Rhiana
Michele
Hauf

www.LUNA-Books.com

Holly LaMon, Alice Countryman and Nita Krevans,

incredible women, each in their own manner.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

Western shore of France—1437

The face of the limestone wall was not sheer. Juts of jagged rock poked out like gooseflesh on a cold man’s arm, which made for good handholds. Feet bare, for better hold, Rhiana balanced on a helmet-sized shelf of rock. Her back and shoulders pinned to the wall, with outstretched arms, she clasped the uneven surface.

Her heartbeat thudded. A whisper of early-morning breeze curled into the strands of red hair come unbound from the leather strips she used to wrestle her waist-length curls from her eyes. Her skull vibrated with the constant pulse of excitement. This was the sort of endurance test she craved.

One misbalanced step would see her plunging to the rocky seashore below. Rhiana did not remark even a flutter of fear in her breast. No mincing, faint-hearted female be she. Tears and fright were her sister Odette’s mien.

’Twas the wee hours of the morning, just past lauds. A few white-bellied seabirds coasted over the somnambulant waves below. A silver sky, this day. The moon had fallen behind the distant line of centuries-old oak and elm that topped the cliff with a thick emerald cap. Only the tides below that hugged the shore with intermittent shushes marked the time.

This was the hour it slept, the moments between the moon’s descent and dawn’s rise. Rhiana’s trainer had taught her to observe and understand the beast, though she had only once before had the opportunity, and that had been brief.

Opportunity had again come, but not without risk.

The creature inhabited the caves wending beneath the mountain that shielded the village of St. Rénan on the north side from the brisk sea storms that frequently arose in the winter months. Caves labryinthed for leagues throughout the mountain, poking out dozens of exit holes along the craggy limestone wall facing the sea.

The wall of stone to which Rhiana clung.

Swinging her right shoulder, she shuffled her feet on the small jut, rotated her hips, and swung her body around. A deft move, which placed her nose to the wall of rock. The stone smelled like the sea, salted by centuries of wind and wave. Dashing out her tongue, it tasted dry and salty, much like last evening’s fish stew cooked by Odette. Her sister should keep to the medical arts she so liked to dabble in, and leave the cooking for…well, certainly not Rhiana. ’Twas their mother, Lydia, who created marvels from flour and sugar.

She moved onward. And down.

A wide ledge served as opening to one of the caves, and it stretched out below her like a minstrel’s stage. Yet it was a dangerous leap. The castle’s finest acrobats might form a tower of four men to broach the distance. A precarious descent.

“I can do this,” she muttered to the stone wall. Wasn’t as if she’d never before made this climb. “Slowly but surely.”

With fingers curved to strong hooks to cling for hold, Rhiana managed another cautious move. She slid her right leg out and tapped a small jut with her toes, testing its stability. Bits of rock crumbled away. Quickly, she retracted and bent her left leg. The toes of her right foot found a more secure spot. The rhythm of her heartbeat remained steady—focused. She worked herself lower.

’Twould be better to fashion a rope ladder and secure it high. Would that she had so clever an idea before making this perilous descent. But she would certainly remember it for future visits. Sure as the snow always fell in winter, there would be future visits.

Pray she survived this day to see that future.

The scrape of her scaled armor against the stone cautioned Rhiana to go slowly. Mustn’t make overmuch noise. The creature’s hearing was excellent. As was hers. The only thing known to muffle its senses—and hers—was fire and smoke.

It wasn’t so much that she heard the sound of the beast’s heartbeats in her ears and processed it as noise, rather, the pulse beats of life echoed in her blood as if an ancient stirring of instinct. All her life, Rhiana had noticed, before all others, when a dragon had nested in the caves of St. Rénan. Even as a child of five she had alerted her stepfather to a dragon flying the distant skies.

Only now was she capable of doing something about that eerie cognizance.

Now she determined the distance for a jump was right. Fingers dry and dusted with limestone powder, she secured a good fingerhold on two craggy dents of rock, and dangled her legs over the cave opening. The muscles in her arms stretched to a luxurious ache. Biceps strained, but did not threaten mutiny. This task was to her mettle. Such inner power, it felt good. Strength—it was her boon.

“Admit it!” Memories gushed back from childhood. She’d held her best friend, Rudolph against the wall, her wooden practice sword to his gut. “Say it!”

“I surrender!”

“Not that, Rudolph.”

“Oh. Must I?”

“Yes!”

On the verge of tears, Rudolph’s lips trembled, but he managed to say, “Girls are better than boys.”

Letting go, Rhiana landed her feet and immediately rolled to her side and shoulders, making a complete tumbling circle across the smooth, stone landing. To roll lessened the impact and spread it throughout her body, minimizing the hazard of broken bones. Her trainer had taught her the acrobatic move. She was indebted to Amandine Fleche for the summer he’d spent helping her to master the skills required to perform such tasks. For she constantly sought danger and answered its call.

As well, the call to seek fire ever tempted.

Scrambling to the edge of the cave opening, Rhiana pressed her back to the magnesium-flecked wall that arced and curved about the half moon of blackness. The entrance to hell, the villagers named any and all of the cave openings dotting the seashore.

The scriff of her armor against stone was muted thanks to the leather tunic upon which the scales had been lashed. Paul Tassot had designed the armored tunic, fashioned from the iridescent indigo and violet scales removed from Rhiana’s first—and only—kill. The scales were impervious to blade, bolt and flame, though she rarely worried for flame.

Many leagues of tunnels and snaking passages wended through the darkness, eventually forming the narrow tunnels that led to the penetralia deep beneath the heart of St. Rénan. Never before had more than a single beast nested within the caves at a time.

Here, standing at the mouth to the cave, the vibrations pulsing in Rhiana’s blood amplified. Mayhap she had gauged the heartbeat incorrectly? Could there be…more than one?

“Pray to St. Agatha’s veil there be but the one,” she murmured.

This day she would not enter the darkness. She had but come to mark out her suspicions and verify what the entire fortressed village of St. Rénan feared. A dragon had once again come to nest in the caves that opened onto the sea.

And while past years had proven little interest to the dragons—none had attacked the village for over a decade—this time it was different.

Yesterday evening, Jean Claude Coopier, the village ferrier, had been snatched from his very boots by a vicious dragon. Indeed, Rhiana had noted the empty boots, still standing upright as if a man wore them, as she passed through the field of vivid pinks to the north of St. Rénan on her trek to the caves. Jean Claude had been the third villager taken in five days.

Taken wasn’t exactly the word for…murder. A second man had been found—well, parts of him had been discovered at the edge of the forest. A third had been plucked up and dropped into the sea, never to be rescued.

A carnivorous hell had settled into the caves.

Dragons had ever troubled St. Rénan—the hoard drew them. Or it once had. For two years the caves had stood empty. Not since the summer of Rhiana’s training had she seen a dragon. The people had become complacent. The festive hoard-raids had flourished. Even youngsters banned from the raids had begun to trek to the massive caves to sneak about, and the very few returned with a glittering gold coin as proof of their daring. Of course, the youngsters were aware only of the hoard that lured the dragons.

Two days ago, St. Rénan had battened down. Rhiana felt the changed attitude as a tangible shiver in her bones. The people feared. A fear which grew stronger every day, for this time, it was different. Never had the dragon so boldly hunted people. Once, a man need fear danger only should he stumble into the caves and upon a sleeping dragon. History told the creature had to be aggravated to attack. It must sense danger to itself or its offspring. And very little posed danger to a dragon.

One dragon was easily endured, for the beast rarely remained long. Being social animals, the voracious rampants required the company of their kind while they were young and wily. Only the elder, maxima dragons chose to inhabit a hoard and nest for decades, never leaving, content to exist alone in torpor.

Never, in Rhiana’s two decades, could she recall a dragon purposefully swooping down from the sky to snatch up a helpless and flailing body.

No man in St. Rénan dared step forth to challenge the beast. Such boldness was the slayer’s vocation.

Yet there did happen to be a slayer in residence.

For many years Rhiana had felt a stirring in her blood. Mayhap, since the very day she entered this world near the warm licking flames of the massive hearth fire in the castle kitchens. The hearth was so huge a grown man could step inside it without bending his head and shoulders. The warmth of the constant blazing flame ever entranced her. Visits to her mother, Lydia, who worked in the castle kitchen, were long and frequently silent, for Rhiana would sit before the flames and become transfixed.

When she was three and her mother would leave her to her stepfather’s care in the armory, Rhiana would sit before the glowing brazier. Once, she had grabbed for the entrancing flames. Paul, who had just turned to speak to her, let out a shriek and lunged to jerk her hand from the flame. The hem of her sleeve had frayed and burned, yet her flesh had not. Paul had never told Lydia, for he had been remiss in watching Rhiana.

One would think Rhiana had learned a lesson then. But no, it happened on a few more occasions; each time Paul would remand her and shake his head. He’d lost his fright over her strange compulsion to flame, but never his astonishment.

Fire chaser, her stepfather had taken to calling her, when no one else was around, for most would use it as an oath against an arrogant slayer. Ever enchanted by fire, and not afraid of harm.

As for a fire-breathing dragon? This day, Rhiana would stand tall before danger and show it her teeth.

Stepping out to the center of the landing, she marked her steps. Ten paces. Which made the landing about twenty paces squared. It likely served as a main entrance. There were dozens of openings in the rock wall that hugged the sea and stretched for leagues beyond Rhiana’s sight, though this was the only one she’d ever explored.

The cry of a seabird soaring overhead distracted her momentarily. And in that moment the shadows within the cave grew darker. The entrance to hell had never before felt so ominous.

Gifted with Lucifer’s flame… Or so legend told.

Sage scented the air. Sweet and heady, a familiar scent, but never before in so voluminous a concentration. Ancient scholars said that sage could expand one’s lifetime to the point of immortality.

Rhiana didn’t believe it. No one lived forever.

The fine hairs at her wrists sprang upright. Sensing the ominous presence before seeing it, she lowered her gaze to search the black void. Crouching, she centered her balance. All power manifested in her belly, her female center. From there she drew up her strength.

Tilting her head, she listened. The basso heartbeats pulsed out a tormenting tattoo.

The distinct scent of the beast curled through Rhiana’s nostrils. It tasted bitter and warning at the back of her throat, and spoke on slithering hisses. I am here. You cannot stop me. Attack scent, that. Once before she had scented it, sharp like the sea, innate and feral. And once before she had vanquished the threat.

Spreading her legs and squaring her hips beneath her shoulders for a firm stance, Rhiana reached behind her back and unlatched the crossbow from the leather baldric slung from shoulder to hip. Specially designed by Paul, and forged completely of steel, the crossbow bore not a sliver of wood that might easily be burned to ash. The string? Fashioned from finely braided dragon’s gut, as well, impervious to flame. A cumbersome windlass was not required to draw taunt the string on this precious bit of weapon. Flexible at rest, the dragon-gut was easily pulled to notch, yet shrank tightly for a forceful release.

She notched an iron bolt into place. But she would not fire unless the beast proved a threat. It could be wandering in a sleepy daze, have mistakenly scampered out to the cave opening. Despite their deadly nature, Rhiana revered the dragons. Elegant, wondrous creatures of flight and flame, she felt an affinity toward the scaled beasts.

“Not of hell,” she murmured in awe.

’Tis a wicked enchantment, surely, that birthed them. An enchantment that, much against her intuitive calling, lured her to arms.

The click of curved ebony talons, stealthy, marking its pace upon the stone cave floor, told Rhiana this one did not approach in a somnambulant daze.

She slid her free hand over the dagger secured at her hip. The handle was fashioned from an ebony dragon talon.

Emerging into the pale grayness of the pre-dawn, one scaled paw studded with deadly talons rattled out a warning staccato. Indigo scales glinted even in the feeble light. All about, a heavy silence thickened the air. Not so much as a lap of seawater against the stones on the shore below could be heard.

And then, from out of the dark void, the beast’s head swept forward. The size of two field oxen and rimmed in hard indigo scales and juts of deadly spines was the skull. The horns stabbing out from the temples were small, no longer than Rhiana’s forearm, but weapons she respected. Tusks at the corner of the mouth were but short picks spiking to the sides. ’Twas a rampant, young and wild, many decades of growth still required to reach the elder maxima’s size and docility.

But no less dangerous to a man’s mortality.

Thrusting back her shoulders and lifting her chin, Rhiana declared, “I am come! Let us begin this dance of will and strength.”

The beast tilted its head, for a moment seeming to wonder at her words.

Rhiana did know they could speak the mortal tongue no more than she could read their beastly thoughts. Yet, Amandine had told her the maxima had such ability.

Focusing on the pattern of ridged scales between the eyes, shaped like an inverted cross, she readied her aim.

A hiss of sage-tainted smoke billowed from the nostrils in a creepy fog. So sweet, their breath. Intoxicating, should one lose focus and succumb. Smoke dulled her senses, but she knew it had the same effect on her opponent.

The beast drew up tall, its head rising as it stretched up its long neck.

Rhiana anticipated its next move.

