Chapter Thirty-Three
~
We walked down the slope complainin’ about too-full stomachs, angry at those who made us eat so much, when Taiz’lin thrashed on the lawn, screechin’ as though he had just been branded.
Other dragon trumpets echoed in the distance. Delia and I stopped and watched Taiz’lin’s display of anger, or grief—not sure which. He whipped his head, thundered a response to the dragons too far away to see.
“What is it?” Delia asked
More emotion streamed into my head than words. The witch repeated her question, and I held out my hand for patience. The image of Ike with the goblins clarified when only Taiz’lin’s mind reached me.
“They’ve taken Ike hostage. Demand the militias leave, or they’ll—”
Taiz’lin launched.
“Or they’ll kill him. No, Taiz’lin! We need ya here!”
“You aren’t going to be stopping him,” Delia muttered.
I nearly insulted her, but she’d been in her mildest mood since the mornin’ I woke from my fever. Decided to forgo the sharp response. An ogre can be tactful. If he works hard at it.
The gray dragon grew smaller in the sky. Another mind entered mine. It was Asr’s Tir. He was ten minutes away with an ogre hen that needed attention—not the plague, fortunately. He would take us on our rounds when he finished deliverin’ her to the Hamlet’s doctor.
“Taiz’lin may not act very rationally,” I mumbled.
“You ogres, like bear traps, cling to the obvious, don’t you?” Delia asked.
I looked across at her, tryin’ my glare one more time. Inwardly I smiled. Her remark was similar to the one I almost challenged her with. But it wasn’t time to joke. Taiz’lin could escalate a bad situation.
“Iza will calm him,” Tir said.
“I hope so,” I replied mentally and, without meanin’ to, aloud.
“Why would you hope you cling to the obvious?” Delia asked. “It doesn’t imply superior thinking. I in fact, don’t think you’re terribly bright to begin with.”
I chose not to explain my conversation with Tir. “Back to the insults are ya? The kind tongue lasted ten minutes.”
“Well, you went ten minutes without raising my hackles.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and rested her hand on her hip.
“Miracle.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “How did they come about taking Ike?”
I repeated the question to Tir.
“He went to meet the clan leader. Walked into their camp. The old bull was in none too kind a mood. Claimed the militia drew blood first.”
Faeylin. My face prickled, stomach weighed more heavily than it had. All thin’s eventually come to the surface, never forgotten.
“I asked—”
“Heard ya,” I snapped.
I sensed her stiffen. I groaned, on the inside. Didn’t want to start over with the hen—woman.
“Whenever you feel inclined to share,” she prodded. “Struggling to maintain two conversations, are you? Serves you right being so secretive.”
I explained, leavin’ out my fears about Faeylin. Felt most guilty that others would take the blame for the goblin’s death. But maybe that was good all the way around. I immediately chided myself. That wasn’t a helpful mental meanderin’.
The tan dragon came over the tree tops from the west, but angled away from the Inn, crossin’ the Lake.
“Where’s—”
“A patient for the doctor. Not sufferin’ from the ghoul.”
“Doctor,” she murmured. “I forgot about him. Why’s he—”
“I’m just an ogre. I don’t know everythin’.”
“Don’t know much of anything.”
The words were right, but they didn’t have the harsh tone. I walked out on the pier, leaned Bacchus against the top rail and sat, legs danglin’ over the side, waves on the tall side darin’ my toes. I looked across the rippled surface of the Lake, wonderin’ how Ike would get out of his predicament. Lucas would no doubt communicate the goblin demands to the human—Johanson is his name. It would likely serve no purpose. Another agenda drove the Northerner.
I jerked, and swatted at whatever critter had flown into my chest with such suicidal glee. A pebble fell to the boardwalk, just as I saw Delia’s arm swing. Another bounced off my head.
“Hey.” Still time to slap her into next week.
“You irritate me,” she snapped, hittin’ me in the shoulder with another stone.
“I didn’t even say anythin’,” I cried, deflectin’ another stone with my hand.
“All I have to do is look at you sometimes. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Because ya’re a bat-crazy hen, that’s why.”
“Might be.”
She threw another one, hard. I blocked it, but it stung my wrist.
“Perhaps you’re hiding something from me.”
“Stop it,” I shouted.
She picked up another handful of larger, polished stones from the water’s edge. I rolled over, out from under the rail, stood, and backed away from her, further out on the pier. As soon as she neared, cuttin’ off my retreat, I wished I’d moved toward the entrance of the pier instead.
The next stone wasn’t tossed. She hurled the thin’. Might have a hen’s arm, but the stone connected with my shoulder and hurt.
“I’m certain you’ve been hiding something from me.” She pressed several fist-sized stones into the pocket of her smock. She threw another. I dodged it. The thin’ flew past my head, and clattered along the boardwalk, until it splashed into the water with a kaplunk-tishh.
