Rhiana

He set the newling on the wood floor before the brazier where solid ingots of iron waited his coaxing. “It may like the heat,” he suggested, and stepped back to stand beside Rhiana. The twosome shook their heads as the creature stood, and then stretched out its good wing. It squeaked loudly as its attempts to stretch the wounded wing resulted in it wobbling and stumbling to land on its tail. Then, with wide black eyes that seemed to beg for tenderness, it scanned its surroundings.

“This is not good.”

The newling rubbed its hind legs together. The horny projections on the backs of its legs created a piercing stridulation.

“Immensely not good,” Rhiana agreed. “Let’s get the arrow from its wing and send it on its way. That sound it makes… I think it is calling for its mother.”

Rhiana tried to hold it carefully without embracing overmuch, or making it feel captured, while Paul cut the wooden arrow with a clipper and carefully drew it from the wing.

The newling continued to stridulate. And Rhiana kept a keen eye to the open window. She looked beyond the horrified stares of the villagers and to the sky. Clear. For now.

“There.” Paul stood back, holding the two pieces of arrow. “Set it free.”

“Should we not cauterize the wound? It could become infected.”

“Rhiana, I want that thing out of here.”

“Very well, but what if it cannot fly?”

The newling stretched out its wing and shrieked.

“Then it can walk home. Take it to the parapet and release it. Or shall I do it?”

“No,” she said. “I can.”

The newling dropped to the ground like a rock.

Leaning out over the crenel between two merlons, Rhiana cried out. She should not have expected the small dragon to be able to fly with a hole in its wing. Yet, it wobbled off, away from the battlements, stridulating occasionally.

“Be quiet,” she said, but knew the hope was fruitless. “I should have carried you home. Oh, what—”

A cloud soared overhead, streaking the parapet Rhiana stood upon in a fast-moving shadow. Much too quick for rain—

Tensing at the shiver shimmying up the back of her neck, Rhiana did give no more time to wonder at the weather. ’Twas no cloud. Nothing could move so swiftly. Save, a dragon. And not a small, wounded newling, but mayhap…its mother.

CHAPTER FIVE

Steps picking up to a run, and skirt clutched to allow for longer strides, Rhiana headed down the spiraling stairs to the bailey. As she ran, yet another dark shadow crept across her path. A violet-winged creature dove toward the ground. Inside the castle walls.

Shrieks filled the air, both of the dragon kind and from humans.

Rhiana cursed her lack of crossbow and the cumbersome skirts. A glance to the shadows of the tower where they’d found the fallen newling spied the sword she’d found in the chapel. Lunging, Rhiana grabbed it. Drawing the sword from its sheath, she abandoned the leather slip in her wake.

The rampant’s wings flapped, swirling a gush of wind throughout the bailey. Dry, dusty earth coiled up in small tornadoes. Its cry was as a thousand eagles. Looking for her newling? Had it not seen the small creature wobbling along the battlements?

Likely, it had, and now it sought revenge for the injury done to her offspring. Stupid Christophe, to have shot at the newling!

Landing briefly, the rampant filled the bailey with a wingspan that stretched from the outer steps of the castle to the cooper’s shop that sat across the way. The violet beast lifted up from the ground and flew away as quickly as it had landed. The struggling limbs of a man dangled from its maw.

“Inside!” Rhiana yelled to all those foolish enough to yet be out in the streets. “Close your doors and hide under your beds. Grab the children. Run!”

She passed Myridia Vatel who cradled her newborn son to her bosom. Her house stood around the corner; she would make it.

Thudding to a halt before the castle steps, Rhiana searched the grounds. Deep gouges from the rampant’s talons carved out the pounded dirt amidst meager hoof marks left previously by horses. No sign of a struggle. The beast had simply lighted down and plucked up its meal. Make that her meal. The rampant had been another of the boldly colored females.

A distinct chill scurried up Rhiana’s spine. She had seen two shadows move overhead.

Sweeping her gaze across the sky, she searched for the second shadow.

“My lady, seek shelter!” Antoine, the cooper, cried as he closed up his shop window, dropping the hinged canopy with a deft release of the screw and bolting the slats securely.

“Anon!” Rhiana called, having no intention of going anywhere.