Defiant in her stance, she merely smiled as the creature’s head lunged and the jaws opened wide. Deadly maws targeted her feeble size. A filigree of amber flame danced upon the air. One moment it formed a wisp of steam at the corners of the dragon’s tusk-pointed jaw, the next, it formed a rippling cacophony of heat and fire and evil that encompassed Rhiana’s body.

Heat, smothering, yet intoxicatingly dreamy, wavered images of the world before her. Amber wall of stone on fire. Distorted crystal sky. A frenzied blotch of scale and fang behind the wall of flame.

Standing amidst the fire Rhiana could not breathe. Her lungs expanded, then sealed up. Her chest felt bloated, stopped up. Her senses began to shut down. But she did not fear.

Fire. ’Twas her vitae.

As the last tendril of flame extinguished, Rhiana confidently raised her crossbow and sighted in her mark. The dragon, its head still lowered as if to attack, held its wide gold eyes at a level to her shoulders. Inverted cross in sight above the top of her bolt—perfect.

She released the trigger. The heavy steel bolt hissed through the sky and landed the target. There, in the center of the beast’s skull, right between the eyes—the kill spot, a direct entrance to the brain through a fine seam in the skull. Cursed by Heaven for its fall from grace.

Impact forced the creature up onto its powerful hind legs. The belly of soft, semipermeable violet scales glittered as the first beams of sunlight broke the horizon. Great pellicle wings scooped the air, the force of wind pushing Rhiana back a few steps. She marked her position. Fire did no harm, but a slap from a wildly flailing wing could push her over the edge.

And then, it tumbled. Over the side of the cliff it soared with little grace. Once an elegant beast of flight, now it crashed upon the stones and boulders below with a bone- and scale-crunching sound that sifted up dust and caused the seabirds to cry out the death of its winged compatriot.

A quick death, that.

Rhiana, still standing her ground, waited for the calamity to settle. Breaths huffing, a smile formed.

Swiping a palm across her face she nodded, and then propped the crossbow against her shoulder. “’Tis not a good day to be a dragon.”

CHAPTER TWO

The beast had landed the shore; its upper half, including the neck and skull, had plunged into the sea. No bones or scales to claim this day; the tide would carry away the carcass before nightfall.

From within the blackness of the cave opening another heartbeat yet pulsed, but she did not sense the second had been wakened by the attack.

A second? Truly, there was another.

Was it the mate? The fallen dragon was female, evident in its bright coloring. It was the male that protected the eggs, and which was in need of dull gray scales. Never had Rhiana seen a dragon egg. Or a male, for that matter.

Topside, after a perilous climb up the cliff face, Rhiana rushed across the open meadow to the forest and retrieved the thick wool cloak she’d secreted behind the twisted trunk of a burned-out oak stump. Swinging the cloak around her shoulders, she then followed the purlieu of the forest a league back to the battlement walls.

The sun dashed a gold line across the horizon and even from a distance Rhiana heard a rooster crow the morn. Beads of dew danced at grass-tip blades like faery finery. The morning smelled fresh and salted with the slightest tang of sage.

As she walked, she pulled the leather tie from her bound hair and shook it over her shoulder. True, dragon’s flame did little harm to her flesh and hair. But she hadn’t yet discovered a fabric that could withstand the heat, be it dragon flame or a simple hearth fire. The thin cambric tunic she wore beneath the scaled leather armor had burned away during her flaming, proving the wool cloak a necessity.

This armor was remarkable. Fashioned by her stepfather Paul, the leather cuirass was more a tunic that covered chest, back and the tops of her shoulders and arms. Secured at the backs of her arms and down her torso with leather straps, the thin strips were stitched through with fine mail wire to allow malleable strength that couldn’t be burned away. As for the mail chausses, Rhiana had made them herself, utilizing double rings instead of the usual single ring method. Rarely did she wear but hose beneath them—heavier chamois braies were unnecessary—for the thick mail protected verily, even one’s modesty.

Rhiana felt she might wear merely the armor, baring more flesh than any maiden should, for it would save on damaged clothing. But she must be cautious. Should she be spied in such attire, surely there would be a price to pay.

All in St. Rénan knew of her industry. They had seen her tromping about in the armor and wielding her dagger. “She’s an odd one,” they’d mutter to themselves. “Always has been.” Why, some had mistaken her for a boy when younger, for her antics and attraction to all things muddy or slimy, and her frequent play with makeshift weapons.

Yet, all in St. Rénan believed the real slayer who had been visiting the village two years earlier had taken down the dragon. A dragon Rhiana had slain. At the time, she hadn’t felt the need to correct perceptions, for she’d been so excited, the elation of the kill had far outweighed any glory the villagers might have bestowed. Instead, she’d gladly stood back while Amandine had collected his dragon’s purse from the hoard council as payment for his kill.

Praise and acknowledgment mattered very little to Rhiana, only that her loved ones were kept safe. For without family, what had one left?

The village walls were sixty feet high and fashioned from massive bricks shaped from the same ocher limestone that frilled the seashore. Four towers set at each direction of the compass punctuated the battlement walls, with wide parapet walks stretching between them all. The walls completely closed in the village, for it was small, yet growing, though none had chosen to build outside the walls for the dangers were real.

Avoiding the drawbridge that crossed to St. Rénan’s barbican and main entrance gates, Rhiana skipped along the curtain wall to the north entrance, close to where the artillery stored dusty trebuchets and long-forgotten cannonballs. It was rarely used, for siege and battle were nonexistent.

A narrow plank, no wider than two fists, stretched across the dry, yet deep, moat, attracting only the most deft and balanced.

Steadying herself with but one outstretched arm, Rhiana danced across the wobbly plank. The scaled armor clicked softly and her mail chausses chinged. The sound of mail in motion made her smile. It signified all things chivalrous and adventurous to her. Halfway across she lunged into a bounce. The plank wobbled, digging up plumes of dry earth at either end. Lifting one foot out before her, Rhiana performed another bounce, landed her foot and skipped quickly to ground and the thick iron door.

She glanced back at the expanse of moat she’d crossed. A satisfied nod followed. Every opportunity to danger must be met.

Rudolph manned the barbican in the early morn, but his watch didn’t start until prime, so Rhiana had coerced him to guard this door. Rudolph was a lifelong friend and fellow cohort in today’s mission, for ’twas his brother Jean Claude who had been snatched from his very boots.

A double rap to the thick iron door with the heel of her crossbow, was followed by Rudolph’s husky, “Who goes there?”

The lanky young man always tried to lower his voice and speak slowly, as Rhiana had suggested would make him sound more imposing.

“Fire chaser,” Rhiana replied, the previously decided password. It was a nickname only Rudolph and Paul used, yet Rudolph was not privy to her most exotic secrets, as was her stepfather.

A blinking eyeball peered through the squint hole. The door opened and an arm lashed out to grip her by the wrist and tug her inside the battlement walls. Slammed against the closing door, Rhiana smirked at Rudolph’s theatrics.

With a scatter of blonde hair poking out from beneath his tight leather skullcap, he glared his best glare at her, then, with a sniff and a nod, stepped back, assuming modest nonchalance. “My lady.”

“Rudolph.” She chuckled and tugged unconsciously at the wool cloak. He did not know what she wore—or did not wear—beneath. “Do you not recognize my voice, that you must every time treat me as a possible intruder?”

“It is my task, my lady, to protect the village from impostors and brigands.”

When they were children he’d once accused her of pressing him to always play the knight when he much preferred to be a minstrel or village fool. Mayhap their play battles had some influence in his chosen profession of guard, or so Rhiana liked to believe.

“You serve Lord Guiscard well with your astute attention to detail.”

“Think you?”

“Indeed.”

Pleased with the compliment, Rudolph bowed in affirmation. Then with a nervous tug of his cap, which never did cover his overlarge ears, he grew more serious. “Any dragons?” he wondered.

“One less, thanks be to my trusty crossbow.”

“My lady, you are a gem!” Eyes stretching up the battlement wall to her side, Rudolph said with less enthusiasm, “If only you had been near when Jean Claude was taken.”

“Rudolph.” She clamped a palm upon his shoulder. Wheat dust smoked out from his brown tunic; he spent his nights romancing the miller’s daughter in the shadows of the flour mill. “Your brother was a benevolent man, ever eager to set aside what he was doing to aid, be it building or chopping or even singing during the village’s frequents fêtes. There is no doubt, in my heart, Jean Claude sings with the angels this day.”

“You are ever kind. I just…keep wondering how awful it must feel to be snatched up in a dragon’s maw.”

A thought Rhiana had had many a time. It was what had kept her alert and deft in the face of danger.

Rudolph stomped a boot upon the packed dirt ground. “Forgive me, I am well and fine. No tears, no tears.”

Sniffing, he resumed a defensive stance, arms crossed over his chest, and a guardlike frown upon his face. A familiar pose, for Rhiana had often pushed him to tears with her teasing. Because, most certainly, girls were better than boys.

“Thank you, Rudolph. I continue to rely upon your discretion.”

“But wait!” He blocked her leave with a dancing step to the right. “You said one less. What does that mean? One less? Less than more?” His voice warbled. “Be there more…dragons?”

“Shh, Rudolph, you’ll wake curious ears.” They both looked down the aisle of houses that snaked along the battlement walls. But a strip of sunlight glowed upon the slate rooftops. “I am not positive, but I think there is another.”

“Another,” he panted out. Straining to keep his voice to a whisper, he muttered, “Go back! Kill it, fire chaser! Do not let this day pass without banishing hell’s evil. It will continue to stalk our village!”

“Rudolph.” Rhiana sighed.

Should she have remained? Walked deep into the darkness of the cave and explored, seeking the other dragon?

No, the other had slept surely. Else, would it not have flown out to avenge its mate’s death? She had sensed no immediate danger. And what if it had been male, protecting a newling? She did not kill indiscriminately.

“I am on it, you can trust me.”

“Girls are better than boys,” he tried with a teasing lilt to the statement.

She winked and gave him a quick hug, then strode past him and into the narrow back alleys twisting about behind St. Rénan’s strip of artillery and armory shops. The buildings were constructed of timber posts and beams, but overlaid by slate or fieldstone. A decades-old edict declared all buildings must be of stone and all roofs of slate or tile. Best defense for a village oft ravaged by flame.

A cock again crowed the morning and dogs yipped in response. The delicious smell of baking bread unearthed a ridiculous hunger in Rhiana’s belly. Dragon slaying was hard work and required a hearty meal. She must to home to catch the last bits of Odette’s breakfast.

A twig rolled off an overhead rooftop and tapped her on the shoulder. Must be from a bird. But yet—she paused and searched the sky. One must never become complacent. So many noises in this village forged of stone and earth and as little wood as possible. She spied a dash of gray skirts.

“Mother?”

Rhiana skipped around and hid behind a tightly woven wattle arbor. Her mother made her way to the castle kitchen. Lydia walked a swift pace, and kept looking over her shoulder. As if she thought she was being followed. Strange.

Rhiana scanned the area. No one else out so early. Hmm…

Her mother had been different the past fortnight. Avoiding Rhiana more than usual. She was most brisk with their conversations. ’Twas almost as if Rhiana had done something to affront Lydia. But she did not know how to ask if there was a problem.

Lydia’s dour gray skirts swept out of view and behind a wall of hornbeam.

Rhiana sighed. “Something is amiss with her.”

As she walked onward, the clangs of the armourer’s hammer sang out like a childhood lullaby. Truly, such racket was lullaby matter to her. Since she was very young, Rhiana had spent her days toddling about Paul Tassot’s legs, asking him questions about every step in the process of creating armor, playing with the old yellow mongrel that slept beneath the stone cooling tank, thriving in the atmosphere of the shop.

The song of the hammer beat out a rhythm in her blood. Hard metals being coaxed into smooth, elegant curves, and blades that could kill with but a slice? How exciting! The red-hot flames and the glow of heated iron? Mesmerizing. Wherever there was fire, Rhiana felt soothing comfort. And the exquisite reassurance of gold, on the rare occasions Paul worked the supple metal to a fine sheet to leaf armor, ever beckoned.

Rhiana slipped into the shop and padded across the swept stone floor. The armory was circular, the south half sporting the brazier and works in progress. The north half was set up with a massive oak table for detail and leatherwork.

Bent over the flame, Paul concentrated on a curve of metal heated to vibrant amber. Paul Tassot was Rhiana’s mother’s husband. He was not her father, but had married Lydia when Rhiana was three.

Rhiana did not know her real father. For all purposes, a man had been in her life from the time of her birth until she was two. One Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III; he was not her father either, though he had been married to her mother. Villon had abandoned her and her mother without reason or word. Lydia had cried for a se’ennight following. Even so small, Rhiana had wondered would her mother’s tears flood their home and sweep them both out to the sea, never again to be found, and so far away from flame and the family she loved.

As she grew older, many questions busied Rhiana’s thoughts. But when asked, Lydia Tassot would not speak of Rhiana’s origins. Rhiana suspected her mother must have been violated, or, in her more lusty imagination, she wondered had her mother an affair with a powerful lord or a fancy traveling courtier.

