After the Dragon

by Wendy Palmer

  He straightened as he heard one of the other horses trotting up beside him. Faustus again, to act important and knowledgeable? But it was Mizzle.

  'We will rest until daylight.’ Her Bourchian was impeccable. ‘Then we will continue on.'

  'Come on, Miz,’ Trick said. ‘The horses have to stop and you do know humans need sleep, don't you?’ He didn't know if he was more worried for the horses or himself. And why would she want to travel during the day, when the light hurt a DarkElf's sensitive eyes and pale skin?

  'This is why we rest now.’ She reined back.

  Trick glared at her but it had no visible effect. A small barn stood off the trail ahead. He rode over, letting Bet pick her own way. The old snow around it was undisturbed. He dismounted and went inside. It was little more than three walls and a roof, open on the fourth side to the wind, but it was dry and empty, with only a few scattered bales of hay and some old sacks. He guessed it was used for hay storage during harvesting, for no homestead stood close. Trick went back outside and signalled to the other two, then led Bet inside.

  He was sore and hungry and overwhelmingly tired. The heaviness in his limbs and around his eyes was more compelling than the twinge of his bones and hollow stomach and his aching skull. He quickly unsaddled Bet and used twists of hay to wipe the sweat and loose hair from her back.

  Mizzle and Faustus came in as he worked.

  Faustus looked around, gave a long-suffering sigh, and went over to a corner to lie down. Coal nudged him questioningly.

  'You horse is telling you to get up and unsaddle him, Faustie,’ said Trick.

  Faustus made a deep moaning sound and rolled over, tangling himself in his cloak. ‘You do it.'

  'Not my horse.'

  He finished with Bet, looked around and saw Mizzle sitting against the back wall. He turned to Skye with a fleeting black thought. Once done, he realised he had forgotten to bring any feed.

  He looked through the sacks lying around the barn, taking a moment to nudge Faustus with his foot. ‘Your horse, Faustus.'

  His cousin ignored him. He might have been asleep. Trick found a handful or two of grain in one of the sacks and kicked Faustus hard. ‘I'm tired too, cousin.'

  'I'll do it next time, I promise,’ murmured Faustus, fending his foot off with closed eyes. ‘Please, Trick.'

  Trick crossed his arms, sighed and frowned, and then unsaddled the damn horse. Mizzle watched him all the while as he rubbed him down, tethered all three horses, gave them hay and the bit of grain, and filled a bucket with snow to let it melt for their water.

  'What?’ he said finally, exhausted and out of sorts. He didn't wait for an answer, lying down against the back wall away from the other two and wrapping himself in his too-thin cloak.

  He drifted off. When he next awoke, the world had lightened but it wasn't yet dawn. He lay still, hoping for more sleep. Without moving, he looked out of the corner of his eye to check on Mizzle.

  DarkElves slept but rarely. She sat as she had when he had fallen asleep, leaning against the back wall. She was slowly braiding her hair as she looked out over the fields.

  It caught him as he lay there half asleep looking at her on the edge of his vision. The fluid movement of hands on hair.

  Bright red hair, and Linnet turning from the mirror, putting down the comb, smiling and saying...

  He jerked awake on a sharp outrush of breath. Linnet saying, why did you leave me alone, for them to find me? That was all she ever said now. She had never been so close, there in the cold glooming of the pre-dawn. He could almost feel her pressing against his back, reaching for his sword with cold fingers. If he hadn't gone to sleep lying on the damn thing, he might have used it then.

  Movement from the corner of his eye distracted him. Mizzle still braided her hair. He shut his eyes and opened them, all thought of Linnet gone now. Why was she braiding her hair? The DarkElf females only did that when they went to war.

  Mizzle tied off the end of the braid with one long strand of her hair and lowered her hands into her lap. She had taken off her cloak and he saw she wore the red-edged black uniform of the DarkElves, with daggers at her belt. He couldn't see clearly, but the hilts did not look to be twins as was usual. Across her back were paired curved blades.