“Where are you?” she muttered, her eyes fixed to the sky. No clouds. Blinding sun. Pale blue, this day. Gripping the sword firmly, she yet held it down along her leg. “Show yourself, pretty lady. We had no intention to harm your youngling. Scoop it up into your wings, and fly from here. If you do not…”

Rhiana would be forced to make an orphan of the newling.

She could sense the presence in her blood before sighting a dragon. The pulse beat ’twas like a war drum heard long before it marched into sight. Though she had not remarked the danger when she’d set the newling to flight. Awe had lessened her focus.

Now her blood tingled beneath her flesh. Yes, two of them; one, flying away, a man clutched in its talons, but the other was yet close.

The sun’s brilliant touch suddenly ceased. Impulsively ducking, Rhiana knew but one thing could block out the sun so swiftly. A creature swooped overhead. Indigo scales glinted as if jewels. Another female.

Instinctively falling forward, Rhiana landed in a crouch and rolled to her back. Close, the beast swooped over her. She looked up and viewed the belly scales. It skimmed above her, a serpent snaking through the air, incomparable in size to any land beast.

The dagged tail swished near her face. The sharpened spikes that decorated the tip, as if a mace head, sliced open the air.

So close. Had she not gone to ground, vicious talons would have plucked her up. A horrible death, that.

The indigo rampant’s landing shook the ground. Rhiana rolled to her side. Beneath her palms the earth moved as if startled. She and it were the only things moving in the wide circle bailey before the portcullis gates.

Still she wielded the knight’s sword. But it would serve no boon until she could broach the distance to the small target between the beast’s eyes.

The dragon bowed its head, prepared to breathe flame.

Reaching out, Rhiana’s hand slapped onto a fist-sized stone near her foot. Fingers curling and determination fierce, she claimed the weapon. In a fluid movement, she rose to stand, and thrust the rock overhead as if a catapult.

Direct hit between the eyes! The beast’s head wobbled and dropped to the ground.

“Yes!”

She’d knocked it out. But for a moment.

Tugging the bothersome skirts from around her ankles with her left hand, and right hand lifting the sword, Rhiana charged. Bare feet pressed the dirt ground, swiftly gaining the felled beast. The huff of sweet sage encompassed her as she advanced the horned snout. Gasping, she swallowed the dragon’s essence, sweet and heavy upon her palate. Just breathe, and be lost…

“No!”

Leaping onto the beast’s nose, she raised the sword in both hands over her head. The beast’s snout was studded in thick armor-like scales of indigo. The scales did not make for a secure hold, and her feet slipped to either side of the snout. Assessing that loss of balance, Rhiana knew in but a moment she would sit astride the skull. And so she plunged the sword into the kill spot, fitting it horizontally within the inverted cross and feeling no resistance as she tilted the blade upward to angle back through the brain.

The creature gave a mewl much like the newling’s helpless cry. Wisps of flame snorted across the bailey grounds. The head wobbled to a death pose. The movement tilted Rhiana from the skull and she landed the ground in a graceless tumble.

The tiny death mew replayed in her thoughts. That she’d had to kill this wondrous beast!

With a shove of her hands, she righted herself and looked upon the havoc. Blowing out a breath, she shook her head sadly.

Could this kill have been prevented had the newling not been harmed? She did not like to murder an innocent beast, but its companion had taken one of the villagers, and surely this one would have done the same.

“She killed it!” a gleeful cry from a child Rhiana could not see startled her from the dreadsome thought.

“Hurrah, for the dragon slayer!”

Standing and brushing off her gown, she then retrieved the sword with a tug. Two kills in little over eight hours.

You are a slayer. Revere them, but do not mourn their passing.

Those words, spoken by Amandine Fleche, had been the most difficult to hear, but Rhiana knew they were meant to keep her from succumbing to such overwhelming guilt she might never master her profession.

And so she nodded, acknowledging the beast for its glory and beauty, and then dismissed it as the predator it was. Pride rose as she stood over the felled dragon. Steam gently misted in sage whispers from the nostrils. Glitter of enchantment twinkled in the blood spilling down the sword blade and soaking the hem of her dirt-smattered gown.