Either way, Rhiana had taken to Paul Tassot, who had been a mainstay in her life for twenty years. Just riding the end of his fifth decade, he possessed kind blue eyes that never looked upon Rhiana with the exasperated frustration Lydia’s eyes often held. And he was supportive of her quest. When Lydia scoffed at Rhiana taking off with a slayer to hone her skills, upon her return, Paul would question her every lesson with great fascination. What is he teaching you? Do you feel confident? How can I help? And under his breath—touch any flame this day?

Paul looked up from his task. “Ah!”

After an incident with sickness last summer all of Paul’s hair had fallen out. Now, recovered and healthy thanks to Odette’s infamous comfrey poultice, he continued to shave off the new growth. Rhiana liked his shiny bald pate. It was soft and round, like his giving heart. The man embodied integrity in his simple manner and devotion to his family.

He flashed her a brilliant smile, and with a shrug, worked his shoulders against the rounding hours leaning over the anvil forged into his muscles. A nod of his head summoned Rhiana to his side.

The glowing curve of iron he held with tongs could not be left unattended, so he divided his attention between it and her. A forceful pound of the hammer clanged the molten metal and sparks danced out like fire sprites.

“Come from the caves?”

Rhiana nodded as she reached behind her waist to itch at the leather points securing her tunic to the mail chausses.

“Was it as you suspected?” he asked.

“Yes, and no. There may be more than one of them,” Rhiana explained. “I didn’t have a chance to focus and count, but certainly there could be another.”

“Another?”

“Yes, I sensed another heartbeat after—Oh, Paul! I took out a female rampant.”

“You did?” He winked and smiled broadly. So much pride in that look. Another pound. Sparks glittered in the air between them. “So the armor is good?”

Rhiana dropped the wool cloak to a puddle around her feet. The entire armored tunic glittered with the mystique of the beasts. Fashioned from dragon scales, the iridescent disks changed from indigo to violet beneath the sun. Paul had smoothed the sharp edges and pierced holes in each scale with such care. After much trial and error, he’d discovered the only tool capable of piercing the scale was an actual dragon’s talon or tooth. He’d designed a small inner tooth, which the beast used for ripping its prey apart, as a punch.

“It’s remarkable.”

Rhiana felt no embarrassment standing before Paul in the flesh-baring costume. But the backs of her arms and a narrow slit down each side of her torso showed. Paul had worked with her to fit the scales to her body to provide maximum movement along with minimal weight and excess attire. It was he who had suggested she wear a thin tunic beneath, for her modesty, but they both knew Rhiana would be sewing many a tunic should her slaying skills ever be called upon.

“Change in the closet,” he said, turning the curve of molten iron, held with a pincers, to begin working the opposite side. The dry metallic scent of heated iron was most pleasant to Rhiana’s senses. “The gown you keep stashed in there waits. Did no one see you reenter the village?”

“Rudolph is most discreet,” Rhiana called as she slipped into the tool closet and closed the creaky wood door.

“Only because you have cowed him over the years,” Paul said. With a laugh, he again hammered at the supple metal.

They both felt it important to keep Rhiana’s slaying discreet. Certainly the threat to the village must be dispatched. But so many had difficulty accepting a female as a powerful and strong force.

It dumbfounded Rhiana. Why should she not be allowed to perform the same tasks as men?

Inside the closet, her eyes strayed across the items on the many supply shelves. Splaying her fingers across a tray of wire rings she’d fashioned a few days earlier made her smile. Crafting mail, she enjoyed. Almost as much as slaying.

She unfastened the leather straps placed from armpit to hip neatly concealed with overlapping dragon scales. The leather tunic slipped from her body, baring her breasts. Tugging out the slips of burnt tunic from around her neck and at her waist, she tossed them into the waste barrel.

Exhaling deeply, Rhiana thrust back her shoulders and lifted her arms over her head in a languorous stretch. So alive, she felt. Vigorous and strong. A flex of her arm bulged the muscle above her elbow. Like a man’s muscles, she mused. Constant training with the sword and working with Paul kept her muscles hard. And that hard work had paid off.

The moment she had stood before the dragon, defiant, had truly been a pinnacle. For her only other kill had been assisted. This one was all her own.

“I’m a real slayer,” she murmured. “Finally.”

A folded blue-gray gown waited on the shelf. For emergencies, which is why she hadn’t left one of her two pairs of braies—she used those daily. Bits of dried lavender fell from between the folds as she shook it out.

Slipping the ells of soft damask over her head, Rhiana shimmied into the plain gown. Once silver vair had rimmed the hems of her sleeves, but the fur tickled overmuch, so she’d stripped it and gave it to Odette to sew onto a pair of house slippers. Rich as the village was, traders rarely visited, so fur of any sort was highly valued.

She stroked the gold coin suspended around her neck on a thin leather strip. Barter was the only form of purchase; coin had little value.

Shucking the mail chausses in a chinking pool about her bare feet, she then peeled down the wool hose, which were still connected to the points of her tattered tunic, fried to a crisp as they were. The softness of the damask fluttering about her legs felt ridiculous. So light, not at all protective. The gown was…not her. Many were accustomed to seeing her wear braies and tunic, but on occasion she did wear a gown. Only a gown caressed her waist and bosom and revealed to a man that, indeed, she was a woman. Look at me, she felt the gown called when she wore one.

And what be wrong with seeking a man’s attentions?

Still, many whispered as she strode by, defying propriety in her comfortable male costume. And to even consider her ambition? A female who dons armor and wields a crossbow? Insanity.

Carefully, she placed the armor upon the wooden stand and covered it with a tarp of boiled leather. While every man in the village was aware of her passion, they had not seen this latest armor made by Paul. Even those who looked to her with hope for their safety would be horrified. Women simply did not tromp about in mail and armor, acting powerful and flexing their muscles as a man.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Rhiana stepped back from the armor. Thick, loose curls tumbled across her back and swept about her waist. Ever teased as a child for her red hair and freckles—surely a witch, be she—Rhiana had come to accept her differences, but only after being assured by the village hag that she was not a witch.

Something so much more…

The hag, known to all as the Nose, after reading Rhiana’s future in the flames of a hearth fire, had flashed her a frightened grimace and shuffled her out from her cottage.

So much more?

Indeed.

CHAPTER THREE

As opposed to setting up a small bake shop in her own home, Rhiana’s mother worked in the castle kitchen. Lydia rose before the sun and wandered home late in the evening. It was a labor of love, for Lydia was the castle’s pastry chef, and delighted many with her designs fashioned from sugar, nuts and honey. Holidays such as Lent and Midsummer, were made all the more festive with Lydia’s creations gracing the high table.

Odette, Rhiana’s half-sister, would be either at home fretting over some bits of lace to attach to her sleeves or in the castle kitchen sampling Lydia’s wares. Odette strove for little in life, save a plump waistline to attract a fine and fruitful husband. Though she did favor the medical arts—stitching up wounded knights landed high on her list of activities.

None in St. Rénan strove for much more than a simple life filled with all the luxury that could be managed. Thanks to the hoard, the village thrived. Where most cities and villages paid the taille to their lord, St. Rénan had developed its own form of reverse-taille, paying to each citizen a yearly stipend. One would think the entire city lazy and roustabouts, but that was not so. Every able body worked hard, and in return celebrated the fruits of their labors with fine furnishings, elegant clothing and always food on the table. Starvation was not something the people of St. Rénan understood, for should the crops be poor one summer, a trek to a neighboring village, or even a sojourn to the debauched city of Paris, to purchase food was undertaken. Anything could be had for a price.

The Hoard Council, formed by Pascal Guiscard three decades earlier, monitored the disbursements and insured none in the village became slackards. If you did not pull your weight, you did not receive the stipend. Very few were thrown into the dungeons for shirking their duties. The village was small, working as a companionable hive. All guarded the secret with a blood oath taken before Lord Guiscard upon their sixteenth birthday.

Bi-yearly hoard-raids were celebrated with a fête and great bonfire (which, Rhiana mused, was lit in defiance of the dragons). Though, not many had been venturing beyond the curtain walls the past few days.

So Rhiana’s trip through the city this morn was met with little but the stray pig from Dame Gemma’s stables snorting in the onions and cress planted outside the woman’s three-story manor. Children were kept safe behind closed door, or close in sight splashing in a nearby puddle or playing stones with a neighboring child.

Rhiana gave no regard to the half-dozen knights who marched purposefully toward her—in full armor, as usual. Though Lord Guiscard’s knights were called to little warfare, and even less martial exercise, Rhiana had decided they wore the full armor to look opposing. And to attract the opposite sex. There were many marriageable young women in St. Rénan; wenching was one of the knights’ favorite exercises.

Champrey, Guiscard’s seneschal, strode in the lead. He was hounded by a rank of hulking shoulders and rugged, dirty glares.

The men in the village were so desperately primal. Baths were rare, for the claim of little physical exertion kept them clean. Yet, much as Odette was always complaining of the knights’ awkwardly amorous attempts to seduce her, Rhiana had never fielded an unwarranted touch from any. She knew what the men thought of her. Not right, mayhap a witch. Certainly not feminine. She did try, when she thought of it. But emulating Lady Anne’s walk always saw Rhiana tripping over her own feet.

But did the men in the village, at the very least, see her as a woman?

Obviously not. It was only when Rhiana had developed breasts that Rudolph’s father had admonished him not to play with her. She was a girl, not the boy his father had thought her. Fortunately, Rudolph had never cared one way or the other. Their friendship remained strong; like siblings, they continued to taunt, torment, and love one another.

Rhiana craved a kind look from a man—any man who was not Rudolph or Paul. And, perhaps, not so kind a look as a promising one. Something that said to her, I favor you. Your strength does not frighten me. I can accept without fear or jealousy.

For those were the reasons no man approached her. They feared her independence. They were jealous of her strength.

Sighing, and striding onward, Rhiana realized the band of knights had stopped before her. Armor clattered and gauntlets clinked about sword hilts. Not a one would make a move to allow her passage.

“Demoiselle,” Champrey sneered. He did have a way of sneering his speech. It ever gave Rhiana a tickle. He wasn’t half so villainous as his lord and master, but he certainly tried to compete. “My lord wishes an audience with you.”

“Oh? Well, but I’ve—” A hungry belly to fill. And a certain lusty baron to avoid.

“Immediately.”

What could Lord Guiscard want with her? Had someone witnessed her entry into the village, sans proper clothing and wearing but the dragon scale armor? She was ever vigilant of the men who sat in the towers placed upon the battlement walls.

“I was on to the kitchen to speak to my mother. Does Lord Guiscard wish me to speak to Lady Anne?”

Rhiana often visited Lady Anne. Upon her arrival three years ago, the lady of St. Rénan had taken a liking to Rhiana and frequently requested she tend her in her solar. Anne allowed Rhiana to comb her hair and plait it, one of the rare feminine skills Rhiana possessed.

“Hold your tongue and follow me, wench.”

So that was the way of it, eh? She hated being labeled wench.

Shrugging, Rhiana followed Champrey’s sulking steps, and as she did, felt the ranks close about her. Lifting her skirts to keep the mud from lacing the hem, she cursed her lack of shoes.

An escort to Lord Guiscard? No good could come of this.

They entered the castle through the iron doors that stretched two stories high. Grinning stone gargoyles sporting lion heads and eagle bodies overlooked the human cavalcade. A three-legged mutt bounced past Rhiana as she moved swiftly through the great hall. Rushes were scattered upon the stone floor, but she did not notice the fennel and mint mixture Lady Anne insisted be sprinkled over all.

Normally Rhiana’s keen senses picked up every smell, almost to the point of annoyance. ’Twas nerves, she knew. Anxiety dulled her senses. She did not like being called to Lord Guiscard, unless it concerned Anne. In truth, a summons to speak only to Guiscard had never before happened. Foreboding tightened the muscles in her jaw.

The keep was a grand room, four stories high, and capped with a vault ceiling that captured triangles of colored glass between each of its sectioned ribs. The painted sky, Rhiana had named the stained-glass ceiling.

The yellow Guiscard crest—a red salamander passant guardant, and in the lower quarter of the bend sinister a green cricket; a combination of both houses’ coat of arms—fluttered from banners hung upon the walls low enough to brush a mounted knight’s polished bascinet helmet.

Along the west wall hung a series of tapestries depicting the dragons’ fall to temptation with the dark angels, and the resulting hand of God touching one on the forehead, cursing them with the kill spot ever after.

Always the great hearth at the north end of the room blazed; now, some four-legged beast turned upon the spit. While the village consumed an inordinate amount of fish, the occasional land-roving boar or deer was blessedly welcome.

The high table was set with gold candelabras and gold place settings. The lower table was not set up, and would not be until later this evening. For as much as the village was ensured wealth, there remained a fine line of social hierarchy. The baron did not boast a full court with lords, ladies, minstrels and such, but he did have his inner set of trusted alliances. And while most of the villagers were always welcome at the lower table, many found the settings and food at their own homes of equal taste and wealth.

