Three men and a dragon desire the same woman. One wants her for power, one for her beauty, and one for love. The dragon just wants her.
A Look Between the Pages -- Chapter One
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CHAPTER ONE:
Karst shifted within the narrow tunnel formed by the thorn-covered bushes. Muscles, cramped from crawling since dawn on hands and knees through the dense underbrush, burned with each movement. A swipe with the back of his hand, removed the sweat running down his face. Despite the early hour, the cool morning air had not yet reached into the depth of the thicket. The canopy of entwined branches protected the dark yellow shoots underneath and trapped the heat.
The tight confines made it harder to gather the needlethorn, but the new growth was what he needed. Only the thin, tapered leaves still untouched by the sun were suitable to get the fever cure under the victim’s skin.
Careful sweeps with a branch cleared most of the debris away from the area in front of him, but some of the pointed spikes remained stuck in the damp dirt. Collecting the thorns required such a delicate touch that gloves were useless. Even the thick leather mitts used when working around hot metal offered little protection against the carpet of sharp rocks, thorn-studded twigs, and razor-edged leaves from previous seasons’ deadfalls.
The hand he placed on the ground to take the weight.
The hand he placed on the ground to take the weight offoff his knees landed on a hidden stick. It only took a heartbeat before the sharp pain of the initial pricks spread. As the poison leaked under the skin, fire encompassed his entire hand.
“Damn plants,” escaped in an angry hiss. Resisting the urge to suck the barbs from his torn fingers, he slipped the knife from his boot, eased back on his haunches, and gingerly scraped the barbed spikes from the palm of his hand. Flicks with the knife’s narrow tip removed the remaining, more deeply-embedded thorns. His immediate first aid finished, he blew on his hands until the pain receded.
Karst whispered a prayer, that the healer summoned to help with the fever ravaging the caravan, would arrive soon. Since the use of plant needles was not a customary treatment, the women of Clan Vreis had to pick the memories of the gray-haired oldsters on how to prepare the medical tool. Inexperience and more than a few conflicting ideas caused several of the early batches to be unsuitable. Not enough heat and they bent when attempted to be used. Over-boiled thorns were too brittle and broke rather than piercing the skin. Which meant more ripped flesh to remove the fragments.Rustling on his left followed by a faint moan reminded Karst of his charges. Seven boys selected from the group of volunteers for their size and ability to navigate the narrow channels in the heart of the thicket worked in adjacent tunnels. Mentally, he reviewed the other worker’s locations. Fear flashed in his mind. The smallest, Emrys, must be the source of the pain.
“Emrys, are you okay?”
At the soft, “Fine. It was just a scratch. No poison,” Karst called the other boy’s names, then held his breath until each one checked in. Air released in a gush at the final, “I’m good.”
A quiet review of the pile of needlethorn in his bucket showed it half full. Knowledge the others should have collected more of the life-saving leaves offered hope that the torment from the heat and thorn scratches would end by mid-day. The younger pickers can move more easily and gather more thorns than I can. But I could not send them into a danger that I am not willing to risk.
The memory of another life, when he would have tossed someone into the maw of the Goddess’ volcano before endangering himself, rose to be rapidly quashed. Not anymore. A smile twitched his lips. Brial made me a man. He hid in the deepest part of his soul, something he wasn’t sure of. Whether he was a good man worthy of her love.
Brightening a few arm’s lengths farther up the channel told of a thinning of the canopy. And a chance for a breath of fresh air, Karst prayed. Scrambling forward on hands and knees, he used a branch to sweep fallen sharp-edge leaves aside until he reached the circle of light. Blue sky visible through the hole in the branches offered a respite from the brown and green of the needlethorn bushes.
Tywyll must have taken to the skies to hunt. Or, more likely to escape the smell that permeated the air. The pungent fumes rising from the cauldrons where the women were preparing soother gel hung over the entire valley and penetrated to the deepest part of the thicket.
A wish he could be flying with the helwr and Karst gave a resigned sigh. He stretched one leg, then the other until his muscles loosened enough to resume the treacherous squirm to the next cluster of shoots ready for harvesting.
* * *
Ranks of clouds on the horizon told of the recent departure of the last of the winter storms. Medraut gathered his magic. A mist surrounded him, and a heartbeat later a dragon spread its wings where the man had stood. Its scales shimmered from a deep blue to a vibrant green. The creature tilted its head back and lifted its snout to soak in the faint rays of the feeble sun.
Rocking back on his haunches, Medraut, now in his true form, leaped skyward. His raucous bugle said farewell to his weather-imposed prison.
