Roger frowned, worried. “We can’t leave him here to starve.” In the morning light, Mella could see the bruise across his cheekbone where Alain had struck him. “But I can’t…Mella, I can’t just kill him. He’s our prisoner. I can’t hurt him.”
Mella couldn’t imagine Roger using a sword on a helpless, bound man. She couldn’t imagine herself doing it either. It had been one thing to hit him last night. But this was different.
“Wait,” Roger said suddenly. “I have an idea.”
First they gathered their belongings and filled their sacks with Alain’s food. The kidnapper had stopped cursing by now and slumped against the wagon wheel, sullen and silent.
“One more thing,” Roger said with a slow smile. It made Mella think of the way he had sounded the night before when he’d warned Alain of his father’s vengeance. He went to the back of the wagon.
Mella watched, puzzled at first, as Roger picked up bolts of cloth in his arms and carried them to the smoldering remains of the fire. He built the flames up again with fresh wood and began to toss armfuls of silk and brocade into the conflagration.
Alain groaned.
Mella joined in, breaking glass bottles against a rock and letting the dark, syrupy liquid inside run out. The sweet, heady smell made her blink.
“Spiced plum wine,” Roger said with interest, coming over to look. “From the islands off Tyrene. I don’t suppose you paid the taxes on it?”
Alain banged the back of his head against the wagon and looked sick with the pain.
After they had burned or broken or trampled everything Alain had in his stores, Roger knelt down behind the man and slightly loosened the ropes holding his hands.
“You should be able to work yourself free before noon,” he said, coming around to look Alain in the face. The trader looked up at him without gratitude, rage tightening his jaw, as if Roger’s mercy were more of an insult than malice would have been.
“If the wild dragons don’t come back before then,” Mella added spitefully. She supposed Roger was right that they couldn’t leave Alain to starve. But that didn’t mean she had to be nice to him. From the sudden pallor of his face, he didn’t know that dragons never came out until sundown.
“And another thing,” she added. “Dragon bites always get infected.” This part was true. She’d had enough nips from her own herd to know. “You’d better get that hand seen to by a healer. If you don’t, by nightfall it’ll be swollen to the size of a melon. So don’t try to follow us. Because if we find you in the woods, out of your mind with fever, I won’t let Roger help you.”
Alain had camped by the side of a road that was not broad and well used like the highway from the Inn to Dragonsford. It was a dirt track, barely wide enough for a wagon. In one direction, it led back to Dragonsford. In the other, it twisted and wound its way among the foothills. To get farther into the mountains, they’d have to strike out through the woods.
“He could at least have taken us along a decent road,” Roger grumbled, surveying the forest, thick with brambles and undergrowth. “We can’t even take the horse through that. We’ll have to go on foot.”
“Very thoughtless of him,” Mella agreed solemnly. Roger glanced at her and began to grin.
“Perhaps we should complain,” he suggested.
Mella began to giggle so wildly she had to sit down on an old stump to catch her breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly, looking up at Roger. He stood leaning with one hand against a tree trunk; with the other he tried, unsuccessfully, to rub the smile off his face. Mella had been wondering awkwardly all morning how she was going to apologize for her temper the night before. She was surprised to hear the words fall so easily off her tongue. “For what I said last night. That it was your fault.”
“Well.” Roger’s smile was gone now, and he picked up the pack he had dropped and slung it over one shoulder. “You were right, I suppose. It was me he was after. You would have been safe and well if I hadn’t been there.”
Mella looked up at him in astonishment. He had already started to pick his way among the trees, and she had to snatch her sack and hurry to keep up. “That’s nonsense!” she said sharply to Roger’s back. “I’ve never heard anything so thick skulled in my life. You might as well say a man’s to blame for getting robbed, since if he hadn’t been there the thief wouldn’t have been tempted.”
Roger shrugged.
“Oh, well, then. Sulk if you please.” Mella tossed her head the way Lilla did. “I was only trying to be civil.”
Roger pointed wordlessly to something up ahead.
“What?”
“See that stream?” Only as wide across as Mella’s outstretched arm, it tumbled across their path and plunged down a hillside. “The dragon said we’re supposed to follow the river. That stream should lead us to it.”
They made their way cautiously along the streambed, climbing over boulders, slipping on mud, ducking under low branches. At last the water fell over a final bank to spill into the river.
Mella grew to hate the river.
The footing along its bank seemed to alternate between rounded stones that slid under her weight and flats of sticky mud that swallowed her feet up to the ankles. Her skirts became so filthy that she tucked them up into her belt to shorten them—never mind what her mother would have said about letting Roger see her knees. She was sore and bruised from falling and from sleeping on the stony ground. And no matter how much she and Roger struggled, the mountains seemed to come no nearer.
On the second day of toiling upriver, they left the spruce forests behind. Trees became rare, except for the ragged line of them along the riverbank, and they saw no more wild dragons.
On the third day the food they had taken from Alain began to run low.
“We’ll have to go on short rations,” Roger said gloomily as they sat on a broad, flat stone to eat a midday meal.
Mella groaned dismally at the thought of walking painfully upstream on an empty stomach.