Rhiana spied Lord Guiscard’s elegant dagged emerald velvet surcoat and made a beeline through the crowd of assorted craftsmen and gossiping ladies to him. She knew it would not be truly proper to approach him in such a manner—without being announced—but whenever she sensed trouble it was better to face it straight on, than linger and fret about it.

“My lord Guiscard!” Champrey, yet struggling through the crowd behind her, hastily announced Rhiana’s approach.

Narcisse Guiscard, baron de St. Rénan, turned. To his right, an iron torchiere shaped like a dragon’s head flickered, though the sunlight beaming through the colored glass overhead brightened the room sufficiently. Narrow brown eyebrows lifted in lascivious manner upon spying Rhiana, but his wondering expression quickly crimped to a frown.

Even ugly moods could not dampen his elegance. Rhiana always caught her breath at sight of him. So young and attractive. She fancied him her age, but he must be years older, for his father had been sixty-two when he died five years earlier.

Tall, lean, and wrapped with muscle, Guiscard stood, feet spread and thumbs hooked at a hip belt of interlocked gold medallions. Thigh high boots, revealed by a sweep of his surcoat, emphasized long legs wrapped in parti-colors of emerald and black. He wore not the fashionable pudding-basin cut that had the men shaving the backs of their heads up to ear-high level. Long dark hair was braided at the baron’s ears to keep it back from his face. Possessed of bright blue eyes and cheekbones sharp as any blade, he easily slayed all females who fell to his allure.

Sapphires glinted at his fingers and along the gold chain that strung from shoulder to shoulder. Rhiana lingered on the gold. She liked gold, its brilliant and warm veneer. To hold it in her hand made her feel safe—comforted—strange as that sounded.

It was with great willpower she resisted reaching out and touching the finery that glittered everywhere on Lord Guiscard.

The baron had taken command of the castle upon his father’s death five years earlier. Pascal Guiscard had succumbed to fever after eating rotten fish, and following months of suffering, had died after three decades of benevolent rule over St. Rénan. He had been known for his gentle yet precise ways. It was Pascal who had discovered the hoard, and he who had chosen to share it with all.

Narcisse Guiscard shared his father’s attention to detail and possessed a forced kindness, but there were things about him that put up the hairs on Rhiana’s arms.

“Ah, the Tassot wench. Our very own rumored dragon slayer.” He spat the words through teeth clenched tighter than the fists at his hips.

She would not deny the truth. But until now, Rhiana had not known the castle was aware of her slaying activities. How could they know of this morning’s kill? Had Rudolph—?

Mayhap now she could explain the situation to Lord Guiscard, perhaps even suggest he loan her a few strong knights. If there was another dragon, as she suspected, she would require assistance. For where there were two, could there be even more?

“My lord,” she said, and bowed.

Her unbound hair spilled to the floor as she did so. The tresses were not clumped with mud, which relieved her, but certainly they were in need of a comb. The only time she was aware of her lacking femininity was in the presence of a powerful man.

The men standing around the baron, smirking and handling all manner of shiny weapon from ax to bow to leather-hilted sabre, focused their attention on the woman who so boldly approached.

Oh, but the bravado heavy in the air put her to guard. Absently, Rhiana slid her palm over her left hip. No dragon talon dagger to hand.

Guiscard glided out from his entourage and met her in the center of the keep. The clean lavender scent of his soap attacked her senses as if a fox dashing for the rabbit. Now she smelled everything, from the fennel and mint rising about her skirt hem to the barrage of musk that claimed the keep as a man’s domain. Women belonged in the kitchen and the laundry, she had heard Guiscard say before, or as ornaments decorating their man’s arm.

Curious blue eyes preened across Rhiana’s face, and then tilted a smile at her. Not a generous smile, most always devious.

“Tell me,” he said, “what it is about slaying dragons that intrigues you so? Be it the danger? The fight? The desire to touch such fierce evil?”

“Is not the desire to see my family safe enough of an attraction?”

“But you are a woman. Women do not gallivant after dragons. Why…” He glanced over his shoulder to a fellow knight and murmured, “Women are to be made sacrifices, no?”

A few snickers from the men enforced Guiscard’s cocky stance. A shrug of his broad shoulder tugged tight the gold chain across his chest and with a distracting clink.

Drawing in a breath, Rhiana grabbed back the courage and focus she had initially held. “My apologies for being so abrupt, my lord, but is it possible we may discuss the business of these dragons come to nest in the caves?”

“Dragons in our caves, my lady?”

“Three men have been devoured in five days.”

“You said dragons, as in, more than one?”

“Mayhap.” A surreptitious glance about saw many more eyes had become interested. She did wish to alarm no one, especially the women, so she lowered her voice. “Do you not wish it put to an end?”

The baron now regarded her with a lifted brow. Utter arrogance seeped from him as if the lavender scent. “And you propose to be the one to end it? My lady, I had not thought to entertain such a humorous farce this morn, but I thank you heartily for the amusement.”

He touched her chin with a finger that glittered with enough gold to serve a peasant family for an entire year, and lifted her head to look directly into her eyes. The look was familiar, and dreadsome. On occasion Guiscard caught Rhiana as she was entering Lady Anne’s room. A silent capture, which held her against the embrasure outside the solar, his blue eyes eating her apart with unspoken lust.

“You’ve been to the caves,” he said. “This morning? My men report seeing you leave just after lauds. Your return was not remarked.”

She would lie to no man, for integrity of word was important to her. “I did, my lord.”

“Such boldness to tromp about a dragon’s lair.”

“I killed one rampant this morn. But there may be another. I…sensed its presence.”

“Just so?” He spread his gaze across her face. A curious look. Fascinated or horrified? “You sensed another? Without sighting it? Sounds…magical, to me.”

“I have no magic, my lord.” She wanted to follow with, “I am not a witch,” but best to leave that word unspoken. For once heard…

“Who gave you permission to do such a thing?”

Permission? Rhiana gaped. To protect— To— Why, to see her family safe? She did not know what to say to that.

“You say there are others?”

“Mayhap,” she answered. Still at a loss—he expected her to ask before slaying a danger that threatened the very people of his village?

“So you are not sure. And yet, you boldly approach me with these ideas of another. You frighten us all, my lady.”

“I do not mean to. I only wish to protect—”

“Against imagined evils?”

“They are not imagined!”

“Did you see this other dragon?”

“N-no, but I—” Blessed be, why must the man be so difficult?

“You are not like other women.”

How many times had she heard that statement, and always as an accusation? It deserved the usual response. “I try, my lord, but sewing and cooking does little to satisfy me.”

“Ah?” He delivered a smirk over his shoulder. A few knights snickered. “Well, if it is satisfaction you desire….”

Oh, but she’d put her foot in it with that one.

“Is there a reason you had me escorted to you this day, my lord?”

“Indeed there is.” Mirth fell at Guiscard’s feet. The air of his forced humor instantly hardened. “I was boldly woken by my seneschal this morning with news of your foolhardy deed. Besides the rude awakening, I feel your cut against all in the village. How dare you take matters into your incapable hands.”

“But, my lord—”

“You are forbidden to prance about playacting at this nonsense of slaying dragons.”

“No one is playacting. You can find the carcass on the shore to the north.”

“I believe you, and I am horrified.” He said the last word with such drama, any who had not been discreetly listening now stared boldly at Rhiana. “How many others?”

“One.”

“You are sure?”

She nodded. Not sure, but willing to trust her instincts.

“I will not abide you to go near the caves. And should I hear you have gone against my wishes, I will have you chained and put in my, er—the dungeon.”

“But, my lord, the innocent people! Who will protect them?”

“That is what slayers are for.”

“A slayer?” But she was… Well, she wanted to be—no, she had slain two thus far. She was a slayer! “It will take well over a fortnight to call a proper slayer to St. Rénan. In that time half a dozen more will be plucked out from their boots. I can do this! I am—”

A woman who chases dragons.

The words caught at the back of Rhiana’s throat. Why could she not boldly declare her mien?

“And who will protect you?”

Her? Protection? The man did no more care for her welfare than he concerned himself with the crumbling infirmary that desperately needed repair.

“You, my lady, will heed my warning, and thus get yourself into the kitchen, where you can be taught proper skills such as kneading and sweeping and whatever else it is you females do. Isn’t that where your mother works?” A glance to Champrey verified. “Indeed. It is high time the woman trained her child to be the female she appears to be.”

The very nerve of him!

With nothing but snickers, male eyes bared, and weapons circling her as if a pack of hungry dogs, Rhiana thought the wiser at protest.

Nevertheless, her passions always ruled over her better sense. Girls are better than boys.

“I refuse to stand back and allow the dragons to take another life when I can stop it!”

The baron whipped a dagger glare from his arsenal. “You raise your voice to me, wench?” he hissed out of the side of his mouth.

Rhiana focused. She had become irate, her heart pounded, her shoulders tight. Lowering her head, she breathed through her nose, coming to accord with this ridiculous demand. Guiscard was a fool. Yet notions of a woman’s place were not unusual—to a man.

“It appears you have great concern for the womenfolk in your village. I can accept that.” No, she would not, but small lies were sometimes necessary. “Have you called for a slayer, then?”

Guiscard shrugged.

“You cannot dismiss the danger!”

“Champrey.”

At a nod from Champrey, three knights surrounded Rhiana, not touching, but it was evident they would wrangle her to their bidding if she spoke so much as one more word out of order.

A simple kick to their knees and a fist to a few jaws would serve her anger well.

“Now.” Guiscard sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair in an utterly vain display. “Will you be a good girl and listen to your betters?”

Betters? Rhiana required proof for that statement, but knew not to ask for such.

“Very good.” Guiscard took in the masses of hair spilling over her shoulders to her elbows.

The look made Rhiana clutch her arms across her breasts. ’Twas not a condemning look, more luxurious. Either one, it made her skin crawl.

Not sure if he considered, or if he merely played the moment out for effect, she waited nervously as the man stepped back from her and studied the floor, hands to hips. Finally he lifted his head, and again slipped close, so close Rhiana smelled his intentions, and they were not sincere. “Be you a witch?”

“N-no, my lord.”

“Come now, time to tell the truth. You’ve bewitched my wife.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “You have bewitched me.” Spinning and stretching out his arms in declaration, he stated, “Obviously, you’ve the power to bewitch dragons to lie down before you and seek death.”

All eyes in the keep fixed to her. Chitters and smirks rose amongst the rough scent of power and dirt and rosemary-tainted curiosity.

“I have but skill and dexterity, my lord. I have been trained to know the dragon, its habits, its hunting rituals—”

“And yet you could not foresee the deaths of the three who have been taken from our bosom?” Allowing that fact to settle in, Guiscard grandly stalked the floor. “You know nothing, wench. Now, will you walk from the keep to tend the feminine skills, or must I have you arrested and thrown into the dungeon?”

“I will walk from the keep, my lord.” But she would vow fealty to no man. Especially one who risked the lives of innocents through his ignorance. “Good day to you.”

And she turned and walked away, feeling many eyes on her back, and likening it to a nest of hungry dragons. But these dragons did not kill for sustenance, no; these dragons toyed with women for their humor. They had put her in her place, upon a shelf to be regarded only when chores needed be done or fancy be met.

Not allowed to slay the dragons?

She’d see about that.

CHAPTER FOUR

What manner of soul did she possess?

That she had physical differences from others could not be dismissed. So she had red hair and freckles. Ignorance caused others to tease her. The color of one’s hair did not make them evil or unclean. There were many in the village with red hair. Of course, it was not so bold as Rhiana’s, as if sun-drenched garnets. And she could not disregard her unusual eyes. Only those who really looked at her noticed. She did not call attention to the fact one eye was gold, the other green. Lydia’s eyes were green. But when Rhiana asked, Lydia would not verify if her father’s eyes had been gold.

At the end of a stretch of houses, in the row facing the gardens, stood the chapel. Entering the always open doors, Rhiana genuflected toward the front of the church, then straightened and dipped her fingers into the fount of consecrated water. There was no permanent priest, but the one who traveled along the coast was currently in residence at the castle for a fortnight.

Tracing a cross over her forehead, she whispered a Hail Mary. Confession must be made soon; it would erase her venial sins, but not the mortal ones. So she did not sin mortally.

Or so she hoped.

Could slaying dragons be considered a mortal sin? She did not know if, by taking the life of a dragon purposefully, she robbed their souls of divine grace. God had cursed them. What grace could they have? Did they even possess a soul?

There were a few benches near the door. Most ladies brought along their own simple velvet-cushioned prie dieu to place in the nave. Rhiana liked the open space. No clutter, no sign of the riches upon which the village thrived. Just simple peace.

Striding to the front of the small church, she knelt upon the stone floor and pressed her hands together.

A wooden cross hung over the altar, supported by ropes on either arm of the cross. Carved from limewood and not oiled, the wood bore a few holes from burrowing insects, but that only gave it more charm, Rhiana mused. It was far from the grandiose cross embellished with rubies and gold that she had seen in the castle chapel. She did not care to worship a gaudy master.

