Highland Dragon Warrior

by Isabel Cooper

  “Unless Father’s found some clever art he’s not told me of,” said Douglas.

  “So. Being a maiden could make me more of a surprise, should any think to attack us. I couldna’ avoid the skirts, though, and they’d be an encumbrance for certain. But two men might put folks’ backs up where one and a girl might not. So,” she said again, and her eyes glinted with humor. “Am I your manservant, or are you my guardian?”

  Either suggested images, stories that men passed between themselves when drunk. Madoc suspected that this time the suggestion was intentional, even if only for the mirth of it. He felt a brief sting of lust and fought to keep his gaze from sliding down Moiread’s body again.

  Most likely she was joking. She’d been at war, and soldiers’ humor was not gentle. It meant nothing, Madoc decided, and fortunately her brother’s presence kept him from feeling anything stronger than that momentary shift in awareness.

  It would be good to keep his mind away from that path, good to keep thinking of Moiread as a comrade in arms.

  “Best we see which is more valuable, isn’t it?” he asked and tapped the hilt of his own sword where it hung at his waist. “Do you care for a bout?”

  * * *

  There was room enough in the yard for a pair to spar, even with the men training. Moiread had managed it often enough in her younger days. She vaulted the fence—Douglas mouthed something that sounded suspiciously like show-off, but she chose to ignore him—and drew her sword, getting her feet settled. The ground was a wee bit squashy, but not bad. Certainly it was a damned improvement over an actual battle.

  Practice bouts always were. Moiread had time to adjust her weight and take in her surroundings. She wasn’t slamming sideways into her own men or having to keep an eye on her opponent’s fifty friends. And the place didn’t reek of death. Absent the bloodlust, which had its flaws but also its merits, the whole business was to be preferred.

  Certainly there was more skill in a practice bout, and Madoc, it soon became clear, did not lack for skill. He fought with a long dagger in his off hand, all the better against a foe with the sort of large weapon she wielded. She was quicker with a long sword than most. In human form, she was stronger enough than mortals to make up a bit for the difference in weight with her opponent. Still, Madoc evaded her as they moved around the practice ring, ducking sideways from one blow and stepping back from another, only to dart in with a stab that forced Moiread to react fast and set her off balance.

  Flat of the blade, they’d agreed, and to five touches or one killing blow. Madoc had the first touch, a grazing slap to the back of Moiread’s leg that would have barely missed cutting the tendon.

  Out of pride, Moiread might have wished to blame the point on her travels, to think that weariness and stiff muscles had slowed her reflexes. She knew otherwise. Her people recovered fast. She’d had ten hours of good sleep and two full meals, almost enough for her to heal most minor wounds, let alone simple exhaustion. She was as well fit to fight as she ever had been, and Madoc was good.

  Besides, it was exciting to realize the loss. It had been a long time since she’d fought a single opponent who was a true challenge. It had been a long time since she’d sparred for the enjoyment and the skill of it. The last occasion might have been ten years before, with Douglas, and she knew his tactics too well. Madoc was new.

  She grinned acknowledgment of the touch and pressed on, delighting in the weight of the sword, the stretch of her muscles, and even the lingering smart on her calf. The spring air was fresh and cool in her lungs. Madoc was coming around her side, slim legs bunching as he began to lunge. Moiread sidestepped, thrust, and caught him in the shoulder, pulling the blow instinctively.

  Another pass. This time he blocked her at close range. They stared at each other across locked blades. Madoc’s face was flushed, with beads of sweat at his temples, just as Moiread could feel them at hers. His chest heaved as he caught his breath.

  There were other aspects of a sparring partner who wasn’t a relative. Moiread felt her heart speed up in a way that had little to do with pure exertion.

  That happened. The physical was the physical, and it was easy enough for sensation to transfer. Many a camp follower had made herself a comfortable living on that account. Moiread ignored it. Or mostly she ignored it. The man was near at hand and damned attractive, and there was no harm in looking.