Strong wing strokes took him higher and higher. Each time he dipped within a cloud, he whistled in joy. Ever since he was driven from the island home of his kind, he dreaded the long dark months spent trapped behind stone walls. Gale force winds prevented escape by wing. Snow clogged the mountain passes, and roof-high drifts blocked travel in human form by foot or horseback. That was if he found a horse that would not panic and run-off at the first sense of his true self.
These past two cycles of the moon were the worst. The women in the remote hamlet were homely, and not willing to share their favors.
Each wing stroke took him farther away from the small cluster of stone huts. The white snowpack gave way to bare rock. Not a single scraggy tree broke the desolation. Valley after valley passed beneath him. Dragon vision scanned the ground and the steep gray cliffs for any real sign of spring ... or food.
The strain of using his magic to maintain his disguise during his time among the villagers had done more than wear on his nerves. It had depleted his powers to the point where he sensed only a faint resonance of former abilities. Taking on his true form drained it even more.
Whatever energy that had sustained him through his flight from the winter’s prison vanished between one heartbeat and the next. His wings faltered, and he glided down to a stone ledge jutting out from the mountainside. Medraut knew he needed rest and food before he could continue. He tried to stay alert in case any prey appeared, but his eyelids closed and his head lowered. The darkness of exhaustion overcame him.
The biting cold of arctic winds cut through his thick dragon skin. Curling his wings tighter failed to provide any warmth. Forcing his eyes open, he looked out into a valley now painted pink with the rising sun. Hunger pangs ravaged his frame worse than they had the night before and kept him from returning to his restless slumber.
I need food. A deer, or maybe two or three sheep. Instead, for months, my meals were a few pieces of stringy mutton and dried-out tubers from the root cellar.
Without moving and exposing himself to the cold air of the dawning, he used dragon vision to scan the valley below. A search that yielded only barren ground and an occasional stunted tree. Not a single track revealed the presence of deer, bovine, or sheep.
I need food! He bugled his frustration. And there is none.
As he had the days before, he took to the sky. Candlemark after candlemark, he fought the gnawing pangs of hunger. Finally, the area looked more suitable for hunting. Trees bent by the strong winds replaced the boulders, growing more numerous. The pass opened onto a purple-carpeted plateau. Thick swaths of low bushes interspersed among larger patches of trees formed fantastical geometric designs.
The lighter beige of a well-used path weaved through the clumps of green. Please, let a herd of deer be hidden in the dense hedge. His mouth watered at the prospect. Or a dermott be lying in the purple heather. He pictured a talon slashing the long neck of one of the shaggy beasts. Four times the size of a normal deer, it would provide enough meat for a sevenday and hold hunger at bay until he found a valley with abundant animals.
I would have to be cautious. The powerful shoulder muscles that give the dermott a humpbacked appearance made the creature’s heavy curved horns dangerous. If two or more acted together they were a threat even to a dragon.
They might evade my claws, Medraut crowed. But not my fire. Hope and starvation pushed him lower. To no avail. No meal could be seen.
Movement on the ground shifted his focus. He started to wing lower to investigate, to see if the activity was human or food. Lower and lower, he dropped, using clumps of clouds below for cover. If it was a herd of goats or deer grazing, he didn’t want the sight of a dragon in the sky to spook them. I am too tired—too weak—to chase them.
Despite his nearness to the ground, his dragon vision failed to reveal the source of the activity. It had another effect, as a repellent odor flooded his nostrils.
Desperate to escape the stench, he retreated skyward. A cloud provided the chance for fresh air and he ducked into the mist. A long draught sucked in the damp air to release it in an explosive gust. The next breath was not as tainted, and the one after that even less so.
Lungs full of clean air, he sucked down a long breath, held it, and glided beneath the cloud.
What had been a dark brown geometric shape resolved into a wagon. The lower level showed what had caused the movement, a human female. Lust heated his body hotter than if he bathed in the bubbling melted rock of a volcano. It does not matter that she is a human female. Images from an encounter three planting seasons earlier of a black-haired woman with almond skin filled his mind. I have had them before.
Pleasure flooded his frame at the memory. Sparks flickered on his wingtips only to have the clouds turn them into a mist. The courtesan had been more than willing to accommodate special requests for a few coppers. Unlike the mountain women, the islander was quite skilled in the art of lovemaking. It didn’t matter if she plied her trade on the wave-washed beach sands, in a seaside cave, or in the warm water of a tidal pool. She satisfied his needs as well outdoors as in the soft feather-filled mattress of her wide bed.