Nodding, satisfied and pleased that this one would not have the pleasure of taking a human victim, Rhiana wondered would the other return for another kill.

So soon? Pray not. Surely the female would be appeased and must tend the injured newling. For now, St. Rénan was safe.

Rhiana turned and walked right into her stepfather.

A small band of villagers had pressed into the courtyard. Wondrous eyes and pointing fingers speared her with a curiosity Rhiana understood as less than condemning and more thankful. Though their expressions remained wary. It was the children who danced and poked a stick at the fallen dragon’s tail.

“Leave it be!” she called. “Respect it in death.”

“You are safe,” Paul said and he took her into his arms.

Dropping her sword arm, Rhiana spread her free hand around Paul’s shoulder. “I was not able to get the first one. Who…who did it take?”

He shrugged and lowered his head to whisper, “We’ll not know until his widow cries out his absence. They came so quickly.”

“It was because we had the newling. They invaded the sanctity of the village. My home. Our home.”

“Shh, Rhiana, you could not have prevented what happened, even had you sensed their arrival. Nothing could have stood in the way of this attack.” He always knew what to say. Paul looked for the right in any situation.

Murmurs rose around her. Some condemning, others relieved. Would they blame her or help her?

Mothers pulled their children from the beast, while the cooper and the goldsmith paced around the head.

Rhiana turned to address those who had began to circle the dead dragon. They were frightened but curious. Calmly, she coached, “There is an urgency required. We must destroy the beasts that would pluck us from our own homes, so daring they be. A slayer is needed. I will serve you well, if you would allow it.”

“Your skills are impressive,” Christophe de Ver said, “but rumor tells there is an entire nest of the dragons.”

“An entire nest? Who says so?”

“The Nose!”

Rhiana jammed the sword tip into the ground, frustration dulling her regard for the valued weapon. The Nose had been most industrious!

“Rumors be just that,” she said. “I have not counted more than the three we have all witnessed. This morning I killed the one who stole Jean Claude away, and now this one.”

“There is one left! I saw it fly off with a man!”

“They will not stop. And there is the newling,” another villager called. “They are breeding! Soon they will nest below our very feet!”

“Nonsense,” Rhiana quickly admonished to bestill the stir of nervous whispers that moved about like fire catching on tinder. “We mustn’t fear them getting so close as beneath our village. They cannot drill up through solid rock and earth. And the hoard at the edge of the north caves is enough—”

“That hoard is pitiful!”

“It needs to be destroyed,” the goldsmith muttered.

Rhiana stared down the flinching gazes and turning heads. They were worried and frightened, because they didn’t have all the information, and could only make guesses to what all thought a horrible fate. Best to involve them, so they could know the enemy and learn how to vanquish it. “Who volunteers to aid me?”

Many gazes dropped, and the remainder looked off to the sky. Nervous hands claimed a child clinging to a leg or patted a spouse’s shoulder.

Of course, it was a ridiculous request. These men were not warriors or knights, they were simple craftsmen and fathers and sons. They had families to look after. The best protection they could offer was to stay alive themselves.

“What of Lord Guiscard’s knights?” Myridia called. “They spend their days hunting and depleting the food stores and their evenings wenching. Should they not be pressed to aid the village in its most dire need?”

Indeed. And yet, would the baron grant the garrison’s resolve to the village? He wasn’t keen on slaying dragons for a reason unbeknownst to Rhiana. Mayhap if it were his idea, and a woman was not involved…

“Perhaps Lord Guiscard should be approached,” Rhiana offered, “by elders he trusts and with whom he will hold confidence. I intend to set out for the caves this day in an attempt to determine if there be more than the one remaining. But if I were accompanied by knights on horses, wielding weapons, more the better.”

She returned a look to Paul. That he held such pride in his pale blue eyes toughened her strong stance and made what seemed an impossible job a bit less overwhelming. Why could not Lord Guiscard put as much trust in her as her stepfather did?

“We will speak to Guiscard.” The cooper stepped forward, removing his leather apron and handing it back to his wife. “I and Paul, yes?”

Paul nodded and winked at Rhiana. He and Antoine both served on the Hoard Council. Mayhap a few others could join them.

“Excellent.” She handed the sword to Paul. “I know not who this belongs to; I found it in the chapel.”

