Damsel Knight (16 page)

"Yes." It comes out squeaky and weird. She clears her throat and tries again. "I'll accept."

Friends, plural. Her brain feels like it's going to burst from so many things to process. It's like stepping into another world. It would be natural to offer Neven a job, but women working outside the home is rare. A husband is supposed to take care of all his wife and children's needs. A man so poor his wife has to work is the lowest of scum.

Bonnie hovers between being grateful Neven's mother has an option other than going back to a burned down village, to being insulted he would assume they needed work. In the end she's just grateful. Mrs Moore will want to stay close to her son, and with her husband gone there's not as much shame to it.

And this way she doesn't have to kill Gelert. She can be a knight through her own merit. She can earn it through hard work, and not from some fluke.

"Good," Sir Julius says. He tosses her his practice sword. "Now go see those friends of yours and celebrate. And see the medic about your arm when you get the chance. We leave for the city when the sun is high, so be here in an hour to pack my things."

She blinks dumbly at him. "Aren't you staying to fight the dragon?"

"Unlike Sir Angus I remember that dragons can fly," Sir Julius says, walking away. "We'll deliver some recruits to King's City, and give the people there some scant protection. It does no good to run and catch a wolf when you leave your sheep undefended."

She opens her mouth to say the other thing - that there's two dragons now. There has to be, because Gelert wouldn't. She closes her mouth, and stays quiet as he makes his way over to the men practising at the centre of the square.

He may be nicer guy than she'd thought, but she still doesn't want him knowing about Gelert or Alice. Any man could kill Gelert with this strange spell over him, and then steal Alice and the kingdom for themselves. It's not like Alice's word would matter against a man's, if she dared speak up at all.

Neven trots up to her side, panting. He bends over, placing his hands on his knees. He looks as exhausted as she feels. "He said yes," he manages finally.

She blinks, unable to remember the question she'd asked. "What?"

"It took some explaining. A lot of explaining, and he was pretty messed up about, y'know. It took a lot of time. But he says he wants to kill the dragon." Neven shakes his head. "Really really wants to kill it. So Alice took him out of the town in hopes of luring it down. Don't worry though, he said he'd wait for you to get there."

Panic beats a frantic tattoo in her chest. "This is Ness? Since when has he waited for anything? Show me where they are now."

Chapter 17

She runs all the way to the old burial hill, where the villages before Porthdon used to bury their dead, back before the circle was formed. It's a long way away from the town, and the sides are almost as tall as the tower they rescued Alice from.

"Stop it!" a voice screams once she reaches the top of the hill. "Innes, Gelert. Please stop!"

Bonnie hears the startled intake of air as Neven recognises the voice. Alice. Only, she sounds nothing like the softly spoken princess they've come to know. She sounds like she's in agony.

Bonnie skids most of the way down the other side. Neven does his best to keep up behind her.

Gelert stands, his great head moving between Alice with her frantic waving arms, and Ness with his sword. His eyes are wide black pits, rolling and confused. Ness's sword is buried under the dragon's throat.

Gelert's eyes catch her, and he makes that questioning whine, like he's telling her he doesn't understand this at all and wants her to explain it to him.

"Stop Ness," Bonnie says between deep breaths. "Don't."

Ness turns to look at her, keeping that sword in the same place Bonnie drove her own sword into long ago. Blood pours down his arm, thick and a brighter red than any of Gelert's scales. His black hair is cropped close to his head, and his clothes are an over-sized red tunic and trousers with holes in his elbows and knees. His eyes are those of a stranger, the brown so dark it looks black. "Bonnie? I'm doing what you asked - what you wanted."

"I don't want this." The words tumble out. A heartbeat later she realises they're true. She doesn't want this. She's never really wanted this.

His eyes skate over her, mouth drawn back in a sneer of disgust. "This dragon's your gift from the ancestors, right? The technicality that's going to let you be a knight instead of tending a husband. I'm helping you!"

Alice is standing right there, but she's staring too hard at the sword to take notice of his words. At least, Bonnie hopes she is.

Ness shoves the sword in deeper. His eyes have a manic quality, and his copper skin is beaded with sweat. Blood sheets his arms from fingertip to elbow.

Gelert makes a pained groan.

Bonnie runs. She skids to a stop beside him at the last minute. If she rams into him then he might cut something important. Instead she ducks into his hold, knocking his elbows apart and grabbing one of his thumbs, trying to pry his grip loose.

"What are you doing?" Ness asks, struggling to keep hold. He's strong. "We've got to kill it. It's a dragon!"

"He's my dragon!" Bonnie shouts. She twists his thumb away from the metal and rams her weight backward hard. Ness stumbles away, but not as far as she'd like. At least his hands are off the sword.

