Dragon Kin

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

“I’m surprised you are so choosy, Uther.”

  “It is your bed we are planning to fill, not mine,” Uther replied, his tone urbane.

  “Of course, she must be a maiden,” Arawn said.

  “Now you are objecting purely to narrow the field to nothing,” Uther said. “The more conditions you add, the less chance we have of finding her.”

  “As I have no idea how many suitable women there are in the first place, I’m unlikely to know that adding conditions would make it an impossible task. You, of course, know every beddable woman in all three kingdoms.”

  Uther smiled. “Perhaps I prefer to wonder, like you.”

  Arawn laughed at the notion.

  Uther patted the neck of his war horse. “Then we are agreed. The first woman we come across who matches the criteria, you will wed.”

  Arawn drew in a sharp breath. “I was jesting, Uther. One does not enter a marriage with the casual approach you are suggesting.”

  “Why not? The proper approach to marriage has not served you.”

  “You have not been wed—”

  “And have no intention of being so bound,” Uther shot back. “I am not a king and have no heir to get. You have a kingdom to save, or so I understood from your lecturing a while ago. Do you want to save your people, or not?”

  Arawn swallowed. “Yes,” he said shortly. “I would do anything to save them. Look at where we are and what we do today. I am to sprinkle spring water upon stones and hope that a miracle will occur.”

  “Then why not add a wedding to your list?” Uther asked with a reasonable tone.

  Arawn tried to consider the matter in the straightforward way Uther was. Stripped of the burden of emotions, the concept of marriage to any woman was reduced to nothing more than a step on the path to breaking the curse. Following forms and protocol had not served him. He had not lied—he would do anything to see his people suffer no more. Anything.

  Including this.

  “Done,” Arawn said.

  Uther sat up. “The first woman we find, you will wed?”

  “The first young, healthy, marriageable woman,” Arawn amended.

  “With all her teeth, yes,” Uther finished. He looked up at the blue sky peeping between the trees. “Now the day is interesting.”

  Arawn let Uther enjoy the moment, instead of spoiling it with simple facts. As they wound deeper into the heart of Brocéliande, the chances of coming across a woman who met the few criteria they had agreed upon would grow smaller. After today, Uther would return to Carnac and the business of war and forget this inane agreement.

  Arawn would not be breaking his word, either, for they had agreed upon him marrying the first woman they came across. Once Uther left Brocéliande, Arawn could go back to ruling his kingdom, instead of entertaining the brother of the true High King of Britain.

  Chapter Two

  It took half a day to draw close enough to the deer to take her shot. Ilsa didn’t begrudge the effort. Meat had been missing from the dinner pot for more than a week. Bread only sustained a person for a few days before the belly cramped in a way that was hard to ignore. She could almost smell the rich scent of searing meat, enticing her to push even deeper into Brocéliande on the trail of the stag.

  She rarely came this far north. Another mile and she would be into the thick, shadowed core of the forest, with its enormous beech trees, tangled old oaks and dank shadows. People who went there never returned, it was said. Her father had warned her away from the place more than once. As tonight’s meal—and all other meals—depended upon her returning with fresh meat, being caught by the witches of Brocéliande would not help her ambition.

  The stag’s trail led directly to the forbidden place, though. Ilsa gritted her teeth and followed. The prints were fresh, telling her she was not far behind. She hurried her pace a little more, picking her footing. No fresh grasses or weeds muffled her steps. Anything green had died from lack of water. The remaining leaf rot was dry and crackled when stepped upon too heavily.

  Ilsa consulted her memory of the land hereabouts. Before the forest grew thick and forbidding, a boggy spring emerged in a tiny glade. It was merely an upwelling of water that in normal years made the ground damp and encouraged thick grasses and orchids to flourish.

  Whole rivers had dried up in the last few years of little rain. It was likely the bog was now a sandy, bare patch beneath the trees. The stag might hope to find water, anyway. Perhaps even damp ground it might lick for the moisture.