  She was waiting for something, staring outward like that, poised and still. Perhaps other DarkElves were meeting her here and his recruitment had been a ploy to get a raiding party past the human soldiers stationed north. He was hard-pressed to see how, exactly.

  He turned his head to look out, hoping she would not catch his movement. Nothing stirred in the half-light, and then someone was walking across the fields. Mizzle had been waiting for it because she had heard it long before it was visible, DarkElf hearing being what it was. Trick felt no alarm. The DarkElf he had known on the pirate ship had taught him bits of the DarkElvish and Ancient languages, DarkElvish magic, and how to remember anything that was ever said to him. He had also told him the DarkElf females were the best warriors he could ever wish to avoid.

  The figure reached them and Trick shut his eyes. It was as if his thoughts had unmasked a ghost. Fingers stood there looking in at them, greeting Mizzle in her own guttural language.

  Surely not. Surely he was mistaking this new DarkElf male for the DarkElf he had been thinking of because they all looked similar, black-haired, dark-eyed. Fingers was long dead, washed overboard off the Livanian coast fifteen and more years ago. Trick had grieved for him as much as a child could. But a quick peek confirmed his identification—the scar along the side of his elegant face, and the missing fingers, which had prompted the pirates to give him the only name Trick had ever known him by.

  Mizzle returned Fingers's greeting without inflection. From what Trick knew of their language, she had given the ritualised greeting for strangers. These two were not known to each other, then.

  They spoke in a flurry of language that Trick could not follow. As he watched them, he noticed that Mizzle was more relaxed with this other DarkElf than she had been with him and Faustus. At least, she spoke more and expression flickered across her normally blank face. He tried not to stare.

  It sounded as if Fingers tried to persuade her of something. He spoke rapidly, hands and face eloquent. Mizzle frowned and said something very clearly, which Trick worked out the gist of. I will think on this. Another ritual phrase, he suspected. Then Fingers bowed deeply to her, she half-bowed back from her sitting position and he walked back into the day. Trick guessed he must have shelter nearby—DarkElves could act in the sunlight but not easily.

  'You are awake.'

  Caught out, he sat up. ‘What was that about?'

  Mizzle looked at him. He looked back, fearless in the light of the new morning. He thought she would not answer him.

  But she said, ‘His name is Jarrett. He left the DarkElves in disgrace and wished to aid my own exile.'

  Trick made a note of her description of her situation. She had been exiled but with fingers intact? An exile not imposed by the DarkElves, then, not if Fingers—Jarrett—was anything to go by. Perhaps he was misled by her perfect pronunciation and her grasp of Bourchian was not so good after all, for the word she surely meant was desertion. ‘Did you know him?'

  Again she hesitated before answering. ‘He left before I was born. But exile is a rare thing and so I had heard of him.'

  He had caught enough of the words of their conversation to know that she omitted important details. Something about Hiroko—that meant LightElves. And something about theft. Did that mean she planned to take some relic from the LightElves? But then why the strong hint that the DarkElves pursued them? His eavesdropping hadn't given him much. But if Jarrett had left the DarkElves before Mizzle had been born, then she must be at most two hundred years old. Jarrett had told him he had been wandering for around that long in human lands. She, on the other hand, seemed not to have learnt that he knew passing DarkElvish and that he knew Jarrett. He counted himself lucky—perhaps even Lucky—as he pul
led bread and cheese out of one of the sacks for breakfast. The sack also held carrot, onion, apples, dried meat, and a package of bacon. But when he pulled that out Mizzle shook her head at him.

  'No fire,’ she said. ‘No time.'

  He packed the bacon away again without a word, taking comfort in his own restraint while his mouth watered, and handed her bread and cheese, a meagre breakfast. He woke Faustus and gave him his ration. Not the sort of breakfast a nobleman was used to and Faustus pulled a face.

  Trick ignored him. As he ate, he took stock of himself. His head felt clear and his legs did not shake at the thought of leaving Mizzle. Her influence must have passed in the night.

  He had no wish to provoke her to reinforce it before an opportunity to escape came to him, so he meekly saddled Skye for her and offered her the reins.

