Dragon's Revenge

by Debi Ennis Binder

  “We will stay of our own free will,” Payk growled. “The direwolves, the boy, and I are hungry and see you have food remaining. Is this how your Clan treats its guests?” He hesitated, then added, “And might we have our weapons returned?”

  * * *

  Gaulte rumbled and then roared with laughter. Mayra breathed a sigh of relief. The tension had vanished. She looked up to find the dark eyes of Fyrid upon her again, and irritation flared up in her. She needed to put a stop to young Fyrid’s attention to her before he learned a hard lesson from Wolfe.

  As Harald had almost learned. Harald had bent low to Mayra and whispered a question about Indiera. He had risen to find Wolfe in his face. The conversation that followed between Mayra and Wolfe ensured they understood each other regarding Wolfe’s attitude toward other men around Mayra, but this was getting absurd on the part of the young Phailite.

  That had been a conversation they only needed to have once. She had poked one finger into his chest of the black-haired man and scowled up at him.

  “Do you trust me?” she demanded. Before he could so much as open his mouth, she poked him again. “Because you need to understand right now—I am not your possession by any means. I don’t even—”

  Wolfe’s tender smile caught her off guard. He brushed a lock of her pale hair back over her shoulder and drew her close to him. “I shall ensure Harald understands I wouldn’t have hurt him,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect to see him so close to you. I am not sorry I am a possessive male. I trust you, Mayra, utterly and without question.” His voice changed, becoming stiff. “But those men who stare with open lust in their eyes—they enrage me. I know the thoughts and imaginings about a woman that go along with such male attention—” He broke off and gave her lips a quick, hard kiss. “They annoy—no, actually, they infuriate—me.”

  But this wasn’t a lustful stare she was seeing on Fyrid’s handsome, youthful face. Sometimes the blue-skinned man looked almost perplexed.

  Wolfe grabbed at her hand, but she slipped away and stomped across the icy ground. She stopped in front of the young man and, fists on her hips, stared up at him for a moment. He was a handsome one, no doubt, but in her eyes, he couldn’t stand next to Wolfe for looks. She smiled, and he blinked.

  “I am Mayra ara’Ferren, and that is Wolfe Sieryd, my mate. We all here are witches from Nesht, far to the south.”

  Fyrid gave her a shy half-grin. “You are beautiful,” he mumbled, staring down at his feet. “I-I don’t mean to stare—I just—all of your women are so lovely.”

  The rumble of Wolfe’s chuckle startled Mayra. “A regular charmer he is,” he growled, but good-naturedly. He gestured toward the others. “Mayra will tell you”—his grin was friendly—”she is claimed, Fyrid. Did you understand that we are witches?”

  Chapter Seven

  Ceshon Pass

  Day three of the First Moon of Wynter

  Payk af’Unshyr had considered an invitation that would change his life forever. He could barely look at the reptiles without shudders running through him, remembering the blood and gore, seeing his slaughtered kin, a dragon devouring the leg of Heyr, feeling the talons scraping down his back and catching his cheek as he dragged Heyr back from his attacker.

  But these weren’t those dragons! They had not attacked Payk’s hunting party, killed his friends, direly wounded Fyrid’s father. Women rode the great beasts; by the gods, the small female leader of these people seemed to have the dominant dragon eating tidbits from her fingers!

  And Fyrid was looking to him to be the example his own father couldn’t be in such a situation. Payk had saved his brother’s life; now he could bring back the glory of a truce with the Ceshon Aerie to his Clan. Not a Phailite alive wouldn’t know their names after this.

  He would overcome this fear. He had to. But he would never trust them, how could he?

  Payk watched his nephew staring at the female leader of the witches for a while, and wondered why Fyrid was being so rude. And reckless; did the young man not see the size of the man at her side?

  Her approach surprised the elder man, but not Fyrid’s fumbling choice of words—of course the women were damned beautiful, but one didn’t stare at them like a direwolf and a piece of raw meant.