  Ilsa moved even more quickly. If the stag was so desperate for water it would try this inadequate watering hole, then its caution would be lowered. She could approach with impunity.

  When she spotted the clearing just ahead, Ilsa eased up against the mossy, gnarled trunk of an enormous oak. She pulled her bow off her shoulder and an arrow from the pouch on her back. She nocked the arrow and edged around the trunk, the arrow tip swinging across the clearing, quartering it.

  There!

  The stag stood with forelegs splayed, its massive horns lowered, its fine nose pressed against a small patch of dark, gleaming earth among ailing grasses. The creature’s sides were hollow, the ribs clear. The coat was tufted and uneven, showing the strain of the inadequate summer feeding.

  It was making soft slurping sounds as it tried to draw water from the ground. There were foot prints from a dozen other animals who had hoped to do the same thing, churning the mud.

  If it had been any other day, Ilsa might have pitied the creatures of the forest, lowered her bow and instead used her knife to dig into the soil until the water gathered freely, giving them a few cupfuls of precious liquid.

  Now, though, she could not afford pity. Her mother and father were relying on her to return with food.

  She brought the arrow to bear. The deer was standing directly ahead of her and she could not hit the heart from here. She needed it to turn or lift its head.

  Ilsa clicked her tongue in a soft little sound that any forest animal might make.

  The deer lifted its head, alert. He turned, his nose quivering, as he searched for the source. The oak tree hid her. Ilsa waited for the deer to turn just a little more, her bow straining.

  Instead, it returned to the muddy earth. It was too thirsty to care.

  Ilsa lowered her bow, considering. She would have to move farther around the edge of the clearing until she had a clear shot.

  The stag’s head came up with a sharp movement. It was looking at the other side of the clearing, away from her. Then it moved to face whatever it heard.

  Startled, Ilsa fumbled her bow. She brought it up and re-nocked the arrow, just as the sound that had alerted the stag became loud enough for her to hear.

  Horses. Many of them.

  “No!” she whispered, as the stag leapt across the clearing, heading for the side farthest from Ilsa’s oak tree. She let the arrow fly. It missed and clattered across the dry earth just behind the stag’s kicking back legs.

  Ilsa sprinted after the stag. She couldn’t let it escape after all this work.

  As she ran into the clearing, the horses burst through the trees edging it, drumming the parched ground, their riders shouting. Colors and gold flashed. Metal jingled. A standard snapped in the wind of their passage.

  Their swift appearance startled Ilsa. The clearing was not large, which placed them close to her. Ilsa tripped over a hillock hidden by the dry grass clinging to life about the edges of the mud and measured her full length in the mud itself.

  The smell was ferociously rank. She pushed up and back onto her feet, gagging.

  “Did you see it? Ten points at least!” came the cry from among the riders.

  “I’ll beat you to it!”

  “Crispin! Your bow!”

  The horses wheeled, heading in the same direction as the deer.

  They were stealing her food! “That’s my stag!” she shouted.

  Instantly, four of the horses circled back to confront her. The rest, though, chased after the deer.
r />   Vexed, she swiped at the mud on her face and resettled her cap, watching the riders push through the trees.

  The four horses came right up to her, blowing and showing pink nostrils. Ilsa lifted her chin and looked at the two lead riders. A dark-haired man with an unshaved chin and lines of care about the corners of his eyes, and a red-haired man with a piercing gaze. The red-headed man leaned on the front of his high saddle. “You think you could have taken down a full grown stag with that little bow, boy?”

  Ilsa did not correct his assumption. She had learned not to. Her father encouraged her to look as much like a boy as possible while traveling through the forest alone. It was chancy enough for a boy, even one armed with a bow and a long hunting knife on his hip. As a maiden, her fate would be far worse if the wrong man took an interest in her. In the forest, all men were the wrong type. The woodlands were filled with thieves and vagabonds, criminals and homeless folk, more of them every year and all of them desperate.

