“You’re late, Yaz.”
He turned at his mother’s voice to find her emerging from deeper in the library. Her dark hair was pulled back out of the way, so he could see her hard, gray eyes and deep frown. Mom seldom looked really happy. He didn’t know why, but he knew he shared that trait. Maybe it came from knowing too much. All the information in their heads crowded out the happy thoughts.
He shook the stupid notion away. “Sorry, Mom. I helped Mistress Alma with her groceries.”
“And yourself to a meat pouch.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I can smell the spices on your breath.”
From ten feet away no less. His mom really was something. Her specialty as a sage was biology and medicine. In addition to her research duties, Mom was the village healer.
“How’d training go?”
“Master Hendal finally declared me unfit for the shield wall, so no more training for me. When Dad gets back from his patrol, I’ll have to tell him. He’s not going to be happy.”
“No, but your father’s a practical man. Having you go through training for something anyone with half a brain could see didn’t suit you was just to show he wasn’t keeping his only son out of danger while sending other men’s sons out to fight. It was a stupid, but necessary task.”
“Think he’ll change his mind about letting me have a dragon?” Yaz knew the answer but couldn’t keep from asking one more time.
“No.” Her hard expression softened a fraction. “Don’t ask him again, Yaz. Your father hates telling you no.”
“Really? He does it so often.”
“That doesn’t mean he enjoys it. But enough chattering. I believe the chief sage has a task for you. He’s down in the engineering section. See you at dinner.”
“Okay. Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too, Yaz.”
Yaz ducked into the stacks and wove his way back to the engineering section. He breathed deep as he went, enjoying the scent of paper and leather and dust. Yaz had always enjoyed the library. If he couldn’t hang around with the dragons, this was where he felt most at home. Especially today since it took his mind off his failure.
It didn’t seem fair that he should be good at so many things but not the most important one. The village chief’s primary responsibility was to keep the people safe. How could Yaz do that if he couldn’t fight in the shield wall or ride a dragon? Just because a Yeager had led the village since its founding didn’t mean it would always be so. If the villagers wouldn’t follow him, they’d have to elect a new chief. Yaz didn’t want to be the one to break ten generations of tradition.
He rounded a corner and found Mistress Beatrice sleeping in one of the oversized chairs, a book on agricultural best practices open on her ample stomach. Yaz carefully picked up the precious tome, slipped a silk ribbon in to mark her spot, and set it on a nearby table. The sages were seldom so careless. The books, along with the dragons, were the village’s most valuable treasures.
Yaz continued on his way until he reached the proper section. Chief Sage Durnik had an unlit pipe clamped between his teeth and a book open in his hands. His black robe draped a skinny body and his gray beard hung down almost to his belt. The chief sage’s specialty was dragons, specifically their uses in magic.
“Master?” Yaz said.
“Yaz, I need three pages from Lek’s Bestiary. One thirteen through one fifteen.”
Yaz consulted his mental library. “Methods for keeping predators away from chicken coops. Who’s this for?”
“Some chicken farmer from the Kingdom of Rend. Came in this morning. A silver scale per page?”
“Sure, Master.” Yaz often wrote up scrolls for the sages to make extra coin. “Can I do it tomorrow? I need to talk to Dad this afternoon and he should be back pretty soon.”
“That’s fine, but I need it before noon.”
Yaz nodded. That was plenty of time.
A deep bellow shook the air. The dragonriders had returned. Time to remind his father that he had no future as a warrior of the village. As if he needed something else to worry about.
Yaz slipped out of the tower and glanced up at the sky. The dragons were barely visible soaring south. When he heard the bellow, he’d assumed they were getting ready to land, but it looked like Dad wanted to make one more loop.
Yaz wasn’t surprised. Though you’d be hard pressed to find a more practical man than his father, Dad dearly loved flying and if he could steal an extra fifteen minutes of air time, he’d take it every day. Yaz had long dreamed of flying with his father, but if he wasn’t cut out to fight in the shield wall, then he really wasn’t cut out to be a dragonrider. They were the biggest and strongest warriors in the village.
