Between

Seventeen


The men were on horseback. Six of them, all clad in rough leather from head to toe: tunics, chaps, knee-high lace-up boots. Even leather hoods, with openings for the eyes and slits at the sides of the nose. Gloved hands holding drawn swords, sharp and lethal, meant for the shedding of blood.

They formed a circle with Vivian at the center, Poe flattened against her legs, hissing. Not one of the men spoke—there was only the creaking of saddles, the stomping of hooves, and the huffing sound of a reined-in horse fighting the bit. Vivian made herself keep breathing, tried to focus on a spot just in front of her feet instead of on swords and horses and hooded men.

At last, one of them sheathed his sword and bared his head. He grinned, a sudden flash of white teeth in a tanned face. Long blond hair, sweat darkened, hung over his shoulders. “Not quite the quarry we had in mind, but much more pleasing to the eyes. What do you here in Surmise, My Lady? And what, pray tell, is that creature you have with you?”

As if on signal, the other riders, save one, also removed their hoods. Two were scarcely out of their teens, dark haired, identical faces, both sets of eyes looking her over in a way that made the hot blood pulse in her throat and rush up over her face. The fourth was also dark, wiry, with a face serious and intent. The fifth swept his sword up in the air and swung it in the sort of arc that would have separated a head from its shoulders if it happened to come in contact. His black brows formed an unbroken line across a high and craggy forehead, and a burn scar distorted one side of his face. “Commoners aren’t allowed in the forest,” he said. “You are in violation.”

The final rider, taller than the others, lean but powerful, remained hooded and silent.

Cornered, Vivian looked around at the rough, bearded faces, searching for some indication of help or mercy. “I’m not from here. I didn’t know. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll go. I promise.”

The silent one dismounted and strode the few paces toward her. She backed away. Stumbled over a stone and staggered right into the shoulder of a horse. She careened forward again, which brought her up against what she’d been trying to avoid in the first place.

She could feel the heat of his body, could smell the sweat and dust. And saw, through the holes cut in the hood, eyes of clear agate, traced in umber. Eyes seen not so long ago in a bookstore, and long before that in dream. Her heart leaped with joy and relief. “Zee!” she said, reaching out her hands to him.

No recognition sparked in his eyes. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demanded.

The familiar voice, but different. Harsh. A voice accustomed to shouting orders, not talking about books and penguin totems and alternate realities.

“But you know me! You lent me books. You said…” Her voice trailed off into silence.

“My Lady—I don’t play games. Tell me your name and your purpose.”

She tried one more time. “But you know my name—”

“Let me have her,” the dark-browed man said. “I’ll make her talk sense.”

“Nobody touches her, Barson.” The hooded man didn’t move, kept his eyes locked on hers. Her heart thudded, ungainly and loud. Voices went on around her, only half-heard.

“And if she should want to be touched?”

“Kill her and be done, I say. Her and that monstrous bird. That pest of a dragon is still about here somewhere. She’ll slow us down.”

“Pest? Bit more than a pest, I’d say. Big old bastard is what it is. Took a whole cow from the Flynt place.”

“Try not to frighten the lady.”

“Gonna be a lot more than talk to frighten her before she’s done.”

A sound in the distance. Crack.

All eyes turned toward it. Nobody spoke.

And then controlled chaos. The horses shied, bucked, swirled in a trampling of hooves. Men fought the reins to bring them back under control. The hooded man turned away from Vivian to seize the reins of his black horse, murmuring calming words.

Crack.

The hooded man sprang up into the saddle. “Duncan—stay with the girl.” His horse reared and fought, but he mastered it with words and hands and rode away directly toward the thrashing treetops, followed by all but the blond man, who reined in his mount and came back.

Swinging down to the ground, he tethered his horse to a sturdy branch and turned to face her.

Vivian tried to speak, but her throat was dry and tight and no sound came out. She tried again. “What is it?” No need to ask, though; she already knew.

“Nothing much. One of the dragons has been getting friendly with the villagers.”

Only a dragon.

“Sounds like they could use you—you should go.”

A spark of amusement flashed in his blue eyes. “The dragons are partial to young ladies. You’ve been taken into protective custody, so to speak.”

A flicker of hope sparked into life. “So they’re going to kill the dragon, then?”

His eyes widened. “Kill it? You’re really not from around here, are you? Dragons are sacred and can’t be killed. They’re hoping to drive it off, before…”

“Before what?”

“I wonder what they’re doing over there.” He shaded his eyes with his hand, following the sounds of voices and breaking branches. “The beast should have taken flight by now.”

“Before what?” Vivian said again.

Duncan turned his eyes back to her. “If the dragon keeps to this territory, eventually there will be a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice. Chickens? A cow?”

His eyes shifted away from hers.

Cold sweat trickled down her back.

