Page 55 of The Discount Damsel

She released her grip on his horns, and the baby luck dragon wove a sinuous, uncomfortable figure-eight through the air.

Bradley snapped his fingers for their attention, and his signs were sharp and full of warning. “Don’t pressure him.” This was the little dragon’s chance to abandon his obsession with the Great Reds, to realize this price of discovery was too much for him to bear.

“I’m not pressuring him. He just needs to make the choice if his dream is worth following.” The princess regarded the luck dragon calmly, even as the tower quaked from another assault.

Dirk realized her chocolate-brown eyes reminded him of the water lily ponds at the College where he’d sometimes catch bullfrogs to play with when the other luck dragons ignored him. A stop-gap measure against loneliness, the first of many before that fateful day in the rain by the lake. Resolve bloomed in his chest, and a ripple of luck passed over his cerulean scales.

“Oberon the Oppressive fought on even when he was greatly outnumbered outside Blackburn Castle,” he answered stoutly. “I can do that, too.”

Bradley released a heavy sigh, earning him a reproachful look from everyone present. He folded his arms across his chest, despite the gravitas of the gesture being undercut by the fact he was still seated upon the workroom floor where he’d pig-piled Dirk, his robe soaked through from the luck dragon’s defensive attack, and maintained his opinion.

“Though, I don’t know how to win,” the dragon admitted to Millie.

Millie pushed herself upright and straightened her clothes with an aggressive flounce. “Nor do I, and the best pirate captains understand their shortcomings and know when to delegate. That’s what a crew is for, after all.”

She turned to Sir Roger, who was in the middle of wringing the water from his shirt. “You knew what kind of barbarian he was at first glance. Have you ever fought such a creature in your roamings as a hedge knight?”

Sir Roger finished squeezing his shirt and flapped the wrinkles out. “Some. They’re strong and have great stamina, but they’re not strategists. They mostly stick to their preferred weapon and one or two primary attacks.”

And that preferred weapon and its primary attack made the tower shake once more. Shingles shot off the roof and plummeted towards the sand like meteors.

“Why won’t you break, stupid tower?” Ivar the Bane roared. “Alfalas will not be denied! And where is that dragon?”

When the tremors subsided, Millie retrieved her letter opener from where it had dropped from her hand when she’d steadied herself against the desk. She thrust it into her belt. “One weapon. One or two attacks. That’s his weakness. I’ve watched enough tourneys to know that the moment you become predictable in a fight⁠—”

“You lose,” Sir Roger finished, eyes widening. A bewildered smile came to his lips. “You’re not like any princess I’ve ever met, miss.”

“And I won’t remain one if that lout breaks down the tower.” She thrust her finger at the trapdoor. “Go down to the training room. Master Dirk has incredible hearing, and you’ll coach him through the fight from one of the windows, old man.”

Had those words passed beyond another else’s lips, the hedge knight would’ve immediately struck those lips with his leather gauntlet and called for a duel, but he recognized these for the compliment they were. Still smiling, Sir Roger saluted with a fist clamped over his heart. “Yes, ma’am.”

As the hedge knight disappeared into the stairwell, his limp more of a skip with the aid of his cane, Millie turned to Bradley. “I believe those pancakes from this morning and the edible ink are still in the kitchen. Perhaps on the floor from all the ruckus, but still there.”

The apprentice had hoped the princess had forgotten about the pancakes and the ink (he certainly had, and was kicking himself now), but with a juggernaut barbarian trying to break down the tower, he was running out of options. They’d been lucky with Lord Thespian, wiggled out of a confrontation with Sir Roger through extortion, but neither would work on that bonehead. He was simply too stupid and single-minded to be swindled.

Hells of the deep, he had no choice but to help or see his friend’s testicles fried up in his own fat.

“Come,” he snarled, and dashed out of the workroom for the kitchen.

CHAPTER 24

BUTTERFLY WINGS, AN ASSAULT OF LACE, WONDROUS FOREPLAY

Bradley caught the stone archway and swung himself into the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the carving knives that shot across the room with the warhammer’s latest strike. The drainer had tipped the dishes back into the sink, whose faucet, soap, and sponge were cleaning on repeat, for each plate and mug slipped right back into the suds the moment it was placed in the off-kilter drainer. Miraculously, Dirk’s brown sugar carving was still intact in its corner, and, mercifully, the cupboard doors were all still shut, as was the door to the icebox, though Bradley dreaded to look inside.

The apprentice righted the salt barrel that had served as his breakfast stool and sat. The pancakes had jumped free of their plate and stained the linen tablecloth, but at least they were still accounted for. The ink well had a stubborn stopper, which he yanked free now and snatched up his quill. After the warhammer assaulted the tower once more, he bent over a pancake and got writing.

No matter how delicately he wrote, the ink bled far too much. The spells were still legible, as in the way a child practicing the alphabet is legible. These spells were short and sweet, one word per pancake, and he managed to finish them all before the tower shook again. The tins of coffee and tea and all the rest rattled like the rocks of an avalanche; Bradley clapped his hands over his ears. When all had quieted and stilled, he discovered the little dragon hovering over his shoulder and the princess releasing her death-grip on the kitchen counter.

Dirk nudged Bradley’s cheek with his nose, similar in gesture to an affectionate cat head-bunting its master’s chin, then gobbled down the pancakes.

The spells didn’t dissolve on his tongue like the rice paper wafers and needed further digestion, so the three of them waited with growing apprehension as they listened to the sound of . . . nothing. The barbarian had abandoned his attack. But why?

Millie craned over the kitchen table to peer out the window, only to fling herself back as an iron piolet whizzed by. “He’s using an ice axe as a grappling hook.”

“It was only cool when Sir Roger had one,” Dirk groused. Then he brightened. “I can just wait for him to climb really high like Sir Roger and then cut the line again!”

The princess pointed to the black chain halving the view from the window. “Can you bite through chain? And can the tower survive long enough for you to do it?”