Cold Steel

“Both of you, move away!” Stepping in front of the beast, she had the look of a scrumptious honeycake set before a ravenous dame.

“Salve, Your Excellency! Our apologies for interrupting your dinner. I am sure you recognize us as harmless bystanders. Please let us pass to the safety of the house. We will be perfectly happy to stay out of your way until the soldiers who are trying to arrest us have gone.”

The leviathan exhaled with a snort of smoke. Sparks glimmered before dissipating like cooling steam. It heaved itself one big flop toward us.

Never run when they have you in their sight. If you ran, they couldn’t help but chase you.

Its maw opened to reveal a predator’s teeth slimy with fluids and moist substances I did not care to name. Fetid carrion breath mingled with smoke to bring tears to my eyes. Vai’s hand tightened on mine, and I knew he was going to throw himself forward to give me time to escape, so I snaked my foot out, meaning to trip him as soon as he lunged.

“Don’t move, you idiots!” said Bee without looking at us.

A pale man crunched into view on the gravel drive, skirting the flank of the beast. “Move slowly off to the side so you do not stand between him and the challenger,” said Kemal.

We edged sideways onto the grass as Kemal calmly collected our abandoned gear. Vai had sheathed his sword and now had one arm around me and the other around Bee. My panic had ebbed enough that I guessed it soothed him to feel he was protecting us. I even leaned against him, and his hand tightened on my waist to comfort me. I was shaking, it was true. I did not mind a bit of manly comfort. Rory nudged up against me, and I caught his hand in mine.

Gravel ground under its belly as the beast squirmed forward. It nosed up to the steaming carcass of the beast it had just killed and began to feed, ripping and swallowing the tender flesh and sucking at streams of blood and internal fluids. Bee hid her eyes. Vai grunted, looking down.

“It can’t possibly still want to eat us after it eats all that,” Rory muttered, watching with a predator’s measuring interest.

Kemal set the bags and packs beside us. “My apologies, but you cannot stay here.”

Bee pleaded with a fervent gaze. “The mage House troops are going to arrest us. Please.”

Her pleading surely seemed like torment to him. “You cannot stay here.”

“The headmaster owes me a favor,” said Bee.

“The headmaster is gone. That he spoke to you earlier today is astonishing enough. It was the last time he appeared in human form. Any adult male who challenges for the crown does so in our ancestral form, what you would call a dragon. Those males who refuse to compete remain in the form of a man so they pose no threat. The flesh of each rival who is consumed strengthens and grows the winner. The last survivor earns the right to crown.”

Vai’s gaze flashed up. “Is that a polite euphemism for mating?”

I was pretty sure Kemal’s skin darkened with a flush. “We are not like you. The strongest male proves he has the strength and therefore the right to crown. To crown means to become female. Thus will he enter the river and become she, and thus she will cross by water into the ocean of dreams, what you call the Great Smoke. The mothers live there. Now I have told you more than I ought,” he finished, with a glance at Bee. “You must leave at once.”

Bee had not given up. “Is there some other refuge? A boat? Horses? A hidden path?”

“No.” He hustled us back up the drive. The noise of feeding mercifully faded behind us.

Lamplight winked as the gatekeeper peeped out. “I can’t open up. Trapped inside and like to be crushed and spat out is what you get for demanding the right to go where you ought not. Fools!”

“Let them out,” said Kemal.

“You’re not even worm enough to make me,” said the gatekeeper, with a laugh.

Perhaps the night’s fraught events had worn Kemal’s mild temperament threadbare, but I thought it more likely that he responded as a young man might who feels he has been insulted in front of a woman he wants to impress. Kemal punched him up under the ribs with a strong undercut from his right, followed by a swift uppercut to the jaw from his left. The man went down.

“That was bruising!” said Rory, shaking out of his anxious slouch. “Have you studied the science of boxing?”

A horn shrilled from the road. Behind, the leviathan trumpeted in answer to its challenge. Heat grew at our back. The dragon was dragging itself closer.

“Hurry!” Kemal pushed us through the open door of the gatehouse. Even in such dire straits, I could not help but notice that the hearth fire burned unstintingly as Vai passed. We tumbled out on the other side of the gate as the gatekeeper skittered back into the safety of the gatehouse and slammed and locked the doors. The bellows breath of the dragon sucked in and out like the rhythm of the forge. It was definitely larger than it had been before it had eaten the last claimant.