“Dragon,” shewhimpered.
The great head swung to and fro in the smoky murk, its elliptical pupils dilated, reflecting back the pale moon. Elsbeth was certain she careened toward fear-induced madness when a bony ridge of metallic scales running the length of its snout wrinkled in what she thought looked absurdly like a humanfrown.
“Hardly,” it said in that sonorous voice and snorted its disdain of the term in a puff of blue smoke belched from its nostrils. “I am awyvern.”
“What’s the difference?” She clapped a hand over her mouth, mortified. Aye, she’d gone completelydaft.
The smoke cleared and the bonfire blazed, light catching on black scales. The parts of the creature’s body revealed suddenly coiled upward into a towering spiral. Once more the air around her blew in gusts, bending the flames until they sheared across the rock she cowered behind for safety. The coil loosened, collapsing toward earth, and Elsbeth’s shrill scream bounced off the cliff walls as a visage from a demon’s nightmares hurtled towardher.
The colossal head with a feathered cockscomb of elongated scales loomed above, blotting out the stars. The wyvern, in all its majesty—or all its horror—watched her with a reptilian gaze behind a haze of smoke curling from its wide, armor-platednostrils.
Like her grandfather’s description of the dragon he’d slain, it sported a pair of enormous bat-like wings tucked tight against its body. Teeth longer than her arm and sharper than sabers gleamed ivory, caging a tongue that flickered out as if to taste the air. Scales rippled as clawed feet gouged furrows into the hard ground, sending bits and pieces of rock shrapnel flying into the air. Whatever her visitor wanted to call itself, it certainly looked like a dragon toher.
Unlike Angus’s description of his trophy kill, this beast possessed only two legs—powerful back shanks she had no doubt would lever it into the air with one spring or shred a horse into bloody hair ribbons with a single swipe of a clawed foot. The legs in the front had merged with the wings, just like a bat’s, and its body was that of a viper, sinuous andserpentine.
The wyvern coiled itself around the entire campsite with Elsbeth and her fire in its center. The great head still hung above her, nostrils flaring and contracting as it breathed. Those silver eyes scrutinized her andnarrowed.
Elsbeth cringed behind her puny shield as the wyvern’s head swung closer. Its breath, smelling of peat fires and burnt wood, heated a path down one side of her body. Had she not been wearing the armor, it might have blistered her skin. A high-pitched ringing in her ears warned she was on the verge offainting.
A long sniff, and the wyvern reared back as if surprised. “It cannot be,” it declared, and lunged forward to catch her scent oncemore.
Behind the shield, Elsbeth sobbed. “Please don’t eatme.”
Some small part of her still able to think coherently raged at her situation. Irena and her I-know-a-little-about-dragons nonsense! What was she thinking to even consider this outrageous idea! Now instead of facing off with Malcolm Miller and his pack of toadies, she had a dragon—wyvern—sniffing at her like she’d make a nice first course before the main meal of Byderside sheep orcow.
The same growling laugh, this time laced with annoyance, vibrated the ground. “It’s well known amongst our kind that humans taste foul. I might kill you, but rest assured, I won’t eat you, even if you do offer the worst insult by calling me a dragon.” It sniffed her a third time. “Dragon armor and a fiddle. Strange combination, but sofamiliar.”
It didn’t give her time to ponder such an odd remark. She yelped, dropped the shield and crossbow and scampered halfway up the outcropping when the beast suddenly smashed a clawed foot onto her fire, smothering the flames. The sudden blackness camouflaged it completely, except for its eyes. Only its silver eyes and the moon above offeredillumination.
Why had it killed her fire? Even the bonfire it had become offered no threat to a creature that could surely something even more spectacular with a simplesneeze.
As if it read her mind, the wyvern spoke. “All things are clearer when revealed in thedark.”
A cool wind spun off the fields below, bringing with it the howls of the mythical haints bound to the cliffs for centuries. Elsbeth climbed off the outcropping when the wyvern did nothing more than watch her. Despite her self-castigation at even considering Irena’s advice, she was too committed to their plan to cast it aside now, especially when she had no idea what else to do. And while this creature might deny dragon heritage, it liked music just like dragons did. Just like Irena said. She reached for her abandoned fiddle and bow with shakinghands.
“Shall I play for you?” Her voice was a mouse’s squeak, her stomach knotted so badly her ribshurt.
The wyvern continued to watch her, light eyes growing darker with each passing moment. The serpentine body tightened its coils, muscles twitching in agitation. A swift slide of scales hissed across rock and gravel. Though terrified, Elsbeth was also mesmerized at the sight of so much power andgrace.
“I knew a woman once,” it said, the great voice softer now. “Who played such an instrument as if the gods danced along the bow hairs.” The silver eyes were almost completely black and reflected a strange intensity not present earlier. “Tell me your name, fiddler, and why you arehere.”
The council house,packed tight with villagers, erupted into pandemonium with Elsbeth at its center. She sat next to Irena, exhausted from worry and a sleepless night entertaining a wyvern. The long trek back from Maldoza had just about finished her off. Her fatigue kept her from lashing out and swatting one of the villagers shouting his protests at thecouncil.
She’d risked her life traveling to the cliffs with nothing more than a damn fiddle and sat through the night in hot dragon armor negotiating with an enigmatic monster for her grandfather and the rest of the villagers. They had reached an accord, odd though it was in some respects. Now the villagers fought with each other over who would have to give up a portion of their livestock for the agreed-upon tribute to thewyvern.
Next to her, Irena put her fingers to her mouth and blasted a whistle that set Elsbeth’s ears to ringing. “Enough!” she shouted. “Enough!”
The hall’s occupants fell silent. All eyes settled on the small elder. She stood on the council dais, hands fisted at her hips. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “What more do you want?” The crowd shuffled and rumbled its discontent, but no oneinterrupted.
Irena paced the dais. “The beast is here for another month, maybe less. We can give up a dozen cattle or sheep if it means our village is left inpeace.”
One of the villagers spoke up. “But who, Elder? There are some among us who can’t afford to give up a single chicken much less a ewe. And what of those who don’t own herds? What do they sacrifice?” His gaze slid to Elsbeth,accusing.
A red haze passed over her vision. She forgot the courtesy afforded the elders and jumped in front of Irena. “How dare you, Manny Howe!” The villager dropped his gaze. “My grandfather is dying. Instead of spending the next three weeks tending him, I get to entertain a wyvern. I’d give over three herds of cattle if I could make such an exchange and stay home withAngus.”
Her eyes watered with frustrated tears. She didn’t want to argue; she just wanted the bargain she risked her life for fulfilled. If the village rejected the wyvern’s demands, Elsbeth would pack her grandfather and their necessaries and be gone from Byderside by first light. Angus might not survive the trip, but she’d be damned if she’d sit idly by and watch the world around her reduced to cinder heaps because a few greedy farmers refused to give up a cow ortwo.
No one countered Elsbeth’s remarks. With the confirmation that Angus’s armor was not the root of their problems, many were ashamed of their behavior toward him andElsbeth.