"Boone!" Neven shouts. He moves over to them, then stands next to Ness. "You agreed to this. This was your idea!"

"Yeah, well. It was a stupid idea," Bonnie says, keeping her body between Ness and the sword. "This whole thing was a stupid idea. We shouldn't have gone to the castle. We shouldn't have tried to kill Gelert."

"It's a dragon!" Ness says, scowling. "If you're too much of a woman to get this done, I will, but it needs to be killed."

"Boone." Neven shifts his weight but doesn't move from Ness's side. "Remember the field of bones. Every one was a man the dragon killed. Once that spell breaks no one will be able to stop it. What happened last night, that could happen again."

She knows that. Doesn't he know she knows that? It was her village too. They were her people that died as well as his. "You don't know him like I know him. There's got to be another way."

"What about justice?" Neven asks. He gestures toward Gelert. "What about your family?"

"He is my family." She thinks of the box, of the door. Doubt floods over her. "My father brought a box home from one of his slayings when I was five. He told me not to open it, so I did, and inside was Gelert. He was tiny; the size of a cat, and he was good. He slept with me at night, played with me all day."

She can still remember his face the first time she saw it. The way his big black eyes stared up at her like she was the most important thing in the universe. The way he scampered after her everywhere she went, and screamed whenever she left his sight.

Ness turns a peculiar shade of purple. "Your parents let a girl have a dragon as a pet!?"

"My mother fainted when she saw us playing," Bonnie says. "But my father was only surprised. In the north beyond the circle, it's said to be good luck if a dragon bonds with you. That you'll never get a more loyal friend. See? Everyone talks about what the bad dragons do, but what about the good? How can one thing be all bad?"

Neven rubs a hand over his hair in an irritable motion. "Because it's the size of a castle with razor sharp teeth, and enough fire to burn the whole circle. Because those bones were cracked and chewed on. Because parents die, and children die, and you should care about them. Or he's going to tear families apart, like yours."

That's something she can't get away from. "He got big. My mother was scared, so my father locked him up. Then these men came and started arguing with my father. I opened the door and let Gelert out. I thought he'd help. He didn't."

Anger crashes over her again, saying the words, but it's a duller anger. He killed her parents, and she hates him. He's the only family she has left, and she loves him.

It's a confusing mess of emotion, but not as confusing as the past few days. She'd thought she wanted to kill him, and was only waiting for the right time to do it. Now she knows that's not true. She never wanted to kill him. She just didn't know that until she admitted it out loud.

"We can teach him not to hurt people," Alice says quietly, heavy tear tracks parting the dirt on her face. "I don't want him dead either. He's my friend too. He'd listen to me talk and never minded if I talked too much. He'd bring me the plants I wanted. He didn't always get it right, but he tried."

"And he killed everyone who went near your tower," Neven says, not unkindly.

Alice flinches and looks at the ground. "Not you," she mumbles.

"That's it!" Bonnie says, a thrill of excitement running through her at finally having some kind of plan. "He didn't attack us, and he hasn't attacked anyone since us. So we go to the city, we get a druid to renew the spell. If it works forever then he can go back to the dark forest. No one will disturb him there. If it doesn't, then we just need long enough to get him past the barrier stones."

Ness shakes his head. "No one's listening to your half cooked ideas. Now get out of my way."

He goes to push her aside. She rams her good shoulder right in the middle of his chest.

"We're not killing him," Bonnie draws each word out, making herself as clear as she can.

“What about Neven?” Ness asks between gritted teeth. “Did you ever consider him in all this? If he marries this girl he could become king. This is his chance to be something great. You know he’s not cut out for fighting or farming.”

“I won’t marry anyone if Gelert dies!” Alice shouts through tears. She stomps her foot like a small child having a tantrum. “I’ll stay alone for ever and ever, and I’ll hate all of you!”

Silence reigns. Even Alice seems surprised by her outburst. She ducks her head, but her fists stay clenched tight at her sides. Her body seems to be at war with itself. Defiance battling against years of meekness.

Gelert lowers his head and swipes at the side of her face with the tip of his tongue. The sword sticks out of his throat like the tricks travelling entertainers pass off as magic.

“You’re a girl,” Ness says, voice firm and eyes hard like stone. He’s looking at Alice, but Bonnie gets the feeling the words are meant for her as well. “What you want doesn’t matter. You need to act like a girl. The sooner you accept that, the less pain you’ll go through.”

Bonnie shoves him hard, and when he stops stumbling she shoves him again. “You leave her alone!”

He grabs her by her dead shoulder. She feels pressure, but nothing else. “I’m done!” He shouts, his mouth inches away from her face. His spittle lands on her cheek. “I tried being nice. I tried accepting all … this. Here’s the truth. Me and Neven are the men here. We fix the problems. We protect you. We’re going to kill the dragon, and you can’t stop us!”

