After he’d eaten the first tribe of intruders, he had some peace and quiet for a while. Then another batch came. They had sharp stones tied to their long sticks that cut his knees. But out of all the people who’d passed through his hills, the current people of the villages seemed the worse.
They had swords now. But they kept their sharp sticks too. And they could shoot them from some contraption from afar. One impertinent little gnat not long ago had nearly blinded Draknart with something they called an arrow. Draknart had questioned the knight for some time about the strange invention before eating him.
At least they couldn’t shoot fire, like he could. If they ever figured out how to do that, he was packing it up and leaving the hills.
As if to prove his point on the overall inconvenience of humans, one stepped out of the forest. He’d come from upwind, and the smoke of the fire had dulled Draknart’s nose.
Draknart flexed his talons as he pushed to his feet and stepped between the visitor and Einin, calling over his shoulder, “You best stay out of this.”
The young man in soldier’s armor strode boldly forward, sword at the ready.
Flying so low over the village had been a mistake.
“I’ve come to kill you, evil beast,” the youth shouted.
They always said the same thing. Draknart swallowed his disappointment. “And who would you be?”
“Jon of Fernwood,” the fool proclaimed proudly. “Dragon slayer.”
Not groaning out loud took some restraint. “Might you not wait with the title until your dragon is slain?”
The youth shot him a look of fury. Then his gaze cut to Einin, her fiery hair and round breasts. His expression changed to that of open desire. “Worry not, fair maiden. I shall save you from this vile beast and make you mine.”
Einin made a sound behind Draknart that he could not interpret, and he could not look back at her face, for the youth charged with the usual battle cry.
Make Einin his? This little vermin? With barely some peach fuzz on his weak chin? Darkness bubbled up inside Draknart. The bloodlust was instant, such as he hadn’t felt since he’d slain Fearan, who’d a century ago come to the hills and thought to take Draknart’s territory and treasure.
Draknart was about to bite the fool little knight in half when it occurred to him that to kill a human while on a pilgrimage to ask the goddess’s forgiveness for killing humans might not be the smartest course of action.
He snapped his jaw shut and contemplated the bastard. He’d never been in a fight before while trying to protect someone as he wanted to protect Einin behind him. He’d never been in a fight before where his immediate goal hadn’t been to incinerate his enemy or rip the man’s throat out with his talons.
That moment of hesitation cost him a painful cut on the wing, clear through sinew and muscle. He held back the blast of fire in his throat.
Instead of roasting the pup, he asked, “Can you swim?”
The startled youth nodded.
Draknart swept him up with his good wing, catapulting him toward the middle of the lake. The knight flew in a soft arch, screaming all the way, then a splash, then sweet silence again.
The fool was probably struggling to peel off his armor. Draknart had half a mind to fly over and sit on his head, keep him under water. He would have, if he wasn’t convinced that the goddess would take drowning a human as badly as she would take eating him.
Draknart failed to comprehend what Belisama liked so much about mankind. Yet she was fond of them, for she kept their kind alive. She was the goddess of fertility. She blessed them with offspring. And she blessed their fields so they could gather in the harvest and go on living and multiplying. And still, instead of worshipping her, many betrayed her for the new god the priests had brought to the villages from the south.
When Draknart turned to Einin, he found her right behind him with her sword drawn.
He narrowed an eye at her. He waited until she shoved her sword back into her belt before he returned to the fire and plopped down onto the sand, taking care to lick his wound clean.
“Have you been preparing to help me or stab me in the back?” he inquired without heat.
“Help you.” She cleared her throat. “Most certainly.”
“You’d say that either way.”
“I would,” she admitted, with a slight twitch of her lips. Then she eyed his injury and stepped closer. “Does it hurt?”
He snorted. The cut was bad, mayhap bad enough to stop him from flying anymore today, but… “It will heal once we step into Feyland.”
Her eyes rounded, her mouth gaped. “You mean to go into Feyland? We haven’t come to just see the circle?”
