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SHE RODE HOME in a ht to bring a great chunk of the harsh floor-scrubbing soap with her) it had taken to get the yellow stuff out of her hair could not daht, and she with only one thin blanket
Even another dreadful court affair, with an endless diplomatic dinner after it, could not completely quell her happiness, and when the third person in half an hour asked her about her new perfuhtly charred, s to her - she couldn’t help but laugh out loud The lady, who had been trying to make conversation, s laughed at by someone she was supposed to pity and be kind to
Aerin sighed, for she understood the stiff s to shtly of clean floors - forever
There was an unnatural activity at her father’s court at present; Thorped had been only the precursor of a swelling profusion of official visitors, each erent The increasing activity on Dah, or cared to pay attention; there was ’s City than there had been for as long as Aerin could remember, and the court dinners, always tense with protocol, were now stretched to breaking point with so her father had given her per at his breakfast now and then, and always he looked glad to see her So as well, and if Arlbeth noticed that Tor joined him at breakfast more often now that there was a chance he would see Aerin as well, he said nothing Tor was home most of the time now, for Arlbeth had need of hi unaware of the way Tor watched her, but was acutely aware that conversation between them ard at best these days; a new constraint seeht Tor had told his cousin of the Hero’s Crown Aerin decided the neardness probably had so swords with her She had perfectly understood that with the current workload he had had to, so she tried to be polite to show she didn’t nored him and talked to her father It did seeave her credit for so of what the first sola’s life was like? - but if he wanted to be stiff and formal, that was his proble over third cups ofwhen the first petitioner of the day ca
The petitioner reported a dragon, destroying crops and killing chickens It had also badly burned a child who had accidentally discovered its lair, although the child had been rescued in tihed and rubbed his face with his hand "Very well We will send someone to deal with it"
The man bowed and left
"There will be more of them noith the trouble at the Border," said Tor "That sort of vermin seems to breed faster when the North wind blows"
"I fear you are right," Arlbeth replied "And we can ill spare anyone just now"
"I’ll go," said Tor
"Don’t be a fool," snapped the king, and then immediately said, "I’ons don’t kill people very often any on-slayers rarely come back without a few uncomfortable burns"
"So better to do, we ons It’s hard to take them seriously - but they are a serious nuisance"
Aerin sat very still
"Yes" Arlbeth frowned into his o take care of this And pray it’s an old slow one"
Aerin also prayed it was an old slow one as she slipped off She had only a day’s grace, so she needed to leave at once; fortunately she had visited the village in question once on a state journey with her father, so she knew et there It was only a few hours’ ride
Her hands shook as she saddled Talat and tied the bundles of dragon-proof suit, kenet, sword, and a spear - which she wasn’t at all sure she could use, since, barring a few lessons froht or nine years old, she was entirely self-taught - to the saddle Then she had to negotiate her way past the stable, the castle, and down the king’s way and out of the City without anyone trying to stop her; and the sword and spear, in spite of the long cloak she had casually laid over theuise
Her luck - or so so anxiously about what she would say if stopped that she gave herself a headache; but as she rode, everyone see not quite in her direction - alht It ot out of the City unchallenged
The eerie feeling, and the headache, lifted at once when she and Talat set off through the forest below the City The sun was shining, and the birds see just for her Talat lifted into a canter, and she let hih her hair, the shank of the spear tapping discreetly at her leg, re useful
She stopped at a little distance froe to put on her suit - which was no longer quite so greasy; it had reached its saturation point, perhaps - and then adapted, as well-oiled boots adapt to the feet that wear therown as soft and supple as cloth, and almost as easy to wear She rubbed ointloves Shining rather in the sunlight then and reeking of pungent herbs, Aerin rode into the village
Talat was unmistakably a war-horse, even to anyone who had never seen one before, and her red hair immediately identified her as the first sol A little boy stood up froon!" and then there were a dozen, two dozen folk in the street, looking at her, and then looking in puzzle with her
"I am alone," said Aerin; she would have liked to explain, not that she was here without her father’s knowledge but that she was alone because she was dragon-proof (she hoped) and didn’t need any help But her courage rather failed her, and she didn’t In fact what the villagers saw as royal pride worked very well, and they fell over the to believe that a first sol (even a half-foreign one) couldn’t handle a dragon by herself (and if her ood in her being half a foreigner after all), and several spoke at once, offering to show the way to where the dragon had ain down the road behind her
She ondering how she could tell the around to watch, since she wasn’t at all sure how graceful (or effective) her first encounter with a real dragon was likely to be But the villagers who acco anywhere near the scene of the battle; a cornered dragon was not going to care what non-combatant bystanders it happened to catch with an ill-aimed lash of fire They pointed the way, and then returned to their village to wait on events
Aerin hung her sword round her waist, settled the spear into the crook of her arm Talat walked with his ears sharply forward, and when he snorted she s else It was a new smell, and it was the smell of a creature that did not care if the meat it ate was fresh or not, and was not tidy with the bones afterward It was the s snort, paced onward carefully They cae The hue of which was rion reenwould be worse for a horse’s hard hoofs than a dragon’s sinewy claws
Talat halted, and they stood, Aerin gazing into the black hole in the hill A ot the dragon to pay attention to one in the first place Did she have to wake it up? Yell? Throater into the cave at it?
Just as her spear point sagged with doubt, the dragon hurtled out of its den and straight at them: and it opened its mouth and blasted them with its fire - except that Talat had never doubted, and was ready to step nirabbed at Talat’s on’s back It spun round-it was about the height of Talat’s knees, big for a dragon, and dreadfully quick on its yelloed feet - and sprayed fire at theot them out of the worst of it, it licked over her arlance off her elbow, but she did not feel it; and the knowledge that her ointth and cleared her ed Talat with one ankle; as he sidestepped and as the dragon whirled round at theain, she threw her spear
It wouldn’t have been a very good cast for a on-hunter, but it served her purpose It stuck in the dragon’s neck, in the soft place between neck and shoulder where the scales were thin, and it slowed the dragon down It twitched and lashed its tail and roared at her, but she knew she hadn’t given it a mortal wound; if she let it skulk off to its lair, it would eventually heal and re-ee, nastier than ever