He looked at a smaller bundle of sealed notes. Despite the scandal of his disgrace in Mirabay—from which he’d been exonerated thanks to his skill with a sword—he was still a bachelor, with lands capable of generating a good income. For the second or third daughter of a nobleman, Guillot remained a reasonable marriage prospect. Well, he thought, perhaps not reasonable. Tolerable. As such, he regularly received a number of invitations to balls, garden parties, and all the social niceties of Mirabayan aristocracy. He ought to decline them politely but instead ignored them.
The rest of the tedious work always took the better part of the day. Without anything to drink and a worsening hangover, it was more tedious still. That was ever the problem with drinking—life tended to intrude long enough for a hangover to take hold. Yves closed the door quietly and left Gill alone with the ghosts of his father and all the other Seigneurs of Villerauvais who had occupied that office. Despite the distraction the paperwork provided, he couldn’t shake the troubles in the village from his thoughts. The last thing he wanted was to return and discover there had been another attack.
When Yves brought him lunch at midday, Guillot was not even halfway through the paperwork, and the optimistic notion that he might be done before nightfall was fading.
“Is there anything in the cellar to wash it down with?” Gill asked.
“I had everything sent down to the house in the village,” Yves replied.
“Yes, of course,” Gill said. He had long since drained the cellar of both properties. “Yves, your family have been in the region a long time, haven’t they?”
“Even longer than yours, my Lord.”
“Do you know if there are any dragon stories specific to the region?”
“Nearly all of them,” Yves said.
Guillot raised an eyebrow.
“The limestone mountains are full of caverns. Some say this was where they first appeared, before spreading across the world. It’s no coincidence that your family were granted this land. A Villerauvais lord was one of the founding Chevaliers and this land was your family’s reward for their service. Make no mistake—this was dragon country.
“Will there be anything else?”
“No, I have everything that I need.”
“Will you be spending the night?”
Guillot thought for a moment. He didn’t reckon dal Sason would spend the whole day waiting outside his house. “No. I’ll head back to the village when I’m done.”
CHAPTER 7
It was close to midnight before Guillot finished the final piece of correspondence and let himself out of the manor house; Yves had long since retired for the night. There was a chill in the air, as there often was in those parts on a clear night. His hand ached from all the writing, and had grown so sore that by the end of the task he had started initialling letters.
It sounded like the wind was getting up, which was unseasonal for that time of year. Gill pulled his cloak tightly around him. He was glad it was still summer. In the winter, the winds funnelled into the valleys and made life a misery for three or four days at a time, tearing slates from roofs, shutters from windows, and making walking in the open nearly impossible. Although he could hear the wind, he couldn’t feel it. That was strange enough to make Gill stop and listen more carefully.
Might alcohol withdrawal also make him imagine things? It seemed you were damned if you did and damned if you didn’t. Too much wine and you see things, too little and you hear them. Which was worse? The night was completely still, yet he could definitely hear the swoosh of the wind. Almost a whistle. He looked up in time to see a great, dark shape pass overhead. His stomach twisted as he was gripped by a fear so primal that he thought he would be sick. The shadow.
The whistle became piercing as the sky lit up with a bright flash. A great stream of fire appeared in the middle of the sky and raced to the ground, striking with a thundering crash and a spray of sparks. For a moment, it illuminated its source, a shining black mass. It had eyes. And teeth. And wings. And claws. A dragon.
Guillot was running before he knew what he was doing. Once he’d been called the bravest man in the kingdom, a title that was certainly exaggerated, but he had never been a coward. Nonetheless, he ran, and he couldn’t make himself stop.
He glanced back at the place where the fireball had landed. The flames had subsided and he could see nothing. There was sound, though. The sound of a beast feeding. He assumed that some unfortunate goats or cows had been on the receiving end of the flames, until he remembered that Mayor René and the others were patrolling the fields.
The bright jet of flame had ruined Guillot’s night vision, so though the night was clear and the moon a decent size, he could see nothing. Also, he was unarmed, and even if he had been carrying a sword, there was little he could do now. Whatever the flame hit was well dead by now. Nothing could be gained by remaining where he was, so Guillot continued toward the village as fast as his legs would carry him.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had run anywhere, but it must have been some time ago, as his lungs and legs were burning long before he reached the village square. What to do next? He looked around. Alain, Richard, and Philipe all lived outside the village. Only René had a house within it. What would he say to René’s wife? He felt sick. Was there more he could have done? Would being a more diligent lord have made any difference? He tried to convince himself that it wouldn’t have, but deep down he knew he had left the defence of the village to a winemaker and some farmers. Had he taken control of things, he with the finest military education that could be had and over a decade of soldiering experience, it could very well have been different. He was a Chevalier of the Silver Circle. Slaying dragons was supposed to be his primary function, if the old stories were to be believed. With what he had witnessed that night, he was very much a believer.
He tried to pull a clear thought from his pickled brain. Should he not go back and see what had been hit by the flame? Surely the beast would be long gone by the time he got back there. What should he do? Raise the alarm or investigate further? There was a time when he wouldn’t have hesitated—when he would have known how to react to danger, and wouldn’t have hesitated to do so. Then people had called him a hero and he might actually have deserved the title. He needed to get himself together.
In the village square, he turned around slowly, trying to remember which house was René’s. As he did, he spotted light from behind the village hall’s window. Rushing over and throwing open the door, he found René and three farmers sitting around the table. They all turned to look at the interruption.
“Gill?” René said. “What brings you here at this time of night?”
“Thank the gods,” Gill said, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out with a sigh. The candles fluttered in the breeze he had let in, casting shadows in all directions. “I thought you’d all been killed.”
“Killed?” Richard said.
“There’s been another attack,” Guillot said. Even in the candlelight, Guillot could see the colour drain from their faces. “By the road out to the manor.”
“Franc’s farm,” Alain said.
Guillot nodded, noticing the open bottle of wine on the table and realising how thirsty he was. His nerves were shot and he reckoned he deserved a drink after what he had been through that night. Without waiting to be invited, he walked forward, poured himself a cup, downed it, then refilled the cup. The liquid washed down his throat and the tense muscles in his neck eased almost immediately. He let out another sigh as calm started to return to him.