B00CGOH3US EBOK (30 page)

Baelin quickly regained his feet. Now it was Kendale who waged battle with the enraged beast, struggling to hold off with weakened animal with a powerful grip around its thick neck. He knew he could kill the boar with but one breath of the dragon, but with the beast on top of Kendale, he would incinerate knight and animal alike.

Drawing his sword, he leaped on top of the animal's broad back and brought the blade down, cleaving hide and skull until the boar's head was nearly split in two. The beast shuddered and collapsed, the attack over almost as quickly as it had begun.

He remained atop the boar until he was certain it had breathed its last. The forest surrounding them stood silent, as if every creature held its breath, waiting to see who would emerge the victor.

"Off." The word was so faint, Baelin almost didn't hear it. "Cannot…breathe."

He shoved the lifeless boar to the side. Kendale lay deathly still on the trampled ground, his eyes closed, his white surcoat soaked with blood. Finally, he drew in a rasping breath and his eyes flew open, their brilliant blue vibrant against the crimson blood splattered on his face.

"God's teeth, man. The boar was heavy enough without your sorry carcass added to the pile. I vow submitting to the Inquisitor's press would be easier on my ribs."

Relief swamped Baelin. Apparently, being nearly eviscerated by savage tusks had done naught to ruin Kendale's sense of humor.

"My apologies. Next time I will not be so quick to come to your aid."

Kendale chuckled, then grimaced at the pain it caused. "Pray there will never be a next time. One boar attack is enough for me. Methinks 'tis safer slaying dragons."

Baelin tensed until Kendale smiled and held out his hand. "The least you can do is help me up after squashing the life from me."

Baelin pulled the knight to his feet, but Kendale did not let go. He clasped his other hand on Baelin's shoulder, all trace of humor gone from his usually laughing eyes.

"I thank you, Gosforth. I owe you my life."

"No more than I owe you mine. If you had not drawn the boar's attention away, it would have surely ripped me apart piece by piece."

"Be that as it may, 'tis not a thing I will soon forget, my friend."

Baelin stilled at the sincerity in the other knight's words. It was the first time Kendale had called him friend and he knew without a doubt the man meant it sincerely.

Kendale turned his attention to the boar, tendrils of steam rising from the warm rivers of blood seeping from its wounds. "It did seem to come after you first. 'Tis not the rutting season. Why do you think it would attack us like that?"

Baelin wiped his bloodied sword clean on the boar's bristly hide. "I do not know."

Unless it did not take kindly to a dragon trespassing in its territory.

As the men neared the camp, an arrow flew through the woods to embed with a thunk in a tree just over Baelin's head.

Alarmed, the two knights dropped the gutted boar they carried strapped to a sapling between them and drew their swords. They broke through the trees only to find Lady Jill pulling back on Owen's small bow, a sharp arrow cocked and pointed straight at them.

"Hold!" Baelin shouted, but it was too late. Both knights dodged out of the way as the arrow went flying, missing its intended target of an old stump at the edge of the clearing by at least six paces.

"Oh, you're back. Owen was teaching me to-" Lady Jill's smile vanished and her face paled when she caught sight of them, the boy's weapon slipping from her fingers. "Oh, God. Who tried to kill who?"

He glanced at Kendale. Dried blood covered him from neck to thigh, while leaves and twigs matted his sweat-dampened hair. After dressing the boar in the forest, Baelin knew he probably looked no better.

"Neither of us tried to kill the other. 'Twas a wild boar that tried to kill us."

Her eyes widened in horror as she approached them. "Are you both all right?"

"Fear not," Baelin said. "The boar lost the battle and lies yonder in the forest, awaiting the spit for our supper for tonight."

"A boar!" Owen shouted. "How big?" The boy did not wait for the knights to answer but dashed off through the trees.

Lady Jill looked doubtful. "But there's so much blood. Are you sure neither of you are hurt?"

"'Tis naught but a few cuts and bruises." Kendale made a show of rubbing his shoulder. "I am certain your gentle ministrations will go far in healing them."

"You have a page to tend to your wounds," Baelin grumbled.

"Lady Jill!" Owen called. "You must come see the boar they brought down. 'Tis the biggest I have ever seen."

The three adults made their way toward where Owen stood under the trees, pride showing on his young face as if it was he who'd killed the beast. Baelin noted Lady Jill's frown as she eyed the gutted carcass lying on the ground.

"Let me guess, it reminds you of an animal from one of your childhood stories."

She appeared to study it a bit more, then shook her head. "Lose the tusks and shave the hair and it might pass for Wilbur. But somehow I don't think that kind of makeover is enough to make him cute, pink, and cuddly."

"Wilbur? Who is Wilbur?" Owen asked.

"Owen, Owen, Owen." Jill rested her arm around the boy's shoulders and started leading him back to the camp, leaving the two knights with their bloody prize standing in the trees. "You poor, deprived child. Have I got a story for you."

