Seraphina(44)

“Sir Karal Halfholder,” he said, sitting up straighter. He was dressed like a peasant, tunic, clogs, grubbiness, and all, but his mien was that of a well-bred man. “My brother-in-arms, Sir Cuthberte Pettybone.”

It was Sir Cuthberte who’d taken me for a strumpet. He bowed, saying, “My apologies, Maid Dombegh. I should not have been so boorish.”

Sir Karal attempted to preempt my next question: “We’ll never tell you where our brothers are hiding!”

“You’d have to seduce us first!” Sir Cuthberte twirled his mustache. Sir Karal glared at him, and Cuthberte cried, “She’s smiling! She knows I jest!”

I did know. For some reason, it kept being funny. Old men, hidden for decades with only other old men for company, found me worth flirting with. That was something.

“The Crown knows where your order is,” I said, suspecting that was likely true. “I don’t care about that; I want to know where you saw the dragon.”

“It came right up to our camp!” said Sir Karal. “We said that!”

Oops. I’d have known that if I weren’t lying. I tried to sound impatient: “From which angle? From the north? The village? The wood?” Saints in Heaven, let there be a village and a wood nearby. In Goredd, both were a good bet but not guaranteed.

However, I’d got them thinking, so they didn’t notice my ignorance. “It was dark,” said Sir Karal, scratching the stubble on his skinny chicken neck. “But you’re right, the beast could be staying in the village as a saarantras. That hadn’t occurred to us; we’d been looking to the limestone caves, south.”

My heart sank. If it was dark, they hadn’t seen much. “You’re certain it was a dragon?”

They looked at me disdainfully. “Maidy,” said Sir Karal, “we fought in the wars. I was left punch in a dracomachia unit. I have soared through the sky, dangling by my harpoon from a dragon’s flank while flaming pyria whizzed around me, scanning the ground desperately for a soft place to land when the beast finally caught fire.”

“We all have,” said Sir Cuthberte quietly, clapping his comrade on the shoulder.

“You don’t forget dragons,” snarled Sir Karal. “When I am blind and deaf, senile and stroke-addled, I will still know when I’m in the presence of a dragon.”

Sir Cuthberte smiled weakly. “They radiate heat, and they smell of brimstone.”


“They radiate evil! My soul will know, even if body and mind don’t work!”

His hatred hurt me more than it had any right to. I swallowed and tried to keep my voice pleasant: “Did you get a good look at this particular dragon? We suspect we know who he is, but any confirming detail would help. Distinctive horn or wing damage, for example, or coloration—”

“It was dark,” said Sir Karal flatly.

“It had a perforation in its right wing,” offered Sir Cuthberte. “Closest membrane to its body. Shape of a … I don’t know. A rat, I want to say. The way they hunch their backs when they eat.” He demonstrated, realized how silly he looked, and laughed.

I laughed back, and pulled out my charcoal pencil. “Draw it on the wall, please.”

Both knights stared at the pencil, horror writ large on their faces. St. Masha and St. Daan. It was a draconian innovation.

Mercifully, they blamed not me but the peace. “They infiltrate everything, these worms,” cried Sir Karal. “They’ve got our women carrying their blasted devices as casually as smelling oils!”

Sir Cuthberte took it nonetheless and drew a shape upon the wall’s graying plaster. Sir Karal corrected the shape. They squabbled a bit but finally settled on something that did, indeed, look like a rodent eating corn.

“That was his only distinguishing mark?” I asked.

“It was dark,” said Sir Cuthberte. “We were lucky to make out that much.”

“I hope it’s enough.” Long experience with Orma told me the odds weren’t good.

“Whom do you suspect it is?” said Sir Karal, his fists clenched in his lap.

“A dragon called Imlann.”

“General Imlann, who was banished?” asked Sir Cuthberte, looking unexpectedly delighted. The knights both whistled, long and low, producing an interval of rather apropos dissonance.

“Did you know him?”

“He led the Fifth Ard, didn’t he?” Sir Cuthberte asked his fellow.

Sir Karal nodded gravely. “We fought the Fifth twice, but I never grappled the general. Sir James Peascod, at our camp, specialized in identification. He’d be your best bet. I don’t suppose you asked Sir James if he knew this dragon, did you, Cuthberte?”

“Didn’t occur to me.”

“Pity,” sniffed Sir Karal. “Still, how does knowing his name help you catch him?”

I didn’t know, now that he mentioned it, but tried to answer logically: “We can’t catch him without the embassy’s help, and they won’t help us if they don’t believe us. They might be motivated if we had proof it was Imlann.”

Sir Karal turned dangerously red; I could see his pulse at his temple. “That baby-eating worm was in clear violation of the treaty. You’d think that would be enough for them, if they had any honor! Be it known that we upheld our part of that accursed agreement. We didn’t attack it, although we could have!”