Page 14 of Dragon Lord

He’d had stomach aches that had lasted longer.

She was such an insubstantial wee lass, ’twas hard to fathom how she managed to fascinate him so thoroughly.

Aye, she was small, but her fire and her courage were great.

She’d been willing to give her life for her village.

A village with people like the cowherd’s wife who’d whipped her bloody.

Einin was more of a hero than any of the knights who’d come to challenge Draknart, knights bought by the village, men who fought for gold coin.

Einin licked her fingers, and for some reason, Draknart found even that interesting. She seemed equally fascinated with him. She watched him through narrowed eyes. “Are dragons immortal?”

“We can be killed.” He’d seen plenty of his brethren fall.

“But if you’re not killed.” She tilted her head. “Would you go on forever?”

“I am not certain. Dragons are a querulous sort.” He had to think. “I know this, I have never seen one die of old age.”

“What do they die of?”

“A stronger dragon killing them for their territory.”

“How about your family?” she wanted to know next.

“I barely remember them. I flew the nest early.”

She hesitated before she asked her next question. “Have you ever had a mate?”

“Not a mate. But I shared a cave now and then with a she-dragon.” Thinking about her always put Draknart in a bad mood, so he didn’t.

“And children?”

He shook his head. “Dragon pups are rare these days.”

“Where is the she-dragon now?”

“When I was…cursed…” Draknart turned from Einin, flopping down onto his stomach and curling his tail around himself. “She disliked it.”

Gruna had tried to eat him several times in his human form, before he’d finally wised up and left her.

Draknart didn’t like those memories. He liked thinking of the decades that had passed since even less. Truth was he’d been lonely. And aggravated. Villages were popping up all over the land, and their inhabitants were nothing if not annoying.

The first batch he’d seen in the valley threw stones and sticks at him. He thought they were a strange kind of ape, like the ones he’d seen on his longest flight to the south in his younger years.

After he’d eaten the first tribe of intruders, he had some peace and quiet for a while. Then another batch came. They had sharp stones tied to their long sticks that cut his knees. But out of all the people who’d passed through his hills, the current people of the villages seemed the worse.

They had swords now. But they kept their sharp sticks too. And they could shoot them from some contraption from afar. One impertinent little gnat not long ago had nearly blinded Draknart with what he called an arrow. Draknart had questioned the knight about the strange invention before eating him.

At least they couldn’t shoot fire, like dragons. If the little gnats ever figured out how to do that, Draknart was packing it up and leaving the hills.

As if to prove his point on the overall inconvenience of humans, one stepped out of the forest. He’d come from upwind, and the smoke of the fire had dulled Draknart’s nose.

Draknart flexed his talons as he pushed to his feet and stepped between the visitor and Einin, calling over his shoulder, “You best stay out of this.”

The young man in soldier’s armor strode boldly forward, sword at the ready.

Flying so low over the village had been a mistake.

“I’ve come to kill you, evil beast,” the youth shouted.

They always said the same thing. Draknart swallowed his disappointment. “And who would you be?”

“Jon of Fernwood,” the fool proclaimed proudly. “Dragon slayer.”

Not groaning out loud took some restraint. “Might you not wait with the title until your dragon is slain?”

The youth shot him a look of fury. Then his gaze cut to Einin, her fiery hair and round breasts. His expression changed to that of open desire. “Worry not, fair maiden. I shall save you from this vile beast and make you mine.”

Einin made a sound behind Draknart that he could not interpret, and he could not look back at her face, for the youth charged with the usual battle cry.

Make Einin his? This little vermin? With barely some peach fuzz on his weak chin? Darkness bubbled up inside Draknart. The bloodlust was instant, such as he hadn’t felt since he’d slain Fearan, who had come to the hills a century ago to take Draknart’s territory and treasure.

Draknart was about to bite the fool knight in half when it occurred to him that to kill a human while on a pilgrimage to ask for the reversal of the curse he’d received for killing humans might not be the smartest course of action. He never knew when the goddess might be watching.

He snapped his jaw shut and contemplated the little bastard.

He’d never been in a fight before while trying to protect someone as he wanted to protect Einin behind him.

He’d never been in a fight before where his immediate goal hadn’t been to incinerate his enemy or rip the man’s throat out with his talons.

That moment of hesitation cost him a painful cut on the wing, clear through sinew and muscle. He held back the blast of fire in his throat.

Instead of roasting the pup, he asked, “Can you swim?”

The startled youth nodded. “Aye.”

“I wish you a swift journey.” Draknart swept him up with his good wing, catapulting him toward the middle of the lake. The knight flew in a soft arch, screaming all the way, then a splash, then sweet silence again.

The fool was probably struggling to peel off his armor. Draknart had half a mind to fly over and sit on his head, keep him under water. He would have, if he wasn’t convinced that the goddess would take drowning a human as badly as she would take eating one.

His keen ears picked up the sound of more splashing. “There you go, nitwit. Swim.”

He failed to comprehend what Belisama liked so much about mankind.

Yet she was fond of them, for she kept their kind alive.

She was the goddess of fertility. She blessed them with offspring.

And she blessed their fields so they could gather in the harvest and go on living and multiplying.

And still, instead of worshipping her, many betrayed her for the new god the priests had brought to the villages from distant lands.

Draknart turned to Einin.

She was standing right behind him with her sword drawn. Not scared at all.

If anything…

He narrowed an eye at her, then asked, without heat, “Have you been preparing to help me or stab me in the back?”

“I meant to help you.” She cleared her throat. “Most certainly.”

“You’d say that either way.” He waited until she shoved her sword back into her belt before he returned to the fire and plopped down onto the sand.

She followed him. “I would,” she admitted, with a slight twitch of her lips. Then she eyed his injury and stepped closer. “Does it hurt?”

He snorted. “I’ll heal once I step into Fae Land.”

Her sweet little chin dropped. “You mean to go in?” She thumped down onto her shapely bottom. “We haven’t come just to see the circle?”

“We shall pass through, if we can.” If the gods are willing. “I restored the stones.” He glanced that way. “But I am not certain their magic will return. If it does, the gate will open at twilight.”

He wanted his curse lifted more than he’d ever wanted anything. Yet, even as he thought that, his gaze sought out Einin.