A tilt of the wing shifted his angle of approach to bring him closer to the woman. Now he saw that there were more humans whose presence had been hidden by the shadow of the wagon. He tried to see the woman’s face, but it remained obscured. He realized what had appeared as clouds were columns of steam rising from large, iron cookpots. The wind changed direction, bringing with it the smoke – and the putrid smell of whatever the humans were making.
Strong wing strokes took him away, but not before he gagged from the stench.
I will return, he vowed, and have that woman.
* * *
The clang of a bell penetrated the heart of the needlethorn bushes. Karst listened for another, hoping the sound was the call for a food break and not an emergency recall because of an injury.
“None of my charges appear to be in pain. Thank the Goddess,” he whispered.
Although a newcomer to the caravan, and not yet an official member of Clan Vreis, he had come to like the boys and girls assigned to him. I might yet be accepted by the clan if the connections between me and Brial deepen. Just as the thought of a handfasting with the caravan leader’s granddaughter flickered into being, a darker one pushed it away. I am not my father’s son. I will not harm Brial nor take her away from her family like my father did my mother. I will bide my time.
More chimes and rustles throughout the thicket answered his unspoken question. It was time for food. Two backward kicks to remove the cramps from his legs and he turned around within the small dome someone in the past had created by interweaving branches. Despite his desire to get out of the claustrophobic space, he carefully looked where he placed his hands and knees as he crawled. The bright sunlight of the mid-day sun greeted his exit from the bushes.The reek of burnt needlethorn and boiled soother gel hung over the valley. Smoke rose in pillars not only from the medical fires but also from the pyres of the dead. Only a single breath later he regretted not joining one of the groups hunting the wide-antlered forest inhabitants. Anything to be away from the reminders of the disease impacting the caravan. But, he admitted, one of the reasons he had undertaken the unpleasant task was to make a good impression on Feldt, the caravan leader. And more importantly, to be close to Brial. Guilt at his selfishness rose at the memory of the sadness in her eyes when the first person who came down with the fever died.
One by one, the rest of his collecting party emerged from the shadows dragging their buckets of precious needlethorn. Shambling steps took them to the shade of wagons where thorough scans examined all visible skin for scratches or the more dangerous puncture wounds. Brial had emphasized the risks of an embedded thorn left untreated. Careful brushing with the small hand-held brooms made just for the occasion removed any dried leaves or dropped thorns from clothing. Karst took the extra precaution of having the boys remove their socks and boots. The one they dumped out and the other they turned inside out to remove any last remnants of their excursion in the dark undergrowth. Scratches on two of the boys’ necks, one of whom was Emrys, sent them to Brial for her delicate touch in removing the almost invisible thorns.
Their physical needs cared for, Karst turned his attention to the fruits of his team’s labor. Each bucket was three-quarters full, twice as much as they had needed to pick. “Well done, boys. Well done. We not only made our quota. You all worked so hard that you exceeded it, three times over.” He waited until the cheers wound down, then added, “The other teams are still filling the baskets. I bet you got more than any of the other groups.”
When the boys stopped cheering, he led them over to where the mid-day meal was being handed out. “Unless the women need something, rest until it is time to return to camp.”
Regardless of the brave front he put on for his charges, Karst kept looking over to where Brial treated Emrys and the other wounded boy. Please, Goddess, let them be unharmed. He released his held breath when the boys took a plate loaded down with a slab of bread, a slice of meat, and a hunk of cheese from the tailgate of a wagon. The pair found a spot of shade near where the rest of the team had gathered and sat down against a wagon wheel.
Exhaustion from the physical labor and the effects of the poison took their toll. A lethargy enveloped Karst and his eyelids closed. The sounds of the camp faded until they disappeared in the darkness of sleep.
Panic jerked Karst awake. His heart raced as he looked around the camp for his charges. Relief flooded his mind when he saw them stretched out in a circle only a wagon’s length away. His scan lingered where Brial directed a dozen youths feeding fuel to the fire or stirring the contents of three large pots. Smoke from the flames mingled with steam rising from leaves being boiled for poultices for the painful blisters and high temperatures that came with the fever.
Sun sparkled off the pins that held the long braid off her neck. What worried him was how flushed her face was.
Karst clenched his fists to fight the urge to run to her, to kiss her forehead to make sure the color came from the warmth of the soaring sun rather than the sickness.
As if Brial felt his attention, her gaze sought his. A shy smile lit her face.
Heat that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on him dampened Karst’s collar.
END OF EXCERPT
Fire and Amulet -From BWL Publishing
Cover Art by Pandora Designs
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