As she walked slowly away, her head bent slightly toward Owen's upturned face, Baelin strained to hear the softly spoken words she uttered to the boy.

"Once upon a time, there was a little pig who lived on a farm. His name was Wilbur. And his best friend was a spider named Charlotte…"

"…and so, with true love's first kiss, the spell was broken and Snow White awoke in the arms of her prince."

Jill looked away from Owen's spellbound face to find two other listeners hanging on her every word. She fought back a smile. Guess you were never too old—or too macho—to be enchanted by fairy tales.

As they sat around the campfire eating roasted Wilbur, she'd regaled them with an encore presentation of
Charlotte's Web
at Owen's insistence, which led to
Bambi
,
Cinderella
, and last but not least,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
. Tonight she wasn't surrounded by bold, brave knights, but three little boys enthralled by stories about talking animals, glass slippers, and coal-mining midgets.

She purposefully steered clear of
Sleeping Beauty
because, as she recalled, things didn't end well for the dragon in that one. And while she wouldn't classify herself as a beauty and Baelin wasn't a furry lion-prince, she gave a wide berth to
Beauty and the Beast
, too. That particular tale seemed to hit a little too close to home.

"What happened next?" Owen asked.

"The same thing that happens in all fairy tales—they fell in love and lived happily ever after."

Owen snickered before his grin morphed into a wide yawn that he tried to hide behind his hand. He rallied quickly and pleaded with a child's delight. "Please tell us another, Lady Jill."

"No more for you tonight, young man. It's way past your bedtime."

Owen looked as if he were about to protest when Roderick stood and stretched. "Off with you lad. The sun shall rise early for us all."

As Roderick made his way to the privacy of the trees, Jill walked over to where Owen curled up by the fire and knelt to brush the hair from his brow. "Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite."

"They would not dare, for I am too full of spit and vinegar even for their tastes."

Jill grinned. The silly exchange of words had become a regular routine for them each night as she tucked him into his blankets. Owen's eyes drifted shut, but they flew back open as she started to stand.

"Thank you, my lady."

"For what?"

"For the stories. Will you tell us some more tomorrow?"

"You betcha."

"I would like that," Owen whispered as his eyes drifted shut once more.

She tucked the frayed blanket around his shoulders, then turned to find Baelin staring at her with those fathomless brown eyes of his. There was no hint of the beast within tonight. But she did see something else—a trace of the boy he once was before he was cursed to be a dragon.

She walked over and sat beside him on a log they'd pulled near the campfire.

"It's sad."

"What is, my lady?"

"Owen. He's so young, still just a little boy in so many ways, and yet he has the worries and responsibilities of an adult." She looked back at Baelin. From what little he'd told her when they first met, his life had probably not been much different than Owen's, and the thought of any child not being able to laugh and play broke her heart. "I guess you never had much of a childhood either. Kids in your time are required to grow up too fast. Where I come from, boys play with plastic toy swords. They don't spend their childhood training with real ones because they'll have to kill someone with it some day."

"My youth 'twas not so bad." Baelin shrugged and stretched his legs out to the fire. "Each morn I went to Mass, then I received schooling from the chaplain with the other boys. When not training, we had duties to perform, from cleaning the stables to serving at table. Once all was done, we were free to seek out our amusement as long as we stayed out of trouble. Is it not so with the children of your time?"

Jill thought about it. "I suppose it is. Kids start going to school when they're five or six and most have chores to do once they get home. But taking out the trash or cleaning their room isn't nearly so hard as polishing a whole suit of armor or mucking stables every day. Plus, they do it in their own homes, with their own families. They're not shipped off to a stranger's house or dragged all over tarnation by a man who isn't their father."

"Owen has had a better childhood than most, I would wager. Kendale is a good man. The lad could have fared much worse."

Jill arched a brow. "My, my. It sounds like you and Roderick kissed and made up out there in the woods."

Baelin bristled. "He is a man. 'Twas no kissing betwixt us."

"Relax." She laughed at his offended expression. "It's just a saying. It means you're not fighting anymore. You're friends now."

He glanced to where Roderick had disappeared into the trees. "Aye, I suppose we are. 'Tis been a long time since I have called another man such."

"Well, I think it's a good thing. Everyone needs friends."

He returned his gaze to her. "Do you miss them, your friends?"

"Of course, I do. I miss my friends, my family. I know they're all worried sick about me. I'm sure I've lost my boring-but-pays-the-bills-job by now. God, I sure hope someone is feeding my cat."

"I did not know you had a cat."

She bumped shoulders with him. "There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

"Tell me then. What else from your time do you miss?"

"Oh, I miss flush toilets. Pizza and cable television. Coffee and chocolate." She winked at him. "And warm baths, of course."

"Of course." Baelin looked over to where Owen slept by the fire. "You are good with the boy. You will make a fine mother some day."