The Demon Accords Compendium, Volume III

by John Conroe

  She paused for another sip of water.

  “Don’t leave us hanging, girl,” Mitt grumbled, and she hid a smile against the fired porcelain of her mug.

  “Sorry, just that sea salt Papa spoke of,” she said smoothly. “Well, you could see the actual moment it dawned on the merchant just who he was facing. Small white-haired human woman, beautiful by any standard, with green, green eyes—who happened to be wolf beastkin. His guards all realized just about that time as well because they stood frozen in their tracks.”

  Her father suddenly chuckled beside her. “This is my favorite part,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  “Hush now, no hints,” she said with a mock frown in his direction. Normally talking back to a parent was the worst of manners but her display was met with nods of approval by Lottie, Bett, and a half dozen other women, as well as more than a few of the men.

  “It was at that moment that I felt someone step up beside me. I was well and truly focused on the life and death (mostly of the merchant and guards, ya know) drama in front of me, but for some reason, I glanced to my side. It was Lord Declan, hands in his pockets, and he gave me a nod but pulled out a hand and held one finger over his lips, a funny little smile on his face. Where he came from, I don’t know. Well, actually, now I do know, but I didn’t just then. And I was puzzled because he was completely unconcerned with the impending violence. And then the most amazing thing happened. Without a glance in our direction, Lady Stacia held out one finger and pointed it straight at Lord Declan, her eyes still on the merchant. Don’t you do a single blessed thing, she says, clearly meaning her words for her lord mate. Who me, he asks, all innocent as a pie pincher on baking day. But it’s too late because the merchant looks over and sees a tall, lanky young man with bright blue eyes and you could see the moment he recognized who he was. After that, it was all the elf could do to apologize and escape into his coach, leaving his men outside to face the wrath of the Realm Holder.”

  “What did he do to them?” Headman Lentin asked, just as drawn in as the others.

  “He left it to her. She punched out the window of the coach and told the man that if she ever heard of him mowing down a child, urchin or otherwise, she’d track him to his home and see to it personally that it never happened again. That was it. Then we all walked back to the apartment where Papa was setting up a new dining table.”

  “That was it?” Old Kenny asked.

  “Well, she complained that he had intervened, and he said that the fight was over before he got there. Said he felt her anger and came straight away. You see, he created a portal from his apartment to the market and just stepped through it.”

  “They didn’t kill the merchant?” Mitt asked, baffled.

  “Nope. I asked Stacia about it another time. Sorry, I mean, Lady Stacia. Anyway, she said there wasn’t a point to bloodshed unless the man did it again. And you better believe she meant what she said. She would paint his house red from the inside out if he harms another child.”

  “She wears the pants then,” Bailey said, clearly disapproving.

  “Well, she does wear pants most often. But it’s more for being ready to fight, I think. And if you’re saying she tells him what to do, then you might want to keep your thoughts to yourself when they come here. They work together, closely, neither telling the other what to do. And like Papa said, he’s uncommon powerful. I saw him lift three pallets of Papa’s best witchwood off a ship with a wave of one hand.”

  “That’s true,” her father said. “The porters weren’t getting it done and so he just flicked his hand and a ton of wood floated from ship to wagon without a single sound. Stopped everyone on the wharf, it did. The elf, Stocan, told me that nobody’s quite ever seen someone with his power. Before he was the Realm Holder, he saved most of the city council when the king dragon, Gargax, accidently smashed part of a wall. It made both Queens and all the dragons pay attention, and he was just part of the Dragon Speaker’s entourage then.”

  “I had heard he was friends with the new Speaker,” Lentin said.

  “True,” Nira said. “They went to school together. She brought him to Fairie as part of her guards. The realm chose him to hold it. The dragons respect him deeply.”

  For some reason, that was the sentence that ended the stories. That and the buckleberry pies that were brought out. Actually, it made perfect sense. The village was very, very wary of dragons. The massive predators were often seen hunting big sea creatures in the waters around the island. Everyone knew that even the least dragon could wipe out their community without much effort at all. The topic of dragons tended to cow most conversations.

  After dessert, someone started to play some music, and a place for dancing was cleared. Nira and her father were able to bow out, blaming fatigue, and make their way home.

  The little stone house on the cliff was much the same as they had left it. A little dusty and musty from being closed up most of the summer, but otherwise unchanged. A neighbor’s son had watered the garden while they were away, and it had grown into a wild, lush jungle. There were beans, peas, squash, cucumbers, carrots, onions, and a profusion of greens that Nira needed to pick. There were also large quantities of weeds to be plucked.

  The same neighbor had housed their hawk-chickens while they were away, keeping the fat eggs as payment for the food and water. Both she and her father would have to retrieve them in a day or so, the process of capturing the dangerous little avians being at least a two-person job.

  They unpacked some of their luggage, then her father took the path down the cliff to the seashore to set some crab pots. Nira picked, cleaned, and sorted as much fresh produce as she could, chopping some for their evening meal. With her initial chores done and knowing that her father would be several hours setting his traps, she took the second path, the old path, down the cliff.

