The Dragon Writers Collection

by DragonWritersCollective

  “That cat just sprayed on the wrong hedge.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I know, and I apologize. Yet again, I cannot explain.” She looked toward the empty doorway and back again.

  Caera pursed her lips. “Ma’am . . . Gráinne . . . please do not do anything you may not live to regret. No, I mean . . . .”

  Though it stabbed at Gráinne, curtness best served Caera. “I know what you meant. I will return before dark.”

  “As will I,” said Lan. He had retrieved a satchel and an alder wood staff engraved with scratchy lines breaking into a pattern of painted azure swirls, like whitecaps slashing into waves. A gemstone the same shade of blue topped the staff, and a shiny ribbon wound around the stave’s aged wood.

  Gráinne wasted no time in gearing up Midnight and galloping down the mountain trail to the grassy spot near the Blood River. Dismounting, she tossed out a fur, placed her saddlebag on it, and sat among the wildflowers. She could see Lan not far away doing much the same thing, except he hadn’t brought a fur, and so he simply stretched out in the grass and let the sun bathe him.

  So like a cat.

  Grabbing one of the pears and the scroll case from the saddle bag, Gráinne settled on her tummy. Before opening the case, she sank her teeth into the pear and pulled off a hunk, which she crunched on noisily. She took her time removing the scroll from the wooden case and unrolling it. Half of the pear was already in her belly by the time she anchored three corners of the scroll with the hunk of cheese, the remaining pear, and the knife. She had reasoned that if he could hear the voice in her head when she had thoughts, surely Lan could hear the voice she heard in her own head when reading. She counted on the latter as she moved her finger to the first words of the scroll and began to read as painfully slowly as her mind could tolerate.

  It is with the deepest regret that we of the Insouciance find we must address rumors and innuendoes. Once again, the ugly head of bigotry rears its crown. Once again, covetous spite spews venom on defenders, nay supporters, of the realm. Once again we must defend the Union. It is our civic duty to slice off this envious, devouring head, but we will not do so at forfeit of the very civility under attack. Before the Council of Elders, we thus offer an exposition on

  THE GOOD WORKS OF THE INSOUCIANCE

  ~Recorded and presented by Insouciance Guild Master Blanchard on behalf of Seated Elder of Insouciance, General Thackeray MacDougal~

  Gráinne put her finger at the start of the list below the names and looked up. Seated Elder of Insouciance, General Thackeray MacDougal . . . Seated Elder of Insouciance, General Thackeray MacDougal.

  She turned her head lazily, as if daydreaming, and cast a glance toward Lan. He appeared asleep. She looked back to the scroll and let her finger stumble onto words between long pauses as it fell down the page. Charity . . . orphans . . . successful location of lost goods . . . . Sliding to her knees and then to her feet, she rose. When Lan didn’t move, she crept to her horse, leaving her belongings in the tall grass.

  Before Lan awoke with a start, she had mounted Midnight and galloped toward the tree bridge. In its former life, it had stood next to the river, a massive oak casting shadows on the water, but lightning had struck it, and it had fallen across the river. Too large to move, workmen had chipped away at it until its trunk was flat enough to serve as a bridge. Gráinne crossed the bridge knowing Lan’s horse would resist walking across it. Even Midnight had required coaxing several times before she would step onto it. As far as Gráinne knew, the Courser had never attempted a crossing. When she reached the opposite side of the river, she looked back toward the meadow at the base of the mountain and saw Lan astride the Courser, his short legs stretched wide across the horse’s back as he bounced up and down in the saddle. The horse was backing up, resisting stepping onto the tree bridge.

  Gráinne nudged her horse toward the wooded area shrouding the entrance to the southern cave. At the edge of the woods, she slid off the saddle and slapped the horse on the rump. “Go home.” Although she knew a long walk back up the mountain awaited her, she took the chance Lan would follow the horse’s tracks if he convinced the Courser to cross the river. A long walk for privacy was a fair trade.

