“The natives of their land call them kwetzels. Isn’t she a beauty? They come in so many different patterns and colors, if we can ever get them properly trained enough to stop attacking people, I suspect it will become rather fashionable to own one here.”
Azarin approached the bars, clearly transfixed by the terrible majesty of the thing. “It’s hard to judge the wingspan with them folded up like that.”
“Over a hundred feet, though she wouldn’t hold still long enough for us to get the tape measure out.” Herbert looked to Morton. “Then it got agitated and tried to eat our brother, Abner.”
“Is he alright?” Morton asked, concerned.
“Nothing a healing potion couldn’t fix, but if you’d been here?—”
Azarin wasn’t going to let the Smorps get distracted fighting again. “How fast can they go?”
“Allegedly, they are rather swift. And one of this size could carry up to four or five hundred pounds. Please don’t put your limbs through the bars, miss. She has no teeth, but routinely bites very large fish in half.”
Of course, Azarin stuck her hand through anyway and patted it on the neck. Rather than attack, it just stared down at herwith those eerie orange eyes, then the feathers around her hand shivered, and it emitted a clicking noise.
“Oh, she’s a sweetheart. What’s her name?”
“According to the buyer, this isFairly Deadly.”
“Yeah, but what’s her… Oh, I get it.” Azarin went back to scratching the terrifying monster’s neck. It leaned in for her to get a better angle. “Nice to meet you, Fairly. I’m going to take you for a ride across the city. Yes, I am. Who’s a good girl?”
Fairly Deadly answered with an ear-splittingshriek.
“That’s right, you’re the good girl.” Azarin looked back at Herbert. “Does she come with a saddle and tack? Otherwise, I can make a rope rig, but a proper saddle would be better.”
“Of course, we have one, my lady, and this saddle was fashioned by the finest craftsmen of its home kingdom.” Herbert was getting excited as he sensed a big sale approaching. “And how will you be paying for her?”
Morton had to go and ruin his brother’s good time. “We can’t purchase this beast, Herbert. We simply need to borrow it for the afternoon.”
“What? Preposterous. Do you have any idea how much it cost to get a kwetzel all the way to the Core?”
“I can only imagine. However, this is very important.”
“You know it’s against policy to let customers take giant monsters on test rides, Morton!”
“I’m not a customer. I’m your brother. And this is a matter of life or death! My death, in fact.”
“Oh, now that becomesmyproblem?” Herbert shouted, and then the two brothers went at it again. Luckily, their noise didn’t seem to agitate the creature.
I went over to Azarin. “You really think you can ride this thing?”
“Well, I’ve never seen one before, but in principle, it shouldn’t be too different from a giant eagle.”
She sounded confident, but she was always confident, and that was scary. “And you expect me to get on there with you, and go high up into the air, and fly around at an alarming rate of speed, onthat?”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ve got your glove. Should she throw you off, just activate aDescendbefore you hit the ground. You’ll be fine.”
“What if it crashes?” And then I watched in horror as the kwetzel rotated her massive stabby head, on the far too flexible neck, to scratch a point on her back where the saddle would most likely rest. “Or it decides it’s hungry and does that and plucks one of us off for a midflight snack?”
“She wouldn’t do that. Would you, girl?” Fairly Deadly brought her giant head back around and mashed her face against the bars right next to Azarin. There was a bony crest atop her head, and it hit the bars with aclang.Azarin stroked the feathers on her face. “See, Carnavon? The people of every kingdom have a natural gift. Your people are fire resistant. Mine are good at riding giant birds. This is clearly a giant bird… lizard… thing, which should be close enough to count. But that does give me an idea… Hey, Smorps.”
Herbert shushed his brother. “Yes, my lady?”
“Sorry to interrupt your family drama. I’ve got no money, but I do have a proposition. This is an incredible flying beast, sure to command top Obols, but you’ve admitted yourself she’s not yet properly broken. I know perfectly well how much an experienced sky rider would charge someone like you to train an eagle, and I can safely assume that something unique like Fairly here, they would charge even more. Only, you must bear this expense to train her properly first, because you don’t want Fairly killing your customers.”
“That sort of scandal does cause people to talk,” Herbert admitted.
“And leave terrible reviews,” Morton agreed.
