Page 6 of Hidden Dragons

The dragons were waiting when they arrived back at the warm barn. Luckily, the rain had held off for the most part. Only a light drizzle had dampened the mens’ dark garments and the heat from their dragon friends soon had them dry and warm once more.

“Do you think this village is the one?”Tilly asked as they settled in for the night.

They were using a small camp lantern they had brought with them for light. There was no need of a fire, since the dragons would keep everything toasty warm just by their presence.

“I’m afraid so. Whoever lives in that big house is definitely a traitor,” Robert said. “Those horses are war-trained. Not a one of them has ever seen a plow. What does a farmer have need of a war horse, much less a dozen of them? And where would he get such a beast this far from any training grounds?”

“So it really is this easy? The second town we look at is the one we want?”Growloranth asked the question they were all thinking.

“Well, in all fairness, we were only given five towns to check,” Robert pointed out. “And we still will need to check the other three after we finish here. However, I think we’ve found what we were looking for, and we’re going to have to act on it.”

“But what about Isabelle?” Bear asked, clearly concerned.

“Aye.” Robert shook his head. “We’re going to have to sort things out for her before anything happens here. Otherwise she could be directly in the path of danger. For now, I think we should just stick close to her.”

“You’ll get no argument from me. She seems in need of our help, even if we can’t ultimately convince her to come with us to the Lair. We can probably convince her to let us use her barn for the next few days while we continue our mission,” Robert said, looking around at the dilapidated structure.

“Do you think she knows what’s going on in the village?” Bear asked the tough question that was hovering in all of their minds.

“I sincerely hope not,” Robert said with intense feeling. “I want to believe the best of her, but if she knew about this and didn’t tell us…”

“She could just be protecting herself,”Tilly offered.“After all, she believes she still must live here after we fly away. She has to get along with these people. Her life here is tenuous enough as it is, from all appearances.”

“Nevertheless,”Growloranth interjected,“while you are scouting tomorrow, I will keep an eye on our hostess. Robert is too enamored of her already to be objective.”

Robert wanted to argue with his dragon partner’s assessment of his state of mind, but he couldn’t. Growloranth was right. He wanted to believe the best of Isabelle and wasn’t very objective when it came to anything about her. It had been a very long time since a woman affected him so strongly.

“While you’re out scouting, I can stick around here and try to make things a little more comfortable—and sturdy—for her, while keeping an eye on the village,” Robert added. “Growloranth can watch her. I’ll watch the village, while I add some bracing to this barn’s roof. Between the two of us, perhaps we’ll come up with something useful.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Bear replied.

They fell asleep shortly after the conversation drifted to a natural conclusion. The dragons kept watch. Nothing could sneak up on them with a dragon dozing nearby.

Nothing happened for the rest of the night as the rain poured down in earnest. It was a quick moving storm that was gone by the time dawn broke, waking Robert and Bear.

After what they had observed the night before, they were eager to get moving. Bear and Tilly took off shortly after dawn, on their planned scouting mission. They were going to fly over the border with Skithdron, to look for any telltale troop movements that might indicate an imminent attack.

That left Robert and Growloranth to work on watching the village. They would start by shoring up the barn that looked like it might fall down at any moment. It was a rather oblique method of surveillance—watching from afar while accomplishing something else—but it was what was called for in this particular situation. Plus, Robert really wanted to help Isabelle. He could repair her barn for her, which gave him an excuse to hang around, but it also meant that he, Bear and their dragon partners would have a sturdier place to sleep while they were here.

In a way, it was very useful that Isabelle’s home was so far out on the very edge of the forest. There was a clear approach to her place—a path that wound up from the village—that would make it easy to see if anyone was heading this way long before Growloranth could be spotted against the leafy backdrop of the forest.

Even so, the dragon would hang back, staying mostly to the cover of the trees while Robert stayed closer to the house and barn. Robert found an ax by the woodpile behind the house and took it out to the nearby woods to find a few small trees he could cut down that would work for shoring up the old timbers of the barn.

By the time Isabelle had come out of the house, an hour after dawn, Robert had already made good progress on fixing up the barn. She seemed surprised to see what he’d done.

“You’ve been busy,” she observed, walking up to him as he propped the timber he had cut under the sagging roof. Growloranth was helping, his strength making the otherwise difficult task an easy fix.

“It is the least we can do since you opened your home to us,”Growloranth answered before Robert could speak.

She didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so Robert stepped in, dusting his hands off as he moved closer. He smiled, hoping to put her more at ease.

“Did you sleep well, mistress?” Robert asked conversationally.

“Very well, thank you. And you?” Back on firmer ground with the exchanges of polite conversation, she seemed more at ease.

Robert grinned. “Much better than if we had camped the way we originally planned. It poured down rain in the hours before dawn.”

“Is that what woke you so early?” She moved into the barn, looking around at the progress he had made in the last hour. “You’ve beenverybusy.”

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