Dragonheart (18 page)

“You can’t just come out and change plans at the last moment.” Draco sniffed.

“You really must learn to improvise.” Bowen feinted wide with his lance, but Draco’s dodge made it look closer than it was. The nonchalance of their choreography was such that it didn’t even interrupt the flow of conversation.

“I was all set for the horse scoop.” Draco pouted.

Bowen’s mount had become quite accustomed to Draco and was obligingly blasé about being scooped up . . . provided, of course, Draco didn’t spook it by blowing fireballs too close to its hooves.

“Well, blame that wretched girl. It’s all her fault. Been nothing but trouble since you befriended her.”

“I’m glad she didn’t go too far off.”

“Could have gone farther for me.”

“She has put us on the spot, hasn’t she?” Draco smiled. “You might admire her resourcefulness.”

“You admire it while you’re ‘dying’ instead of me. You will have to, you know. Only way ’round it.”

“And what about my corpse?”

“What?”

“Are you going to cart it off or am I just supposed to lie here and pretend to decompose?”

“Don’t be absurd. We do the lake death again.” Bowen gestured with his lance to the marsh behind them as he made a wild sally at Draco. The crowd, watching from the village, oohed and ahhed. Draco pirouetted away from the thrust and caught a glance of the mossy gray water over his shoulder.

“Dive into that muck?”

“My, aren’t we delicate? It couldn’t be simpler. A quick dip under and you slide out through the fog.”

“If it’s so simple, you do it.”

“Just get on with it. God knows we’ve given them their meager money’s worth.”

“Well, if there’s no profit in it. I’ll just fly off and there’ll be no victor.”

“Except the girl. Oh, no!” Despite the logic of Draco’s solution, this situation had now become a matter of pride. Bowen would not let this girl best him. Draco took another dubious glance at the marsh.

“I’ll remember this when it’s your turn to die.”

“Can’t be any worse than the inside of your mouth!”

“I resent that.”

“Stop stalling! Here I come!”

Bowen jabbed the lance under Draco’s upstage armpit. The dragon took the blow expertly under the wing and, with a screech, spun out over the marsh into an elaborate aerial dance of death.

A little too elaborate for Bowen’s taste. Draco was a bad actor. But then Bowen had never actually seen a good one. He had attended enough palace entertainments to know that convincing realism, never foremost in the repertoire of players’ posturings, was always absent in their death scenes. These were invariably interminable moments, rife with flailing limbs, rolling eyeballs, and long-winded speeches wheezed between gasps and chokes and bellowing stage whispers. Bowen suspected few of these frantic fools had ever been on a battlefield where death was either ugly and swift, or ugly and prolonged, but was, in any case, rarely accompanied by pretty prancing, heroic last words, or applause.

Even off stage, these strutting, rouge-daubed popinjays came down to earth only during the feast. They could eat with ravenous realism. Perhaps there was a correlation between appetite and the histrionic bent. Certainly, Draco not only acted like an actor, but also ate like one.

Finally Draco approached his last gasp. With a dainty death rattle, the dragon twirled and careened toward the marsh. Despite Bowen’s disdain, this acrobatic scenery chewing fooled and thrilled the mob in the village, who broke out in cheers at the sight of the dragon’s plummeting carcass. Bowen slapped a mosquito, waiting for Draco to disappear under the water with a plosh.

But there wasn’t a plosh. Only a splat. A rather loud splat . . . and a groan . . . and waves of mud exploding into the air. Bowen’s horse whinnied and reared again, and this time the unsuspecting knight tumbled from the saddle to the ground. A glop of mud came hurtling from the sky across his face.

Bowen wiped the goo from his eyes and discovered . . . Draco plopped on his back, eyes closed, sprawled in a death tableau that he did his best to make look serene.

“Well, sink,” Bowen whispered frantically, while acknowledging the wild approval of the crowd. Kara was running out to them. “Sink!”

“I can’t!” Draco muttered from the corner of his mouth, not breaking his pose. “This is as deep as it gets.”

Before either could figure out what to do, a laughing Kara was upon them.

“Now who’s the ninny?”

“Oh, aren’t we the witty wench?” Bowen glared at her. “I’ll get you for this, girl!”

“You’ll have to get out of it first.” She chuckled.

“Bowen, my lad! You’ve done it again!” Gilbert jostled across the field toward them on Merlin. He rattled the money sack above his head and whooped gleefully. “I shall make you greater than Beowulf!”