  The male leader—Wolfe—was clearly a man after Payk’s own heart, a warrior tried and true. His comments were equally surprising; proof that the man was fair, and also not concerned his woman’s eyes would seek a male elsewhere. But Payk’s ears suddenly perked up as Wolfe asked Fyrid if he understood they were witches.

  Payk decided it was time to step in.

  “He doesn’t know more about witches or dragons than the tales he heard growing up,” Payk said cheerfully. “I do because I ventured south some years ago. I think I know a Ring-Witch when I see one. But I never spoke to the others in my Clan of something they would never see.”

  Or understand, for Payk knew more of witches and their ways with dragons than he wished to share at the moment. That included the odd, wordless way they communicated with each other, which Payk was now certain included the witches.

  “You see us now,” said Richart Bren, grabbing up an armful of long sticks. He made himself comfortable next to the fire-ring and began skewering long pieces of meat to roast over the fire. “Does that mean no one in your village would know who or what we are?”

  Payk shook his head. “Unlikely. When we returned to the village, our people knew we had fought with dragons, and some survived. That’s all they needed to know, and I was the only one who could have told them what we saw in Nesht. But the village didn’t care. They wanted to hear tales of those dragons, who killed two of the Clan and gravely wounded Fyrid’s father. Heyr is now—”

  “But my father went with you, Uncle,” Fyrid interrupted. “Did he not know of witches as you do?”

  Payk settled himself close to Richart and picked up a piece of meat. “Do you mind if I feed them?” He gestured toward the two direwolves, who were sitting close to Larek, staring at the meat, well-behaved but drooling. Richart threw two big pieces to them as Payk threaded the meat on the sticks.

  Wolfe asked the elder Phailite to continue.

  “I took the boy’s father, Heyr af’Unshyr, my elder brother, into Nesht for help after a dragon took his leg,” Payk continued. He glanced at Gaulte. “Several dragons of the Jalin Clan attacked our hunting party. Killed two men, injured Heyr and me—one clawed me as I pulled Heyr away.” He gestured toward his cheek, then shook his head and glanced around.

  “Our Elder told us about your Clan.” Payk cleared his throat. “And that the Ceshon Aerie had an Elder who was a Healer and might help a human injured by dragons. That Elder examined Heyr and pronounced there to be no poisons or other toxins a dragon might use. The dragon Elder healed the wounds across my face and back fairly well, and told us to take Heyr to Nesht, to the village of Combur, to see a Healer there. He would have taken us, he said, but something damaged his wing.” Payk sighed and shook his head. “That was when Fyrid here wasn’t much past a tick on his mother’s teat.”

  Fyrid turned a dull purple. He shot a glance at the other men, saw their grins, and turned away, his shoulders hunching and sending his fur skin up around his head.

  Laughter rumbled from some dragons. “That would have been she,” Gaulte said. “Our Elder is a female. She would have been most helpful after hearing your story, for she can never fly. That is due to one of the dragons of Jalin who tried to take her away from our Aerie.” He paused and tilted his head. “There were humans with those dragons that day. Did you not see them? All but two were killed.”

  Payk looked stunned. “We did not kill humans, Gaulte. I swear to you, we—”

  Gaulte raised his huge hand. “I know,” he rumbled. His starburst eyes glittered. “There is a dragon that I heard tales of—a dragon whose evil knows no bounds. I know him to be the dragon that injured our Elder many years earlier.”

  “How was she damaged?” asked the witches�
� Healer, Shaura. “And she is a Healer?”

  “She is most wise, little Shaura,” said Corren, the ruddy dragon who had carried Shaura and her sister, witch-warrior Jannia, from Nesht. Their playful banter reminded him of the female nestlings who romped around his offspring, Bieda, the youngest nestling at the Aerie. Corren added, in mind-speak, We do not know where the Elder is, either. We can only hope she is still at the Aerie.

  The long silence that followed bewildered the two Phailite men, but they too remained quiet.

  Could these two know anything of the silver firetubes or the pain caused by the bespelled reins? Richart sent the question to the others, then flinched. His head still seemed sensitive to mind-speak.

  “Payk,” Mayra said, sitting down on a rock near the two Phailites. “How long have the Phailites and the dragons been foes?”