“There’s nothing else for it. We could fish, I suppose.” Roger looked doubtfully at the river, tumbling swiftly by, the water leaping and clawing its way over stones.
“Do you have hooks and line?” Mella inquired disagreeably.
“No,” Roger admitted.
“Do you even know how to fish?” Mella had twisted her ankle on a loose rock. Somehow she felt that an argument with Roger would make it feel better.
“I thought you would know.”
“Why should I?”
“Well, you’re…” Roger looked lost. “From the country, I mean.”
A peasant, he meant. “My father buys fish for the Inn when we need it,” she said coldly, and shifted on the stone so that her back was to Roger, the rich man’s son.
She heard him sigh and then get up. “I’m going to climb that rise there,” he said.
Mella didn’t ask why.
“To see if there’s anything—berries or something. Or maybe an easier way north.”
It was absolutely no use trying to pick a fight with Roger. He was so nice, it made Mella grind her teeth. If she hadn’t seen him stand up to Alain, she wouldn’t think he had any backbone at all.
The river flowed by, quick and cold, chalky white with rock dust washed down from the slopes of the mountain. Faintly, over the rush and roar of the swiftly moving water, Mella realized that she could hear something. Someone shouting.
Twisting around, Mella saw Roger on top of a small, stony outcrop that rose up over the river. He was jumping up and down, waving his arms. But he wasn’t looking at Mella. He had his back to the river and to her. As she watched, he suddenly disappeared over the far edge of the rise and was gone from her sight.
What on earth? Limping a little on her sore ankle, Mella clambered up the slope after him. Had he gone mad? If he thought she was going to chase him all over the mountain…
When she got to the top of the outcrop and looked down, she thought at first glance that her fears had bee
n true. Roger had gone mad. There he stood, in a valley below her, talking eagerly and gesturing to…nothing at all.
Then Mella blinked and saw more clearly. There was a man standing opposite Roger. She had not seen him at first because his sheepskin clothing, his weather-beaten skin, and his dull brown hair blended so perfectly into a background of tree trunks and dry leaves. And because he stood so still. He was like a tree himself, unmoving, as if rooted deep.
Roger saw Mella and waved at her to join them.
“A night’s lodging?” Roger was saying as Mella arrived, having slid and scrambled her way down to them. “We can pay for beds and for food if you’ve any to spare.”
Oh, yes! Mella could have cried with joy at the idea of sleeping dry and warm for one night, even if it was on nothing better than a blanket in front of a hearth. And food!
The man’s face didn’t change. Two dogs sat at his feet, one black with four white feet, the other white with a black splotch over one ear. They both cocked their heads, as if they were also giving thought to Roger’s words. There was a long, considering pause before the shepherd spoke.
“And what are you doing here, two children, and all alone in the wilderness?”
“That’s our business,” Mella said. Roger jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow, but Mella could feel the weight of the Egg in her sack and she remembered the cold despair she had felt seeing it in Alain’s hands. They couldn’t reveal the purpose of their journey to every stranger they met.
“We’re just travelers,” Roger said, frowning at Mella. “But we can pay well for a bed tonight.”
The man let several moments go by as he thought, and then he shook his head.
Mella couldn’t believe it. “Why not?” she demanded. Couldn’t the man see that they needed rest?
“I cannot take strangers in if I know so little of their errand. If you have an honest reason for wandering about the hills, you’d best tell it to me.” His voice was like the roots of the trees, gnarled and knotted, somehow deep and dark brown and strong.
“You’re wandering about the hills,” Mella pointed out tartly. “Do you have an honest reason for it?”
Roger made a horrible face at her, but Mella saw a corner of the man’s mouth twitch. “I am searching for a lamb. Eagle killed a ewe and took one of the babies back to its nest for the chicks.”
“An emperor eagle?” Roger asked. Now it was Mella’s turn to make a face at him. What on earth did it matter?
The man nodded.
“I saw one flying over a few minutes ago,” Roger said, and pointed. “It had something in its claws, and it landed in a dead pine.”
Mella was amazed. She had not noticed anything flying overhead, and even if she had, she would hardly have bothered to watch where it landed. But then, her mind had been mainly on her footing. Where had Roger found the time and the will to look up?
“Emperors don’t usually kill their prey straight off,” Roger went on. “They bring it back so the chicks can practice hunting. We might be able to get it if we hurry.” And without waiting for an answer he started to scramble up the hill, leaving Mella and the shepherd and the dogs to follow.
Mella burned with exasperation as she climbed up the slope and slid down again to the riverbank. Why should they do this man a favor after he’d refused them a night’s lodging? They didn’t have time to clamber up and down trees, rescuing lambs for people who weren’t even going to help them.
She didn’t think it was anything to do with the rules of honor, or with being noble and a rich man’s son. Other knights and their squires had stayed at the Inn from time to time, and they had been mostly noticeable for their arrogance. No, it was just Roger. Too nice by half. She would have to explain how you could spend too much time helping, Mella thought, forgetting how glad she’d been of Roger’s helpfulness when she’d been scrubbing the floor at the Inn and frantic with worry about the Egg.