“The dragon and the maiden,” she managed. “How positively mythical. And of course we would never sacrifice useful, local, residential maidens. Such a waste. A stranger now, fortuitously arriving just as the dragon begins to be a marauding problem. Convenient, isn’t it?”

A flush of color stained his cheeks, making him look young and unexpectedly vulnerable. “Look,” he said. “Go if you want. Chances are the dragon was already hunting you. Night is coming. The best you can hope for is to starve to death, lost in the woods. The worst—death by dragon. Or one of the other creatures out there. Or, you can come back to the castle with us and take your chances.” Once again, the impish grin. “If you come back all meek and mild, I promise you can do whatever you like with me later.”

In spite of herself, Vivian smiled back.

A warning shout went up from the men away in the forest. Treetops thrashed in a path headed in their direction. Duncan’s face hardened. He pulled the hood down over his face. Drew his sword.

“Get down low, under a bush—no, that fallen log is better. Lie flat, and be still.” His voice was pitched low, urgent. Vivian obeyed without question, crawling on her belly toward a tree that had fallen but hung up on a rock, leaving a space just big enough for a slender woman to squeeze under.

A slender woman and a penguin.

Poe flung himself down on his belly and wriggled in under the shelter. For Vivian it was not so easy. Clawing her fingers into the earth, she wriggled and twisted her body under the log. A broken branch raked down her back with searing heat. Her forehead and nose pressed into the mud. She couldn’t fully expand her rib cage and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. Turning her head a little to the side, she caught a narrow window of daylight—a visual strip revealing earth, restless hooves, a pair of booted feet.

Then a shadow. A rushing sound, like wind. Leaves flurried and spun, branches cracked and fell. The horse bugled in panic, hooves trampling the grass. A grunt from Duncan, a horrible scream from the horse, a wet and tearing sound.

Vivian wanted to block her ears, to dig herself farther into the earth, but her arms were pinned beneath her.

The dragon shrieked, a wordless cry like nothing in all the worlds. The shadow lifted with a rush of wind, a heavy beating of wings.

Hooves thundered toward them then, and there were other hooves and other booted feet. Voices.

“Gods, Duncan—what have you done?”

“I had no choice.”

“You know what this means.”

“I know.”

She felt the shadow as a pair of boots appeared in her window of vision.

“Get up.” It was a tone that meant nothing good for her, and she didn’t move until inexorable hands gripped her arm and dragged her out and onto her feet.

Vivian stood where the hooded man put her, shivering, trying not to look at great gouts of thick black liquid that bubbled and steamed on the grass. An overpowering stench twisted her stomach and she swallowed hard, determined not to shame herself by vomiting in front of this hard-handed man who was and was not Zee.

Duncan’s horse, at least part of it, lay in a spreading pool of crimson. The hindquarters were missing. Guts spilled out onto the grass, gleaming wetly in the last of the light. Beside the mess Duncan knelt, clothing splattered with blood and the black liquid, and where it touched his clothes the fabric had disintegrated, leaving smoking holes. A raw burn covered the right side of his face. Sweat glistened on his forehead and the pinched skin around his eyes spoke of pain. A sword lay on the ground beside him, the blade clotted black.

The man with the black eyebrows, Barson, dismounted and began binding Duncan’s hands together at the wrists.

“What on earth are you doing?” Vivian demanded.

“He broke the law.”

“But he protected me,” she said, hearing the disbelief in her own voice. “The dragon came for me and he saved me. He’s burned. He needs a doctor. What the hell is wrong with you?”

In her memory she saw Arden’s body convulse, the eyes roll back in his head. He’d been burned. Clawed. Poisoned, maybe.

Ignoring the savaged half body of the horse, picking her way around the pools of sizzling dragon blood, Vivian crossed the clearing and knelt at Duncan’s side.

Splotches of black still clung to his face, sizzling, burning deeper into the flesh. She had sense enough not to touch it with her bare hands, had nothing to use to wipe it away. “Doesn’t anybody have medical supplies? Bandages? Anything?” She looked around the circle of men. They all looked back at her. Nobody moved.

She tore off her T-shirt then, aware of eyes on her bare skin, ignoring them. Balling the fabric up to protect her hands, she gently dabbed at the still-sizzling skin, blotting up the blood. Breath hissed out between Duncan’s teeth as he strangled a groan.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “we need to get this shit off you before it burns to the bone. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, My Lady.”

“Enough.” The black-browed man grabbed her from behind and dragged her upright and away. The twins picked up Duncan between them and thrust him up behind the saddle of one of the horses. For a minute she thought he’d topple off, but he shook his head as though to clear dizziness and gripped the horse with his knees.

Barson swung up in front of him.

A new hand on her shoulder, restraining her. “He must answer to the crime of shedding dragon blood,” Zee’s voice said, implacable.

