Читать книгу Rhiana - Michele Hauf - Страница 9

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.”