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“Sir!” Widow Lessup objected. “My heart will fail me anyway, carried aloft by a dragon.”
He wiped his seal-cutter clean and placed it carefully on his desk next to his ink and quill box. “A Hypatian noble’s first duty—and if necessary, his last duty—is to his servants. Carry her to safety, Wistala. I remain to defend my library and all it stands for.”
He stared so levelly at her, she knew it was pointless to argue. She plucked Widow Lessup up by her apron and housecoat and lifted her up and out of the cupola. The grounds around Mossbell were bathed in light from the furiously flaming hay and meal of the barn.
“No! No! No!” Widow Lessup screamed as Wistala climbed out next to her and extended her wings, flapped them experimentally. The goats had either fled the smoke or blood and dragonsmell.
Wistala peeped over the roofline that was part hill crest, hoping the bush and wildflowers atop Mossbell hid her skull’s outline.
There was chaos in the front by the fountain. The Dragonblade was shouting, pointing at her, and upbraiding one of his men with the back of his hand. The thane was riding in circles, trying to bring together barbarians, many with singed beards, who were running from Mossbell carrying everything from candlesticks to dining chairs.
Other barbarians, under the eye of their chief, stood their ground, waiting for action. Behind them were the Dragonblade’s warriors and archers.
Save for one. The leather-clad youth called Eliam was chasing something around the courtyard. A blur of orange—Yari-Tab, running rather stiff-leggedly, for she had seen her share of winters since coming to Mossbell.
She yowled as the man-boy caught her and picked her up, but not a face turned toward the boy running with an old cat.
Wistala felt her fire bladder bulge as Yari-Tab clawed and bit vainly at the leather sleeve and gloves. He ran across the courtyard, laughing, swinging her by the scruff to pitch her into the fire—
Wistala launched herself, loosing her flame in a shower on the Dragonblade’s warriors and dogs, who scattered or burned. As for the wretched boy, her mother’s medicine would do for him.
She wipped her tail down and lashed him across the face with its scaly tip, knocking him off his feet. She beat her wings madly and gained altitude, a little more loopily than she would have liked, but she banked and turned back toward the roof of Mossbell, where Widow Lessup was running down a goat path with skirts held up.
She saw Yari-Tab dashing into the shadows of the side gardens, and the youth sitting upright in the courtyard, hands held to his face with blood running between his fingers, a sharp shadow thrown by the burning barn behind him.
“Teach you to wear your helmet,” the Dragonblade laughed. “Even if it does spoil your hair and hide that handsome face.”
She swooped in behind Widow Lessup, corrected—
Using her sii with claws tucked in, she grabbed the woman by the shoulders and pulled her into the sky, hearing late arrows fall through the air behind. . . .
Wistala, daughter of Irelia, lurched as she soared, thrown off by the strugging woman. It was a worse flight than even an aging sparrow or a sick bat could manage, but flying she was, better than in any dream.
BOOK THREE
Dragonelle
BEWARE BEGINNING A WAR. WAR TAKES MANY TURNS,
AND MOST OFTEN BACK ON THE INSTIGATOR.
—Torus (the Elder)
Chapter 21
Old muscles newly used tired quickly, and Wistala found herself panting as she circled over the Green Dragon Inn.
The scene below reminded her of a riot she’d once seen outside the Great Arena of Hypat after an underdog victory in a game of Flagstaff when bet payments ran out.
Two houses burned, and through the smoky air, Wistala marked the barbarians as they ran in and out of the other homes in no sort of order. A group of them stood looking sadly at a cart that had lost a wheel after being overloaded with tools and anvils from the smithy. Chickens ran everywhere, to be chased frequently, caught rarely, and then stuffed into sacks and baskets when they weren’t dropped in order to pursue a loosed sow or piglet.
The inn had the most barbarians about it. A long low building in back had been torn almost into planking, and the barbarians dipped helms or hands into the mead vats, to guzzle and swill and then stagger off to find vessels to carry some off before others could drink the brewery dry.
Even if the spectacle below had comedic elements, it was a horrifying sort of comedy. Dead bodies, looking like dropped bundles of washing from the sky, lay in the streets and on the doorsteps. Only one or two of the bodies—in front of the inn’s windows—were barbarian.
They’d had no luck getting through the narrow windows or stout door, and a flung torch or two smoldered on the tin roof. In the road before the inn, barbarians under the shouted commands of still-mounted leaders were piling tarry barrels and cut pine boughs on a wooden wagon, pointed so that it could be run toward the door of the inn. Others were busy chopping down the notice board before the inn stoop to give it a clear path.
Wistala’s back burned like her fire bladder, and she longed to set the Widow Lessup down. The high roof of the inn seemed the safest spot, so she landed—the uncharitable would say crashed—on the Green Dragon’s roof, striking first with her tail and then her hind legs, both from instinct and the desire to protect Widow Lessup.