Even though he had time before the riders landed, Yaz walked toward the dragon aviary. It was a big stone building with six stalls for the dragons. They had to build it out of stone since the first, wooden one burned down a week after the dragons moved in. Sometimes little flames slipped out of the dragons’ noses when they slept, making bedding of any sort but stone impractical.
Between the aviary and the main street was a long, straight stretch of dirt where the dragons landed and bounded to a halt. To the right of that a modest log cabin served as the home of the master of dragons. Abelard Robotham, the current master of dragons, came to the village twenty-odd years ago for the sole purpose of working with the beasts. He wasn’t a true sage, but when it came to tending dragons, Master Robotham was every bit as learned as one.
When he reached the aviary, the sound of heavy thunks filled the air. Yaz made his way around back and found Master Robotham up to his elbows in blood, a nearly broken-down sheep carcass parted out in six buckets. His razor-sharp cleaver rose and fell, sending the lower section of a back leg into the sixth bucket.
He looked Yaz’s way and a smile creased his weathered face. “Afternoon, Yaz. Come to help feed the dragons?”
“I’d be happy to, Master, but I need to talk to my father.”
“Was today the day? Aaron finally let you out of that ridiculous training?”
“I don’t know that I’d call it ridiculous, Master, but yes, he confirmed what we both knew, that I have no place in a shield wall. Dad’s not going to be very happy.”
Master Robotham snapped the cleaver down into the tree stump he’d been using as a cutting board. “Don’t underestimate your father. Yazguard knows everyone has their place and that each person’s different.”
“But he kept pushing.”
“He had to. Since Aaron’s dismissed you, there won’t be any trouble now.”
Yaz wished he believed that. A whoosh and roar drew his gaze skyward again. The dragonriders had returned and they were circling the landing strip, waiting their turn to land. The great red dragons soared easily on sixty-foot wings, their scales gleaming in the sun.
They were an imposing sight, made more so by the huge warriors on their backs. Each dragonrider wore spiked black armor with a demonic helmet. Their weapon of choice was a black iron bow so powerful Yaz couldn’t even begin to pull it. Yet another reason he’d never be a rider.
As group leader, Dad landed first. His dragon, Soto, snapped her wings open as she neared the ground and backstroked. Her claws hit and she galloped a few strides before slowing and tucking her wings in tight to her body. Dragon and rider trotted into the aviary to make room for the next.
Yaz steeled himself. Best to get it over with quickly. He picked up one of the buckets and glanced at Master Robotham. The master nodded and Yaz marched through the rear door. Inside, the aviary had a musty, leather smell. Not bad at all considering how the stables across town smelled.
Dad had guided Soto into her stall, removed her saddle, and shut the gate. No one fully understood dragon biology, but they were all thought of as female since any dragon could lay an egg, no mating required. The eggs seemed to form by magic every eight to fifteen years. It was one of the many things people would probably never understand about the cre
atures.
Soto spun an eager circle as Yaz approached with her evening meal. She poked her head through the gap above the gate, long forked tongue lolling over razor-sharp teeth. Yaz tossed her a shank and it disappeared quickly down her gullet. The rest of the mutton vanished just as fast and Soto spun a final circle before lying down, her nose tucked under a wing to sleep.
He smiled at the dragon. A heavy hand landed on Yaz’s shoulder. “Evening, son.”
“Hi, Dad. Good patrol?”
Another rider entered before he could answer. Master Robotham came in from the opposite direction, two buckets in one hand and three in the other. He scooted past Yaz and his father to feed the next dragon.
“We didn’t see any threats, so it was a good patrol.”
Yaz looked up to his father, literally. Yazguard was a head and a half taller than his son and three times as heavy. Only the dragons’ magic allowed them to carry such massive warriors into the sky. His father had his demon helmet tucked under one arm.
