Page 38 of Dragon Fight

“No, no, no… I can’t!”

I went to shove the moss away but he grabbed my hands and pushed them back towards my mouth, but rather than shoving it down my throat, he let go of them and reached out and smoothed his hands over my cheeks. My skin burned wherever he touched me but he just rubbed his thumbs over my cheekbones and said, “For me? Please Pippin, don’t let her win. I’ve been trying so fucking hard to stay one step ahead of her, but of course, she has minions everywhere. That stable lad who left the devil’s burr under your saddle blanket. I whipped him within an inch of his life and then sent him on his way.”

I flinched at that.

“And now bloody Ada. Of course, Ada. Vain, destructive, wilful, Ada who’d step over her own grandmother for the offer of more. She’s given you poison.”

“Poison?”

I didn’t know what that word meant but, somehow, I knew it was a bad one.

“Poison. It will kill you if you don’t eat the moss and then drink as much water as you can, to purge it.” He grabbed my hands again, stroking and rubbing them as he brought the water and moss up to my mouth.

The first bite was dire. Bile filled my mouth, my eyes filling with tears at the taste of it, but the blurry shape of the man nodded encouragingly as I squinted at him.

“That’s it. That’s a girl. Good lass. Good lass.”

The experience was bitter and sweet. His voice was so rich and warm, it was like a great big hug and, as if sensing that was what I needed, he shifted behind me, enclosing me in his arms as I chewed. The little dragon crawled in my lap, letting out a strange humming sound as my teeth worked. The feeling of them both was the sweetest. But the bitter… Gods above, was there ever anything as foul as this? Too slippery already when I bit into it, it became this viscous, vile tasting gel that coated my mouth, my teeth, my tongue until the man held out the water. I drank from the waterskin greedily, but that didn’t help much either. The goo seemed resistant to the flow of water, clinging on like, well, moss until finally I swallowed some down. And when I did? It was as if a lead weight had landed in my gut. I let out a low groan, but the sound came out kind of bubbly, almost like a burp and then the gassy sound was followed by an eruption from within my stomach as it all came out.

When I next became aware of what I was doing, I was on my hands and knees, vomiting so hard my vision went entirely white. I had long since ejected everything in my stomach and yet still my guts clenched and then jerked, trying to expel something that wasn’t there.

“Some more,” Draven insisted in gentle tones.

“No, no, please…!” Tears streamed down my face but his hand just rubbed big circles on my back.

“I know, sweetheart. I know. It’s fucking awful. I’ve had to chew the bloody stuff myself.”

“You have?” I asked in a small voice, my vision a hazy morass.

“I got poisoned by a visiting ambassador from the continent. My mother laughed the entire time I vomited, but she made me eat a whole handful before we were done and I need you to do the same. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise?”

He reached over and brushed my tears away, so I caught his expression for a moment before it was blurred away. He looked so very worried. His skin was far too pale, his eyes far too bright and his whole face was screwed up in an attitude of pain.

“Otherwise you’ll die out here and your dragon with you and everything will have been for nothing.”

Pip—in? Pip—! Mus— Eat it—

An insistent little voice inside my head had my hand moving, even as I sobbed into the moss. Those salty tears didn’t wash the taste away. If anything it made it slimier and harder to chew. But chew I did, then water, so much water, then out it all came until it was hard to know what the point was. We did this a couple more times until it felt like I was scoured clean like an old cooking pot.

Pippin?My head jerked to the side, my jaw locked tight, wanting to hold back the waves of nausea that were coming.

Glimmer?

Pippin!

My dragon moved like lightning, scrambling to get into my lap, her momentum shoving me backwards so that my head hit the ground behind me with a thud.

“Gently now. Gently now, lass,” Draven said in a soft voice to Glimmer and she shot him a reproachful look and growled before huddling in my lap. “And don’t go scowling at me. I brought your mistress here and made sure she is well.”

“Draven?”

I blinked, staring up at him but unable to move for the weight of my dragon, but that wasn’t the only reason I was motionless. He looked so… different.

“You can’t be completely well,” he told me with a snort, then thrust the waterskin my way. “You’re not looking at me like I crush puppies’ skulls for fun. So you need to drink more.”

“What’s… happened?”

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