  Faustus struggled to get his own horse ready, while it swallowed air and blew out its stomach and shifted its weight and refused to take the bit. Faustus had bought himself a handsome enough horse and never cared to know the damn thing was badly trained and difficult when others did the real work.

  While they waited for Faustus, Mizzle led Skye out into the light, her hair braided for war.

  That was going to cause problems. Trick saddled Bet, watched Faustus over her back, and waited.

  'Cousin,’ said Faustus at last.

  'No, I don't think so.’ Mizzle would come back in and order him to take care of the horse because she was in a hurry, but until then, let Faustus beg.

  Faustus glared which just made Trick smirk at him. ‘I just think we should apply our own particular talents here.'

  'Meaning,’ said Trick. ‘I should do all the hard work and you should sit on your arse?'

  'Since I'm trained at swordplay and leadership and you're trained at—what, theft and arson?'

  'Who had whose sword to whose throat last night?’ He relished the memory.

  'I was in no danger.'

  Mizzle came back in and directed a silver-eyed look at Trick and he put the tackle on Faustus's horse while the Ullwyn stood back and gave him back his own smirk. He considered leaving the girth strap loose but could feel Mizzle watching him, so he gave Coal a knee to the stomach and cinched the strap tight. He could play the subservience game.

  'Up, cousin,’ he said and swung onto Bet.

  Trick had no time to wonder why the sunlight glittering off the snow was not blinding Mizzle with her DarkElvish eyes. Faustus rode up beside him to continue the argument.

  'You would never have hurt me. I'm family.'

  Trick was stunned by the man's confidence. ‘I'm the son of a pirate. I was born on a pirate ship off the coast of Livania.'

  'What does that mean? Your mother is still an Ullwyn. My mother's cousin, married to my father's uncle.'

  Trick bit his tongue hard. Faustus's tone said she was lucky to have made that match, after her disastrous union with Trick's father and with her dark blue eyes, sure sign she was not a pure descendent of the Goddess. Faustus had icy-blue eyes, the pale eyes of the Goddess. Trick imagined he was popular with the Ullwyn mothers looking for a match for their daughters. It made Trick like him even less.

  Mizzle rode up on Trick's other side and gave them a flat and incurious look.

  He could bite his tongue no longer. ‘Are you trying to tell us to be quiet?’ He put a hint of insolence in his voice. He didn't want to push it too far but he was tired and he didn't think he deserved to be looked at like that.

  She didn't answer.

  Trick shrugged and turned back to Faustus in time to catch him peeking at Mizzle with that stupid besotted expression on his face. He could not restrain himself. He turned on her.

  'So you don't let us sleep properly, you don't let us eat properly, and now we're not allowed to talk to each other?'

  He didn't know how he had ever thought her blank and expressionless. The traces of emotion across her face were fleeting and subtle but definitely there. She tensed and he saw fury in her eyes. He felt a mixture of terror and joy bundled in his stomach. And then she went truly blank. He had the eerie impression he was looking at an empty shell. She blinked and came back, but the anger was gone. Mizzle had done something to herself to stop herself being angry at him—to stop herself killing him, since that was what anger was to a DarkElf.

  He was perilously close to letting her know he was no longer under her influence, but then, she had to know how long her own spell lasted. Unless it affected different victims for different lengths of times. He stored that thought away for later analysis.

  They reached the road and turned south again. Faustus came up close beside Trick. ‘How could you be so rude?’ His voice was all fear and hostility. ‘I know you spent your first few years on your precious pirate ship, but didn't Carmelia teach you some manners?'

  Carmelia was his mother's Ullwyn name. His father had called her Emily. He gritted his teeth. ‘Take a leaf out of Mizzle's book and stop talking to me.'

  Considering he'd spent the first years of his life on a pirate ship in company with Livanian rogues and a DarkElf, it was a wonder he hadn't turned out worse than he had; he would have cut the Ullwyn's throat by now. And yet who could say that Faustus was truly as stupid as he acted when he was obviously drowning in enough Elvish glamour to wipe all thought from his brain.

  'Why would Lady Fortuna possibly want you?’ Faustus shook his head, scornful.