  Her father hated when she used the old path, the crumbling stone too uneven and shaky for his stocky body. But Nira was light and nimble and never afraid of heights. The path led to her special place, a narrow trail across raw stone, exposed to the full might and beauty of the wild ocean. It was also the location of her greatest secret. The western shoreline of the island where they lived was craggy, fractal, and jagged, which resulted in many hidden coves and rocky gullies. A nearly invisible offshoot of the old path led to a wild little cove complete with its own small dark cave that opened just a man’s height above the high tide mark.

  This was the path she took, and it was on the very edge of the little cave where she stood and peered into the inky blackness. Eyes wouldn’t be much use here, even with a torch, she knew, ears being the sense organ of choice. She listened but the pounding waves drowned out everything else.

  “I’m back,” she said, a little hesitantly. “I won’t be leaving again either… probably ever.”

  The only response was a mist of sea spray from a particularly juicy wave soaking her right cheek. The cool wetness was a welcome reminder she was home and for all she knew, she might be talking to an empty cave.

  Reaching into the pocket of her dress, she pulled out a wrapped bundle. Peeling away the wax cloth, she plucked the revealed lump out and set it just inside the entrance to the cave.

  “I brought you a present. It comes from the northern forests. It’s called birch sugar and it’s very sweet. I don’t know if you’re mad at me. I tried to say goodbye, to explain where and why I was going, but I don’t think you understood. Anyway, I’m back.”

  She left the offering and backed away from the cave, setting her backside against a fairly smooth outcrop of rock. But although she waited a full twenty minutes, nothing happened. Finally, she stood up, dusted off her dress, and began the climb back up the narrow path. Just before the top, right where the trail switched back to give her the slimmest view of the cave’s opening, she glanced down. The brick of tree sugar was gone and her heart lifted, her fatigue from the day’s trials momentarily washed away. Her offering had been accepted.

  She made it
back to the house fifteen minutes before her father did, him returning with a brace of bluebellies. “They were caught in the minnow trap, which I forgot to pull before we left,” he explained. “I think they got inside the weir and ate so many fingerlings that they grew too big to get back out. Not a single bait minnow to be found. So I cleaned them and used the offal to bait the pots. They’ll make a fine dinner.”

  “I haven’t had bluebelly since before we left,” she said, happy with the surprise meal. “Nobody in Idiria serves it.”

  She expertly filleted the fish as any child of the island would, then oiled a pan and fried the fillets with rosemary, thyme, and parsley from the garden to accompany the squash she was roasting in the oven. After they supped, her father washed the dinner dishes while she finished unpacking her clothes from the trip. Exhausted from the long day of travel and the excitement of the village gathering, she slipped into bed early, thinking of the long list of chores to accomplish in the days ahead.

  They were both up early the next day, breaking their fast on bread left over from the party, liberally coated with butter that was also a parting gift from Lottie Stumbler.

  “I have to meet with the village council today,” Armond told her as they ate. “There are payments to be made and arrangements for the Realm Holder’s witchwood order.”

  She knew that many of the island inhabitants had shared in their good fortune, as Armond had sent home for both prepared wood and some finished items in order to fill the apartment in Idiria.

  “I have a full day of cleaning and gardening,” she said in reply. “We are behind in harvesting and storing food. I noticed the buckleberries are ripe, so I have to pick them now or they’ll be gone to the birds.”

  “Nira, it’s only good and proper to save and use what we can from the land and sea. It’s the right way of things, but I also don’t want you to fret and worry. Our time in Idiria was also a harvest, such a one as we are not likely to see again, except when your young lord and lady come calling. The gold that we earned will easily cushion any shortage and still make provider for both of our futures.”

  “Yes Papa. It’s just that I can hear Momma’s voice in my head, telling me not waste what the goddess has provided.”

  “I miss her too, Nira,” he said, eyes glimmering. “Now, I can’t have helped but notice there were some changes among your agemates.”

  “If you are dancing around the topic of Nattle and Keply, don’t bother,” she said with a cross note in her voice. “You have always said that things change rapidly for young people. I don’t know if I’m madder at her for stepping in so quick or him for stepping out.”

  “I’ve always been of a mind that young Nattle was too simple of a lad to keep up with a girl of your wit and thoughtfulness,” he said, clearly uncomfortable.

  Nira snorted. “Nattle is a visual sort, Papa. And Keply has always had plenty to look at that he wanted. But I was only gone two months?”

  “Which can be a lifetime to the young,” her father said. “You have a big future ahead of you, Nira. You’ve traveled and become friendly with some of the most important people in the land, you kept up your learning far beyond your peers, and your wedding dowry will be the largest on this island, if I do say so myself. I can’t say I’m unhappy that it won’t be wasted on young Nattle.”

  Her father left soon after their morning meal, taking the trail back to town, and she changed into old work clothes and set about cleaning the stone cottage and then tackling the garden. Watering was the full extent of the neighbor’s care, so she had weeding and harvesting to keep her busy until the sun was high overhead. She paused for a meal of bread, butter, and tomato slices, washed down with cold water, then cleaned and prepared her garden produce for storage. Clever racks set on flat slabs of sun-warmed rock would dry some, especially the herbs, while the root vegetables all went down in the cold cellar through the trapdoor in the cottage floor. Set right into the stone of the cliffside, it kept things almost as cold as the spring water that bubbled up behind the garden.

