Chapter 15 #2
Edmund sighed. “Well, now we have to go warn them about the dragon. If you’re a farmer, you can’t just hide until it moves on. It could stomp one of these fields flat in minutes.”
“I-will-wait-here-if-you-do-not-mind.”
“Yeah, a gnole will wait too.”
Edmund nodded. “We’ll leave Sweetness too. Hopefully they’ll have some food to sell.”
The Dervish caught him before he could go through the gap. “Ah … half a moment.”
“Oh?”
The warrior actually looked slightly uncomfortable. “How do I look?”
Edmund was not expecting that, and was startled into honesty. “E-extremely handsome? I mean … uh…” He could feel a blush starting.
The Dervish gave him a lopsided smile that only made him blush harder. “That’s good to know, but I meant that I’m wearing a blanket, my clothes are a wreck, I haven’t shaved, and I’m pretty sure that if I showed up on a farmwife’s doorstep, she’d scream and slam the door.”
“Oh.” Edmund looked down at his own scratched and stained clothing. He ran a hand through his hair and dislodged a leaf. “Um. Right.” He’d done the best he could with the pond that morning, but he was definitely much scruffier than he usually was.
The Dervish rubbed a hand over his face. “I hate this,” he said, to no one in particular. Then, “Sheathe the sword and draw it again immediately.”
“W-what?”
The Dervish unslung the enchanted sword and handed it to Edmund. “Just for a moment.”
“Are you sure? I thought you hated…”
“I do. But I’m also extremely vain.” The Dervish folded his arms and gazed upward. “Do it.”
Edmund unwound the cloth from the blade and slid the sword into the scabbard, wincing as it clicked into place. Silver fire wound around the Dervish and took him away.
“God’s scat,” said Dog Violet, who hadn’t seen the sword’s magic before. She backed up, even as Edmund hastily drew the sword again.
The Dervish reappeared. His mussed hair was suddenly in place and the stubble along his jaw had vanished. His clothes, which had been stained with blood, muck, and general travel grime, were pristine.
“Ta-da.” The Dervish bowed.
The fur slowly settled along Dog Violet’s nape. She leaned forward and sniffed at the Dervish, then shrugged, apparently satisfied. “Now a gnole has seen everything.”
“Do I smell any different?”
“Eh…” Dog Violet flicked her ears. “Smells cleaner. Also maybe like metal, a little? But mostly cleaner.”
Edmund cleared his throat. “Will I pass muster?” He felt even shabbier than usual next to the Dervish. Maybe he could just hang out in the background and pretend he didn’t speak the language.
The Dervish reached out and plucked another leaf from his hair. “You’re looking rather better than I did. Although…” He frowned, then wiped his thumb across Edmund’s lower lip.
The intimacy of the touch jolted through him. Part of Edmund wanted to take a step back and the other, rather larger part wanted to step forward and return the gesture. Possibly with his tongue.
All of him, however, was pretty sure that he was gaping at the Dervish like an absolute fool.
“How did you get charcoal on your lips?” the Dervish asked.
“Yes,” Edmund said. “Err … I mean … uh … I must’ve…” I have written entire books. Several of them. I know how words work. Why are they not working right now?
The Dervish shook his head, but there was a look on his face, not quite a smile, but almost … affectionate?
Surely not. No, I’m just seeing what I want to see. I should know better. It was one of the great dangers of research, that you wanted something to be true, so you were automatically biased to find proof. That way lies barnacle pigeons.
“Right,” said Edmund. “Let’s go.”
The farm did indeed have a farmwife, a young woman with old hands. Her gaze flicked between the Dervish and Edmund, looking first suspicious, then somewhat baffled, as if she didn’t know what to make of them. That was fair. The Dervish still didn’t know what to make of them either.
“Yes?” she said.
“We’re sorry to bother you so late, miss,” the Dervish said smoothly, “but I’m afraid we just ran across a dragon and thought we had better warn someone.”
“Dragon?” She gripped the doorframe and leaned against it, her face going white. “So soon?”
This wasn’t the question that the Dervish was expecting. He traded a baffled look with Edmund. “Ah…?”
“No, no, I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me. It’s just one thing on top of another, isn’t it? A dragon, you say?” She shook her head. “You’d better come inside.”
The house was small, made of carefully fitted logs, not planks, but it was warm inside.
The Dervish hadn’t realized just how cold he’d been, and how a campfire only heated one side of you, until he was inside and gloriously warm all over.
He wanted to crawl onto the iron stove and bask like a lizard.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” the farmwife said. She had blond hair pulled back in a braid so tight that it looked physically painful.
“No, indeed, ma’am. We’re from…” He realized he had no idea where they were from and looked to Edmund.
“Near Ghaston,” said Edmund. “On our way to Archon’s Glory, or at least we were, until the dragon forced us off the road. When we saw the smoke from your chimney, we realized we should warn people that there was one in the area.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, that was … kind of you. Yes.” She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Let me get you something to drink.”
A few minutes later, they were seated on a low bench, drinking cider. “From last year’s pressing,” the farmwife, who was named Alba, said. “My father makes it.” She kept looking toward the door, as if she expected her father, or perhaps the dragon, to walk through at any moment.
“Thank you,” said Edmund. “I know it’s the wrong end of the season, but do you have any food that we could buy from you? I’m afraid our supplies are running lower than we expected.”
“Yes, of course. We’ve still got plenty of … oh, hmm, you probably don’t want to lug squash around, do you? Well, I’m sure we can find something.”
“Have you been here long?” asked Edmund, as she bustled around, making up a package of waxed rounds of cheese and what looked like salted meat. “I don’t recall farms the last time I came out this way.”
“Five years,” she said, with a snap to the words, like a prisoner reading out the length of her sentence. Edmund sat back, clearly surprised. The Dervish shook his head fractionally. Don’t press.
“Need a favor from you, strangers,” she said, putting the sack on the table.
“You do it, and we’ll call it square. About two miles east, if you follow the road behind the house, you’ll find a barn and a couple houses.
Ask for a man called Otto. He’ll want to know about the dragon and where you saw it, and what it was doing. ”
“That’s more than generous,” Edmund said, hefting the sack. “Are you sure we can’t pay you?”
Alba shook her head, looking distracted. “No, no. Just tell them the—that there’s a dragon awake. It’s important.”
“Yes, of course.” The Dervish stood. “Thank you for the cider, miss.”
She waved it off and saw them to the door with almost indecent haste. They set off across the edge of the field.
“She seemed nervous,” the Dervish said. “Though granted she was there alone, and we were two strange men…”
“I was surprised she even invited us in,” Edmund said. “But she did, didn’t she?” He frowned. “Still, I suppose a dragon would make anyone nervous.”
“Yes, of course.” The Dervish looked over his shoulder. The farmhouse door was closed, but he had the impression that someone was watching them. Was that a curtain moving in the window? He couldn’t tell.
I’d watch us go too. We’re not exactly the normal run of travelers.
Still, he was glad when they slipped through the gap in the hedgerow, safely out of sight. He looked around for the others, and saw the back half of Sweetness off through the trees.
“No, no, Francis-bug, a gnole is telling you. A bug plays a higher-number card now.”
“I-am-confused-as-to-the-numerical-value-of-these-cards-with-humans-on-them…”
“Oh no,” said Edmund, and they hurried through the woods to save Large Francis from the dangers of a gnole with a deck of cards.