Page 101 of Dragon Avenger (Age of Fire 2)

“It will take time to assemble decent tenants for the land, and they’ll need roof and stock. I shall have to go beg of the dwarves.

The Wheel of Fire will give me more upfront, but at ruinous rates. The Dwarves of the Diadem are fairer, but only lend a small sum at a time.”

“Wheel of Fire?” Wistala asked.

“Your eyes have gone all hot and tight, Wistala. Have you had dealings with them? Oh—the joint burns! Quick, get it out.”

They extracted the haunch of mutton and took the baking tubers from their metal case. When dinner was laid out—Wistala had learned to eat neatly from the table, but she still had to lift her head to let the food slide down her throat, a gesture that always made Rainfall shake his head—they continued the conversation in what had been the food-servers’ nook, a smaller room off the big, dark, and drafty dining hall, warmed by the heat of the oven.

Rainfall moved on to happier subjects, mostly the chance of seeing his granddaughter at Hammar’s hall, and Wistala put the dwarves out of her mind. The mention awoke dark thoughts and set her griff twitching. She’d promised her father to forget the past and live for another generation of dragons.

Wistala kept herself deep inside Mossbell House all while Rainfall visited the thane. Visitors were traipsing across the grounds to see where the troll had fallen.

Rainfall returned in the company of a small ill-favored horse. Its shaggy coat and hooves were thick with layers of dirt. He put it in the stall opposite what had been Avalanche’s, and when Wistala made sure there was no one around, she approached Rainfall.

“How passed the audience?”

“As predicted. I bowed and begged. He gave me half the reward to distribute to the men, then sent a low priest along to see the money distributed. As though my word wasn’t enough.”

Rainfall brightened. “However, he is keeping his pledge as to taxation. I shall have five years breathing space to turn Mossbell around, thanks to you.”

Wistala bowed; elves took great pleasure in the giving and receiving of bows.

“The only cloud was that he refused me a visit with my granddaughter. She’s living in a room in the fast tower. I should have gone out and shouted for her, but he pulls up the bridge at night.”

Wistala saw an opportunity, and questioned him about this curious feature. She learned much about the thane’s hall, from its almost windowless first level to the small herb garden on the roof. The thane’s hall sounded impressive and extensive.

“Galahall should be fine, for the excises and land tax,” Rainfall said.

That night she made friends with the horse—or mule rather, as the beast was quick to correct her—as Rainfall saw to its hooves. The mule was either too stupid or too sick to mind her smell, and seemed ill-disposed to talk.

“There’s a spot of hoof-sprout in the cracks,” Rainfall grumbled as the mule stamped and swore. “I’ll have to make a paste and bag his feet. What kind of stablemen is the thane keeping?”

“How did you come by this unfortunate?” she asked.

“Yet another of the thane’s jokes. He frowned when I told him of the death of Avalanche, my last source of steady income, thanks to stud-price, and offered a replacement. Stog here was the most wretched specimen in his stables, so the hostler presented me with him.”

The black ears of the mule perked up at the mention of the name.

“Hello, Stog,” Wistala said in the beast-tongue the mule had used in his calumnies. “Welcome to Mossbell.”

“Drop all the two-leggeds,” Stog said to no one in particular. “Left to rot again.”

Rainfall worked long into the night on the mule’s hooves, gathering plants and then mixing them with a white powder he kept in a clay jar. Then he filled four leather-bottomed canvas bags with the sharp-smelling mix and tied them to the mule’s hooves, after fixing a wooden gate around his neck that kept him from lowering his head to chew the poultices free.

“Bug me! That stings,” Stog said, and tried to bite Rainfall as he worked.

Too stupid to recognize a kind turn, Wistala thought, and settled down in her old spot to sleep.

Rainfall was still at work when she awoke. He’d cleaned, brushed, and clipped every inch of the mule, who looked immeasurably better but still angry.

“Ah, there you are,” Rainfall said as she drank from the central cistern. “Could you watch him for a few hours? He’s trying to kick the bags off. I hobbled him”—he pointed at a line between stable and the horse’s rear leg—“but I wonder if he’s out of tricks.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Rainfall extended a hand to Stog’s nose, but he just tried to bite again.

“As you like,” Rainfall said. He left, shoulders sagging.

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