  A dense, impenetrable web of thorny branches covered the opening of the cave. Approaching them, Gráinne whispered, “Mother, I have come seeking wisdom.” She closed her eyes and waved her hand in front of the branches before reaching out to touch one. A thorn pricked her finger, and a drop of blood rolled off, landing on the moss-covered soil. The thicket creaked and opened up a space just wide enough for Gráinne to slip inside the cave. Once she had entered, the branches creaked again, closing.

  The air inside the cave felt damp and cool and smelled of flowers. A trickle of water sounded from the rear of the cave, and Gráinne walked toward it in the darkness. Her steps sure and solid, she climbed gently upward until they brought her round a turn and into an area in which the scent of flowers grew stronger. Light emanated from a stone-ringed pond in the farthest corner of the rocky chamber. Gráinne stood still and let her eyes adjust to the light while she listened to the trickle of water running down the cave wall and into the pond. The sound soothed her throbbing temples. After a few moments, she walked toward the corner and crouched to sit on one of the smooth stones framing the pond’s perimeter. Staring down into the water, she put her fingers into it and made a gentle swirling motion.

  “Mother?” she asked, her tone as soft and gentle as a child reciting bedtime prayers.

  The water in the pond rippled.

  “You know what they have done. Why did you not stop them?”

  “Morgraine.” The word, spoken with tenderness, filled the cave and echoed as it bounced off the walls, yet it was no more than a whisper.

  Except when she was in the cave, Gráinne hadn’t heard her true name spoken since she’d come to Vandovir, and the sound of it consoled her despite her emotional pain. “Why, Mother? Why has this happened?”

  The pond rippled again.

  “What happens is what must be.”

  “Must be?! How can you say such a thing? Such unspeakable suffering is an abomination of Nature herself.” Gráinne’s ire rose with each word.

  "So short-sighted. Have you learned nothing? Are beings not of Nature, even those whose greed blinds them to peace and tolerance and respect for other living things?”

  “Are you saying this is acceptable? The deaths of innocents are acceptable?” Gráinne splashed the water and withdrew her hand.

  The voice retorted angrily, and its words grew loud enough to ring in Gráinne’s ears. “We are saying no such thing, Morgraine. We take no joy in this tragedy, and we do not condone it. We accept that it occurred. Those who do not respect Nature are doomed to suffer her wrath. All living things must choose their paths.”

  Gráinne stood up, her chest heaving as she tried to suppress the anger she felt at the indifference bouncing off the cave walls. She thought the voice sounded different than the one she had listened to so many times after she’d discovered the cave and pond. It had been her refuge while grieving her mother’s death. There was no comfort in the voice now, and it seemed to come from all around her instead of from the pond. “The scrolls. The visions. Why?”

  The water trickled.

  “Tell me where they are. I know there are survivors.” The echo of her demand bounced back at her and faded into silence.

  When no answer came, she turned to leave but stopped and spoke sarcastically without looking behind her, “Choose their paths? Like I did, Mother? Like Caera did? As did the slaughtered children?”

  This time, Gráinne didn’t wait for a response. She resumed her trek out of the cave. When she reached the brambles covering the entrance, they parted, and she slipped outside, muttering, “A waste of precious time.” The answers she’d come for still eluded her. The Mother had spoken in nonsensical riddles, and even her defiance before leaving the cave had not left Gráinne feeling empowered. Defe
at had come to Incorrigible, and now it seeped into her soul, as well. The thicket creaked as she walked away from the cave.

  Even under the cover of trees, the light seemed intense to Gráinne, and so she opened her eyelids by degrees to become accustomed to it.

  “You were not in there for long.” Smugness swirled through the treetops.

  Gráinne looked up.

  “Over here,” Lan added, a crack from a breaking branch punctuating his words.

  Gráinne tracked the sound and saw Lan sitting in a fork where two thick maple branches parted.

  He waved a smaller, leaf-laden branch at her. “He was right. If I were a highwayman, you would be dead.”

  “Pray a highwayman comes along, then.” Gráinne headed in the direction that would take her around the cove and back up the mountain to the castle. It was the longest distance to “home.”

  A thud resounded as Lan’s boots hit the mossy soil beneath the tree, and Gráinne turned around, fully expecting to see him lying on the ground with a broken neck. Instead, he leaned against the tree, chewing on the branch.

