The dwarf regained his balance and charged her with a roar. Saskia plucked the club from the ground and broke it against the dwarf's head as he rushed passed. Tombli fell to one knee, then pulled himself back up, his hard black eyes aflame with rage.
Saskia settled into a crouch and readied herself for another charge.
Growling a prayer, Tombli drew a short rod of iron from a pouch and stabbed his dagger toward the sky. He was answered with a resounding crack that shook the air. Saskia fell to the ground, every muscle in her body contracted into painful knots.
"Think to fight me, barbarian?" Tombli spat out a mouthful of blood. "You and the wyrm are one and the same: feeble pets, without tooth or guile."
Finally the pseudodragon came alive, hurling itself at the bars of its cage with all the fury of a true drake. The cage crashed to the ground, but the stout bars held.
"Gnash all you like, lizard," Tombli snorted. "Those bars are enchanted cold iron, and the finest turn-picks in Sembia would think twice before trying that lock."
Saskia strained in vain against the dwarf's spell. Tombli saw the frustration rising in her blue eyes and began to chuckle.
"Grim spell, isn't it? No one ever forgets their first time. I like to follow it with something I call 'Abbathor's Flowering.' " The dwarf whispered a soft prayer and laid the tip of his dagger against the bare skin of her neck. A shock shot through her body, tracing blue lines of lightning along the veins under her skin. Her veins pulsed once, twice, then burst through the surface of her skin.
Saskia tried to scream but her jaw was clenched shut. Frustrated by her helplessness she could only moan incoherently, tears mixing with the blood running down her face.
"You fear the pain."
She could feel the dwarf's excited breath on her lips. "You don't have to say it," Tombli whispered. "I can see it in your eyes."
Defiant rage erupted from Saskia's proud heart. What did that vile dwarf know of pain? Pain taught her people what it meant to be alive. From birth to death, pain was the single constant in the life of an Uthgardt warrior. It wasn't the pain she feared, but so pathetic an end, slaughtered like a pig by a southern priest.
"Watch closely, dragon. It's been years since I've had the pleasure of skinning a woman alive."
Tombli's threats fell upon deaf ears. Filled with self-loathing, she was beyond the reach of his grubby, blistered fingers. Saskia had come south seeking escape, but like the dragon, she found herself in a cage. Worse, hers was one of her own choosing, and she would die in it.
Free me!
Saskia's soul flared. Years of frustration and denial were erased in a single moment, eclipsed by her rage. She commanded the universe and it leaped to obey.
The key lifted from the ground, held by an invisible hand.
Delicately, but without hesitation, it drifted into the lock and gave the softest of turns. Tombli looked up, his blistered face wrinkled with confusion, just in time to see the cage door swing open.
The drake exploded into motion, distilling days and nights of torment into a whirlwind of fangs and claws. Tombli swung his dagger this way and that, but to no avail. The dragon spun around the dwarf like a dizzying cloud of razors, laying open Tombli like a butcher slicing ham.
Crying in terror, Tombli buried his ragged face in his hands and charged for the door of the stables. The pseudodragon lashed out once with its stump of a tail and caught Tombli's heavy boot, spilling the dwarf into the moldy hay. Tombli fought to his knees with a choking wail and scrambled from the stables and into the darkness.
The pseudodragon settled on Saskia's hip, fastidiously licking the blood from its claws. Inch by painful inch, Saskia's muscles began to unknot, and soon she found she was able to stand.
Greetings, mistress. Iam the Wyrm Aeristhax, heir apparent to the mighty Akilskyls, Wyrm of Renown.
"A witch," Saskia said, her voice a mix of despair and disgust. "I'm a witch."
Witch, sorceress, wizling, bruja, hag… a thousand words for a thousand tribes of man. Deny the Blessing as it suits you; we will have more pressing issues soon enough.
The dragon examined its claws.
Really.you southern women think too much. It's a wonder you have time for life at all.
Saskia started to correct the dragon then stopped. Perhaps she was a witch; what of it? Unless she found some weapons, and quickly, she would be a dead witch. The Company of the Chimera was a hundred strong and had allies throughout the heart of Sembia and all the Dales. Saskia smiled openly at the thought of a running battle with an entire mercenary company. It was the sort of feat that only a barbarian could hope to pull off.
At the back of the stables were two crates of weapons, cast-offs and rejects from the company's cache. Saskia rummaged through the crates, discarding the weak and delicate, finally settling on a stout shortspear and a brace of heavy throwing daggers.
Aeristhax flew to her shoulder, growling softly.
The mountain-born has raised the alarm.
Saskia nodded and together the pair slipped outside.
Dawn was coming quickly, the village awakening with the crack of drover whips. Saskia cut two horses from the corral, not troubling with a saddle or reins, simply tying on halters. She was almost finished when a voice called for her to stop.
Saskia turned to see Grummond standing on the edge of the corral. The healer wore a coat of burnished chain mail and carried an ore's recurve bow. A handful of black-shafted war arrows were thrust into the ground at his feet.
"You nearly killed the captain," said Grummond as he knocked an arrow and took aim. A dozen other Chimeras fell in line behind him. "We can't let you go."
Saskia swung easily onto the back of the first horse. She was answered with the sharp snap of a bowstring. Aeristhax hissed in anger as the arrow cut its way toward them.
Saskia waved her hand the way another woman might have batted at a fly. Intuitive sorcery, pent up for years, coursed through her, directing the weft and warp of the Weave. The arrow ricocheted off an invisible wall and shot into the sky, tracing a long black arc through the dawn.
Saskia howled in triumph and raised her spear high, her body crackling with power. The Chimeras broke into a charge then skidded to a stop. The barbarian was glowing with an unearthly blue radiance. Grummond waved them back, his bow forgotten.
Aeristhax gave a coughing hiss and took to wing. Saskia kicked hard at her mount and the horses leaped into a gallop, following the dragon north to freedom.
Night came peacefully to Tassledale. Aeristhax hunted in long, lazy circles on the last winds of the fading day, while Saskia made camp on the rocky crest of a hill overlooking the village of Archtassel. She had ridden until the horses could go no farther. The mounts rested, grazing on the meager autumn grasses. The lights of Archtassel slowly winked to life as mothers called their children home and farmers made their way back from the fields.
Surveying their peaceful tranquility, Saskia understood why dragons rampaged through such lands. Like every living thing, civilizations were meant to rise and fall. Ripe fruit was meant to be plucked.
But thoughts of conquest could wait for the morrow.
Saskia knelt on the ground before a pile of twigs and dead wood. At a word the fire sprang to life, the wood cracking and popping as mundane flames settled in, a trail of sweet smelling smoke curling into the chill night air. Saskia warmed herself at the fire's side and whittled a stick into a skewer while she waited for Aeris to return with dinner.
Above her the Five Wanderers shone brightly, twinkling as they made their chaotic way across the heavens. Saskia looked up from her fire and measured their progress.