Paul took it and wiped the remnants of dragon blood onto his forefinger. He rubbed them together in admiration. “Promise you will wait until we return, Rhiana. I will do my best to bring back an army of men for you to lead.”

“Yes!” the crowd agreed eagerly.

And though their enthusiasm was heartening, Rhiana could but nod and walk on. This day would bring her no aid.

A runner had been sent to check the caves. Soon the baron would know what, exactly, occupied the caves and how voracious it was.

Narcisse Guiscard tossed a pheasant bone stripped of tender meat onto the small pile growing on the floor below the high table. The mongrel attending the pile growled and flopped to its back, tail between its legs. Make that leg. The poor mutt had but three legs. No interest in the thin twig of bone after it had consumed enough to equal half a dozen complete birds from all the table scraps combined.

Dragging his fingers across his crimson hose to wipe away the grease, Narcisse then leaned in to nuzzle into Lady Anne’s hair. A scatter of loose dark tresses tickled his nose. She smelled like no thing he had ever known. Rich, sweet, alluring. And damaged. It was that bit of instability that excited Narcisse. For as fragile as she was, her core was powerful. Yet, he knew she hadn’t the awareness to tap the core, so frail was her mind.

She responded to his caress with a kiss to the crown of his head. A lingering sigh fluttered across Narcisse’s forehead.

“You are troubled, my love? Why do you pick so at your food this eve?”

“There is much to wonder about,” Anne said in the drifty, not-all-there voice she often engaged. Her frequent slips to wonder, increasingly more often, troubled him. Soon she would not be his at all. The notion devastated.

She had never truly been his. But whence she had come, he could only imagine. And sometimes he did imagine—to his own great horror.

“I am never so hungry as you, lover.” Another sigh lifted her bosom. The creamy white damask paled in comparison to her daisy-white flesh. And there, where four fine gold chains draped across her throat, did her flesh glitter.

Slurping back a hearty draft of rose-hip wine, Narcisse smacked his lips and gestured to the bottler who stood at post behind him to pour another round.

“Do you imagine,” Anne said, turning into Narcisse and snuggling her head against his neck so they two shared each other and none at the lower table could be privy to their conversation, “she will come to me today?”

“She?” As he’d suspected, Anne wondered after the Tassot woman. While he’d thought their friendly relationship necessary to Anne’s very mental health, now their contact troubled him. The fire-haired woman threatened his ambitions and Anne’s very peace of mind. “Anne, dearest lover, I fear the Tassot wench may have stumbled into some trouble.”

“What sort? Is she ill? Fallen? Have you verified as much?”

“No, but when last I spoke to her she nattered on about chasing dragons. Can you imagine anyone wishing to harm those delightful creatures?”

“They have returned to nest in the hoard?” Anne clapped her hands gleefully. “They are so very pretty. I want one, husband. Please, oh please, I want a pet dragon to chain upon a delicate silver chain, as my own.”

She traced a finger along the fine silver links that circled her waist and dangled to her diamond-bejeweled slippers.

Narcisse stroked his fingers through Anne’s long tresses. Colors beamed down from the stained-glass windows and onto her hair. The glint of sapphire emerging from the dark strands shimmered like stars in a midnight sky.

“A dragon is far too large for your delicate chains, my love.”

“I would be most careful! And I would not send it to fetch me gold or trample my enemies.”

“You have not a single enemy. You shouldn’t tax your head with dark thoughts, Anne. Promise me you’ll spend more time in the solar sitting in the sunlight? It is good for your humors, the Nose says so.”

“The Nose says too much. She doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know what Rhiana told me. She said….” Lady Anne paused, and in that moment of silence Narcisse could almost hear her mind flutter off tangent. How to understand her hidden thoughts? “Kiss me, lover.”

He did. And Anne’s lips were sweet with wine and unuttered sighs. And menacing with the secrets her mind tightly held. He would discover later, when she lay naked beside him after lovemaking, what she had learned from the bewitching dragon slayer.

“My lord!”

Grimacing at Champrey’s abrupt shout—the man ever approached without warning and did so at such inopportune timing—Narcisse reluctantly pulled from Anne and sat back in his chair. “What is it, Champrey?”