  She didn’t stare long enough or intently enough to miss him going for her ribs with the dagger, at least, so all was well.

  Then it was back into the fray, and she drowned attraction in the need to concentrate, anticipate, and finally move at the right moment and with the right amount of force.

  In the end, Moiread won. It was a close thing. Madoc had four touches to her two when he misjudged her timing. She pulled her swing, changed the angle, and caught him clean across the gut, careful to use almost no force. Even blunt impact could be deadly there, with so many organs lying vulnerable. She’d seen that more than a few times before.

  Madoc stepped back and bowed. “That finished me, didn’t it? You’re remarkably good, Lady MacAlasdair.”

  “I’ve advantages. Time’s not the least of them.” Moiread sheathed her sword and leaned against the fence. “I’m guessing you haven’t put a century into learning. Have you a verdict?”

  “Male dress, I should think,” he said. “If we seem less formidable, we’ll be all the more likely targets for it, and I’d rather not add to whatever foes we have. Unless you’ve any objection to it, of course.”

  “None at all. Makes riding easier, and God knows I could always use the help there.”

  Four

  The next morning during their leave-taking, Madoc discovered what Moiread had meant by that statement. His tall chestnut mare stood saddled, ready, and looking sideways at a fat, black gelding that must have been at least fifteen years old. At first Madoc wondered if they’d be taking a packhorse along, but he saw quickly enough that the beast was saddled.

  When Moiread came out of the stables, he began to understand. Rhuddem was no plodding nag, but neither was she fractious nor given to nerves—Madoc had ridden her to hunting often enough. Even so, she snorted at Moiread and edged sideways. Madoc’s presence on her back and his hands on the reins kept her calm, but without them, he knew she’d have sought greener pastures.

  The black horse swung its head around to eye Moiread with no affection, yet it stood and let her mount, which she did aptly enough once she’d embraced her father and her brother.

  “If we don’t get killed, I expect I’ll be back in a year or so” were her parting words. “God keep you both.”

  She looked like a woman until they’d ridden out of the castle gates, across the drawbridge, and down the start of the winding road, which led away from Loch Arach. Then she reached up to her neck, where a cloudy white stone hung from a silver chain, and spoke a word too quietly for Madoc to hear.

  Then a young man rode beside Madoc. He seemed more youth than man, that age between eighteen and twenty that was mostly limbs and awkwardness. There was no suggestion of womanly shape beneath the plaid cloak Moiread wore.

  “There,” she said. “No point confusing the villagers, aye?”

  “Fair,” said Madoc, who’d been expecting a gruffer voice and more stubble on the chin, to say the least. “Will you be my squire, then?”

  “It’s as good a story as not. You can call me Michael, if you need to address me. At least it starts the same.”

  “It’s a clever sort of a token, that.”

  He pointed, but only briefly. Rhuddem was picking her way along with more nerves than usual, and Madoc thought it best to keep both hands on the reins.

  Observing as much, Moiread sighed. “That,” she said, “is one of the minor curses of my family. Even when we’re in human shape, we dinna’ smell quite human, at least not to horses. And they’re not fond of it. She�
��ll calm a bit as we go along.”

  “But you couldn’t ride her?” Madoc guessed.

  Moiread shook her head. “I could maybe stay on her back,” she said, “but it’d no’ be worth my while, save in dire straits indeed. With the younger ones, or the worse-tempered, the best I can do is stay on their back when they bolt. Maybe. Our beasts are more used to us, but even they’re nervous.” She paused, took a glance around to make sure they were alone, and then added, “And should I ever have to change form around you, don’t be on horseback if you can help it. It’s a damned rare beast who won’t panic then.”

  “All beasts?”

