Page 10

CHAPTER 10

W eeks passed.

Many men came to rescue me, sometimes alone but more often in large groups as time passed and word spread of how difficult Pollox was to defeat. But no matter what weapons they used, Pollox proved to be impossible to overpower. Frequently, the forest was so overrun with princes and knights that despite Pollox’s assurances, I didn’t trust that I wouldn’t be spotted flying on Pollox’s back and would remain in the tower, awaiting the next arrival.

Each time a man was held for ransom, I would hear snippets of what was going on in the world beyond. Other than my father continually increasing the size of the reward for my return, nothing much seemed to be happening. Occasionally, men would speak about how news of my capture had traveled to even more kingdoms, but other times, they would be so fixated on trying—and failing—to find an escape that they barely said three words to me.

Pollox began accruing wealth faster than any of his ancestors, a fact which pleased him immensely. The princes always brought in the best ransoms, but also the most arrogance at the onset followed by the most humility when they failed. Two of the princes were ones I’d kissed in the past as a way to get back at my father, and on both occasions, it made for some awkward silences as we shared the prison cell until their ransoms were paid.

The initial surge of potential rescuers dwindled about two months after my supposed kidnapping, and the treasure we had amassed from our ransom swindles made it so Pollox’s hoard was full to bursting.

“The kingdoms won’t have any treasure left at this rate, you know,” I told Pollox one evening. He’d brought me back to his cave for dinner and to stash our latest haul. “And the rescue attempts have really slowed down recently. The last one was a whole week ago.”

Pollox blew a fireball to ignite the ledge of coals that ran around his cave. “Was that the one who tried to smuggle in acid to burn through the chains?”

“Then spilled it on the straw and nearly started a fire? Yes,” I told him, shaking my head at the memory. “I think if no one is successful, word will spread that it’s impossible, and they might stop trying.”

“Do you want to leave?” Pollox’s voice, normally so deep and gravelly, became more brittle and clipped.

“I want them to think it’s possible to rescue me so they don’t give up. With the next person who comes along, be a little slower to come chase them off, and I’ll let myself be rescued. I’ll open the manacles while he’s sleeping and tell him I picked it with my hairpin or something. We would be sure to stop in Donover. Then after I get some information, you swoop down and steal me back.”

“And they will be encouraged at the taste of victory.” He nodded. “Very clever.”

I gave a dramatic, fake gasp. “A dragon praising the cleverness of a human? What madness is this?”

“It’s madness that will never happen again if you harp on about it. Just make sure you remember that you belong?—”

“You belong to my hoard,” I cut in before he could act all possessive again. “And don’t you forget it, you overgrown newt.”

Pollox choked back a fireball. “Are you mocking a dragon?”

I beamed. “You heard me right, Snagglefang.”

“Two legs.”

“Come on, Lizard Breath, you need to improve your name-calling skills if we’re going to be friends.”

“All right then, you…you sizzle snack.”

“Flame face.”

“Petite feast.”

“Charcoal maker.”

“That one was weak,” he told me, tapping his claw on the ground. “But I can’t think of any better ones.”

“We’ll have to come up with more in the future.” I yawned and covered my mouth. “I need to get to bed, and hopefully there will be a real ‘rescue’ tomorrow.” I threw a mistrusting look at the wardrobe, which opened its door invitingly. “Can you fly me back?”

“Always.”

* * *

Pollox flung a particularly stocky knight into the tower next to me. His armor clanged as he skidded across the floor, and I hurriedly moved my legs out of the way as he bounced slightly, the jarring metal-on-stone sound clanging loudly enough to give me an instant headache.

Pollox chuckled as he watched the knight roll to a stop. “You thought I wouldn’t notice the rear attack you planned as your backup? Think again, human.” He launched himself into the air, off to deal with whatever threat he’d seen.

The knight scrambled to his feet, throwing his helmet to the ground and revealing a shock of long, dark brown hair and a scruffy beard that didn’t hide his rather weak chin. I estimated him to be about eight to ten years older than I was.

“Hurry, we don’t have much time,” he told me, beginning to unfasten all of his armor clasps and strip down.

“Time for what?” I asked, eyeing him undressing skeptically and wondering if I would need to call for Pollox.

In response, he began pulling rope out from under the overly large armor. “I can’t climb down with all this on, and it was just to hide the rope while the dragon is distracted by the rear diversion. They’re planning to lure him in the opposite direction, and there is a horse waiting for us in the forest. Here, help me.”

“Everyone else who brought rope had it all coiled up on their shoulder when they got here, and the dragon always burned it. It was very ingenious to hide it under armor to sneak it in,” I told him, sincerely impressed with the stratagem.

“Yes, that is what they all said during our meeting when we planned it. Everyone needs to know when to make a sacrifice,” he said. The words rang a bell in my mind, but I couldn’t think of why as I helped the knight shed his armor. He certainly was muscular beneath his thin shirt. “You hold onto my back,” he instructed, finally extricating the last bit of rope and pulling on heavy gloves.

