After a few minutes of biting the hardened bread, Alin found he was not hungry either. Or, at least, not for trail rations. Rather, he hungered and thirsted for Ryla's presence. He excused himself and followed the dragonslayer. His exit drew glances ranging from the bemused, in Delkin's case, to the suspicious, in Inri's. Alin climbed the small mountain of giant rocks in search of a certain fiery-haired warrior.
It didn't take the bard long to find Ryla. The beautiful dragonslayer was perched on the highest boulder, gazing all around, like a queen surveying her lands. She was turned away from his approach, and her blade lay across her lap. As the sunlight played along the katana's length, it almost seemed that the crimson dragon etched on the steel was alive and dancing.
"Looking for our quarry?" Alin asked.
Ryla leaped to her feet and spun, blade up and ready. The bard, startled, stumbled back toward the edge of the boulder. He teetered on one foot and fought to keep his balance.
He realized Ryla was laughing. The woman had sheathed her katana and extended a hand to help him. He took it, and she pulled him up with seemingly little effort.
"You could say that," she replied. "Though, really, I'm just looking."
Almost the same instant Alin realized she was still holding his hand, Ryla let him go and moved away. She took up Her position on the rock again, one leg bent close to her chest. Her hair shimmered in the sunlight.
Breath was hard to come by for the bard, though he knew he would have to remember to breathe or he would pass out on his feet.
"Lady Dragonclaw?" Alin asked.
"Just Ryla," replied the dragonslayer. She glanced at him to accentuate her point. "I'm no lady."
"Oh, aye. I remember." Alin felt warmth rising in him at the familiarity. "Ryla… You must tell me about your travels-your exploits. I collect stories, and you're famous, after all."
"There's not much to tell." Ryla looked away and said, "I hunt dragons. 'Tis a game, nothing more." "A game?"
A smile played across Ryla's fine features. Alin felt self conscious and looked away.
She said, "To me, 'tis a game, as surely as you skip rocks over water or fought with wooden swords as a child. Some hunt foxes, some boars. I hunt dragons. A hunting game."
Alin drank in her words for a moment before he realized she had stopped.
"But…" he said, "but surely there is more!" He looked back, and she was smiling mischievously. "Like, ah, how many have you slain? How do you seem so young when your legend was told in my father's day? You are no elf maid! Why do you vanish for years at a time and return in the tales? Whence your armor, or your sword? Are they of some great epic make-a master smith, or an archmage?"
"Nothing so fancy," replied Ryla. "As to how many, surely you can count." Alin had noticed the twelve spikes on her armor before, but he finally realized what they were: dragon claws. "And 'tis not polite to ask a lady her age."
"I thought you were no lady," returned Alin.
Ryla gave him a devious smile. "Some secrets I'll keep," she said. "Except to observe that those stories you mention were probably told in your grandfather's day, not your father's."
Alin's eyes opened wide in surprise, but the dragonslayer's lips moved no more. He left her to her surveying and climbed back down, his mind roiling.
The sun was dipping in the east. The Moor Runners had been traveling over flat plains for a long while, and they were about to ride over a rise when they heard a bird's cry from above. Inri waved them to stop. The sorceress put out her arm and gave a fey whistle. In a moment, a black raven swooped down and landed on her bracer. Then the bird began speaking to Inri in perfect Elvish.
"Her familiar," Delkin explained.
Ryla gave a snort.
The raven finished and Inri nodded. At her short command, the bird squawked and flew off.
Inri turned to the Moor Runners and said, "Anthas says there is a war party of ores encamped immediately to the north-a score or more of them."
Delkin nodded and said, "Aye, then, we'll break here and camp."
The Moor Runners swung down from their horses and began unstrapping their saddlebags. Alin dismounted and offered his hand up to Ryla. The dragonslayer, however, did not notice.
With a suspicious look on her fine features, she glared at Inri from atop Alin's steed, and asked, "Why are we stopping?"
"It wouldn't make sense to waste our energy on a score of ores," Delkin explained as he unrolled his travel tent. "They're not hurting anyone at the moment-let them be for now."
"They're vermin," argued Ryla with a hiss. "They should be destroyed."
"But we're hunting a dragon," reminded Alin. "Not ores."
The dragonslayer regarded him with a venomous stare. He could see her temper flaring again.
"I hadn't forgotten," she said as she pulled the reins from his hand. "Don't make camp just yet. I'll be right back."
With that, she wheeled to the north and kicked Neb into a gallop. Fiery hair and black half-cape streaming behind her, she flew over the plains toward the ore camp.
"Morninglord's heel!" shouted Delkin.
The Moor Runners dropped their gear and scrambled to mount and follow. Deprived of his horse and pack, Alin began running after Ryla. Of course, the horse easily outdistanced him. As soon as he got to the top of the hill, he stopped and his jaw dropped in shock.
A hundred yards away, Ryla had just reached the ore encampment, where there were considerably more than a score of ores. There were perhaps three-dozen of the creatures, all with weapons close to hand. They leaped up with shouts of alarm but Ryla didn't even hesitate. The flame-haired woman pounced from the charging Neb, steel flashing in her hands, and slammed her feet into the first ore to rise. She rode him down and fell onto the others with blade and fist.
Logic told Alin that she was hopelessly overmatched, but Ryla didn't hesitate for a heartbeat. She laid into the ores with her blade, slashing left and right. Everywhere her blade fell, dead and dying ores tumbled down, and her fist slapped weapons aside and knocked more of the creatures from their feet. Blades struck her armor but she shrugged them off without pause.
Alin felt a song of battle coming to his lips, unbidden, and he sang as loud as he could, praying Ryla could hear him and take heart from his song.
In short order, though, he realized the ballad was not meant to encourage her. Rather, it merely praised her ferocity. There was no grace or finesse to her fighting, only sheer brutality and phenomenal strength.
After a single verse had been sung and a dozen ores felled, the other Moor Runners arrived and stared at the woman tearing through the ores like an incarnation of fury.
"By the dawn…" Delkin breathed.
Ryla slashed down, disemboweling a yelping ore on her right, and knocked a berserker down on her left with a punch. An ore stepped on her katana blade, held it pinned, and raised its greataxe over its head with a deep war cry. Ryla roared right back, jerked the blade up with a pulse of her mighty shoulders, throwing the ore off its feet into the air, and cut the hapless creature in two as it fell to the ground. Then she spun and caught a high slash from behind.
Neb, who had been left unmolested by the ores who were more intent on the wild woman attacking them, had circled around and soon trotted to a stop next to the loudly singing bard.
Alin's ballad cut off as he realized Inri was casting a spell. Tongues of flame curled and licked around her silvery bracers and condensed between her hands into a bead of crimson. Alin's eyes went wide-he had seen war wizards sling fire before-and moved to stop her, but Thard held him back. Alin realized he could not break Inri's concentration, or the spell might go awry and explode in the midst of the Moor Runners.