Rhiana. Michele Hauf

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      She could sense the presence in her blood before sighting a dragon. The pulse beat ’twas like a war drum heard long before it marched into sight. Though she had not remarked the danger when she’d set the newling to flight. Awe had lessened her focus.

      Now her blood tingled beneath her flesh. Yes, two of them; one, flying away, a man clutched in its talons, but the other was yet close.

      The sun’s brilliant touch suddenly ceased. Impulsively ducking, Rhiana knew but one thing could block out the sun so swiftly. A creature swooped overhead. Indigo scales glinted as if jewels. Another female.

      Instinctively falling forward, Rhiana landed in a crouch and rolled to her back. Close, the beast swooped over her. She looked up and viewed the belly scales. It skimmed above her, a serpent snaking through the air, incomparable in size to any land beast.

      The dagged tail swished near her face. The sharpened spikes that decorated the tip, as if a mace head, sliced open the air.

      So close. Had she not gone to ground, vicious talons would have plucked her up. A horrible death, that.

      The indigo rampant’s landing shook the ground. Rhiana rolled to her side. Beneath her palms the earth moved as if startled. She and it were the only things moving in the wide circle bailey before the portcullis gates.

      Still she wielded the knight’s sword. But it would serve no boon until she could broach the distance to the small target between the beast’s eyes.

      The dragon bowed its head, prepared to breathe flame.

      Reaching out, Rhiana’s hand slapped onto a fist-sized stone near her foot. Fingers curling and determination fierce, she claimed the weapon. In a fluid movement, she rose to stand, and thrust the rock overhead as if a catapult.

      Direct hit between the eyes! The beast’s head wobbled and dropped to the ground.

      “Yes!”

      She’d knocked it out. But for a moment.

      Tugging the bothersome skirts from around her ankles with her left hand, and right hand lifting the sword, Rhiana charged. Bare feet pressed the dirt ground, swiftly gaining the felled beast. The huff of sweet sage encompassed her as she advanced the horned snout. Gasping, she swallowed the dragon’s essence, sweet and heavy upon her palate. Just breathe, and be lost…

      “No!”

      Leaping onto the beast’s nose, she raised the sword in both hands over her head. The beast’s snout was studded in thick armor-like scales of indigo. The scales did not make for a secure hold, and her feet slipped to either side of the snout. Assessing that loss of balance, Rhiana knew in but a moment she would sit astride the skull. And so she plunged the sword into the kill spot, fitting it horizontally within the inverted cross and feeling no resistance as she tilted the blade upward to angle back through the brain.

      The creature gave a mewl much like the newling’s helpless cry. Wisps of flame snorted across the bailey grounds. The head wobbled to a death pose. The movement tilted Rhiana from the skull and she landed the ground in a graceless tumble.

      The tiny death mew replayed in her thoughts. That she’d had to kill this wondrous beast!

      With a shove of her hands, she righted herself and looked upon the havoc. Blowing out a breath, she shook her head sadly.

      Could this kill have been prevented had the newling not been harmed? She did not like to murder an innocent beast, but its companion had taken one of the villagers, and surely this one would have done the same.

      “She killed it!” a gleeful cry from a child Rhiana could not see startled her from the dreadsome thought.

      “Hurrah, for the dragon slayer!”

      Standing and brushing off her gown, she then retrieved the sword with a tug. Two kills in little over eight hours.

      You are a slayer. Revere them, but do not mourn their passing.

      Those words, spoken by Amandine Fleche, had been the most difficult to hear, but Rhiana knew they were meant to keep her from succumbing to such overwhelming guilt she might never master her profession.

      And so she nodded, acknowledging the beast for its glory and beauty, and then dismissed it as the predator it was. Pride rose as she stood over the felled dragon. Steam gently misted in sage whispers from the nostrils. Glitter of enchantment twinkled in the blood spilling down the sword blade and soaking the hem of her dirt-smattered gown.

      Nodding, satisfied and pleased that this one would not have the pleasure of taking a human victim, Rhiana wondered would the other return for another kill.

      So soon? Pray not. Surely the female would be appeased and must tend the injured newling. For now, St. Rénan was safe.

      Rhiana turned and walked right into her stepfather.

      A small band of villagers had pressed into the courtyard. Wondrous eyes and pointing fingers speared her with a curiosity Rhiana understood as less than condemning and more thankful. Though their expressions remained wary. It was the children who danced and poked a stick at the fallen dragon’s tail.

      “Leave it be!” she called. “Respect it in death.”

      “You are safe,” Paul said and he took her into his arms.

      Dropping her sword arm, Rhiana spread her free hand around Paul’s shoulder. “I was not able to get the first one. Who…who did it take?”

      He shrugged and lowered his head to whisper, “We’ll not know until his widow cries out his absence. They came so quickly.”

      “It was because we had the newling. They invaded the sanctity of the village. My home. Our home.”

      “Shh, Rhiana, you could not have prevented what happened, even had you sensed their arrival. Nothing could have stood in the way of this attack.” He always knew what to say. Paul looked for the right in any situation.

      Murmurs rose around her. Some condemning, others relieved. Would they blame her or help her?

      Mothers pulled their children from the beast, while the cooper and the goldsmith paced around the head.

      Rhiana turned to address those who had began to circle the dead dragon. They were frightened but curious. Calmly, she coached, “There is an urgency required. We must destroy the beasts that would pluck us from our own homes, so daring they be. A slayer is needed. I will serve you well, if you would allow it.”

      “Your skills are impressive,” Christophe de Ver said, “but rumor tells there is an entire nest of the dragons.”

      “An entire nest? Who says so?”

      “The Nose!”

      Rhiana jammed the sword tip into the ground, frustration dulling her regard for the valued weapon. The Nose had been most industrious!

      “Rumors be just that,” she said. “I have not counted more than the three we have all witnessed. This morning I killed the one who stole Jean Claude away, and now this one.”

      “There is one left! I saw it СКАЧАТЬ