  And Trick was silent. Again, it occurred to him that Fortune regretted Her choice of High Priest. Once Chosen, he could not be Unchosen except by a very final, very simple event—his death.

  So be it. He spurred his horse forward, away from Faustus and away from the quiet gaze of the DarkElf. He resolutely turned his thoughts to escaping from her rather than from life. The forest would give him the opportunity he needed; until he reached it, flight was impossible. The fields were barren with winter and open for miles around.

  The wind whistled around his ears and sneaked under his cloak. He pulled it closer. With any luck, the weather meant they wouldn't meet anyone on the track today.

  But he was right in thinking Fortune had turned Her fickle back on him. Before long, they had to go off the path to let a wide cart pass, the travellers swivelling in their seats to stare at Mizzle. At least they were going back towards Port Told and the news would spread where they had already been and not ahead of them. Still, he dreaded having to go through villages.

  He made them go round the first one. Faustus spurred his horse forward. ‘Why are you wasting our time, cousin?'

  'Faustie, am I your guide or just your good luck charm? Try listening to me.'

  Faustus snorted but he didn't rein back. He looked over his shoulder at Mizzle riding behind them, then leant closer to Trick. He kept his voice low. ‘Be politer to me.'

  Trick let himself smirk at his cousin. ‘Am I making you look bad, cousin?'

  He had the pleasure of seeing the Ullwyn clench his jaw. ‘Just watch your mouth.'

  'It's not my problem you're a minor twig with grand ambitions. I bet you've never even been to court, have you, little lordling?'

  The look on his cousin's face told him he'd hit home. He added, ‘And DarkElves have really good hearing, Faustie.'

  With that last needling, he put his heels to Bet to ride alone.

  Sometime after midday and a short break to eat and rest where none of them spoke to each other, they approached Dester, the last town before the forest. Trick's inclination was to avoid it like they had the smaller hamlets, but they needed grain for the horses. The deciding factor was Mizzle, so obviously DarkElf in her red-and-black. He himself felt itchily conspicuous in the Bourchian uniform.

  'I need to go in for horse feed and a change of clothes,’ he told them. ‘It'd be best if you go round the town and meet me on the other side.'

  'Best for you, you mean,’ said Faustus. ‘I'm not having you run out on us.'

  Trick knew how to shut him up. ‘Then you go in and I'll wait out here with Mizzle.'
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  He watched Faustus struggle with the idea of leaving another man alone with the DarkElf.

  'We will all go in.’ Mizzle rode forward.

  'Easy to be bold when you're ignorant,’ Trick said. He still didn't get a reaction from her.

  He feared the town's long memory. DarkElf males may have done the actual pillaging but females led the raiding parties. The black-and-red uniform, the hair braided for war, the sword hilts curving over her back and framing her chillingly beautiful face—many a grandmother in this town would know the terror of this sight riding in at twilight straight from the mouths of their own grandmothers. Dester was a rich town, a tempting and easy target at the southern-most stretch of the DarkElves’ range.

  'At least put your hood up, Mizzle.'

  But as he said it, he knew that wouldn't work either. What else could a hood in daylight be taken to be but a DarkElf on a scouting mission?

  'Mizzle,’ Trick said. ‘Mizzle, please wait outside the town.'

  'I have never raided here,’ she said.

  Given her age, possibly what she meant to say was that no living human could remember first-hand a raiding party. She was stubborn and she was stupid and she rode into the town.

  'At least hide the swords, Elvish,’ he said. One last attempt as they came down to the main street.

  He had meant arrange her cloak over the hilts so they didn't draw the eye, but Mizzle glanced at him over her shoulder. She said, ‘Kyugen,’ and the swords shrank down to tiny glittering toys. She tucked them under her cloak. It was better than he expected, no matter this casual magic made him nervous.

  Problems didn't begin until Trick stopped them in front of the supply store, a large and well-maintained wooden building.

  Not as many people were on the main street as he had feared. He threw himself off Bet and ran into the store. He had to push through a couple of men who had stopped dead on their way out.