Lord Guiscard’s penchant for finery oftentimes made her wonder if Lady Anne were not just another bauble in his collection. For truly, it was as if he had plucked her out from a treasure box. With no family to name, and no origins to claim, the woman had arrived in St. Rénan three years earlier, already wed to the baron. (Yet, for all purposes, she had claimed the grasshopper as her family sigil.) Barely seventeen at the time, Anne had spoken little, yet her round dark eyes had seen all.

She had reached out to Rhiana one eve during a hoard-raid fête, drawing her close into a hug.

“So pretty,” Anne had said of Rhiana’s hair. “Like fire. I like fire.”

That was all Rhiana had needed to hear to comply should Anne ever request her presence.

Though she was hardly an orphan, Rhiana felt an affinity to Anne. They were two alike, in a manner she could not quite decide. While Anne’s mind was not always her own, and she often flighted from reality, Rhiana could sense the young woman’s distinct need for belonging. To understand.

For Rhiana longed to understand.

“What am I?” she whispered now to the cross. “Why do I…?”

Not burn.

The preternatural trait must always be hidden from others. Rhiana would not speak of it, except to Paul, and only then when they were assured no others were close to hear.

Upon her sixteenth birthday Rhiana had forced herself to visit the Nose. The old woman had earned her name because she was always nosing about, had her nose into everything, and knew more than most even knew about themselves. The Nose moved in the shadows, held stealth in her breast, and yet, was no more threatening than the elder widow she was. She was not a witch, though mayhap a sage of sorts. Empyromancy is what she practiced, reading the future in the flames of a hearth fire or the wild ravages of a bonfire. The Nose lived at the south edge of the village, apart from all the rest, not caring to participate in the hoard-raid festivities, but quietly accepting her portion of the yearly stipend and pocketing it in the rags she chose to wear. Her participation in St. Rénan’s way of life was the fertilizer she created to cover the castle gardens that produced some stunningly large vegetables and abundant medicinal herbs.

After staring at Rhiana from across a table covered in moth-eaten cor-du-roi, squinting and sniffing as if determining her species, the Nose shot upright and declared her not a witch, but something so much more. Pressing a palm before Rhiana’s face, her withered fingers had moved like spider limbs testing the air, and then retracted as if stung by a bee in her web. With a shrill cry, she’d hastened Rhiana from her home and admonished her never to return.

Not a witch.

Something so much more?

But what then?

Touching the moist line of the cross she had traced onto her forehead, Rhiana now mused that it matched the kill spot on a dragon’s skull. Put there to remind the beast of what it could never have—divine grace.

Legend told of fireless dragons that long ago roamed the earth. Then the dark angels fell. And the dragons, enticed by the wicked creatures that had defied their God, had mated with them. In punishment, He had reached down from the heavens and touched the dragons’ foreheads. Their first offspring had been born breathing fire, a gift from the angels of hell—Lucifer’s breath—and an inverted cross upon its brow, the kill spot, a punishment from heaven.

Had she been put into this world specifically to slay dragons? It felt right. When she stood before a fiery beast and defied it with her crossbow and sheer mettle Rhiana felt in her element.

Why Guiscard insisted she not continue, she could only guess was because she was female. Surely, if a male dragon slayer offered to defeat the nest of beasts, the baron would agree to the offer?

“Would he?”

She’d not gotten that feeling from him. For some reason, Rhiana sensed Lord Guiscard would do nothing to stop the imminent threat to St. Rénan. And that feeling unsettled her.

Shuffling to sit on her haunches and spreading her legs out before her, Rhiana rested her elbows on her knees. Hardly a ladylike position, especially with the gown rucked to her calves, but she was alone.

There was some part of Narcisse Guiscard that Rhiana understood on a deep inner level. Gentle and patient, he cared for Lady Anne like no other. That he had even accepted a woman not always of her mind into his life spoke untold compassion.

And yet, each time Lord Guiscard looked at Rhiana she felt his desire crawl across her flesh as if a seeking insect. A duplicitous man. And while that very look was exactly the kind of regard Rhiana craved, she would not answer its plea.

“Never,” she whispered. Not from a married man. Not from any of the knights in the village who had pledged to Guiscard. They were all so brutish. The sort of man Rhiana desired must understand a woman, above and beyond her eccentricities. He must not be a brute. Yet, he must practice chivalry. An equal? It was too much to hope for.

Bowing her head she summarized a silent prayer. Thanks be for her strength and skills. Please to keep her family safe and all others in the village she loved and cared for. Paul and Odette. Her mother. Rudolph. Anne. Yes, even Guiscard, for he did love Anne.

And send understanding. Knowledge. Or mayhap, merely acceptance for the unknown.

Crossing herself from forehead to stomach and shoulder to shoulder, Rhiana then stood and glanced out the narrow stained-glass window to her left. The village actually echoed with voices. A good thing to hear after days of silent terror.

On the other hand, if the villagers became complacent only ill could come of their fall from vigilance.

Sweeping up her skirts, Rhiana strode toward the back of the chapel, but noted a glint of steel lying on the floor below the final bench. A leather-sheathed broadsword. The hilt was wrapped in scuffed black leather. Must belong to one of Guiscard’s knights, ever hopeful for a skirmish.

Rhiana drew it halfway from the sheath. The blade held more than a few dings and scuffs. A well-used weapon. Hmm, then it could not belong to any in the garrison. There had been a time when the garrison fought to protect the city from marauders and sea pirates. But the port had closed decades ago, and now the city rarely saw travelers of any sort.

Though it did not bear his mark on the pommel, Paul would know to whom this sword belonged. A small flared rooster crest be his mark, taken from his great-grandfather’s coat of arms. ’Twas Paul Tassot’s proof mark, a sign the armor he’d made had been tested by arrows and was impenetrable at a distance of twenty paces.

Sword in hand, Rhiana set out for the armory. The noon sky brightened her mood. A flash of brilliant white glanced off the bronze roof topping the bath house. Not a single cloud this day. The only thing that could make the day better would be a bit of rain to drench the crops on the south side of the curtain walls.

“I’ve killed it!”

That declaration sounded too ominous to be a good thing. Rhiana dashed for the bailey where a small crowd had gathered. They surrounded something that moved and struggled about on the dirt courtyard. Was it a fallen horse? She could but see a flailing dark limb.

“Stomp its head!”

“Have you another arrow?” someone cried. “Get me a dagger!”

Rhiana pushed between two teenage boys and spied what had caused the commotion. A shout burst from her mouth before she could even summon sense. “Back! All of you! What have you…”

Plunging to her knees, she splayed out her palms before the struggling beast. Gawky and thin, it resembled a gargoyle nesting the castle tower come to life. It had taken an arrow in the pellicle fabric of one of its supple black wings.

“Rhiana?” Paul’s voice, as he pushed through the crowd. “What is it? Oh…”

“It is a newling,” Rhiana said to all, hoping an explanation would cool their lust for its life. “A baby dragon.” The crowd gasped in utter horror. “It will harm no one. Why, it is no larger than a dog. Who shot it?”

Protests against self-protection and thinking it was a big bird shuffled out in nervous mutters.

“It is a dragon!” Christophe de Ver snapped. He’d sought to join the garrison, but his awful eyesight kept him from earning his spurs, and resulted in more than a few tumbles and visits to Odette for stitching. “You killed one this very morn, my lady. Why are you so keen to keep this one alive?”

So word of her kill this morning had already breached the masses? Couldn’t have been Guiscard’s doing.

“It is but a babe,” she said. “Can you not see it is helpless? Was it you who shot it?”

Christophe nodded proudly. Rhiana must, for once, be thankful that the man’s myopia had altered his aim.

The newling mewled. It struggled to sit its hind legs. Its wounded wing shivered and stretched. It was completely black, the scales shimmery, yet supple. Easily pierced with an arrow.

“Bring it to the armory,” she heard Paul say. “We mustn’t keep it overlong.”

“We must kill it!”

“No!” Rhiana stood and bent over the newling. “We will remove the arrow and tend its wound. Then we must release it, or its mother will come looking for it.”

“Its mother?” Someone spat. “There are more dragons?”

“She will come anon!”

“And whose fault is that?” She could not argue with the idiocy of these people. And their cruelty. To bring down one so small? “Paul, can you lift it?”

Her stepfather knelt before the newling, and sweeping his arms around the thing, managed to cradle it into his embrace. Vision blocked by the spread of a good wing, Paul hoofed it quickly to his shop. Mewls scratched the sky, and the circle of villagers followed their steps to the armory. Rhiana closed the door on the curious faces and followed Paul into the warmth of the shop.

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.

Drawing one ring out from a scatter of hundreds of rings, Rhiana tapped it impatiently. There was at least one other dragon out there. It had snatched up a man from the bailey this afternoon. One rampant should prove little trouble to take down, whether or not any of Guiscard’s knights came to aid her.

Yet, who was she to endanger the village should she fail?

And why was Guiscard so adamant she not attempt the task?

“Why am I thinking failure?” she asked herself.

Would it not be better to at least try, than to not try at all? To wait for a slayer—a man—could prove too long.

Indeed. She was not the person to toe the line, then step back and wait for another to push out ahead of her. A dragon must be slain!

Lifting her head and clasping her hands about her shoulders, Rhiana closed her eyes. Summoning deep within those tendrils of the unknown that ever challenged her, she found the well of ambition, of honor and valiance that brewed.

Ambition she had been born with. It had kept her skirt hems dirty and her eyes focused to adventure. Honor she had witnessed in the skill and grace of Amandine Fleche, and in Paul Tassot’s heart.

Valiance is something she would ever strive for. To stand boldly in the face of danger, no matter the consequences.

Rhiana murmured the phrase Amandine had taught her two summers earlier, “Memento mori.”

’Twas Latin, and meant: Remember that you must die.

It wasn’t so much a morbid statement as a reminder that all life eventually comes to an end. Live it, before it is stolen from you. Seize it! “Meet all challenges,” Amandine had said to her. “For in the end, you will then look back and know you did truly live before death.”

Rhiana liked the phrase and thought of it as her motto. In fact, Paul had engraved it into the twisting dragon design that graced the stock of her crossbow. It served a reminder to her—and an epitaph to those dragons that fell courtesy of her crossbow bolt.

Hooking her foot upon the high stool rung and nodding to herself, Rhiana’s smile grew.

“No dragon is invulnerable. They all have a kill spot.”

And where there was a way, Rhiana was determined to find it.

A spring mist fell upon the bailey, beating down the loose dust stirred up by hooves and feet, and wetting the limestone castle walls to a dark sludge color. Narcisse waited inside the main doorway beneath the grand arches that bore the Guiscard family crest in gold medallions fixed to the stone. Champrey had sent a squire to retrieve his rain duster. One thing he could not abide was rainy weather. It made him sniffle and gave him the shivers.

The duster rushed to his side, the squire bowed and then helped slide it up Narcisse’s arms and flipped the heavy velvet hood upon his head. The generous hood completely shielded Narcisse’s face. He favored the foreboding menace look. Anne said it granted him power. But he already had power.

“Let’s be to it, then.”

He strode outside, followed by his entourage. At least six knights at all times to protect him from any who thought to protest their lord and master. Rarely were they called to arms, but the security could not be overlooked.

Narcisse had heard the whispers: the son was nowhere near so valiant as the father. Never make a benevolent lord.

And why should he? Everyone had exactly as they wished. There was no need for him to step beyond and show great mercies or benevolence. They had it all!

Oh, what a miserable life to be so satisfied. One must desire. One must…crave. And Narcisse did crave, which set him apart from all others.

“The beast was dragged from the bailey,” Champrey explained. He winced at the increasing rain and hunched his shoulders where water ran in rivulets over his brushed leather gambeson. “Took eight destriers to do the task!”

A massive beast lay at the bottom of the castle steps. Narcisse skipped down them. “Mon Dieu! What has been done?”

Ignoring his fallen hood, he bent over the carcass of scale, horn and talon. That someone had felled so magnificent a beast. Narcisse understood the threat to innocent lives, but no one could know what a boon the dragon served him.

“My…life,” he murmured. “What have they done?”

Oh, but there! There, between the eyes, yet leaked thick, dark blood from a horizontal cut in the transverse of the cross, a mark put there by God himself.

’Twas the first time he’d been so close to a dragon. And yet, he embraced the idea every evening. To look it over and marvel, yes, marvel, must be done. Indeed, they were deadly; a bane to a man’s well-being, why, his very mortality.

Narcisse scrambled over the meaty hind legs—thick as a log hewn for housing. Groping his way around the outstretched wing, he swung down to kneel before the belly. A small dragon, about six horses combined, yet to stretch out the tail would surely add twice the length. The belly scales were pale, like burnished gold, and they glittered even under the assault of the rain.

Pressing his palm to the slick scales, Narcisse slid his hand along them, moving toward the hind quarters of the beast, as the scales overlapped, so as not to cut his flesh on the sharpened edges. Minute warmth yet remained; he could feel it.