Something inside Vivian broke from control. She turned and beat against his chest with her fists. “This is wrong. Let him go!”

When he pinioned her wrists she bit at his hands and took advantage of his distraction to kick at his shins, a useless gesture. The leather boots were heavy and hard, and she battered her own toes against them in futility.

“Stop this.” His hands were like iron.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She needed to wipe her nose. “The dragon is a monster—it tore that horse in half, would have killed Duncan. And me. He saved me. What kind of man are you? Too scared to even show your face.”

At her words, she felt him go very still. He released her.

And then he reached up and removed the hood.

Vivian gasped. The beautiful agate eyes were set in a mass of scars, old and new—thin white lines, garish red welts, fresh cuts still healing. They twisted his face, pulled his mouth into an uneven grimace. It gave him a sinister, lethal look.

“What’s the matter—not what you were expecting?” His voice was hard.

She couldn’t find words.

“Be careful what you ask for.” He turned away. “Erhard, Varlon, track the dragon. See if it lives or dies.”

Without a nod or a word, the twins rode off, bent low over the necks of their horses, reading signs in the earth that Vivian couldn’t see.

“Liam—take the bird. The lady will ride behind me. We’ll barely reach the castle before dark.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Vivian said.

“Warlord—allow me.” Barson’s eyes raked over her half-naked body. She crossed her arms over her breasts and turned away from him.

The Warlord was also looking her over, but with a different expression. “You’re bleeding.”

“Scraped my back on a branch. Nothing serious.”

“They’ll smell you. Between you and Duncan, they’ll be flying in from the four winds.” He picked up her T-shirt from the dirt. It fell apart in his hands, disintegrating where the dragon blood had touched it. Tossing the rags aside with a grimace of distaste, he turned and dug in his saddlebags. “Here, put this on.”

She stood unmoving, stubborn and defiant.

The Warlord pulled a rough woolen tunic over her head, dressing her as though she were a child. It hung to her knees and was wide enough for two of her. Then he picked her up and placed her bodily behind the saddle, swinging up in front.

“We go now, and we ride fast.”

He kicked his horse into a gallop. Her arms were still trapped inside the tunic and she clutched hard with her knees, struggling to keep her balance until she could get her arms free, clinging to him for balance.

She’d been on a horse once, as a child, sitting tamely in the saddle while somebody else led her around the yard. This was another matter entirely, bouncing up and down, sliding from side to side, trying to get a grip on the stiff leather that denied her grasping fingers purchase. In the end, she was forced to wrap both arms around him and hold on.

The path fell into darkness. Her back hurt, her heart ached, fear ran behind her and above her. She felt like prey, hunted, harried. When they burst out of the woods and into a wide field, the sun hung low on the horizon but the sky was still blue.

Above, three winged creatures soared in high, lazy circles. Vultures, she thought. Vultures with serpentine tails and four legs apiece.

No vulture known to man had ever been that size.

The Warlord spurred the horse to a faster pace, leaning forward over its neck. Vivian clung to him, watching the sky. It faded from blue to gray, with rose at the horizon. The winged creatures grew larger, circling ever closer in a downward spiral.

Across the plain, over the leather-clad shoulder that half-obstructed her view, a castle came into sight—a fortress of spires and turrets, a black silhouette against the sunset.

The horses stretched low over the ground, hooves flashing, necks white with foam. The men urged them on with shouts and curses.

Closer and closer circled the dragons.

Vivian could hear wings now, a great rhythmic beating. The castle was too far away; they would never make it in time. Men were visible on the watchtower and at the drawbridge, but they still looked small, improbable. A foul wind swirled around her. She was aware of a rushing sound above her head, felt something rake across her shoulders with a blow that threw her off balance. She caught a glimpse of a pale belly, a spiked tail, and sharp talons red with blood as she slid to one side.

Her hands slipped and clawed at Zee’s leather tunic. She was half on, half off the horse, a rag doll bouncing awkwardly at odds with the rhythm of the pounding hooves, and then she was falling, the ground coming up to meet her with a jarring force.

She tried to get up, to run or at least to crawl, but the breath had been driven from her lungs and she couldn’t move. Her shoulders were on fire. Lying there, looking straight up, the monstrous belly and bloody talons filled her vision. The dragon circled. The wings drew in as it began an earthward dive and then the Warlord’s face came between her and the monster. His strong arms were beneath her and she was lifted, clasped against his broad breast, clinging desperately as he raced toward the castle.

A giant shadow followed them with a thunder of wings; they would never make it, never, and then it was cooler and dark and they were no longer moving. Men’s voices around her, the clatter of hooves on cobblestone. She tried to look around, but darkness veiled her eyes. She fought it. She would not go gently, damn it, would not—

would not—