“There’s been an—” he eyed Anne cautiously “—er, altercation.”

“Let me guess,” Narcisse drawled. Hooking a knee over the arm of the chair and lazily sulking back against Anne’s shoulder, he tapped a pinkie ring noisily against the gold-plated arm. “Cecil, the falcon master has been found soused and naked, draped over the well, yet again.”

“Not quite, my lord.” Champrey winced. “A dragon has been slain. Again. Here, in the very courtyard of our village.”

CHAPTER SIX

After checking that Odette had not a clue about the attack in the bailey, Rhiana then sought Lydia. Her mother had heard of the attack, but only afterward—when the fires were blazing in the kitchen, little else could be heard outside her small interior world.

Now Lydia shivered in a way that always made Rhiana want to draw her mother into her arms for a hug. But she never did. How to touch an enigma? ’Twas blasphemous, yet at the same time, so tempting. Would she find the answers to her questions wrapped in her mother’s arms?

Yes.

But not right now.

Instead, Rhiana explained, should the dragons again come, Lydia and Odette must remain in the castle for their safety. Should they be on the streets, they must enter the first house possible. They mustn’t risk trying to run home, for the dragons were swift and seeming hungry for the first human close enough to snatch.

Lydia nodded and agreed, her focus averted by rolling the fine flour and sugar pastry out on the cool stone table. An excuse she must return to her baking was taken with an accepting nod from Rhiana. Her mother did never face adversity, but instead, looked away. If she could not see it, then it could not harm her.

They two were so different. Where had she gotten her mind to chase dragons? Certainly not from Lydia.

“You are off then?” Lydia wondered.

“Yes.” For a few moments Rhiana stood there, sensing the tension, the unspoken words. Of late Lydia had been even more distant, almost as if she wished that by not looking at Rhiana she could make her disappear. “Good day to you, mother.”

The fire in the armory was low; Paul never doused it unless he was to be away from the shop for more than a day. The curved walls of stone were lined with half-finished swords, plates of armor for every portion of the body, and spurs twisted in ruin and in need of repair. Paul did all the metalwork for the village’s knights. A quality product—once requested by King Charles VII himself—kept him busy. Though he was not so busy as an armourer who furnished an active garrison, which suited Paul just fine.

Paul wasn’t in the shop. Rhiana recalled his offer to go to the castle and speak to the baron with a few others on the Hoard Council. She must assume he would return without the news she so wished for. Guiscard would not put forth a single knight to aid her. She knew it as she breathed the air.

Sitting before the worktable, Rhiana propped a foot on the highest rung of the stool. The heat of the fire warmed her ankle.

Most unladylike! she could imagine Odette admonishing. Your skirt rides to your knee!

With a smile, Rhiana straightened and put down her foot. She assumed a vain pose, hand to her hip and lips pursed. That was how Odette and Lady Anne did it. For some reason, the feminine always felt wrong on Rhiana. But just because it felt wrong did not mean she could not strive for it.

For all purposes, she was well beyond the marrying age. Yet, many in St. Rénan married in their later twenties. Rhiana figured this was because the pickings were so slim. She had no intention living life alone and unhappy. Sure, there was room in her family’s home, should she wish to remain with mother and Paul. But she did not wish it. Independence tempted.

You have independence. Would you give it up for a man?

“Never. The man I marry must accept me as a partner, not chattel.” It wasn’t very likely she would find such in this village.

Sighing, she turned to prop an elbow on the table and splayed out a scatter of mail rings. She traced a fingertip around a close-to-perfect circle of wire. She fashioned the rings herself, hammering and drawing to first form the wire. Wrap that length about a steel dowel and cut the rings. A hole punched in one end of the delicate ring was then riveted to the opposite end, but not until actually weaving the mail. Tedious, but fulfilling work.

Years ago, Paul had decided that if Rhiana were to linger about the armory so often then she may very well learn the trade. Much as she’d wanted to learn the real work, pounding out metal over a hot flame, Paul’s generosity had not allowed him comfort in teaching her that dangerous task. A man’s labor, he’d say, ’tis sweaty and hard on the muscles. No work for a female, no matter her mettle. So small, less strenuous mail-work it was. But no less satisfying to see the finished product.