Page 7 of Among the Burning Flowers
She would be patient. By the Saint and the Holy Retinue, for the sake of her kingdom and her sanity, she would cleave to the Red Prince of Mentendon with all her might.
Saint, you offered your mercy and compassion to the Damsel, a woman who did not share your faith.She touched her patron brooch, a shield, the symbol of the Knight of Courage.Help me return that mercy to Yscalin.
Melaugo
AFELAYANDA FOREST
KINGDOM OF YSCALIN
CE 1003
You’re certain it’s a lindworm?’
Estina Melaugo folded her arms, trying to show the pitiful sliver of muscle that remained to her. She carried her fine Ersyri dagger, which the woodcutter had clearly noticed. His gaze kept darting towards it, and then back to her grimy red hair, her scabbed and hollow face.
‘I ask,’ Melaugo continued, ‘because I do not cull basilisks. Their venom is too dangerous.’
‘I’ve never read a bestiary,’ the woodcutter said, ‘so I couldn’t say for sure.’You’ve never read a thing in your life, Melaugo thought darkly.Nobody in this backwater can read.‘My sister happened on its trails and followed them to a cave. It’s been slithering out to kill deer, from the bones.’
If it had been a basilisk, there would have been no bones to find. Melaugo loosed a breath.
Are you really doing this again?
‘Very well.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I would usually charge ten gelvas for a lindworm.’
‘A heavy price even for nobles,’ the woodcutter remarked, ‘but we don’t deal in coin out here, gold or no.’
‘I am well aware. What can you offer me if I slay it?’
‘We’ve a ram for you. A wether.’
Melaugo huffed. ‘I will try to ignore that insult. Do you know how dangerous it is to confront a sleeper?’
‘He’s a good ram.’
‘I don’t care if your ram is the most virtuous creature since the Saint himself. I am not risking a gruesome death – the worst death in all of recorded history – for the sake of a fucking sheep.’
‘You’ll need its wool in the cold months.’
‘And you will need my blade all year.’ Melaugo squared up to him. ‘There must be many sleepers in these mountains. This one will not be the last to threaten you. They have slumbered for five centuries. All of them will be hungry when they wake, and sooner or later, deer will not sate them.’
At least she was nearly as tall as the woodcutter, even if her body had turned as thin as a reed. The corners of his mouth pinched.
She had chosen him with care. All of the villagers had been murmuring about the creature, but this man was among their elders, someone who could make decisions. He had reached for his axe when he saw her, intending to chase her back to the trees, before she said the words.
I will slay it.
‘I thought you were trading a single kill. That you were planning to move on from here soon,’ he said. ‘But you want to be one of us.’ Melaugo said nothing. ‘So be it. If you agree to kill any sleepers that wake in this region, you’ll have two meals a day. And the ram as well.’
For a moment, Melaugo could only stare at him.
‘You are one word away from a broken jaw,’ she bit out. ‘What makes you think I would agree to that?’
‘Because it would put some fat on your ribs,’ he said, his face as hard as granite. ‘We’ve seen you trying to hunt and forage, outsider. And to steal from us. You’re lucky we’ve let you stay in that tree.’
She had never wanted to kill someone as intensely as she did in that moment.
‘The meals are a start,’ he said. ‘Win our trust, earn your keep, and we won’t drive you off. There’s an empty house in the village, if you want it. But first you’ll need to slay that lindworm.’