  Mayra, said Wolfe, to her and the others, in a tone that was oddly empathetic: I understand now—how could the man not have reacted with terror at seeing Larek after what happened to him and his kin? Perhaps we can help him adjust to them, as Fyrid doesn’t seem at all afraid.

  Mayra seemed to nod at nothing. Payk wasn’t sure he liked this talk he couldn’t hear, because he was certain they were talking about him and Fyrid.

  “Never mind that question,” Mayra said. “Does your Clan see the Ceshon dragons as true enemies, or only as dragons who look too much like those who harmed you and your clansmen years ago?”

  Payk looked at her, surprised, but then his roughly-hewn face became thoughtful. “Well, my lady, except for their colors, dragons are all the same to us. In truth, they weren’t ever our enemies, at least not of our Clan, or others we have commerce with. But dragons and humans avoid each other, don’t they?” He shook his head. “No matter how noble they are to our kind, dragons, by their very nature, frighten humans. But we respect them. Most of the Sorst Clan has never had problems with Ceshon Aerie.”

  “And those of your Clan who had problems?” Mayra asked softly, remembering the pain and anguish of the dragons as they fought the Nesht invaders—men who had been banished from Payk’s Clan. “How did that come about?”

  “If the Phailite who led the attack on the Ceshon Aerie wore a Sorst badge, it had to have been Plyn af’Nanyn,” Payk replied, his face grim. “He always made trouble, even as a child, fighting with us and often winning. He was the son of an ousted chieftain who, after losing leadership of our village, lost his life battling with the Jalin Aerie.

  “That is not an Aerie, but an undisciplined group of dragons,” Gaulte growled, “with no true leadership.”

  Payk glanced at the black dragon. “Yes, I suppose. I know little about them. But there is a small bit of land we have disputed with the Jalin Aerie. Plyn af’Nanyn and his father would often go there trying to nettle the younger dragons. One day, the father got too close to one dragon and it killed him. My brother fought Plyn’s surviving family and became chieftain.”

  “The first thing my father did,” Fyrid added, “was give the Jalin Aerie dragons the land. We did not need it.”

  “Why would the same dragons then attack your clan later?” Wolfe asked.

  “By that time, Plyn and some of his kin and friends were living wild in the forests. They came back one last time and stole food, then we never saw them again.” Payk glanced at Fyrid, as though to add something else, then finished with, “We were relieved they were gone.”

  Fyrid and Payk were silent a long moment before Fyrid said, “Father thought Plyn was seeking revenge for his father.”

  “Do you know where Plyn and the others got the weapons they carried?” Mayra asked. “Silver tubes of fire.”

  Both men looked perplexed. “You saw our weapons,” Fyrid said. “Thank you for returning them. My blade and bow and long knives are the finest our Clan carries, a birth-festival gift from my father.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what that is—a silver tube.”

  Payk gave Mayra a keen look. “What is it you are truly asking, my lady?”

  “Call me Mayra.” She glanced at Wolfe, who pulled the long tube out from a pack and thrust it at the two blue-skinned men. Neither reacted, until Fyrid, looking more confused than curious, asked what the thing did.

  “It’s a weapon,” Wolfe replied. He hesitated, then squatted down next to Fyrid. “Here, feel it. We have seen it work, it belches out fire like a demon, but none of us—”

  Fyrid laid two fingers on a curved, finger-sized piece of icy metal on the tube, and blue fire leaped from the end of the cylinder. Wolfe shouted a warning, and the meat Richart had just set up to cook burst into flames. Fyrid jumped to his feet and threw the tube away from him; his terrified expression making it plain to all that the weapon was unknown to him.

  “Are you mad?” Payk shouted. “What are you—?”

  Wolfe scooped up the silver tube and carried it back to his bedroll. Fyrid sank back onto his log, looking both shaken and baffled. Richart and Harald cut off another hunk of meat and gave the burned stuff to the direwolves to see if they would eat it.

  They did, despite the heat and charring.

  “That is the weapon,” Wolfe said evenly, returning to sit next to Mayra, “those men of your Clan brought to Nesht and used to kill scores of people and animals, and destroy forests and villages there. Have you any idea where they could have gotten it?”