Delia pulled her dress up to her thigh to manage the climb onto the pier from below. Any other time the peek at her white flesh might have raised my blood for a different reason, but the fear of tellin’ her the truth about Faeylin hurt nearly as badly as the stones. Another rock flew past my head.
“This isn’t a very mature way to act,” I said.
“Lying to a friend, that’s what you called me, a friend, isn’t exactly a mature way to act either. What could be so bad, I keep asking myself. What information—” She grunted as she hurled another stone, putting her body behind the effort.
It hit me in the breast and ricocheted into my chin.
“Owwwww! Now cut it out. That hurt.”
“Got a dozen more for you, if you don’t treat me like a friend is supposed to be treated. Or maybe I’m not really your friend.” She accented the last word with another grunt, another catapult.
The stone grazed off the side of my head. My thick mass of dreadlocks saved me from a goose egg. I stepped toward her.
“Aackkkkk. Stay back.” She pulled back her arm.
“Look. Okay. Maybe there—ya know thin’s happen—thin’s slip yar mind—thin’s, ya know, ya might not think—”
“You’re stalling.” She threw another stone I barely ducked under.
“Please stop.”
She threw another, which I blocked with my forearm.
“Oww.”
“Just tell me. Otherwise it’ll always just sit there between us.”
I studied the natural waves in the wood of the boardwalk. “It may rend our friendship for good,” I said softly.
“Then it either wasn’t much to save, or doesn’t deserve saving.”
I took a deep breath. “I killed yar friend. I killed Faeylin.”
She stood frozen for a full ten-count. “Go to Hell,” she said, and walked away.
I let her go. Didn’t call her, ask to let me explain. How could I explain such a thin’ away? She walked past the Inn and up toward the tree line.
My chest heaved and I blinked tears from my eyes. She was my first friend since I was fifteen. She was a friend. I wanted her to be a friend, anyway. The chance for that—
Tir landed on the lawn and I grabbed Bacchus. The tan-colored dragon is the largest of the four bull siblings, and the quietest in nature. Had he acquired that from his relationship with Asr? Ike’s smaller but older sibling is as reserved as anyone I’ve ever met.
The dragon politely asked if I was ready, before thrustin’ into the air. Tir chatted about the stern ogre hag he delivered to Dr. Adam. I was pretty sure that was the first time I’d heard the doctor’s name.
~
When I was done with the first patient and we were aloft again, Tir returned to his runnin’ conversation as though there had been no interruption. He spoke about the settlers we would be meetin’, the original founders of the Hamlet, even the baggage between the human leader, Johanson, and Lucas.
“Did I tell ya thank ya for making Asr feel better this mornin’?” the dragon asked. “Iza told me ya spent almost an hour with him.”
An hour? It felt like only a few moments. I searched the sky for the sun. Was two-thirds of the way below its zenith. One thin’ about workin’ with Delia. The healin’ went faster.
“We aren’t gonna make it to every stake before the sun sets,” I said. “Do ya know if any are worse along than the others?”
The dragon was quiet for a time. Figgered he was comparin’ notes with his bull siblings. “There’s a child, middle-aged. We’ll visit first,” Tir said, slightly inclinin’ his right wing.
The motion, sight of the Earth rotatin’ below us, gripped me with vertigo. With Iza or Taiz’lin I would have been graspin’ to hang on, not just noticin’ a disconcertin’ world shift.
I concentrated on the hypnotic rhythm of Tir’s wings, tryin’ not to think of Delia.
“Our queens have a way of gettin’ under our skin,” Tir said. “Thankfully, the two-legged kind rarely threaten to disembowel ya.”
I laughed. “That might not mean any lesser pain.” I felt the vibration of a dragon chuckle in my legs.
“Ya may have set yarself up for yar own pain,” Tir said. “An ogre and a human. Never could work.”
Bully—is everyone talkin’ about us? “I wasn’t lookin’ for that kind of a relationship. Just friendship.”
“I suppose the bondin’ between dragon and ogre, or human, or orc, is no less bizarre. I couldn’t explain my tie to Asr if ya demanded it of me.”
I cogitated that for a moment. I could see no reason why Delia and I couldn’t be friends—other than the fact that I had killed maybe her only friend. The sun would fall soon. I didn’t want to think about Delia anymore. What would be, would be.
“What of Ike?” I asked, to change the subject.
The dragon trumpeted in humor. “Ike will have that goblin elder talked out of his boots if he stays within their camp long. He can convince serpents to walk, fish to fly. He’ s as much a majic slinger as ya, warlock. The goblin should hope Iza and Taiz’lin rescue him quickly.”
“Ya aren’t worried?”
“Surely,” Tir said over his shoulder. “We all are. Iza is known for—bein’ abrupt. After all, she’s a—female. Johanson is likely to continue his stupid ways. Either could force thin’s in the wrong direction. We must leave it to Lucas and Ike. They’re wiser than their years.”
“Three times irritatin’.”
Tir chortled. Sounded like a milk cowbell rattlin’ down a mountain inside a rockslide.
~
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