Page 76 of To Touch A Silent Fury

The one behind him, shorter, with a face like a vole and hair just as slick, licked his lips. “Tell us your business, and we’ll find out, shall we?”

I raised an eyebrow. “No.”

The bearded man in front pulled his sword out, and I took two light steps back. He smiled with surprisingly clean teeth. “Well, I can tell you this, girl. His Highness ain’t going to come out of there for the likes of a dirty, scrawny, tree-sniffer like you. So either you put away that blunt knife and tell me, or I assume your business is treason, and I’ll kill you right now.”

I stared at them both. This was the riskiest part of the plan, when I had very little leverage. If his men, or Langnathin himself, decided to kill me to neutralise my threat, there was little I could do.

I would have to give something to get anything. Slowly, I tucked the knife into my trousers, holding up my coat on my front. “Fine. Tell the prince that I have the dragon he’s been looking for.”

The two men looked at each other, eyes widening. The archer turned his face back to me first, sneering. “Liar.”

I sighed. “I’m going to reach into my coat now. There is no weapon in there.”

The bearded man shuffled forwards a step, his blade poking towards me. “Move slow.”

I nodded. I pulled out the sleeping child, lifting him so his head protruded over the top of the coat.

The man beside me stumbled back at the sight of his tiny head, and the archer gasped.

“If you kill me,” I said, “The dragon will likely die, too. I can promise you, your prince would not be happy.”

It was a bluff. I truly had no idea what would make Langnathin happy, and there was just as good a chance he would decide my dragon was better off dead than in the hands of the enemy.

Because I was his enemy. Entirely. And yet, not the enemy he expected.

The two men exchanged another look. One of them nodded, and the other sighed.

“Fine,” the blonde one said. “Drop the knife on the ground, and we’ll take you in.”

The barracks stank.

I'd forgotten what olfactory horrors the presence of so many men could produce, and there was nothing here to indicate the presence of a woman with a nose, nor a single patron of the Scentlands. Worse, for a place inhabited by Sightlanders, it was an eyesore. Everything about it suggested impermanence, from the poorly dug sewer trench to the roughly hewn wood of the fences and buildings, unsanded and unvarnished.

It was a place they clearly intended to leave to decay when they were done. There was no joy in its craftsmanship nor an eye to anything more than functionality. Two different menled me through the encampment, glancing back often. The two from before had passed on the message, and they eyed my tied coat with suspicion. They did not restrain me, an action I determined to be naive, yet I understood its simple effectiveness. For the place's manifold faults, it only had one exit, and everyone here needed only the smallest encouragement to cut me down where I stood.

With my hardy, patched clothing and braided hair, I looked Euphon. As we moved across the wooden walkway, a necessity to keep off the worst of the churned-up mud, I caught the anger and heat in their eyes. To them, I was a member of the tribes responsible for the camp's injuries, and some of their deaths. The traps were always designed to be lethal, though the Sightlanders had been better than most at spotting them. It was unsurprising, given their society's prioritisation of the sense, and it meant they were sometimes able to avoid the worst of the trap’s intent. Though whether it was kinder to survive their traps was a debate I didn't want to think about.

I kept my dragon hidden as we stepped up to a door. Here, finally, they decided it was prudent to pat me down. I was grateful for my dragon’s position against my chest, for he prevented more than a brief and unobtrusive search. They wore their gloves, and so even their grip on my bare arms didn’t elicit my own particular brand of intrusion, but I didn’t need my power to feel the resentment coming off them in waves. For a population starved of the woman’s touch for so long, I was glad they seemed to have no idea how to touch a woman, as opposed to any eagerness.

They pushed open the door to a small entrance room filled with mud-caked boots and three well-trimmed heavy coats. The fur was not of these parts, likely taken from somewhere where the Domins of Gossamir were more legend than truth.

I stepped inside as a man pushed open the opposing door. I recognised him as the man who had shot me in the leg. Now, with no coat, I could see him properly. Behind his bushy red beard and wide shoulders, I noted he was probably a wyvern rider, from the sharp amber colour of his eyes. He was intimidating, with a bulkiness to him and roughly drawn hand tattoos which gave him more of a wild look than most other Sightlanders I’d seen.

He stopped dead, regarding me at first with something approaching appreciation. Then, when he took in the strange coat-sling and the way I held my leg out before me, his wyvern-eyes widened.

“You,” he said. “The wolf girl. You’re alive.”

I blinked. “It seems that way.”

He groaned. “You’ve just lost me a bet.”

I only raised an eyebrow.

He pushed the door behind him open and called through it. “Lang. We have a visitor.”

My heart skipped a beat. This was really happening. I had really walked headfirst into the Dragon Prince’s lair. I was struck then with a complete sense of idiocy. This was incredibly risky, and yet, I still knew if I had my time over, I would make the same decision. Though, I reasoned with myself, that didn’t make it any less stupid. It just meant I was a committed idiot.

The bearded man walked through the door and held it open before turning to me, his arm creating a walkway. “You coming in, or not?”