  “The beasts of the field, at any rate. Dogs are a bit better. My sister keeps terriers. And cats don’t seem to care one way or the other, or not so far as I’ve noticed.” She grinned, an expression that was no less engaging in her male disguise. “I had an old, gray moggy that followed me about when I was a girl, alike in both forms. Probably thought dragons would give him better scraps.”

  “And your brother does keep falcons,” Madoc said, remembering the tour he’d taken of the mews.

  Moiread laughed. “Aye. One hunter keeps company well enough with the others, mayhap? One of my uncles fancies himself a man of natural philosophy, and he spent three years writing about how our flight compared to the hawks’. Took apart their wings, as I recall, when the wee birds died.”

  “What did he find?”

  “Oh, you’d have to ask him for most of it, and he’s off in Turkey or the like now.” She furrowed her brow and gazed into the distance, thinking. “Different sorts of bones. Though both are hollow, which I suppose must happen by magic. Devil knows where the rest of it goes when we change. Same place the scales and all that come from, I suppose.”

  Madoc nodded. “I’ve only seen your brother in his…other form…once, and that from a distance. Cathal, that was, not Douglas. And that was twenty years ago now.”

  “Oh?”

  “I came here with Douglas. It wasn’t of much note, I suspect, especially since your brother was breaking curses and falling in love and so forth at the time.”

  “Ah. Aye,” Moiread said with a wry twist of her lips. “I wasn’t here, and the accounts I heard… Aye, Cathal rather overshadowed you, I fear. And in his telling, his Sophia was the brightest star in the firmament. I do recall a mention or two, now that you remind me.”

  The clear morning air and the gray mountain walls sent Madoc’s laughter back to him. “It’s this I’ll remember,” he said, “when I start feeling prideful.”

  “Ah, well,” Moiread said. “The priests do say humility becomes a man. But if it’s any consolation, we’ll often not see each other for ten or a dozen years at a stretch. Cathal and I in particular, neither of us being very settled. Or he never was.”

  “And you still aren’t?”

  “I’ve not had the chance to consider it much, not for thirty years or more.” Frowning, she corrected herself, “Though I was holding the castle for the first few years of that. One of us had to stay behind, and Father’s only started feeling his age.”

  “How old is he?” Madoc asked.

  Moiread shrugged. “The figuring gets less important as we go on. He’d seen nigh half a century when the era turned, I know that.”

  Not for the first time in his life, Madoc thought of the difference between knowing and knowing. He’d heard stories and even some verified accounts from Douglas. He’d heard of and met other long-lived folk, but they were different, less human. Moiread looked and talked like any young man off to make his fortune, right up until she referred casually to centuries going by, and Artair hadn’t…

  Well, to think of it, there had been a feeling of age about the MacAlasdair sire. It simply hadn’t been age as Madoc thought of it, of which white hair and wrinkles were minor manifestations. Instead, the man had the aura of a mountain.

  “Ah,” he said.

  At his side, Moiread’s lips twitched. “If you’re wondering,” she said, “I’ve a little more than three hundred years. And I doubt I’ll see Father’s age. The blood thins, aye, unless we breed back with our own kind as my sister did, and as Father did not. Not with our mother… We’ve some half-siblings elsewhere, I hear, but far away.”

  “I have a few of those myself,” said Madoc. “My father married again a dozen years back, and his wife has borne five living children. Pleasant enough youths.”

  “They generally are,” said Moiread cheerfully.

  They rode on, talking quietly and falling silent by turns, as the road took them down out of the mountains. It was a pleasant day for it: clear and bright, in the middle of spring, not warm enough to make riding uncomfortable nor yet with the cold wetness of the previous few days. Trees budded around them, with the hazel and alder sprouting long catkins like yellow-green cats’ tails, and birds called to each other, making a counterpoint to the sound of hoofbeats. It was yet too early for the heather to flower, but the plants spread green over the hillsides.

