"Really?" She reached out eagerly to take the stone back.
Led yanked his hand away and smiled. "I think I'll keep it, if you don't mind. To remind me of you."
Onyx looked intently into his face. Behind his grin, the human was deadly serious. Her heart thrummed wildly. They fell into an awkward silence and stared into the fire, listening to the sounds of night.
"We haven't really discussed what I need from you," he mumbled without looking at her.
Onyx jumped. "What are you talking about?"
"I was asking what protection your spells could provide." His green eyes twinkled with amusement. "What did you think I was talking about?"
"I… didn't hear you," she muttered. Led saw her red face, and he smiled. "Is it your goal to be a bounty hunter all your life?" she asked, hoping to change the subject.
Led chuckled. "Actually, I'm a jack-of-all-trades. My first 'goal,' if you will, is to wake up every day with all my parts intact." He turned deadly serious. "My second is to be filthy rich. The package in the wagon is going to ensure that."
"It must be very valuable."
Led snorted. "You wouldn't believe whaf s in-" He looked anxiously over his shoulder to the other fire pit, where Toba watched the slumbering ogres. "Never mind."
He spit the weed from his teeth. "I've been thinking about what I'll do afterward. You mentioned dragons before." Led relit his pipe and squinted at her through the pungent haze. "Have you heard about the armies gathering in the south?"
Onyx leaned forward. "Armies?"
"I've heard, like you, that dragons have returned to the world. If they have, and nobody seems to know for sure, some people say there's going to be a war. A big war, with dragons on one side and who knows what on the other; probably the Knights of Solamnia, anyway. In a war like that, mere's lots of opportunity for someone with brains. And if dragons are everything the stories say they are, I know which side I'd want to be on."
"So why haven't you joined them already?"
"I've been a grunt before, like them." He jerked a thumb at the ogres. "I'll never go back to it. Besides, everything's changed now that I've met you."
"I don't understand."
Led looked at her closely. "With my experience and know-how and your magic, we could lead such an army."
"Tell me more about dragons," she said, her back stiff despite her efforts to look indifferent.
"Rumor says that the core of this army and its greatest strength are the human generals who ride dragons into battle."
"Are you saying these dragons not only allow humans to sit on their backs, but they follow the directions of such obviously inferior creatures?"
Led gave a startled laugh. "Thafs an odd way of putting it. Dragons may be smart for animals, Onyx, but they're still just beasts. They're not civilized; they have no culture or society like humans; they live in the wild like animals."
"How do you know this? Have you ever seen a dragon?" she asked in a clipped tone.
Led fell back against the blanket roll with a snort. "I don't have to. If they were even half as smart as humans, why would they have agreed to go away for thousands of years?"
"Those dragons who were banished had no choice but to go underground-they were ordered by their goddess, Takhisis," she said a bit defensively.
"Some goddess," he laughed, then leaned forward again with interest. "That name sounds vaguely familiar. Wasn't she one of the old gods of evil that the Seekers talk about?"
"Seekers?"
"Boy, where have you been?" he cried. "Seekers are the cler shy;ics of the religion that's risen since the Cataclysm to take the place of the old, false gods who caused that catastrophe. Like this Takhisis."
It was Onyx's turn to give a bitter laugh. "Let me assure you, Takhisis is not a false god." Onyx locked her arms around her knees and considered how much she wanted to reveal to Led. "Do these 'Seeker clerics' possess magical skills, which only a god can grant?"
"I don't think so…" he answered. "That's why no one believes in magic anymore-" His voice trailed off. But Onyx
could do magic. In the awkward silence, they both considered
the implications of the odd conversation.
"So, are you interested?" Led asked at last. "In joining the army with me, that is?" he added quickly with a suggestion of a light-hearted smirk.
Onyx ignored it. "Only on my own terms. I'm not im shy;pressed with a system that subordinates a dragon to a human rider," she said firmly.
Both sat silently for a few moments. Something Led had said earlier puzzled Onyx. "What does this word 'evil' mean?" He looked at her strangely, half smiling, waiting for her to grin back. "You're joking."
Her tawny eyes were wide with innocence. Still not sure if she was baiting him, Led felt a bit foolish as he proceeded with a definition anyway. "If s a word cowards use to explain things that frighten them, like murder or theft. For myself, I don't believe evil exists."
Onyx mulled over those concepts. "So people think this evil is a bad thing?"
"The cowards do, yes. But I think it's very natural for the strong to eliminate the weak."
She shook her head vigorously. "It confounds me that humans control Krynn."
"I don't quite understand you, Onyx," Led said, his own dark head shaking in response to Onyx's. "First you make it sound like I'd be a fool not to join this army, yet you condemn its system, then defend the goddess who banished her own dragons. You're a bag of contradictions, Onyx." Led's green eyes sparkled as he reached out unexpectedly to stroke her dusky cheek. "I'm glad you're my ally, not my enemy."
Onyx realized distantly that he'd actually insulted her, but the thought was chased away by the sensations his touch evoked in her. Knocking his pipe against a rock to extinguish it, he leaned forward and brushed his lips in a warm trail where his fingers had just passed. His calloused hands took her by the shoulders. His fingers slid down her arms, lingering on her wrists. He continued downward and rubbed her slim fingers between his rough ones.
Onyx froze. For the first time in her life no instinct she understood told her how to react. As a dragon, her thoughts ran almost exclusively to the basics: satisfying hunger, seeking shelter, acquiring treasure. These tasks were colored only by the indulgent joy she got from flying or swimming.
But she noticed a much greater range of sensations as a human. The texture of cloth or the feel of cold air on bare skin, the distinct flavors of cooked food, the way her pulse quick shy;ened from an admiring glance. The only looks she'd received as a dragon were fearful or envious, both of which pleased her greatly, but in a very different way…"You're a beautiful enigma, Onyx," Led said again softly, his whiskers tickling her cheek. His warm breath was a pleas shy;ant mingling of sweet wine and pungent pipe smoke. "I like solving a good mystery."
Onyx self-consciously took a pull on the wineskin, aware that the trees beyond their fire pit were already listing in her watery sight. She fought against the effects of the wine, even as she felt his fingertips dance down her spine through the thin cloth of her tunic. The young woman gave a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.
Led pressed his lips ever gently down the bridge of her nose. "I'd kill any man who tried to harm you," he said in a husky voice, moving to sink his teeth into the lobe of her left ear in a manner even more disturbing than his unexpected possessiveness.
Some voice inside warned Onyx not to trust him. But dizzy from wine, she could not see how trust entered into these feel shy;ings he aroused. She trusted no one but herself anyway. She was in control and could stop this at any time. Besides, she told herself, if she was to learn in the qhen way what it was to be human, she must experience all that she could as a human. Live for the moment.