A third rider entered and Yaz said, “Can we take a walk?”
“Certainly. I want to get home and clean up before dinner.”
They left the aviary and turned toward home. Yaz took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Master Hendal officially dismissed me from training today.”
His father nodded once, accepting reality with grim determination. “We knew it was coming. What are your plans now?”
“I’ve got a pretty good business between hunting and writing for the sages. More than enough to live on certainly. I guess I’ll focus on that for now.”
“It’s a waste of your talents. You’ve got the brains and judgement to make a fine chief. You should be learning at my side. Or maybe with your mother at the tower. You could be a sage on any subject you wished with your memory.”
Yaz smiled. “I’d like to study with you too, keep up the family tradition, but we both know the village probably wouldn’t accept me as chief. Who’d follow me into battle? And as you’ve said, I’ll never be a dragonrider. I’m also too young to be a sage. They’ve all traveled the world, seen and experienced things I haven’t.”
“Son, the dragonriders are too—”
“I know, Dad, I know. I wasn’t asking or complaining, just stating the facts.” Yaz figured switching to a safer topic would be a good idea for both of them. “Mom put a pot of stew on for dinner.”
Their wants and preferences were irrelevant in the face of the village’s needs. Those needs dictated most of his father’s decisions every day. Reality hurt sometimes, but you couldn’t change it.
Chapter 2
Brigid finished rolling up her sleeping pallet, straightened, and flipped her long, loose braid of blond hair over her shoulder. There wasn’t much room to maneuver in the one-room hut, but she was used to it. Behind her, Mom was spooning leftover mutton stew into bowls for breakfast. The scent of spring onion and meat mingled with smoke and filled the air. Her father sat at the rough-hewn table in the center of the house. Brigid slipped her boots on, smoothed her dress, and joined him.
Never one for excess conversation, her father just nodded a good morning, the top of his bald head already covered with a sheen of sweat. Mom set a bowl in front of each of them before sitting down in the final chair.
Brigid dipped her spoon in for the first bite when her father said, “I’ve begun negotiations for your marriage to Owen Chase.”
The spoon froze halfway to her mouth. She must have misheard. Owen Chase was twenty years older than her and already had two boys. His wife died last year and he was managing the neighboring farm on his own.
“What?” was all Brigid could manage.
“You heard me,” he said. “When you’ve wed, we’ll combine the farms and flocks, making a greater whole. It’s a good match. You’ll be well taken care of with Owen.”
“I don’t love Owen,” Brigid said, her breakfast forgotten. “I barely even know him. How could you do this without asking me?”
“I’m your father,” he said as if that explained everything.
Which in a way it did. Finding a good husband was a father’s task, but she’d assumed he’d have asked her who she wanted. Brigid had plans and marrying an almost-forty-year-old shepherd with two kids for her to take care of wasn’t among them.
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“Not now maybe, but you’ll get used to the idea. It’s not like we can afford a dowry big enough to interest anyone else. Owen needs a wife to help with his farm and you need a husband. It’s a good match.”
Brigid looked at her mother, hoping for support, but found only acceptance in her meek gaze. She wanted to scream and run away but had nowhere to go and making a fuss would just get her a backhand across the mouth.
“When is this supposed to happen?” Brigid asked.
“We’re still negotiating, but Midsummer Day is auspicious. We’ll have a priest read the signs first to be sure, but I like Midsummer Day.”
Two months. A lot could happen in two months. “I’ve lost my appetite. Can I get to work?”
“Long day with no food, but suit yourself,” her father said. “You’re running the little flock up to our usual pasture. Be sure to return by dark. I saw wolf sign up there last week.”
She nodded, stood, and hurried out into the yard. Chickens squawked and flapped their wings as she pushed through them. A shrill whistle brought her black and tan sheep dog, Rum, running from behind the house.
She gave him a scratch behind the ears. “Ready to work, boy?”
