A journey?
Einin stared at the dragon.
To run wild and free. To see some of the wide world…
No woman from Downwood had ever gone farther than Morganton, and that was Einin’s own aunt back when she’d married a fletcher. Most women never traveled beyond the surrounding village markets. Einin knew plenty of people who’d never once left Downwood.
At least she’d gone to the markets in the nearest villages as a child, with her father, to sell goat cheese and milk.
She had dreamt of faraway places all her life, tried to imagine the people and palaces from the tales of the few stray travelers who’d come through her village. The traveling tinker always told such stories! And returning soldiers too, although their tales were much darker. The traveling priest shared little, the darkest tales yet, mostly about the burning of witches.
There had to be more. There had to be such wonders!
“What journey?” She tilted her head, her heart racing with cautious excitement. “To where?”
The dragon said, “Hmpf,” and kicked a shredded old shield out of his way, looking after it as if it held great interest. Embarrassed? No, Einin thought, could not be that. Not this dragon. Probably not any dragon. They were a murderous and conscienceless lot, down to the last one.
Yet he examined his sharp talons with undue attention as he said, “A bit back, I offended someone.”
This she could believe. “And you’re going to offer an apology?”
Once again, that did not sound like the dragon she knew.
Yet Draknart nodded. “Something of the like.”
Einin’s mouth gaped. The priest kept preaching about miracles. This might yet be the first Einin ever saw. Where the priest had failed, the dragon might yet make a believer out of her.
She narrowed her eyes at the beast. He wanted to go somewhere, this she believed. But traveling companion her bony arse. He wanted to take her along for the easy swiving, then would eat her the first time he couldn’t find anything better. She’d be nothing but road provisions, eaten for lunch like she’d eaten her small store of food on her way to the cave.
Yet would a long journey, out in the open, not provide more opportunities to escape than the closed-in cave? She had returned to the dragon. She had fulfilled her part of their bargain. If the dragon had failed to eat her posthaste, the fault was his. She considered herself free of their agreement.
Free. Her heart leaped.
“The roads are dangerous,” she said, thinking fast. “I will not go without a blade.”
“We will not be going over the roads.”
A moment or two passed before she understood his meaning. She swallowed hard. Flying. Did he mean to carry her in his talons like an eagle carried its prey? She imagined the ground rushing far below her and grew dizzy from the thought.
“I’ll stay and clean the cave while you’re gone,” she offered as her courage evaporated. Maybe he would never return, and she could yet have his cave.
His bottomless eyes grew amused. He licked his chops. “I think not.”
She pressed her lips together. ’Twould be unwise to curse him out. She was smart enough to understand her choices. Go along and be eaten later, or be eaten for breakfast before the trip.
“I will not go without a blade,” she repeated. She had to stand her ground on that at least.
“I’m the only protection you will need.”
“And if you leave me at a campsite and go off hunting? What if I’m set upon by bandits?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. Then he grunted. “Fetch a small sword, if you must have it. Not a broadsword, mind you. Something you can easily lift.”
She pulled her britches and boots back on first. She didn’t like the way the beast eyed her legs. Fully clothed again, she hurried toward the spot where she had dropped her brother’s sword. She could wield a broadsword, but she preferred a familiar blade.
A few moments passed before she found the weapon. As she had no scabbard, she stuck the sword into her belt, the pommel holding it in place.
Weapon or no, she hesitated instead of walking back to the dragon. There was still the small matter of flying. Her heart suddenly pounded in her chest. She’d never been higher off the ground than the roof of her hut that sometimes needed the thatching patched.