  She wore a short tunic and long undershirt, leggings, boots and a furled cloak. Her hair was tightly bound and hung down inside her tunic, most of it hidden by her cap. The tunic was loose enough to hide feminine curves and she left the belt hanging from her hips so her waist was hidden. The mud would add another disguising layer.

  Caution screamed in her mind, though. She should leave and let them have the kill. To engage with them at all would risk exposing herself.

  “Speak, lad,” the other man said. “You have nothing to fear from us.”

  Just turn and leave, she told herself. Only, she needed the meat! Ilsa made her voice drop lower than usual. “I’ve spent half a day chasing that deer. I must have the meat. It’s mine. Tell your men to back away.”

  The red-headed man laughed. “Listen to him,” he said, straightening. “High handed fellow.”

  “Or a starving one,” the dark-haired man murmured, his gaze moving up and down Ilsa, measuring her. “How many look to you, boy?”

  Ilsa swallowed. “My mother and father.”

  “A stag that size would feed a small village,” the other said dismissively. “Besides, everything in this forest belongs to the king, even the stag to which you lay claim.” He looked at the other man. “Toss him the heart when we’re done. We should move on if we’re to find the spring and return before sunset.”

  “You seek the big spring?” Ilsa said, surprised.

  Both men looked at her sharply.

  “You know of it?” the dark one asked. He hesitated. “The magic one,” he added.

  Ilsa swallowed her laugh. She didn’t know who these men were. Their clothes, their arms and their jewelry said they were high born. She couldn’t afford to insult them by laughing at their ignorance. High-borns resented feeling foolish, more than the average man might. “The only magic about the spring is that it never fails, not even this year. It is difficult to find, though. You are lost, if that is where you truly head.”

  He leaned toward her, his interest caught. “There are stones around it, then?” he demanded.

  She shrugged. “Around it, under it. It is a slow spring. You would quench your thirst in a visit but to fill a barrel would take days.”

  “It is in the enchanted part of the forest, then?” the red-headed man asked.

  “The Lady’s lands? No.”

  The two men exchanged glances. The dark-haired one cleared his throat. “I would be in your debt if you would show us the way to the spring.”

  She pressed her lips together, staying silent. The stag was caught or had escaped. Either way, it was far beyond her reach now. Using the deer as an excuse to refuse the lord’s request would not work.

  She did not want to linger in the company of these people. The longer she was among them, the greater the risk her true nature would be revealed.

  “You can have the hind of the deer,” the red-headed man said. “As payment.”

  “Perhaps your men did not catch the stag, either,” she replied.

  A horn blew, a high triumphant note. Voices lifted in excitement.

  The man raised his brows. The deer had been brought down.

  “I want all the deer,” Ilsa said.

  The dark-haired man snorted. “Half,” he replied.

  She considered. “Half…and the purse which hangs from your belt.”

  The red-headed man sat back with an expression that was either disgust or amusement. “An outrageous sum for a moment’s work. We can find the spring ourselves. Clearly, there is one.”

  Ilsa threaded her bow back over her shoulder and crossed her arms. “You don’t know where you are. You don’t know the Lady’s land. You don’t know if the spring lies north, south, east or west of her land. I will wish you good luck in your search for it.”

  The red-headed man scowled. “Listen, boy—”

  “Very well,” the other said, cutting him off. “Half the deer and my purse.”

  Ilsa held out her mud-caked hand and beckoned with her fingers.

  “Arawn, no…” the red-head breathed, as the dark-headed man plucked the purse from his belt.

  Ilsa drew in a sharp breath. Arawn? It could not possibly be…this was the king of Brocéliande? The cursed king who had killed two dozen wives?

  He tossed the purse at her and it hit her chest. She clutched the leather against her shoulder, feeling the weight of a handful of coins. It was impossible to tear her gaze away from him.

  He looked at the other lord. “I said I would do anything. I did not lie.” He turned his head and his gaze found Ilsa where she stood in the mud. “You. Climb up behind my man, there, and tell him where we should go.”