  After that, she made her way to the neighbors, the Tullys, and gave them gifts of sweets and scarves from Idiria, as well as set a time for her father and her to retrieve the hawk-chickens. Mrs. Tully gave her a basket of eggs, claiming that the increased flock was laying too many for her family to eat.

  She returned home and grabbed a big bowl to gather ripe buckleberries, some of which she would dry in the racks and some of which she would store in the cellar. At the end of an hour and a half, she had a full load, purple-stained hands, and a complete set of scratches on her hands, arms, and lower legs. Satisfied with a good day’s work, she decided a swim would be a good reward. She grabbed an old towel and a change of clothes, as hers were sweaty and quite dirty. Then she set off for the old path, preferring to swim in the little cove rather than the bigger beach where her father kept his skiff and crab gear.

  “Hello,” she called out at the cave’s edge, hoping to get a response, but the crash of the waves was her only answer. With a sigh, she stepped carefully down to the rocky beach and, with a quick glance around, began to disrobe.

  The ocean was cold, but not quite as cold as she remembered. The crab men had been saying the waters were warmer the last few years, and she could well believe it. Quickly she was submerged and swimming in neck-deep water, being careful to avoid the rip current that habitually ran farther out. The sweat and grime came out of her hair and the saltwater made her berry scratches sting and burn, but it was a minor pain that quickly faded, although a few had been a little bloody. The women’s council, who took charge of teaching the island’s children to read, write, and handle their numbers, among a myriad score of other life lessons, had always said that ocean water was good for the skin and any cuts, scratches, or small sores.

  She dove and splashed and jumped with the waves, delighted to be back in the ocean she hadn’t realized she had missed so much. As she sputtered to the surface after one particularly large set of waves had knocked her about, a huge shadow passed in front of her, her skin feeling the pressure of the water the creature displaced.

  Alarm raced through her body, knowing that only predatory fish grew that large. Generally, the ones this size stayed more to the south, although it appeared that no one had told this one that fact. She backpedaled toward shore, keeping her eyes out for the dark menace yet not seeing where it could be. She thought of her dad, coming home to find her missing, eventually making his way to her hidden cove and finding her clothes but nothing else of her. She thought of all the things she’d hoped to do with her life, of travels not yet taken, of peoples not yet met, as she stumbled backward, the weight of the water slowing her to a crawl.

  Then the shadow reappeared, out in front of her, not three man lengths away, headed toward her, too fast to avoid.

  The smooth ocean surface above the deadly shadow suddenly exploded as a gigantic volume of water was shoved away by the impact of a speeding object from above—an object that she couldn’t see any part of. All she could see was a huge depression in the water and then the exposed body of the massive siorcfish that had been arrowing straight for her. The area of displaced water was several times larger than the grayback siorcfish and that specimen was as large as any she had ever heard of. The water was only up to her chest and the fish, whose body was as big around as a horse, was shoved down violently into the sandy ocean floor. Two sets of bloody claw prints, each as wide as a wagon seat, bloomed across its back and pectoral fin before the entire fish was lifted and thrown through the air to slam onto the rocky shore.

  Warm-scaled skin touched her bare leg and then color suddenly filled in the beast that stood beside her, every detail of the invisible creature now exposed just as the water rushed back into the void it had created. The dragon was small for her kind, just a bit longer than a delivery wagon and a brace of oxen. She was, when visible, the color of Nira’s bronze knife, and she had grown slightly since Nira had last seen her just a few months ago.

  Ni
ra shook with the shock of the encounter, the sudden violence of it. A nose the size of a small pumpkin sniffed her wet skin and hair and then bumped her shoulder, pushing her toward the shore. The siorcfish was writhing and jumping, there on the rocks of the beach, and she couldn’t make her feet move toward it. The big snout pushed her again, slowly, this time in her lower back, and the irresistible force of it moved her bodily, forcing her feet to step forward.

  Once started, she picked up speed, angling her ocean exit away from where the deadly fish was still struggling. The dragon watched her for a moment, its apple-sized eye studying her while the big head tilted to one side. When she was thigh deep, it surged forward, past her side, directly for the siorcfish. Water sprayed against the side of her face as the dragon drove straight to the siorc, her massive jaws clamping down around the fish’s head and closing with horrible, inexorable force. Teeth as long as her hand punched through skin that Nira’s best knife would barely cut, slicing through like it was paper, ripping deep into the fish’s skull. The long gray body ceased its writhing and stiffened out into palsied rigidity.

  Still shaking, Nira headed for her pile of clothes and towel while the young dragon began to feed on the fish that had been all set to feed on her. The act of drying her skin and hair, really just a bumbled brushing with the towel, helped release some of her jerky adrenaline.

  “Thank you, Storm,” she finally stuttered. The dragon growled at her, but it was an acknowledgement, not a warning. She couldn’t really understand the creature, not really, but she had a sense of her vocalizations and Storm seemed to understand at least part of what she said.