Though they were safely hidden in the scrub, completely invisible from the road, it was still a stressful thought that someone could wander from the road and stumble across them, and that would lead to an almighty panic that Koradan would have no idea how to deal with. Despite the welcome magic of the gem around his neck, he didn’t really know how to relate to humans, didn’t have a clue how to calm one down if they happened across a dragon in the middle of a forest.
Lynette coming, Ashd suddenly informed him, and Koradan instantly tuned into Ashd’s mind to ‘listen’ to what he could hear. Sure enough, there were footsteps coming down the road, a group of five or six people and the steady clop of hooves against impacted dirt. But Ashd could not only hear Lynette’s voice among them, but he could feel her presence through their newly-forged mental link. And she felt cautious but optimistic. The rescue mission was going well, then?
“Koradan?” Lynette called loudly, a few minutes later, and Koradan assumed it was not because she needed help finding them – she would have taken careful note of landmarks on her way out to know exactly where they were – but rather to warn them of the group’s impending arrival.
“Over here,” Koradan called back.Tame dragons, he reminded the two vreki. They were both sitting down and doing their best to look placid, but at the same time, they’d positioned themselves at one end of the small clearing, facing the open ground. It gave them the best possible chance to escape if it was needed, allowing for an immediate sprint and leap into the air without having to worry about running into any trees.