  Gráinne looked up at the fork in the tree and then back down at Lan. “It must be seven verges from where you were sitting to the ground,” she said.

  Lan looked up. “I do believe that is a close estimate, Marquessa.”

  Gráinne was in no mood for the creature’s snide comments. “Where is your horse? Drowned in the river? Your Master will have your head for losing one of his horses,” she replied with venom.

  Lan laughed. “Do you think me so dim?”

  “Well, where is he?”

  “On the other side of the river, tied to a tree.”

  Gráinne rolled her eyes and resumed walking, hoping Lan had left enough slack in the rope for the horse to graze. The Kathan bounded on all fours in front of her before standing back up and falling into step beside her.

  Gráinne scowled. “You run like a cat?”

  “No,” he said, shifting his feet to coordinate his step with hers. “I run like a Kathan. What is in the cave?”

  Gráinne stopped abruptly and roughly grasped Lan’s jacket collar with both hands. Her greater height, her anger and frustration with the voice at the Goddess Pond, and the element of surprise made it easy for her to lift him off the ground. “That is none of your business or the business of anyone else!” As she spewed out the words, she Shifted her eyes into a catlike form and drew up a feral growl from deep within her, letting it roll out slowly.

  Lan’s tail and ears drooped.

  She dropped him and let the growl dissipate before she resumed her step. “Leave me alone.”

  Gráinne opened up a short distance between them before she heard Lan’s footsteps pick up. He maintained the space between them until she reached the mountain path, where he veered away to retrieve the Courser. Soon thereafter, she heard the hooves of the horse not far behind her. Even on horseback, Lan stayed well back from her the entire way home.

  The uphill trek gave Gráinne ample time to increase her feelings of defeat and of rage. Her trip to the Goddess Pond had brought no knowledge or understanding about the whys of her homeland’s destruction or the whereabouts of survivors, if any. She certainly had not learned anything about the scrolls or the visions or the mysterious Priestesses of Warrant. Lost in thought, she paid no attention to the landscape and merely walked by habit along the pathway. When she arrived at the castle, dusk was descending. After unsaddling, grooming, and feeding Midnight, Gráinne went straight to her chambers and plopped on her bed, feeling torn between sobbing and screaming out in anger.

  The next morning, movement out the north window of her room caught her eye, and she spied the mast of a small ship anchored off the northern shore of Vandovir. Excited, she rushed to get her horse and made the ride down the mountain to the northern woods. At the edge of the pine trees, she met them, the party of wild-looking males.

  “Greetings,” she called toward them as they approached on foot. Five human men. All had long, scraggly hair and bronze skin. Each wore heavy boots and leather pants. A couple of them wore leather and fur vests open in the front. Judging from the well-toned muscles on the remaining—bare-chested—ones, she surmised they worked hard at something, though Gráinne knew not what. All were armed.

  The group stopped when they heard her voice. The one in the middle stepped forward. “Greetings.”

  “Is that your ship?” Gráinne sized him up. He wore a leather vest trimmed at its bottom with black fur. From chest to shoulder, it gaped open. Laced closed from chest to waist, it fit snugly. The man’s eyes looked at least as dark as his mussed, chestnut hair.

  “Aye, t’is.” He motioned with his chin toward the castle atop the mountain. “Is that yer keep?”

  “No. It is the keep of the Marquis of Vandovir.” She hesitated and then thought it best to continue. “My husband.”

  “And this husband sends his wife to meet seafarers?”

  Gráinne didn’t like the tone he used. “No. I was riding and saw your ship. My husband’s soldiers will have seen it, as well,” she lied.

  Crack!

  The heads of the men turned toward the sound. With order and purpose, their hands moved instinctively toward either their swords or the bows on their backs.

  Gráinne’s gaze tracked toward the sound, too.