When Mella and the shepherd caught up with Roger, he was standing at the foot of a dead pine tree. A stiff gray skeleton, it rose high overhead. They could see the untidy clump of twigs that was the eagle’s nest.
“It looks like the mother’s gone,” Roger said, stepping back and shading his eyes to look upward. “Out hunting again. If I hurry, I can climb up and get the lamb back.”
The shepherd spoke. “Nay, you’ve no call, young one. ’Tis my flock.”
“The tree won’t hold you,” Roger pointed out. The branches of the dead pine were dry and brittle, most broken off a foot or two from the trunk. In fact, Mella wasn’t sure it would even hold Roger.
But before she could object or the shepherd could argue further, Roger had dropped his pack and was working his way up the lower branches. Mella stepped back to see him better. Close to the ground, the branches were near one another, and he made quick progress. But as he approached the nest, the branches grew thinner, with more space between them.
“If he falls…” she said angrily to the shepherd, but she had no words to finish the threat with. If Roger fell rescuing the stranger’s lamb, what could she do? Nothing.
Just as now she could do nothing but watch.
The shepherd stood beside her, his head tipped back so that he could keep Roger in his sight. Mella felt as though she were climbing with Roger, the dry splintery bark flaking off under her fingers, her arm muscles pulling her weight up, her toes curling to hold onto the branches. When a branch snapped under Roger’s weight and he swung for a moment by his hands, she felt her stomach lurch, as if her own feet were dangling over emptiness.
Carefully, Roger got his feet back onto a branch and moved slowly upward. He was higher now than the roof of the Inn. Another minute and he had reached the fork where the eagle had made her home.
Roger braced himself and leaned over the nest. Mella held her breath. He would need both hands to pick up the lamb. Faintly, Mella could hear the squawks of the frightened chicks. If the mother eagle was anywhere nearby, the sound would bring her rushing back. Hurry, Mella thought urgently at Roger.
But he didn’t hurry, and she realized that he didn’t dare. Slowly, Roger reached into the nest and then brought his hands back over the edge. He held something. Mella could not see it distinctly, but she knew it must be the lamb. Roger tucked the small shape inside his tunic and prepared to make his way back down.
The shepherd’s black dog sat up and barked sharply. Mella gasped.
In the sky she saw a dark shape winging toward the tree. Toward the nest and Roger.
Chapter Eleven
Emperor eagles had wings wider than a man was tall. Their beaks could break bone. They could kill a sheep or a full-grown deer. Not even a hunting cat could scare an emperor eagle off a kill.
Mella shouted a warning just as the bird screamed a high-pitched, angry challenge to the intruder near its nest. Roger began to climb back down as fast as he could, clutching at branches, trying to keep the trunk of the tree between himself and the furious bird.
The eagle dove, but it was hampered by the spiky branches. Roger slipped, snatched at a branch, recovered. Mella’s heart thumped against her ribs. He would fall. Even if the eagle didn’t reach him, he would fall. He couldn’t dodge an attacker, and hang on, and keep the lamb safe.
Mella grabbed up a stone and threw it with all her strength, but it fell far short of the eagle. The bird dove again, and Roger ducked his head between his arms to shield his face.
Mella heard a strange humming sound.
The shepherd had pulled a sling loose from his belt. It was simply a long strip of leather, wider in the middle than at the ends. He held the two loose ends in one hand and in the center of the strip, where the leather folded over on itself, he’d tucked a smooth, round river stone.
Now he swung the sling in a circle, making the humming sound Mella had heard. The leather strap moved so quickly that it looked as if the man had his hand in the center of a spinning wheel. With a flick of his wrist, the shepherd sent the stone flying at the eagle.
“Roger!” Mella bent over him. “Are you all right? You’re bleeding!”
“I am?” The eagle’s talons had raked a deep scratch across the back of Roger’s neck and down his shoulder. Roger got up a little unsteadily and twisted around, trying to see the injury. Mella dabbed at the blood with her sleeve. “Ow, Mella, stop that, it hurts. I think the lamb’s all right,” Roger said, and reached into his tunic to pull out the little animal and hand it over.
The newborn creature looked tiny in the shepherd’s large, brown fingers. It was so young that its wool was still damp, and it huddled into the man’s hands and let out an occasional feeble, whimpering bleat.
Carefully, the shepherd wrapped the lamb in a scarf from his neck and tucked it inside his tunic, where the heat of his skin would keep it warm. Overhead, the eagle, perched now on her nest, screeched an angry warning, and Roger and Mella looked up nervously.
“Well, then,” the shepherd said. “I suppose you’d best come home with me.”
The shepherd’s name, it turned out, was Gwyn. He and his family lived in a tiny village, five or six round houses, each with its barns and pens behind it, all neatly built from slabs of stone. The little settlement almost seemed to vanish into the landscape, so that you needed to be close by to see it at all.
Gwyn’s wife, Lelan, was a small, plump, round-faced woman who fussed over the scratch on Roger’s neck while her children watched, wide-eyed at the sight of strangers. Mella kept losing count—were there seven or eight? She could only be sure of Tobin, the oldest, a few years younger than she was, and of Jes, the baby he was holding, bouncing her gently to keep her quiet while his mother took care of Roger.
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