  For the better part of the day, they went alone on the road. Just as Madoc had seen when he approached, leaving Loch Arach meant leaving all other human presence. The road echoed that. Well-maintained up near the keep, it became pitted and rocky shortly after they stopped at noon for cheese and bread. The horses picked their way across gingerly. A few times they had to cross fallen branches, blown down by a past storm.

  “I’ll have to send messages back,” Moiread said after the second such incident. “This isna’ rightly our land, but Douglas or Father will be able to talk with Laird…” She pursed her lips. “Congilton, I think. Have some men from each clan see to the clearing, once the planting and the lambing are done.”

  “Did you not come this way before?” Madoc asked.

  “Aye, but I wasna’ paying much attention to the road then. Lucky thing my neck’s still whole, is it not?”

  “I’m certainly glad of it.”

  Despite such delays, they made decent time. By twilight, while they remained in the mountains, they’d started to see signs of human habitation once again. Forests beside the road had given way to plowed fields and flocks of sheep, and to an occasional stone or turf cottage or a larger house with a barn beside it. Men in plaids drove beasts through the fields with plows behind them or herded sheep with large dogs at their sides. They looked over at Moiread and Madoc from time to time, but took no more than a momentary interest.

  As the sky darkened, Moiread gestured toward one of the larger houses that was roofed with heather and had walls of solid stone, rather than the stone-and-turf patches Madoc had seen on cottages. Smoke curled out from the center of the roof and into the red sky.

  “There’s the best we’ll do for the night,” Moiread said. “We’ll likely have to share quarters wi’ the children, but hopefully not wi’ the pigs, thanks be to God.”

  They were more fortunate even than that. The man who came to the gate to greet them was middle-aged, his wife likewise, and their children either married or apprenticed save for a babe small enough to sleep next to his parents’ bed. That bed was indeed in a separate room, for the house was large for its kind and solid. Madoc guessed that being so near the road was a handy way to come by extra coin.

  Moiread provided coin casually, at least pretending not to notice when the man’s eyes widened. “My lords,” he said, and bowed deeply. “Shall I take your horses to the barn?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Madoc, catching Moiread’s eye. She nodded. They both remembered the broken saddle band. “They’re nervous creatures, and I’m the only one who can generally see them settled for the night, more so in strange country.”

  The barn held an extremely elderly donkey and a small flock of chickens. It was dark and close and smelled of its occupants, but Madoc had been in worse—had slept in worse, on journeys that had taken him far from civilized lands—and the time he spent unsaddling and brushing the h
orses was no hardship. It was calming, rather: familiar action even if the place and the company were both strange.

  When he came back to the house, the woman was handing around thick clay bowls, ladling their contents out of the cauldron on the hearth. “Only potage, my lords,” she said, ducking her head, “but if you bide a while, I can kill one of the hens and roast that.”

  “This will be fine,” said Madoc quickly.

  At home he might have asked for meat, particularly with the coin, but he didn’t know these people, nor their lord. It was best not to risk taking advantage or giving cause for complaint. The potage looked good, too—thick, with onions and turnips, and with the faint smell of meat about it. Likely they’d put a bone into the pot to boil as well.

  “Aye,” said Moiread, “this is most hospitable.”

  They ate, speaking in generalities of weather and spring planting, until near the end of the meal when the man added, “…and wi’ the war over, you’ll not be the last guests we have.” He glanced at Madoc, the question clear on his face, but he didn’t voice it.

  “Did you have people in it?” Moiread asked as a distraction.

  “My brother, God rest him.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Madoc.

  The man shrugged. “He fell bravely, m’lord, or so they told me. It’s a comfort. And we beat the bastards, did we no’?”

  “That we did.” Moiread flashed a grin then, despite obviously trying to prevent it, and yawned. “Beg pardon. It’s been a long day riding.”

  It had been. With food settling into his stomach and the fire heating his toes, Madoc felt all the hours on the road coming home to him.

  Still, when he stepped into the bedroom with Moiread and the door closed behind him, he wasn’t too tired to feel the awkwardness of it.