My apprehension grew. That didn’t seem at all safe and the idea of actually escaping by climbing a rope down the immensely tall tower had my palms sweating and legs shaking before I even looked over the side.

“Unless you think you can climb down yourself,” the knight went on. I didn’t even know his name, and I was supposed to blindly trust him to muscle his way down forty feet of thin rope with a fully grown woman clinging to his back?

“I’m not sure about this,” I said hesitantly.

“Look, if you’re too scared, I’ll knock you out and strap you to my back if I need to, but it would be easier for both of us if you just hold on. We have to move now before the dragon comes back.” His brusque tone left me with no doubt that he would carry out his threat. If it had been Griffin here instead of this chauvinistic pig, I couldn’t imagine that he would ever speak to me so.

“You’re absolutely positive you can manage?” I asked, fear shredding my insides. Pollox wouldn’t be there to save me if we fell.

“Positive. Now get on, but don’t hold too tight around my throat.”

I’m going to die. I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I repeated to myself as I clung like a parasite to the knight’s back and scrunched my eyes closed. This was the worst idea I’d ever had, worse even than seeking out a dragon to propose a pact of villainy.

My stomach lurched each time the rope swayed, and I kept my face buried into the knight’s back, refusing to look down or even open my eyes.

“Halfway there,” he grunted. True to his word, he was managing to keep us both aloft, but images of us falling to our deaths on the ground below kept assaulting my mind and proved impossible to ward off.

There was an ominous creaking noise above us when we were about two thirds of the way down. Unable to resist, I looked up. The rope was fraying under our weight.

The knight barely had time to mutter, “Oh no” before it snapped, sending us plummeting the remaining distance. Fortunately, a flowered hedge broke our fall, but unfortunately, it had thorns that scratched my arms and legs. Even worse, the knight landed on top of me a second later, crunching me even further into the bush. The branches snagged at my back, and I no longer appreciated this knight’s muscular physique. He was heavy.

“Ow,” I croaked, desperate for air.

Men were far more dangerous, and far more stupid, than dragons.

“Sorry about that,” the knight said, struggling to get off me. He turned and held out his hand, but the wind had been knocked out of me so that I couldn’t even lift my arms or inhale properly. I was stuck like some absurd, bug-eyed turtle on its back—arms and legs pointed up to the sky while my backside had sunk down nearly to brush the ground. Far above me, I could see the frayed end of the snapped rope swaying innocently in the breeze.

“Hurry up,” the knight snapped, sounding rather irritated as he yanked me out of the hedge. “Your hands are really cold, you know that?”

Any insult I might have hurled back required air in my lungs. I ended up being dragged along behind him as he ran toward the forest, my arm nearly wrenched from its socket as I gasped for breath. Was this what every woman felt like when she was rescued? If it was, I’d much rather remain a prisoner.

Pollox was still a speck in the distance, far past the tower, continually circling and plunging amid the trees as he battled whatever distraction the knight had concocted. The knight untied the horse tethered to a tree and boosted me up to haphazardly sit side-saddle, still spluttering for air, before he climbed up and called, “Hyah!”

The horse took off, going much too fast on the winding forest trail to be safe, and as we passed a dry riverbed, some medium-sized animal darted across the path. The horse reared back in fright, and my precarious, ladylike perch sent me sprawling off my mount, through the brambles, and down the embankment. I rolled head over heels into the dried-up riverbed, where the earth was parched and cracked, lungs devoid of air once more. Particles of dirt were still swirling in the air as the knight called at me to climb back up.

I really hated staring up at the sky from this angle.

Any woman who dreamed of a muscular man coming to rescue her from an evil dragon clearly hadn’t thought through the logistics of such an occurrence. Even Father, with all his faults, couldn’t expect me to wed someone who treated me so carelessly. I’d rather be consumed by an erupting volcano than marry someone like that.

“What are you waiting for?” the knight called irritably. “Hurry up!”

Fighting for breath, I beat at the air to clear the dust cloud that had settled over me, rolled over with a groan, and tried to find a way to scale the slanted embankment. I didn’t need to tumble down and add another layer of dirt to my already filthy self. I veered left; the right side had what looked like a cave where the long-gone river had eaten away at the dirt beneath an overhang so it was like a tiny room completely hidden from the view above. The left had several rocks and small shrubs growing that I could use as handholds. Nothing could have prepared me for the aches and pains that were cropping up over my entire body.

The moment I ascended, the knight leaned over from where he was still mounted and yanked me up by my collar to sit in front of him, kicking his horse to run once more. I’d barely recovered from having the wind knocked out of me for the second time that day and attempted to draw a deep breath when an insect flew directly into my open mouth and lodged itself in the back of my throat.

I spluttered and choked, eyes streaming, and the knight thumped me on the back as we rode at a full gallop along the forest trail. No amount of gagging was able to regurgitate whatever unsuspecting fly had found its way back to stick to my uvula, and as the horse leapt over a fallen log, I ended up swallowing the bug.

This had to be the worst rescue in history.