“Shouldn’t be difficult.” Draco spewed swamp water through a clench-teethed harrumph. “Beowulf, indeed! A bucolic murderous sot!”

Bowen shushed him with a hiss as Gilbert rode up and tossed the bag to Bowen. Oh, joy—a wooden spoon all his own. Provided he could get away with the goods!

“Oh, look at the brute.” Gilbert admired the kill. “He’s even bigger than the last one you tangled with.”

“Actually, he’s about the same size,” Bowen corrected him with dry modesty, shoving at Merlin’s front flank to shift him away from the marsh edge. But Merlin was stubborn and Gilbert wanted another look.

“No, much bigger!” Gilbert asserted positively.

“Come along, Gilbert.” Bowen grabbed Merlin’s reins, steering both mule and priest away from the supposed corpse.

“But his talon?” Gilbert queried. “I shall be honored to fetch your trophy for you!”

The priest rustled through a sheaf of manuscripts slung over Merlin’s back and produced a dagger. Bowen grabbed for it, but Kara got there first, plucking it from Gilbert’s fingers.

“Let me!” Kara beamed devilishly at Bowen, who wandered what she was up to, and knew, whatever it was, it was no good. “It’s the least I can do after casting aspersions on your skill.”

Before Bowen could stop her, she had waded into the marsh and was clambering up the dragon’s flank. Her foot sank into his soft side with her whole weight on it. Draco, valiantly maintaining his death pose, couldn’t quite muffle a groaning “Ooof!”

“What was that?” Gilbert started in his saddle.

“Ah . . . reflex action!” Bowen shouted after Kara, more for Giblert’s benefit than with any hope of stopping her nonsense. “Best stay back! There might be another.”

Kara stood on Draco’s belly. “Not this old boy.” She thumped her foot against his hide. “Dead as they come. See!”

For further emphasis, she bounced up and down on him. Draco’s mouth twitched, stifling a grimace. Then his eyes popped open and crossed in pain. Bowen protectively blocked the errant eye from Gilbert’s view by standing in front of it, and hoped the priest hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t. He was watching Kara bouncing. She appeared every bit the wandering idiot that Bowen had branded her.

“Whee!” Kara bounced over to the claw flopped across the dragon’s stomach and straddled it. She rattled the knife along the talons. “Now which one? How about this?”

She gently wiggled the blade along Draco’s claw. A high-pitched giggle squeaked out of the dragon’s closed mouth.

“Good Lord! It’s alive!” Gilbert leapt off Merlin in alarm.

“Ticklish too.” Kara grinned and nuzzled the dragon’s belly with the blade. Draco helplessly choked back his laughter and his “dead” carcass quivered with very lively mirth, rippling the murky water around it.

“Stand back, child!” Gilbert grabbed the hilt of Bowen’s sword and slid it from its scabbard, trudging into the marsh to rescue the girl. With a sigh of exasperation, Bowen tramped in after him.

“Give me that!” Bowen wrested the weapon away from Gilbert.

“Of course, Sir Knight, I yield to your superior skill.” The priest bowed and gestured Bowen forward into the fray. Only Bowen didn’t go forward.

“Get down from there, Kara!” Bowen barked at her. “And Draco, shut up!”

“But, Bowen . . .” Gilbert tugged on his sleeve, confused.

“You shut up too!” Bowen waded out toward the dragon and the girl, abandoning Gilbert to his befuddlement.

Draco made a feeble effort to maintain his charade of death.

“Oh . . . Ha! . . . Please, Kara, stop!” His whispered protests were gasped out in between chuckles. “Hee . . . ho . . . oh . . . You’ll give the game away.”

“That’s the idea!” Kara tickled him with her free hand too . . . until Bowen grabbed it by the wrist.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Bowen yanked her down into the water. Draco heaved a relieved sigh. Kara bobbed up, spitting mud and venom.

“That’s the last time you’ll dunk me!” She swung an indignant fist at Bowen. The blow missed, but not the spray of mud that came with it.

“You troublemaking wench!” Bowen shook himself like a wet dog and shoved her back down.

“Have a care, Bowen!” Draco admonished.

“I don’t need you to take my part,” Kara sputtered up. “You’re just as bad as he is, bilking innocent people . . .”

“Ah . . . er . . . a . . .” Gilbert made a vain stab for attention, but his timid intrusion was lost in the gabble of arguing voices.

“You both should be ashamed of yourselves,” Kara fumed.

“What business is it of yours?” Bowen fumed back.