She twists out of his grip and hits him with an open palm. The crack splits the air between them, then echoes in her ears a few times more. Her body feels like it’s burning from the inside out. She wants to hit him again and again, next time with a closed fist like her father showed her.

Ness stands still, eyes shadowed, and her hand-print blooming red on his cheek. He doesn’t seem to see Neven hovering anxiously at his side. “Fine,” he says, so quiet she barely hears him. “Fine. If you want to be a boy so badly, then you’re a boy.”

The fist seems to come out of nowhere. She goes flying across the grass, hitting the bottom of the steep burial hill. Gelert lets out a short sound of alarm, but there’s confusion in it still. He doesn’t know what she wants him to do. She doesn’t either.

She pushes herself to her feet with her one hand. Pain flares across her jaw. It throbs with every heartbeat, sounding loud as drums played right next to her ear. Heat prickles at the back of her eyes. She bites her tongue hard, forcing the tears to stay hidden where they belong. Boys don’t cry.

It’s not like she hasn’t been hurt before, but most of those times were caused by falling off things, or behaving too roughly for a girl, as her foster mother liked to say. There’s a harsh intimacy to being punched in the face that makes it feel a hundred times worse than any of the swats, or the few times she’s been put over someone’s knee.

There’s one advantage though. She can hit back.

Ness walks over to the dragon with huge confident strides. Gelert inches backward, but not fast enough. His black pits of eyes roam over all of them, searching for answers. Ness reaches out a hand to grasp the sword.

Bonnie jumps, crashing into his back with enough force to knock him sideways. She grasps her arm around his neck, wishing she had another arm to help. He flails at her, hands beating at her shoulders and sides. He grabs her arm and tugs, spinning around so she flies over his head.

She’s prepared for it this time. She lands in a crouch, then charges for him again. Neven’s shouting something, but they both ignore him.

She catches him on the mouth before he recovers. It’s a real punch that makes his head snap back and his hands cradle his face. It’s a little like sword fighting. She has to keep moving so he doesn’t get too close. She’s faster, but he’s stronger. If he catches her, he’ll have the advantage.

She gets him in the kidneys twice before he spins around. Blood drips from a split lip. It looks odd compared to his arms, still coated in red. Tiny, yet significant. She did that.

She ducks under his next blow, and uses the moment he’s off balance to drive her fist into his stomach. He doubles over with a pained gasp. Wasting no time, she punches his face, feeling a satisfying crunch under her hand.

Neven pushes his way between them, eyes wide. “Stop it. Stop it! We’re supposed to be friends here. Stop fighting!”

Ness uses his head of extra height to catch her eyes over Neven. His nose is streaming blood along with his lip, making a congealed mess that gathers at his chin and falls to the ground. His chest heaves to catch more air. “I’m the only one left. You know that? Nine children, and I’m the only one. Two of my brothers went to war and never returned. One went to try his luck with your dragon, and the other went after him when he didn’t come back. Then there was just me, mom, the twins, my sister and the baby. Now. Now there’s just me.” His eyes unfocus, and he sways slightly, like that fact has just hit him again.

Neven’s hand finds his shoulder and squeezes.

“You don’t think I would give them back to you if I could?” Bonnie asks. Sure the twins could make mean comments, but they never meant anything by it, and there were hours when they’d follow her everywhere in hope of the chance to tend her long blonde hair. That’d been annoying as she’d usually be looking for a chance to sneak away to practice with her sword or shield, but she hadn’t totally hated the times she gave in. They were sweet kids. The youngest sister was quiet enough. The baby had been too young to do anything but love, and Ness’s mother had never objected to spending the time to dote on another’s child, no matter how many she had of her own. She missed them too. “But they’re gone Ness. And killing Gelert won’t bring them back.”

“It’s a dragon! All they do is kill!”

“Did he so much as lift a claw while you were driving a sword into his throat?” She asks, heart beating a rapid rhythm against her chest. Because that’s the real question here, isn’t it? You can argue all day about what someone did, or what they might do, but there isn’t much honour in killing someone who can’t defend themselves. “The only killer I see here is you.”

There’s a scuffling sound above them. Bonnie looks up to see Alice scrambling up the last of the burial hill, something glinting in her hand. She disappears over the top, running.

Gelert’s standing at the foot of the hill, staring at them. The sword is gone from his throat, but the wound still trickles a thick red down his chest. It hits her. Alice took the sword. Clever. It’s not like a knife would do the job. The only way to reach deep enough to find something vital is something long and sharp like a sword, so without it Ness can’t kill Gelert no matter how much he wants to.