“Easy, lass. I just want totalk.”
Malcolm didn’t talk. He bullied, fished, and intimidated. If that didn’t work, he used his fists. Elsbeth didn’t think him foolish or bold enough to physically harm her in the public square, but she never underestimated his brutality. Like Donal, she suspected Malcolm’s wife had met a premature and bad end at her husband’shands.
She crossed her arms and waited for the first opportunity to escape. “Then talk and be done withit.”
He smirked and ran a paw-like hand over his beard. “You say it ain’t a dragon but something close.” His small eyes gleamed. “Did you see its treasure? Were there jewels? Gold?” He leaned closer and closer with every question, almost knocking her senseless with breath that smelled of rottenmutton.
Elsbeth gagged but saw her chance to flee. She whipped around him while he was off balance and sprinted across the courtyard, putting enough distance between them that he wouldn’t catch up before she reached the safety of her house. “Nothing,” she called over her shoulder as she raced through the middle of the center green. “No gold, no jewels. Just a wyvern waiting to slaughter you if you’ve a mind to pay him a visit,” shetaunted.
She slammed her door behind her before turning to peer out the small window adjacent to the door. Malcolm still stood in the square, staring at her house with an expression so malevolent that she wouldn’t have been surprised if the roof suddenly caught fire. She leaned against the wall and blew out a long breath. Too bad the wyvern eschewed humans as food, otherwise Elsbeth would find a way to replace a hapless ewe with one Malcolm Miller as part of thetribute.
Less frightened andhesitant about her second trip to Maldoza, Elsbeth made quick time to Donal Grayson’s land. She’d left Byderside at dawn the following day with good wishes this time instead of derisive laughter. Somehow, it didn’t make her feel better. The villagers were placing their faith in her now, faith that the wyvern would uphold its part of the bargain, and faith that she would uphold hers well enough to pleaseit.
She found Donal on his roof, rethatching a section blackened with scorch marks. Her stomach dropped. Had the wyvern abandoned its unspoken accord with the farmer and given his house a warning taste offire?
Donal saw her and waved, disappearing over the side of the roof and re-emerging around the corner. “Welcome back, lass,” he said with a smile. “How’sAngus?”
“Well enough to annoy Irena.” She eyed the roof. “What happened to yourthatch?”
He shrugged. “Bit of a mishap with me hearth. Nothing a little more long straw can’t fix.” He laughed at her relieved sigh. “Worried about the lizard, eh? You needn’t. He’s been behavinghimself.”
As before, they stabled Tater and stored the cart. Donal pointed to her clothing, an ensemble of long tunic and trousers in homespun brown. “You’ll have a hard time getting up the cliffs by way of the shortcut. That scrub vine will tear you to ribbons without yourarmor.”
Elsbeth adjusted the pack on her shoulders. The dragon armor had been useful, but it was hot, and she didn’t miss wearing it. “I’ll take the long way this time. The climb is steeper but clear, and the wyvern gave no set time for myarrival.”
She promised Donal she’d be careful and set out for the cliffs well before noon. A light breeze, smelling of hay and wildflowers, blew off the stretch of fields before her, swirling dust devils on the road in its wake. In the distance, the low chorus of cattle lowing accompanied the buzz ofinsects.
Maldoza, sparkling in the sun, cast its shadow over pastureland, a reminder of things darker and more mysterious than Byder County’s peaceful countryside. Elsbeth wondered if the wyvern watched her from the sanctuary of one of the caves. She hoped so. It would know she honored her part of thebargain.
While it might take her longer to reach her destination, the path winding up the cliffs was clear of the vicious scrub vine. Elsbeth had only taken a few steps before a rush of air buffeted her back, and the sun cooled. She turned and nearly jumped out of her skin at finding the wyvern looming over her, folding giant wings against itsback.
In full sun, the beast was even more imposing. Scales that had shown black beneath the moon’s luminescence glistened crimson in daylight. They flexed over massive, rippling muscle like a tapestry of rubies. Its underbelly and neck were armored in mottled gray scales streaked with blues, pale yellows and pinks. The colors deepened or faded with the changinglight.
Elsbeth’s curiosity overrode her surprise. Camouflage. Like a lizard, the wyvern’s skin changed, adjusting with the play of light so that it blended with sky and clouds as it flew. Anyone looking up might see it only as a fast-moving drift of clouds or a teasing ripple of sunlight to fool theeye.
“Mistress Weaver,” it said, and a murder of crows burst from a nearby withered tree, startled to flight by the resounding voice. “You’ve kept your end of the bargain. Does this mean you trust me not to devouryou?”
Prior to her first meeting with the wyvern, Elsbeth didn’t think such a creature capable of amusement, but humor laced its question, and she responded inkind.
“I trust that you want a fiddler to play for you more than a meal to eat. I can’t play if you’re chewing onme.”
The armored skin around the wyvern’s muzzled tightened, stretched back. Silver eyes, rimmed in black, grew darker, and streams of smoke swirled out its nostrils on a deep huff of what sounded likelaughter.
“Well said. I shall enjoy your company, mistress, and your conversation.” It lowered its head, drawing close enough so that Elsbeth could see her reflection in the elliptical pupils. “If you could touch the sun, wouldyou?”
She stared at the wyvern, baffled by the question. “Forgive me. I don’t understandyou.”
“You can walk up the cliff paths. By the time you reach our meeting place, the sun will have set, and you’ll be thirsty and tired. I can fly you there in a matter ofmoments.”
Elsbeth’s eyes widened. Fly? On the back of awyvern?
“It would be a very short trip, and I’ll fly slowly. You can use the down scales on my neck to hold on.” The wyvern blinked once, twice, pinning her in place with a silver-coin stare. “Or, if you’re afraid, you can go the hard way.” She stiffened at the faint challenge in his words. “Yourchoice.”
What a tale fantastic to tell—one among many she was quickly collecting. Elsbeth, the rug weaver who flew with a wyvern and played it a tune or two on her father’s fiddle. She might plunge to her death on the way to the cliffs, but oh what a way to die. To do something no living man or woman of her acquaintance had ever done—fly like a bird. It was too amazing to refuse. Exhilaration and no little fear surged through her veins in a headymix.
“You won’t dropme?”
The wyvern’s stance changed, back legs straightening so that it towered even higher above her. It looked down upon her from its impressive height with an equal measure of affront and approval. “No, I won’t dropyou.”