About him, his men strode around the massive beast, commenting on its lack of fierceness now it was dead.

“Not so ferocious now, is she?”

“Look here at the tail,” Gerard Coupe-Gorge said. “I could make myself an ax with this odd dagged scale. That would bash nicely through enemy skull.”

Why the man remained in St. Rénan, when he lusted so mightily for blood, was beyond Narcisse’s reckoning. But he would endeavor to keep Gerard in his lists, and not make an enemy of him.

Tracing his spread fingers over the belly, Narcisse turned his back to keep his motions covert. He drew away his hand and studied it beneath a hunched tent of his duster. Upon his palm glittered a thick coating of the finest substance. Dragon dust. A rare treasure in this village that thrived so magnificently. None were aware of its value.

Smearing his palm over cheek and nose, Narcisse inhaled deeply of the God-forsaken dust. He could not determine potency, did not feel anything. It had no taste whatsoever. He tested now. No, just a bit of saltiness he evidenced from his own flesh.

“A great loss.” He knelt back on his haunches and scanned the beast’s body. If it sat at the bottom of the steps for more than a day it would begin to rot and stink. The flesh could be eaten. The scales could be used in some manner. The tusks and talons could be fashioned into cups and dagger sheaths and be drenched in gold.

“Was it the wench who thinks herself a slayer?” Thinks—hell, she had slain. Narcisse knew of no knight in the garrison so bold. Save, Gerard.

“Indeed, my lord,” Champrey answered. “The demoiselle Tassot. Two dragons attacked the city this afternoon while you feasted. They swooped from the sky and right into the courtyard. The first dragon snapped one of our court musicians up. This one…well, you see.”

“I do see.” Narcisse tapped the belly, wincing at the loss this would cause him. His quest had been detoured. He muttered lowly, “And the wench took it down.”

“Many witnesses recall, with great theatrics, watching her run up the beast’s skull to plunge her sword into its brain as if St. George himself.”

Witnesses declaring her triumph? Narcisse smirked. So she had developed a following. “Impressive. The people revere her now?”

“In a manner. They are not sure what to think of a woman so bold. But we have always known she is different.”

“Yes, different.”

“And powerful.”

“Powerful?” Narcisse must suppose she was strong to have accomplished something like this. He had watched her grow from a dirty-faced child ever in trouble and being teased, to an independent young woman who would rather go off on her own then do as normal females did. She was…untamed.

A bit like Anne. Beguiling.

And she had slain two dragons in a single day. The woman must think herself quite the swagger.

“But there are more?” Narcisse stood and thinking to wipe off the dust, could only hold his hand by the wrist. The precious commodity must be preserved.

“The Tassot woman insisted she had slain one earlier by the sea, but my scouts report no evidence. The runner tells there is but the one that got away with the musician, my lord.”

Champrey would never speak the runner’s name, they both knew he was able, swift, and devoted to Narcisse. If gold could not buy one’s allies then promises to portions of land could.

“Just the one then?”

“He claims it. It is quite extraordinary, for that means—” Champrey tallied on his fingers “—there were three.”

“Many more than we’ve seen at one time.” If he had known sooner the riches that nested so close, Narcisse would have sent out half the garrison to the caves. As it was, he could still take advantage of the situation.

One remaining? That was all he needed.

“We cannot allow this woman to persist with her delusions,” Narcisse stated firmly. He must be careful with a situation such as this. Champrey, while his right-hand man, did not always agree with his politics. “She could…harm herself.”

“She is quite skilled, as proof is evident, my lord.”

Narcisse coached the tic tugging at the corner of his mouth to remain still. If there was another dragon, it could be his only chance for a continued supply. Small hope. But one, it seemed, he would be forced to cling to.

“Oh!”

All eyes looked up to the castle door. Looking frail in winter-white damask, Anne stood, her dark hair spilling down to her waist. The rain did not reach her beneath the arch of the doorway. Hands pressed to her mouth, wide eyes screamed what her voice could not manage.

“Bring her inside!” Narcisse ordered.

One of his knights responded, rushing up the steps, clinking mail and sword sheath punctuating his urgency.

“It is dead!” Anne shouted. “But you cannot— Oh!”

Her body wilted to a faint. The knight landed the top stair. He lunged to capture her about the waist before her head hit stone. “I have her, my lord!”

“Careful, Gerard. Watch her head. Bring her to the solar.”

Regret twanged at Narcisse profoundly.

He knew Anne’s affinity for the dragons. She, well…she related to them in a manner he could not fathom. Every evening at matins she said prayers for them, and then received a blessing of holy water. Without her blessing she could not sleep, and would roam beside the bed—for the chain kept her close—until the morning hours found her literally slumped on the cold stone floor. She pined to go to the caves. Always she spoke of the nest below her bed—for the caves wended about beneath St. Rénan. But there were no nests below. Narcisse knew not even a small dragon could permeate the narrow caves, but Anne refused to believe.

She should not have witnessed this spectacle. It was all the Tassot wench’s fault.

Bending and pressing both hands to the dragon’s tumescent belly, Narcisse gave orders. “Drag it to the kitchen entrance. We shall feast heartily for days. Preserve the skull, the talons and the scales.”

“Very good, my lord.” Champrey signaled to his men to man the ropes tied about the dragon’s legs and head. “As for the slayer? Do you wish to have a word with her?”

Straightening, and for the first time noticing his hair was wet for the fallen hood, Narcisse sneezed. Wretched rain. “Can she be brought to me posthaste?”

“Yes, my lord.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rhiana ran home and quickly changed to braies and a plain woolen tunic and boots. She strapped her talon dagger at her hip and then returned to the armory to don the scaled armor.

The sky darkened early this eve, for she tasted rain in the air. She left St. Rénan through the door guarded by Rudolph while the knights inside the castle ate the evening meal and, at the same time, groped a voluptuous wench.

It took but half an hour, her strides sure and swift, to broach the top of the mountain that capped the caves. Four megaliths marked the grounds as if a king’s crown. Keeping to the purlieu of the forest, she marked a spot beneath a massive twisting beech tree. Sending her companion to flight with a nod, she watched as the pisky flitted toward the cave opening. Sitting, she then propped her crossbow over her wrist, she closed her eyes to listen. For a heartbeat.

For challenge.

There, within the depths, beneath the earth and stone and centuries of vegetation fluttered the heartbeat. Heartbeats. Focusing, she picked out more than one, for each one was unique as a name or color.

Seven. That is how many heartbeats she counted. But she could not be sure, for some dragons might have burrowed deep into the labyrinth of caves below her resting place.

Mon Dieu. So many?

Did her senses play tricks with her? Was it just the one final dragon, and she interpreted it as so many additional beasts?

Again Rhiana closed her eyes. Breathing slowly, releasing each exhale on a lingering sigh, she quieted her core, which opened her to receive the sounds of life all around. Birds and squirrels, even a fox close by, were easily ignored for their rapid pulses registered as a high, agitated tone as they all sought shelter from the sprinkling rain.

’Twas a low bass pulse that fixed in her veins and matched her own heartbeat—that was the dragon. One, just below, and two to her left. Many more behind, some sleeping, others moving about. They were there, below her.

The villagers will be horrified to learn this. That their nightmare was far from over? But she must not keep it secret. Knowledge was power, and she would never keep them in the dark when all must know vigilance must be increased.

But why so many? All females? And with the dwindling hoard? Was it a doom, traveling in seek of a permanent home and nesting place? They could not have it here! She would not allow it.

But what could one woman do against so many?

A fine mist pelted the long spring grass spiking up at forest edge. Nestled at the base of the beech tree, Rhiana was protected from most of the rain by the canopy of thick glossy leaves. She didn’t mind getting wet. Enjoyed it actually, for the raindrops slipped over the scales on her armor and made it glisten.

It was the sound of raindrops plinking upon the leaves and ground that interfered with her concentration.

Content to wait out the weather, for she knew the dragons would not fly this night, Rhiana settled against the smooth trunk, wrapping her wool cloak about her shoulders and the armored tunic.

The pisky she had sent to reconnaissance the caves shimmered through the raindrops, its wings iridescent even in the nighttime, though the heavy droplets hampered its flight. The creatures were as common as butterflies but usually avoided human contact. Thanks to Anne, Rhiana had learned to communicate with them and win, if not their trust, at least their curiosity. Of course, a bribe was never sneered at.

Landing her shoulders, the violet pisky sat for a moment. Its tiny huffs were audible as beats inside Rhiana’s head. Patiently, she waited. And in thanks she pulled the small lambskin of fresh cream from her hip pouch and opened it before the pisky.

Fluttering to the edge of the lambskin the pisky drank heartily. After its repast, it flew up to Rhiana’s head and sat upon the crown, belly nestled into her thick tresses and arms dangling over her forehead. It began to tap upon her brow, and Rhiana counted.

“Nine?”

So there were two she had missed. Perhaps they slept more deeply, had chosen to hibernate. Or had they come to build a nest? Mayhap the two were males? Or they were maximas. The elder dragons infrequently took to the sky, choosing to nest upon the hoard and store up their energy. Their heartbeats became very sluggish. Rhiana had never opportunity to mark a maxima.

It was the young rampants, vigorous and voracious that flew the skies, reveling in their energy and seeking the kill in small field animals. They did not require the safety and rejuvenation of the hoard so often as the maximas.

For it was the actual hoard, piles and piles of gold and silver and pillages of fine metals that served the dragon’s lifeline. All replenished their vitae at least once a day by sliding slowly over the mounds of gold. The metals reacted with the sensitive belly scales, alchemizing rich vitae that permeated their scales and entered their very veins. Rhiana understood little of the actual workings of the transmutation, but it was how Amandine had explained it to her.

If kept from a hoard for overlong a dragon would eventually die. The oldest and largest of dragons needed a constant source of vitae. Though they were most powerful and could be so large as the castle keep, they needed little in sustenance beyond the hoard.

Nine.

So now she must plan how to take out nine dragons before they destroyed the entire village by slowly plucking up person by person. For, it seemed the beasts were intent on claiming humans, as opposed to livestock.

Singularly, was the only way she might defeat any of them. How to draw them out one by one? She may be able to handle two, but only with a distraction to keep one of them busy. But not a distraction as they’d had this afternoon.

With a flutter of its wings, the pisky buzzed her ear, and then spiraled upward to find a dry nesting spot amidst the glossy leaves.

To her left the heather meadow emitted a heady perfume. The rain-soaked blossoms oozed scent like a censer swinging through a church nave, Rhiana’s eyelids grew heavy. There was nothing more she could do this evening. The rain would keep back the dragons. They felt the rain as did the piskies; heavy upon their wings. She would dream upon it. Oftentimes she would fall asleep thinking of a trouble, and by morning, the answer became clear.

Standing and tugging down the scaled tunic, she lifted her crossbow to prop over her shoulder. The trek back to St. Rénan was one long league.

Raising a hand to wave thanks to the pisky, it was then Rhiana noticed the shadow cross before the brilliant midnight moon.

One rampant would not be kept back by the rain.

Crossbow drawn, she tracked the flight of the dragon above the sight. Finger tapping the trigger, she held. Utter calm befell her. She would not fire until it flew closer. The bolt could not travel so far; it would be a wasted shot.

She never panicked. But even so, her heartbeats fluttered like a pisky’s wings. Rain splatting off her nose and eyelashes made her blink, yet Rhiana held firm.

“Come thee, I bid you,” she murmured as the dragon’s shadow grew larger in her sights. “I’ll not tease you with a dance. Quick and painless, I promise thee.”

A burst of flame escaped the dragon’s nostrils. Had she moved?

Planting her feet and stretching out her right arm, elbow crooked and fingers firm upon the trigger, Rhiana drew in a breath.

The dragon swooped low, skimming the field. Mayhap it did not sight her, but only blew flame to warm a chill caused by the rain?

When she could smell the vigor stirring the blood of the beast, Rhiana touched the trigger. The bolt released. The dragon banked upward sharply. Target diverted. The bolt found its place in the wing.

“Blast!” Quickly working to reload, Rhiana kept the dragon’s trajectory in peripheral view. It hovered above the treetops, as if a fly suspended in a web, and then, it dropped.

She followed the dragon’s landing. Mid-fall, the bolt dislodged from the pellicle fabric stretched between the wing bones. The beast landed hard upon its left rear foot, then staggered and fell to its side in the center of the heather meadow.

Scampering over the twist of beech roots, Rhiana stealthily stalked through the brush and to the meadow.

The dragon growled and hissed out fire, but it did not call out the bellowing cry that would alert others of its kind. Was it so smart it did not want to bring others into danger? Or had she hurt it that much with her misplaced bolt?

Moonlight beamed upon the meadow, alighting the heather and grasses like a wilderness stage. Its wounded wing stretched out and flapping at the air, the other wing tucked tightly to its body, the dragon walked, tripping occasionally and landing its head in the thick violet stalks. It struggled, but made its way to the edge of the meadow, opposite where Rhiana stood.