  One of the other two horses nudged closer to her. The man on it was a helmeted soldier, unshaved, dour and older than either of the lords. He held out a gauntleted hand. “Wrap your cloak around you first. I don’t want that mud on my back.”

  Ilsa tugged at the folds of cloak until it hung straight from her shoulders. She pulled the edges together under the string of her bow and adjusted the arrow bag under it. She was pleased to have an excuse for hiding her body beneath the thick wool.

  Then she reached for the man’s arm and hauled herself up onto the stallion behind him and settled herself.

  The red-headed man watched her with narrowed eyes.

  “Holy gods above. He stinks,” the guard complained, waving his glove in front of his nose.

  “Where, boy?” the king demanded.

  She pointed, wary about using her voice. The other lord was watching her too closely.

  The remaining guard, the fourth man in the clearing, let out a sharp, short whistle that made her wince. A distant call sounded in response, a moment of silence, then the clod of horses approaching. The men who had caught the deer were returning.

  Their return would reduce even further her chances of escaping this mess.

  Her heart sinking, Ilsa considered her choices. She could slide off the horse, risk an ankle with the drop to the ground and also risk an arrow in the back as she escaped.

  They might let her go once she was out of sight and consider the loss of the purse not worth the trouble of pursuing her. Or she might leave the purse and hope it would appease them and leave her free to return home…only, she would be empty handed and it was late. From here, it would take her the rest of the daylight to reach the woods around the cot. It would be too late to check the snares and hope for fresh catch to take home, instead.

  She needed that stag!

  Only, to gain the meat, she must linger with these men and risk being exposed as a woman.

  As the horses moved off in the direction she had pointed, Ilsa put her chin down and pulled her cap lower over her face. What she would not give for a hood to pull deep over her head, right now! Where was the red-headed lord? Was he still watching her? She didn’t dare look around to check.

  Keeping her voice as low as she could, Ilsa murmured her directions to the soldier in front of her. She directed the party around the edges of the Lady’s domain, to the sp
ring that never failed. The spring was not well known, for it was on the border of the Lady’s lands, where few would dare go.

  The Lady of the Lake held dominion over the heart of the forest. Her influence stretched from the lake where her stronghold was built, for many miles in all directions. It was said that any man who dared step inside her borders would not survive to tell the tale. Ghosts lingered among the trees, watching everyone who passed and sending word back to the Lady.

  The Lady of the Lake could turn a person into a pillar of stone just by looking at them, they said.

  Ilsa suspected that much of what ‘they’ said was sheer nonsense, designed to scare little children when they gathered around the fire-pit. However, she would not step across the invisible borders of the Lady’s land and risk finding out there was truth in the tales.

  She tapped the rider’s shoulder and pointed. “Swing to the south more,” she told him. “There is a deer trod, just ahead. That will lead you straight to the spring.”

  A hand gripped her wrist. “Halt,” came the low, imperative command.

  The soldier halted obediently.

  The red-headed lord brought his black stallion up beside the guard’s, easing between the trees and the horse. He kept hold of her wrist and brought her arm out at its full length and peered down at her hand.

  Ilsa’s heart leapt. She curled her fingers.

  “Open your hand,” he said curtly.

  “Uther, if we stop this often we won’t reach Lorient before dark,” the king said, behind them.

  Uther.

  Ilsa stared at the lord grinding her wrist in his grip. Prince Uther. Brother to Ambrosius. General of his army and his heir.

  She had heard all the tales about Uther. His womanizing was legendary. His appetites, all of them, were prodigious. He could clear a table, drain a barrel, then work his way through an entire household of women, all before the sun rose.

  This was Prince Uther?

  Uther shook her wrist. “Let me see, or I will make you show me.”

  Ilsa’s heart hurt too much. She had no other defense than this weak disguise. If Uther, of all men, saw what she really was… She couldn’t uncurl her fingers, not even to obey the command of a prince.