  Both blue-skinned men looked shocked, and both shook their heads no.

  “I have an idea,” Richart said abruptly. “We all tried that weapon, and it didn’t work. If none but Phailites can use it, someone here must have made it and used a magical ward so that none but a Phailite could use it. Gaulte, didn’t you say they had the weapons as they entered Nesht, but not before?”

  “Yes,” replied the black dragon. “They did not have them when they invaded our Aerie.” Gaulte was silent a long moment before saying, “Only gnomes have the capability to do such work in metal. But why would they create evil weapons? They are friends to humans and dragons, alike.”

  Wolfe’s ice-blue eyes continued to bore into Payk. The elder man glared back for a moment before making a show of turning to ask Fyrid he was harmed.

  “I want one of those!” the young warrior said gleefully. The initial shock had passed and it was obvious he had changed his mind regarding the silver tube. “It is like magic!”

  “Aye,” his uncle agreed drily, “and if that is magic, I want nothing to do with it!”

  “If gnomes made the tube,” Richart mused quietly, “then did they make the reins, as well? From what Wolfe said, it nearly killed Mayra and caused the other witches no small pain when they touched the reins to remove the magic from them. Whose magic was that?”

  Mayra wanted again to ask—why had Gaulte’s reins been so much more dangerous to unspell than the others had? But she hesitated, remembering something Fyrid had said earlier.

  “Fyrid,” she began, “you said your blade and long knives were birth-festival gifts from your father? Might I see the blade?”

  “Of course, Mayra!” His eager agreement was tribute to his pride in the weapons. He slid the long blade from the sheath across his back and presented it to her, hilt first.

  Mayra took the blade in both hands, and it dipped. Her eyebrows rose. She gazed down at the long, shining sword for a long moment, then nodded.

  “That is a beautiful blade, Fyrid, but by the gods, it is heavy!”

  * * *

  Fyrid’s boyish laugh was enthusiastic as retrieved the weapon, and lifted it for Mayra to examine. Wolfe ignored them, and the others no doubt thought that strange. But Wolfe recognized a tactic when he saw one, was in fact a little annoyed he hadn’t thought of it himself. Of course, the young man would share more with an admiring Mayra than with another male.

  As Wolfe expected he would, Fyrid held onto his blade, positioning it for Mayra to examine. Her declaration of its heaviness gave Wolfe something to think about.

  Fyrid’s grin was one of pride in his blades, not interest in the dim
inutive female next to him. Fleura had closed ranks on the other side of the young warrior and abruptly slid one of the long knives from its casing on Fyrid’s muscular thigh. That startled young Fyrid; he blushed and grinned.

  Wolfe hid his own grin. Fleura took her orders to distract Fyrid from Mayra seriously, but the dark Ring-Witch could also see the witch-warrior was enjoying enticing a prospective partner who was young and vital. And, Wolfe had to admit to himself and not another soul, a man—like his own younger brother—almost too beautiful to be male.

  Wolfe chuckled and moved a little closer to the threesome. Fyrid moved back and welcomed him into the small group admiring the weapons.

  Wolfe touched the sword, weighing it and feeling the differences between it and the firestick.

  “They aren’t made of the same metals,” he concluded. “I don’t believe the same bladesmith made them.” He glanced over Mayra’s head at Kirik, whose father had been a swordsmith. “Remember the peculiar sensations we all felt from the reins and you from the firestick, as well? I don’t feel that in Fyrid’s blade.”

  Kirik nodded. “My father’s talent as a bladesmith was tempered with the magic he had. He used that talent to also work with the Sorcery Guild, removing magic from enspelled metals.” He chuckled. “Reevers taking such weapons found them difficult to use. I’m certain what we felt from the reins was the magic in them. There isn’t magic in that tube, its base metals is unknown to me, but I believe its firepower is mechanical.”

  “I’ve never heard you speak so much,” Mayra said drily. She tossed him a flask of water. “You look parched.”

  The teasing laughter of his friends made Kirik redden. He took the water and turned his attention back to Fyrid’s side-blade.