They weren’t my whelps, but I was more concerned with something else she’d said. I snuck a sideways glance over the rim of the vent. Yes, three eggs. “Wait. You and your two children?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s the boon. Don’t worry, I’ll leave you plenty of eitr for feeding the whelp on. And I will come back every season or so to be certain the whelp is well-taken-care-of and replenish your supplies.”
That sounded less like reassurance, and more like a threat.
“You want to raise a brood of your own.”
“Not I,” I said. “A friend.”
“Well, if I save his children, let him care for one of mine. But you, little witch—you must see that the care is good. Yourself.”
“Why me?”
“Because,” she said. “Because I have tested your word and your mettle. And because I’m giving you the foster of my whelp. I have seen what you will do for the bonds of kinship. And because you understood me and gave me a gift, so I know you understand how bound to this boring rock I am.”
“But I… I don’t want to stay here either.”
“Once a turning should suffice,” she said, relentless. “As I said, it’s only another hundred seasons or so. The egg will hatch in… twelve more seasons. Make sure your folk know that if they don’t take care of my little one, though, I will come back and eat them.”
I imagined the little whelp—perhaps only as large as the horse—looking up at the giant creature before me with wide, adorable eyes and begging, “Mama, can I eat him?”
“What about the volcano?” I asked. “My people cannot survive it. Doesn’t the egg need its heat to incubate?”
“Oh, a lone egg will do well enough if they bury it in dry ground near a hot spring,” she said.
“Like baking a loaf of bread,” I mused.
“You,” she said, “and your baking.”
The dragon said she would give me time to return to Ragnar’s farmstead before she flew the egg down and delivered it. My backpack sloshed with jars of eitr as I walked, the downhill steep and full of rocks that stubbed my toes through my boot leather. I’d be lucky not to lose a nail or two.
I was lucky that was all I seemed to be in danger of losing. Unless I tripped and fell and broke the jars, in which case the venom within would saturate my clothes, melt my flesh, and then probably catch on fire for good measure.
I walked very carefully and kept my eyes where my feet should be going.
It was a good thing, too, because the glamour I had cast on the little horse was strong enough that it even fooled me until I tripped over one of the spell-spun traces.
I had been singing to myself as I walked, songs more fitting for a warrior this time, and I had not been fingering my spindle. My hands, being free of my pockets, flung out and smacked into the horse’s warm flank.
The glamour fell away in the face of concrete evidence, and I could see that the boulder he was dragging had gotten jammed into a crevice and was stuck there.
I slipped off my extremely caustic load and set the pack down carefully before going to unwind the string from around the boulder. Then I had some extra string and a horse that was already wearing a conjure-ish harness, so it only seemed fair that the horse carry the pack. That was what horses were for, after all, among other things.
I lashed it on over his withers. He was a convenient size, not so tall I had to reach up to tie things across his back. While I worked, I thought about getting back to town and explaining to Ragnar that he could have his children back, and all it would cost him was to spend his dotage babysitting a dragon.
I would get out of town before my brother and his wife woke up, I decided. It would be preferable to watching their teary reunion. Or having to endure either their thanks, or their lack thereof.
I finished my harnessing and patted the horse on the shoulder. He nickered at me under his breath, friendly. Or hoping for carrots.
I draped an arm over his withers. He was a good height for leaning on. I made up my mind that I was taking him with me when I went, in addition to Magni. I would have to find someplace easy for him to recuperate, assuming the leg could—and would—get better. That would mean a winter off the road, which was probably wise for a man my age anyway, even if it griped me.
Anyway, if I left him here, Ragnar would probably eat him. I felt after using him to bait a dragon, I owed him better.
I scratched under his mane. He leaned into me, lip twitching in pleasure.
“Good lad,” I said. “I think I’ll call you Ormr.”
About the Author
Elizabeth Bear shares a birthday with Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. This, coupled with a tendency to read the dictionary as a child, doomed her early to penury, intransigence, friendlessness, and the writing of speculative fiction. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and grew up in central Connecticut with the exception of two years (which she was too young to remember very well) spent in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, in the last house with electricity before the Canadian border.
She’s a second-generation Swede, a third-generation Ukrainian, and a third-generation Transylvanian, with some Irish, English, Scots, Cherokee, and German thrown in for leavening. Elizabeth Bear is her real name, but not all of it. Her dogs outweigh her, and she is much beset by her cats.
Bear was the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005. She has won two Hugo Awards for her short fiction, a Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. She is the author of the acclaimed Eternal Sky series, the Edda of Burdens series, and coauthor (with Sarah Monette) of the Iskryne series. Bear lives in Brookfield, Massachusetts. You can sign up for email updates here.
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