Using its preoccupation as cover, Rhiana carefully stepped across the meadow in the dragon’s wake. Crossbow held ready to fire, she kept behind and to the left. The beast wobbled to the right.

Anger-scent strong, the dragon’s energy permeated Rhiana’s own flesh. A hard vibration of power pressed her quickly forward, eager to claim her prize.

A vicious snap of its head took out a tenderling maple at the forest edge. The dragon insinuated itself into the trees, crushing sticks and breaking branches in its wake. It made a horrible noise but had yet to cry out.

Rhiana chuckled softly. It would never sense her presence until it was too late. She simply had to follow it, and when it finally exhausted itself, make the killing shot.

“Can you come that?” she whispered.

A massive jut of stone concealed the dragon’s retreat. Megaliths dotted the top of this mountain, making childhood play exciting when the dragons were not in residence.

Rhiana trod up to the huge boulder and pressed her shoulders to it. Slipping along the slick stone wall she gained the corner round which the dragon had passed. She did no longer hear its shuffling steps and dragging wing.

Did it wait on the other side of the stone? Through all its struggles and noise, had the beast remarked her?

Whispering a prayer to St. Agatha’s veil, she drew up the crossbow. Closing her eyes, she listened. But her senses were drugged with the dragon’s anger. She could not fully concentrate on noise. And so, it was now or never.

Swinging around the corner, Rhiana drew the crossbow on target with a pair of human eyes.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A steel bolt—set between two intent eyes—aimed at Rhiana’s nose. She followed the weapon from glinting tip, down the crossbow stock, to a finger poised upon the trigger. Rain splattered the wooden shaft of the crossbow. Moonlight sparked in the very human eyes mirroring her own deadly gaze.

It took two breaths to realize she stood, not before a dragon, but a man wielding a crossbow. Where he had come from, she did not know.

“Stand down,” Rhiana demanded.

The man’s eyes narrowed and one dark, wet brow arched in defiance. “On my honor, my lady, you do not look like a dragon.”

“Neither do you resemble a fire-breathing beast. Lower your weapon, if you will.”

“You first.”

The man’s mail coif was pelted to his scalp by the increasingly heavy rain. And those eyes, she wagered they were blue, though she could not determine for the darkness.

Still she held her aim.

Avoiding looking at the tip of the bolt, Rhiana summed him up. Dressed head to toe in black leathers with steel spikes studding the coat of plates and his wrists. Broad-shouldered and tall as she, he must be a knight. But she did not recognize him as any from Lord Guiscard’s garrison.

“If you be honorable you would stand down first,” she sputtered in the pouring rain. “I must be on to the dragon!”

“It slipped down that tunnel.”

A nod of his head indicated the wall of stone to her left. Rhiana noticed the slit of blackness that must lead to the lower caves. She had never before remarked the tunnel. It had to be recent.

The muscles in her arms began to stretch and protest her position of aim, but she had no intention of backing down. Her thumb slipped from the trigger. Shivers, caused by the chill rain, echoed through her body. But her intentions were perfectly aimed.

“Are you not a knight?” she shouted against the heavy rainfall. “Pledged to serve your lord, and to protect women and children?”

That got him. The man slowly lowered his crossbow. The usual weapon, fashioned of hard wood with a steel band and fixings.

Stubble marked his narrow jaw. An angry nose, bent to the left, shouted of previous injuries. Completely soaked, the rain softened what Rhiana suspected would prove a rugged complexion. Not an entirely distasteful face.

Or it may be Rhiana was cold, wet and starting to hallucinate, for the air wavered with the cloying heather and the distinct odor of the dragon’s sage essence.

“You surprise me, my lady.” The man stepped back a few paces to stand beneath an oak tree. There the rain was half so strong, so Rhiana joined him, yet kept the crossbow waist level and pointed at him—ready. “The last thing I would have expected to find upon this mountain, besides dragons, is a woman wielding a weapon as if a warrior.”

Rhiana slicked a palm over her scaled armor. The dragon scales glimmered in the moon’s light.

“Who are you, sir? And why are you tramping about the forest with a weapon? Lord Guiscard looks unkindly on those who would hunt his deer and boar.”

“I am dragon hunting.”

Now he set the crossbow against the tree trunk, and crossed his arms over his chest. His gauntlets skittered over the rows of narrow steel studding his leather coat of plates. Rhiana had once fashioned the plated armor, but preferred chain mail, for she could shape it to fit a body exact.

Peering curiously at her, his gaze worked such a hypnotic fix upon her, she found herself stepping closer. Right up to him.

“I wasn’t sure if dragons had reinhabited the caves here at the seaside,” he said.

“Reinhabited? You’ve hunted here before?”

“Not me, no, but I’ve been told these caves are rich and attract the fire-breathers. I had thought to check for myself—with success! My shot to the beast’s belly was most effective in bringing it down.”

“Your shot?”

Gape-mouthed and stunned, Rhiana spun a look to the dark crevice where the dragon had disappeared, then back to the man. He had a fine opinion of something that was not his to claim.

“’Twas my bolt which felled the beast. An arrow to the belly penetrates merely fat. Nothing more than a bee sting to the creature. But to fly with a torn wing?”

“I beg to disagree, my lady.” He splayed a steel-plated gauntlet before him in explanation. “A deep wound to the belly on the younger rampants penetrates easily to the lower organs. My bolt was enough to disorient the dragon. It has been wounded, mayhap, seriously. Likely now it will be an easy track.”

Rhiana chuffed out laughter. “You plan to track the beast into its lair?”

“Of course.”

Cocky, self-important— Be this man a slayer? For only one trained and experienced would consider so dangerous a tactic.

Had Lord Guiscard held good on his claim he would call for a slayer? But that was only this morning when Rhiana had spoken to him. This man had not been summoned to St. Rénan.

“Be my guest,” she offered. “I shall stand in wait of your triumph.”

Only a fool would be so, well, foolish.

A nod, and tilt of his crossbow against his shoulder, and the man began to march toward the tunnel entry framed by the rain-slick megaliths. The lackwit planned to enter the cave, teeming with dragons. Nine of them, by Rhiana’s estimate. Of course, he could have no idea there was more than the one he claimed to have felled.

The idea of a stranger come to hunt dragons in her territory put up Rhiana’s hackles. And that he did not grant her the fell-shot?

“There are many more inside!” he called. He slapped a palm to the stone near the razor-slash entrance that could very well plummet to the very fires of hell. The gauntlet clanked dully against stone. “I guess a dozen.”

“Nine.” Rhiana stepped into the rain and tramped across the slick grass to join him. How did he know there were others? Fascination prompted her to learn more. “How long have you been here, sir?”

“Just arrived.”

Then how could he possibly have determined… “What be your name?”

He bowed grandly, palm to his chest. As he rose, he performed a sneaky, but chivalrous move by lifting one of Rhiana’s hands to his mouth.

She almost pulled away when she realized he planned to kiss it, but curiosity stayed her. It was a knight’s manner. Chivalry, and all that bother. He merely bussed her flesh with his closed mouth, wet with rain. Heat tendrils traveled up her arm, disturbing her as equally as they excited her. It was the closest she had ever come to a kiss.

“My lady, I am Macarius Fleche, dragon slayer.”

Rhiana tugged back her hand. Fleche? But that was…

“Actually,” he continued, “I am the greatest slayer in all the land, which includes the English isles, all of Italy and the upper parts of Spain. I remain unmatched by any who claim the same occupation. I’ve twenty kills to my record, all within a decade.”

Twenty kills? Impressive. Two a year. What a prize the doom below their feet would offer. Said prize, being more than mere notches to his crossbow. For slayers who took out a dragon were promised all they could carry from the hoard as payment. It was an unspoken rule of the land.

Macarius Fleche. That name…

“Know you Amandine Fleche?” Rhiana tilted her head to dissuade the raindrops from her lashes. “He is a dragon slayer.”

“Was.” And the man’s face changed, the twinkle in his eyes flitting away. With a hook of the crossbow over his shoulder he paced away from Rhiana, walking the expansive curve of the megalith.

Was? But that would mean—

Rhiana rushed after the slayer. “He is dead?”

“Last summer,” the man called.

Mon Dieu, Amandine was dead?

There waited a horse behind the megalith, hobbled beneath a copse of maple, and soaked to the hide. The horse bristled its back as Macarius attached his crossbow to the flanks and secured it with a tug to each of the leather belts. The man then turned to Rhiana.

“You are the female dragon slayer I have been told about.” A statement. He did not wait for her response. “I did not believe it. And yet now, mayhap there be some tidbit of truth to it.” He stretched his hand up her length. “Very fine armor. Remarkable even. Rather, I can believe in the possibility of a female slayer, but there yet remains the proof of it.”

Well. Not at all pleased with his indifference, Rhiana took a step toward him, and then marked her anger. Now was no time for arguments. Besides, she need prove herself to no man. Most certainly not to one who considered himself the greatest.

“What be your name, my lady?”

But of course, she was being rude. How easily a foul mood clouded her better senses. Odette would surely admonish her for playing the ruffian when delicacy of manner was required to attract a man’s eye.

Not that she’d any intention of enacting her pitiful powers of attraction.

Lifting her chin proudly, she declared, “Rhiana Tassot. I am a dragon slayer. And I have no cause to prove it to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I am off to my home. The weather bechills me, and the wounded rampant will not show again this day, to be sure.”

“St. Rénan?”

Reluctant to answer, Rhiana knew it was the closet village for leagues. “Yes.”

“I am headed there myself.” The man mounted the horse and reined it toward Rhiana. He bent at the waist and offered a hand. “I can carry another rider behind me.”

Staring at the black leather palm of his gauntlet, Rhiana vacillated. ’Twasn’t as if the plague crawled across the leather. But the offer made her sort of crawly inside. He had demanded proof of her skills. Had almost cast her aside as an impossibility, and so, of little concern. He was as all other men, bullheaded and prideful. Believing women belonged slaving over the hearth fire, or sweeping out their men’s dirty boot-prints, or moaning beneath them between the sheets.

The greatest slayer in all the land? Ha! And how many kills had he marked in the past day? Likely, zero to her two.

Cocking her head to the left, Rhiana shook it in answer. “I favor walking. It keeps me strong.” With that, she marched off toward the walls of St. Rénan.

For the longest time, Rhiana was aware the man followed her from a distance. Marking her long strides with a slow pace that surely put his beast to misery for the rain. The trek down the mountain went swiftly. Over the decades a path down the counterscarp that wedged a gouge all around St. Rénan, made for a quick, if plummeting walk. Her pace continued across the field of rape that would be harvested for oil and grain come autumn. She would not turn to look at him. That is what he wanted, no doubt, a pleading look.

Eventually the man passed her by, tipping a nod to her, and then pressing his horse to a canter for the village drawbridge.

It was then Rhiana stopped and fisted her hands over the scales that ended just below her hips.

“The daring…”

Well, he had offered her a ride. She should not be angry for that.

But why did it miff her he’d not offered a second time? As he’d passed her by? She would have turned him down again. Of course! But he could not have known that. Any man would have continued to press her to accept a ride. A gentle man who believed in chivalry, grace and honor.

“Macarius Fleche, eh?”

The surname was common. There was a Fleche who fashioned arrows in St. Rénan. He could not be related to Amandine Fleche. Not once, while training her, had Amandine mentioned a son or other relation.

Amandine was dead? How? When? This man had announced his demise with little regard. He could not be a relative, for would he not have shown some emotion?

Struck to her very heart, Rhiana’s tears mixed with the rain as she trudged onward. Her belly began to ache with an inexplicable hollowness. She had lost without having been aware. The old man had taught her selflessly, giving to her the gift of his skills, and asking in return that she strive to be the best.

“I have become quite good,” Rhiana murmured as she stalked, wet and weary, onward.

But the best? She had only begun her adventures in dragon slaying. To take her measure now would not be fair, especially when matched against one who had been slaying for a decade.

I am the greatest slayer in all the land.

“We’ll see about that.”

CHAPTER NINE

He passed by a set of boots, slumped over, but as if standing in wait of a knight to jump into them and race to action. The main gate to the city was imposing, stretching three stories and mounted with a barbican lined in spikes. The entire stretch of battlements was mounted with spikes.

Macarius wondered did the city see siege. Seaside villages often invited pirates and plunderers merely because access was so easy. And yet, the very air seemed so still. Complacent.

His mount pawed the ground impatiently as he again called out for notice, and finally got an answer.

“Who goes there?”

“Macarius Fleche, the great—”

“You are a stranger,” droned back at him from somewhere behind the stone walls. “No admittance.”

He looked about. Not a soul to be seen or heard, save the woman tromping through the field behind him. Pretty, be she. But a woman stalking dragons at night and in the rain? “I seek an inn to stay for the night, if you please.”

“All strangers must be vouched by a resident and accompanied as well.”

“But—” Macarius searched for the squint hole behind which he might find an eye that belonged to the obnoxious voice.

“Display your weapons, stranger!”