  Lan emerged from the woods atop the Courser, and Gráinne’s eyes widened in surprise. She had only ever seen him in his finely tailored clothing of waistcoats and pants and shirts with ruffled cuffs. His boots were always finely polished and without blemish. Now, the normally delicate looking creature wore thick, scuffed boots, pants made of stiff, black fur, and nothing more! Crossed on his back were two swords, long and curved and elaborately engraved. Inside the engraving was iridescent, blue paint. In his right hand, he held the staff he’d taken with him to the cave. Its painted design shimmered in the same way as the engraving on the swords. Though she didn’t recognize the symbols tattooed on Lan’s chest, she noticed their colour: the exact shade of pulsating blue as the markings on his weapons. She dismissed the seeming glow and pulse of the tattoos as a trick of the ink itself and not a trait of the markings. Even without the added effect of inexplicable glowing and pulsing, the little Kathan looked fierce and even wilder than the strangers.

  “Marquessa,” he said as he rode up next to her. His voice deeper than usual, it also had a tone bordering on threatening, even to her.

  “My guard,” Gráinne announced confidently, knowing she hadn’t told a complete lie.

  The leader looked hard at Lan. “What is he?”

  Gráinne laughed, trying to sound at ease. “A loyal servant of the Marquis. Who else would he trust with his wife but his favorite and most honoured warrior? Now, who are you, and what brings you here?”

  Gráinne thought about the Kathan’s talent for invading her thoughts. If they move, show them how a Kathan runs. Get behind them.

  “I am Tell Bravin, and these are . . . my travelling companions.”

  The men on either side of Tell laughed.

  “And what brings you to Vandovir, Tell Bravin?”

  “Our journey had an unexpected detour, and we need supplies.”

  Gráinne played along with the word game. “I see. What supplies do you need? I am sure my husband would be willing to sell you enough to get you to the closest trade port.”

  Tell laughed. “Sell?” He looked to either side of himself at the row of males and said something Gráinne couldn’t hear. The two men on either end began to move outward, leaving Tell with one man on either side of him.

  They are flanking us.

  “I know,” Lan replied in a whisper without moving his lips, dismounting the Courser and handing the reins to Gráinne.

  She thought he sounded agitated; when he drove the tip of the staff into the ground, she was certain. Its shaft vibrated with such force the soft ribbons whipped against the wood, and the gem at its head caused the staff to bend like a willow branch, so muc
h so that Gráinne thought the alder wood would snap in two.

  “Stop!” Gráinne called out. “Tell your men to halt at once!”

  “That will not happen,” Tell answered in challenge.

  Before Gráinne could even consider the implications of the response, Lan had dropped to the ground on all fours and bounded forward in a zigzag pattern. The leader drew his sword. In the time it took him to do so, Lan had leapt through the gap between the man on the left side of Tell and one of the men trying to flank Gráinne and the horses.

  Tell started to spin around, but too late to stop Lan, who whirled around in mid-air and landed standing once again on two feet behind the leader, both swords drawn and crossed at Tell’s throat.

  Lan said nothing. His eyes darted from male to male.

  “Order them to return to the ship,” Gráinne repeated. “We will counsel with you and you alone.”

  “I seem to have little choice, Marquessa,” he replied. “Return to the ship!”

  The men ceased their movement toward Gráinne and turned back in the direction of the northern shoreline.

  Lan put a knee into Tell’s back and nudged him to move. Like dancers, they slowly turned in a half-circle until they faced the backs of the men walking toward the dock. The pair backed up slowly, each step taking them farther from the other four warriors and closer to Gráinne, who dismounted and positioned herself in front of Tell, standing to her full height and surveying him.

  She reached down and took his sword out of its sheath. Holding its tip just below Tell’s sternum, she spoke to Lan, “Take his bow and then use the rope on my horse to bind his hands. We are returning to the castle.”

  While Lan obeyed, Tell smiled at Gráinne. “You are a pretty thing and much smarter than most of your kind.”

  “My kind?” she asked.

  “Females,” he replied.

  Gráinne pushed the tip of the sword forward just enough to register what she thought of his comment.

  Tell’s hands bound, the trio set off toward the path leading up the mountain, Lan and Gráinne on horseback and Tell trailing behind at the end of the rope. Off balance because of his bindings and Lan’s continual yanking on the other end of the rope, Tell stumbled repeatedly, his boots slipping on small stones littering the pathway.