Rum barked twice, tongue lolling. He was a good boy, the only one in the whole world that loved her unconditionally. A few strides brought her to the tool shed where she collected her crook. Together she and Rum went to the smaller of the two sheep pens, opened the gate, and drove the small flock out. Dad didn’t trust her to tend the main group yet.
She shrugged and set out. It was a two-mile hike into the foothills to reach their favored pasture. At least the day was clear and the sun pleasant. There were worse ways to spend the day than hiking with her dog and a flock of sheep.
Brigid set an easy pace and an hour later spotted the old oak that marked the edge of the pasture. She squinted. Was someone here already? Yes, there was a tan pony hobbled near the tree and someone sitting with his back against it. Who would be out in their pasture at this time of the morning?
One way to find out. The sheep were already grazing so Brigid said, “Rum, guard!”
With the sheep dog on patrol nothing would bother her flock. Brigid marched toward the oak, intent on finding out who was intruding on what she considered her family’s territory.
She was ten paces out when he finally raised his gaze from the sheet of paper in his lap. The boy looked a few years younger than her. He had short, brown hair, and a delicate-featured face free of beard or mustache. Handsome enough, though far different from any man she’d met. He wore a simple leather jerkin and trousers, and fine leather boots. A cloak of wolf skins covered the ground under him.
A hunter then. But what would a hunter be doing sitting under a tree reading? Brigid didn’t know anyone that could read more than a few words, though she’d always wanted to learn.
At five paces she saw he wasn’t reading at all but writing. He set his crow quill into a holder built into the box on his lap and smiled. “Fine morning.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “What are you doing in my family’s pasture?”
The smile vanished. “No family owns the high pastures. The grazing is free to anyone that wishes to use it. We certainly have plenty to go around. Families can only claim five acres to a farm.”
Her scowl deepened. “The Dahl family has been grazing sheep in this pasture for three generations. It’s ours by tradition.”
He shrugged. “Tradition isn’t law. Besides, Thunder isn’t going to eat enough to bother your flock.”
She shot a look at the scrawny pony. “Thunder?”
“I intended the nam
e to be ironic.”
“I-what?”
“Ironic. You know, when something doesn’t turn out the way you expect. A shepherd dying in a stampede of sheep for example.”
His manner brought a smile to her face. “I’m Brigid Dahl. I hope you’ll forgive my rudeness. I’ve had a bad morning.”
“Yazgrim Yeager and my morning has been fine, but yesterday was a nightmare.”
Brigid’s hand went to her mouth.
Yeager.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
Had she just tried to run off the chief’s son? How much worse could this morning get?
As if to mock her, Brigid’s empty stomach growled. Her cheeks burned and she tried to think of a polite way to escape. “Young Lord, I—”
“Care to join me for a late breakfast?” he asked, interrupting her stammered attempt at an apology. “And please, call me Yaz.”
“What?”
He pointed at her grumbling belly. “Food. I don’t have much, but I’m happy to share.”
“I…Okay.”
He set the box and papers aside, rose, and went to the pony. He had to be the shortest man she’d ever met. Brigid had never considered herself especially tall, but she had him by a good four inches.
While he rummaged through his saddlebag, she checked the flock. Everything looked fine. When she looked back, he had a pair of biscuits in one hand and a knife and jar in the other. He covered one biscuit with jam and handed it to her then covered the second before settling back under the oak.
He patted the cloak beside him. “I don’t bite, promise.”
“I couldn’t, Young Lord.”
“It’s Yaz and I won’t tell if you don’t.” He seemed so nice and down to earth. Somehow, she’d expected the chief’s son to be different, arrogant maybe.
Brigid sat at the very edge of his cloak and tucked her legs under her before taking a bite of the biscuit. The dough was light and flaky, the jam sweet and tart. It was easily the finest thing she’d eaten in months. She finished it in four bites then licked the crumbs off her fingers.
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