Obliging, for he was tired and did seek a bed, with a frustrated sigh Macarius drew out his sword and moved his mount to reveal the crossbow.

“Insufficient proof of affability. And not even peace-tied!”

“What? Why you—”

Rhiana walked up behind Macarius and kicked the portcullis door. “Open up, Rudolph. I will vouch for this man.”

Silence followed. The woman did not look at him. Macarius could not decide if he were pleased or put off that she was attempting to aid him.

“Very well, my lady. But I never get to turn anyone—”

“Rudolph!” She gave another brute kick to the door and it started to rise on squeaky ropes and pulleys. With a grin to Macarius, she strode inside.

Macarius Fleche rode into St. Rénan upon his sixteen-hand white destrier displaying all the posture of a great and mighty knight. He was a great knight. He’d earned his spurs from Charles VII himself in the unending battle against the Burgundians to rule Paris. His battle sword, Dragonsbane, worked for the good of many. It erased a scourge mere men could never dream to vanquish. As the last of the legendary dragon hunters he had traveled to this particular walled city after hearing tales from Amandine of the female who slayed dragons.

A female slayer? Nonsense. No woman had such fortitude.

Macarius had been determined to see her with his own eyes, to judge if Amandine were merely making a tale or if he had dreamed a woman in his aging thoughts. Surely the old man had a penchant for a well-rounded woman. But Amandine had generally tupped them, not trained them to slay fire-breathing dragons.

And what to think now he’d looked upon the woman?

Rain pouring upon their heads, she’d stood defiantly at forest’s edge, solid steel crossbow aimed at him. At him! For a moment Macarius had little doubt, if prompted, she’d touch the trigger. Fright tended to make females goosey and irrational. And then to boldly refuse a ride? And wearing armor that looked as if it were fashioned from dragon scales. She had no right to wear the scales without the kill!

The air inside the battlement walls bustled with an odd tumescence. His mount taking the dirt road in careful clops, Macarius inspected the buildings and houses. Most were two or three stories, very large and spacious. All of stone, even the rooftops were slate or tile. No thatching or wood structures. Interesting. All of stone? Rather smart, he mused, for a village that must be frequently set upon by fire-breathing dragons.

Meows from a gather of mangy cats sang a wretched tune beneath a dripping slate tiled roof. Shop fronts were closed, wooden boards pulled down and tied for the evening. Macarius neared the castle courtyard and noticed the blazing iron torches shaped like dragons. Banners swayed in the minimal breeze. Distant pipes called to revelry. Indeed, merrymaking stirred behind the castle walls.

There were almost a dozen dragons nesting but a league to the north. Did the village fête in the shadow of such danger?

Were they aware? But surely their female slayer must have alerted them? Else, why ever would she be so quick with him at the gate if she had not rushed to warn them all?

Amandine had not given him details of his stay in St. Rénan, only that it was a happy summer. He did never elaborate; so many secrets he kept to his breast. But Macarius knew the old man had likely a woman, or two, reason enough to stay a while in any city. But he could not imagine Amandine taking the young woman he had met as a lover. He did possess decency. So what had called him to the woman?

Whistling to direct his mount to the left, Macarius spied a thin young man doddling outside a cart stacked with firewood.

Upon question, the squire in ragged green hosen—but a spit-spot clean tunic—informed Macarius the villagers had gathered in the castle keep to celebrate the kill. A dragon had been slain in the courtyard this afternoon. Lord Guiscard invited all to celebrate and drink and eat for days. Dragon meat would be passed around until all had filled their bellies.

Mayhap the woman had slain a dragon. And this day? Hmm… Of course, Macarius required proof of the act. Likely the village men had rallied and taken down the beast.

“And,” the squire added, “it be much safer than walking about outside. The dragons will swoop down and bite you right out of your boots.”

Macarius had noted the boots sitting just outside the battlement walls.

“So, boy,” he leaned down from his high mount, “you know there are other dragons?”

“To be sure! They fly the sky waiting for a man to forget his caution.”

Macarius nodded in agreement. He straightened in the saddle. That familiar surge of adventure teased his muscles. Such fortune to arrive at a dragon infested city.

Nine dragons, the woman had said. And how had she counted?

“My thanks,” he said to the young squire. “Will you lead me to your lord?”

“Indeed, sir.”

Alive with merriment, music and much ale and smoking meat, the keep was crowded from wall to wall with most every resident of St. Rénan. Dragon meat was tender and savory when cooked right, Lydia had once told Rhiana. Still, no amount of cajoling would convince Rhiana to taste the meat. It was difficult enough to account herself for the sin of killing. And it wasn’t as if dragons were bred for consumption, like a lamb or even cattle. But she did not discount others for joining in the feast.

Rudolph skipped by her, a hunk of dark meat on a stick clasped in one hand and a giggling female’s derriere in the other. Rhiana returned his wink and then found herself sliding her palms over the pale ocher tunic and braies she wore.

All about her couples were dancing and whispering in each other’s ears and some even kissing. Dulcimers decorated the air with lively rhythms that enticed women’s hips to swivel and the men to circle about them. The women wore their hair in braids and curls and crowned their temples with delicate flower garlands. No wonder they attracted a curious suitor, Rhiana decided, the sway of their skirts and the tinkle in their laughter was an entrancing thing. So utterly female and beguiling.

And here she stood, being passed by, almost as if a ghost, by every male in the room. A hard lump at the back of her throat made a swallow difficult. “I…” Want, she thought. What they have. To be fancied by a man. To know a man’s regard.

Should have changed to a gown—

The sudden gush of fire close behind Rhiana made her spin. There, near the hearth, stood Sebastien de Feu, the fire juggler. Wearing brown leather braies—he never wore a shirt; fire hazard—the dancing fire tricked across his muscled chest, drawing Rhiana’s interest. In each hand he held a five-pronged torch that resembled a dragon’s claw, glittering with flames at each of the five talons. Swishing the torches before him painted brilliant white dashes and circles and zigs in the air to delight all. Children danced around him, unsuccessfully held back by their mothers.

Sending a charming smile to Rhiana, he then breathed upon one of the torches and sent the flames gushing over heads and toward the center of the keep.

Compelled by the beauty of the flame, Rhiana stepped closer. She forgot her masculine attire. Why, she forgot the festivities. All that mattered was the flame dancing through the air, swishing hot breaths across her face as she moved even closer, until she stood so close a child called out for her to mind her distance.

Sebastien’s grin defied the difficulty of his stunt. Though he wore a steel helmet fashioned with bronze laurel leaves around the perimeter to protect his long black hair, Rhiana had noticed previously he also wore many a scar from burns. The most prominent on his left forearm, which stretched to a thin pink sheen, because his muscles were so bold and tight.

“You are entranced, douce et belle?”

Shaking her head out of its tizzy, Rhiana realized Sebastien spoke to her. Douce et belle. Too pretty a moniker to place to her, but he was ever kind to her, and always willing to talk.

He leaned in toward her. She could hear the fire torches hissing behind his back. The scent of the oil he used to keep the torches burning sizzled in the air. And the scent of him, oil mixed with his intense and dark presence, almost overwhelmed Rhiana.

It could be the smoke and flame; they always disturbed her senses.

She touched a stone in the nearby hearth wall, for balance. Consciously tugging the hem of her tunic, she could not meet the man’s dark eyes. Dark like the lava stones in the caves, she knew, for whenever he was not noticing her, she noticed him. A flutter in her breast troubled, and suddenly she could not find her voice.

“My lady? Have my flames burned your tongue silent?”

She shook her head. A tilt of her chin caught his eyes, and she held his stare for a few moments. Feeling her neck and face flush with warmth, Rhiana convinced herself it was merely the close presence of fire.

So close, the fire, and in the form of muscles and sinew and beguiling dark eyes.

“You never talk to me, douce et belle. Do I frighten you? I would like it if you would say but a few words.”

Frightened by something so wonderful as flame and…and…him? Rhiana began a grin.

“My lord, the dragon slayer!”

Suddenly alerted by the seneschal’s voice, she turned from Sebastien’s beguiling eyes and stood on tiptoes to see about the keep. Dancers who reveled and made merry parted as a stranger entered the keep.

Finding an audience with the baron of St. Rénan proved easy enough, even after the squire had abandoned him for the lure of hot dragon meat and a game of sticks. Macarius had merely to sight in the high table amidst the revelry of drunken lackwits. The glint of gold tableware could not be missed.

Macarius strode through the grand hall glittered with golden fixings and freshly strewn rushes. Fresh flower garlands draped the doorways and the backs of chairs. Tapestries on the east wall depicted the dragons’ fall from grace with the evil angels. A particularly grand dragon skull, gilded around the circumference of the eye openings, hung high on the wall over Lord Guiscard’s chair. The upside-down cross indicating the kill spot glittered with rubies set in gold.

Studying the beast’s skull, he determined Amandine might have been responsible for that one. He knew of but two other slayers in Europe, and rarely did they venture close to the sea, for the added hazards, such as the cliff-side entrances to the dragons’ lairs and, well, there was the sea and all its dangers. Amandine had liked to travel the coast, knowing the greatest challenge always offered the most satisfying results. Besides, he’d once told Macarius of the sirens. He had not seen one himself, but what riches he would give to see a flash of scale and to catch a pretty green smile.

Sirens. Macarius nodded. Yes, he would like to see the sort, and would, surely, for his travels took him far and wide. What a catch that would make, eh? He would commission a massive tank and display her for all to see when finally he settled and built his own castle upon the sea.

But enough of that nonsense. He had a more urgent commission to gain. If there were so many dragons, that could only mean one thing—the hoard, which attracted the beasts, must be tremendous.

The seneschal who had seated himself to the right of the lord whispered into his ear and gestured toward Macarius. His reputation obviously preceded him for the baron nodded and grinned. How joyous this village would be to receive him into their arms!

“My lord Guiscard.” Macarius bowed grandly before the damask- and silver-lace festooned high table. His gauntlets clicked against the sword sheath at his hip. Flames from the many wall torches glittered across the mesh hauberk skirting in dags below his coat of plates. The very flesh on the left side of his body pinched with the movement of so grand a bow, but Macarius was accustomed to pulling a face over the pain. “I am delighted you have bid me welcome into your home.”

Guiscard twisted his fingers, ringed with sapphires, and studied Macarius with vivid blue eyes. “My seneschal tells me you are a dragon slayer?”

Did Macarius detect a note of boredom in that tone? Must be the abundant wine, and a night of festivity surely altered a man’s sense of generosity and need for protection.

“I am indeed a slayer, the greatest in all the land. Macarius Fleche. I travel constantly, and mark no city, village, or demesne my home. I have followed my father’s profession, and before that, his father. I once worked with a partner, but alas, he has fallen to the bane of our profession. Therefore, I am the last of a most fearless and revered breed.”

“I see. Quite the pedigree.”

Macarius bristled proudly. “I’ve patents if you wish to look them over.”

“No. Just get to the point, Fleche. What brings you to St. Rénan? Do you not see we celebrate? If you wish to join the revels, be my esteemed guest, but if you’ve another reason for interrupting…”

Macarius snickered at Guiscard’s bantering disregard. A glance about found the entire keep had settled to observe and whisper. So let them! This day their lives would alter for the better, thanks to his skills.

“My lord, and good people of St. Rénan—” Yes, involve them all. It only increased his esteem. “I understand you’ve a dragon problem.”

The woman sitting to Guiscard’s left—very nearly in his lap—reached for a sugared sweet and pressed it to her thick red lips. Her dark eyes held him with an intense fascination that bordered on eerie.

Guiscard gave a dismissive sway of hand. “Eh. St. Rénan has always been known to harbor dragons. You’ve seen one…”

Such complacent disregard!

“But, as I am given to understand,” Macarius said, now a bit quieter, but still firmly, “not for some years. Yet the dragons have returned to the caves overlooking the sea.”

“You purport to know our village well.”

“My father spent the summer here a few years back. He waxed effusively on the gorgeous meadows strewn with fragrant meadowsweet, and of your hospitality, my lord.”

Best to lay things thickly, Macarius knew.

“Seems we’ve a rash of eager slayers, of late,” the baron announced.

“My lord?”

Another dismissive shrug.

Macarius felt the eyes of all upon him. Beaded hennins draped in silks of all colors tilted in interest. Men wielding pewter mugs of ale, and a woman’s backside in the other hand, paused to listen. Still the musicians played, but quieter, background accompaniment to the show before the high table. At the rear of the keep a man holding elaborate fire torches held a pose of interest, his arms high to light him like a gilded statue. Even the three-legged mutt wending its way through the crowd seemed interested.

Macarius did not mind the attention. Stand back, one and all; he’d show them his skills. Who dared to put a challenge to the greatest slayer in all the land? He’d snatch that challenge up with his teeth and spit out the booty for all to admire.

Lord Guiscard stretched forward in his chair. “We don’t need you, Fleche.” He flicked his multi-ringed fingers at Macarius. “I bid you leave as quickly as your mount can carry you from the village.”

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