“Now . . . Kara . . . Bowen . . .” Draco placated—or tried to.

“Excuse me,” interjected the friar, but Bowen cut him off.

“You’d think after we saved your life, you’d at least do us the courtesy of not sticking your meddlesome nose in our affairs.”

Draco took a more diplomatic tack. “I’m sorry. Kara—”

“What do you mean you’re sorry?” Bowen shot back. “No . . . Don’t talk! You’re supposed to be dead. And close that eye!”

Even more confused by all this jabbering, Gilbert leapt into the fray once more with what seemed an intelligent question.

“Shouldn’t someone kill that dragon?”

Aghast, Draco popped his eye back open and stared at the priest, along with his two companions.

“No!”

The emphatic unison of the retort sent Gilbert sloshing back a contrite step or two as he added, almost apologetically, “I think they rather expect it!”

He pointed meekly to the villagers rushing across the field toward them. Every lean, lanky one of them was armed to the teeth with any weapon that could hack, cut, or carve meat off the bone.

“Oh, no.” Bowen had seen this before and knew it was trouble. Even if he hadn’t, he could have guessed, particularly when the scrawny chieftain led the others in a rapturously mouthwatering chant of “Meat, Meat, Meat!”

“Meat?” Draco’s head snapped up. The ravenous crowd lurched to a halt behind the fanned arms of their leader, surprised that their anticipated feast was still walking. Well, not exactly walking.

Draco was having enough trouble just trying to stand, flopping awkwardly in the mud. The chief, quick to assess an advantage—which, by the way, was probably why he was chief—bellowed encouragement to his people. “Quickly! Kill it while it’s down.”

“Get out of here, Draco!” Bowen shouted, as he splashed from the pond and leapt onto his horse, spurring it out to waylay the onslaught.

“No! Stay back!” Bowen called to the crowd, but they ignored his threatening sword and his shout was lost amid the cries for “Meat! Meat!” As they rushed past him he wheeled the horse, seeing Gilbert drag an excited Merlin from the crushing path.

Draco floundered in the mud, fluttering his wings like a duck skimming the water in prelude to flight, but the viscous mire made both skimming and flight slow going. Realizing her joke had gone dangerously awry, Kara tried to propel him forward by shoving her whole body against his rump and pushing. At last mud gave way to momentum, and as the swamp dwellers slogged into the marsh to descend on him, Draco swooshed upward in a backwash of mud and water.

No longer braced by Draco’s back end, Kara plopped into the mud at the feet of the chief, who had been drenched in the spray of the dragon’s ascent. He dripped water and suspicion down on her.

“Don’t blame me,” she growled at him. “I said it was a fraud.”

But the chief’s raised cleaver suggested that if he now agreed with her assessment, he also thought she was a part of the fraud. Luckily before the cleaver could come down, the chief did. Splat into the swamp. Felled by the village money sack flung by Bowen. Bowen splashed his horse through the confused crowd.

“No dragon, no charge.” Bowen smiled down at the dazed chief, then turned to Kara. “Those wooden spoons have some heft.” He hauled her onto the saddle and wheeled his horse to circle out. But instead, the circle was closing in . . . on him! No longer confused but angry, the villagers were forming an ominous ring about him. Every gap toward which he whirled his horse became filled with scowling swampers brandishing crude cutlery. Apparently the return of their meager purse was not as crucial to them as the thwarting of their massive appetites. They pressed in, leaving no way to turn.

Save one—up. Draco swooped in, scattering the swampers like a pack of squealing pigs. His wings enveloped the horse and riders, and when he swept skyward again, both horse and riders were gone. The splashing villagers were the only ones left in the swamp. A mocking neigh directed their frightened glances upward.

“Had to use the horse scoop after all!” Draco shouted delightedly above the rush of the wind and the surly curses of the cheated villagers.

“Worked like a charm.” Bowen laughed and looked at Kara, who was cringing in the saddle, clinging to him. “If you had kept your mouth shut, we could have done it straight off and all’ve been a little drier.”

But Kara was too frightened to spar with him. She wrapped her arms more tightly about his waist, trying not to look down. A windblown tress of her flame hair brushed across his lips, but all he could taste was the mud streaked in it. He spit it out and laughed at the discontented brutes below, shaking their fists and axes at them. The horse joined Bowen’s laughter with a raucous whinny. It was answered by a lamenting bray.

“Draco . . .” Bowen’s eyes followed the movement of the swampers as their gaze shifted abruptly downward and across to the edge of the swamp.