Dragon Maid (18 page)

“I’m glad.” He took her hand in his. “It’s better than you viewing me as intrusive and chasing me out.”

“Never.” She squeezed his fingers.

“Tarika is to the west,” Jonathan said and focused his mind to follow the dragon’s unique essence.

“Aye. Ye sense her too. Her magic is old and powerful, like a beacon.”

He loosed magic and let it zing along the path Britta opened. An image rose of a medieval-looking tower with both dragons secured to huge irons rings in its sides.

Lachlan pounded a fist into his open hand. “Damn the Morrigan. Something stymies my magic. I see a tower, yet I canna pinpoint its precise location. The dragons are shackled with iron to blunt their power.”

“Another reason the Morrigan uses human helpers.” Arianrhod grimaced. “Iron dampens our power as well.”

“Let’s hurry,” Maggie said. “The sooner we get closer, the sooner we can map out a search grid—”

A faint wail reached Jonathan. “That sounded nearby. What was it?” he asked. Britta wrenched her hand from his grip. She, Maggie, and Arianrhod raced toward the sound. He locked gazes with Lachlan. “I hope the women aren’t heading into a trap,” he muttered.

“They’re not.”

“How do you know?” Jonathan started after them at a fast trot.

“Because my magic pings back clean.”

“I thought there wasn’t anything alive when we came out in this godforsaken spot.”

Lachlan shrugged. “There is now.”

They broke through the trees into a clearing. Jonathan stopped dead. Twenty people, thin as scarecrows, dressed in rags, huddled in a tight circle. Dirt streaked their faces; slumping shoulders screamed defeat. A witch stood off to one side, cursing under her breath. So that was why they hadn’t sensed this group of people. She’d apparently shielded them with magic, but she looked so depleted, maybe her well had run dry. Britta stood next to her, soothing her, telling her they were from the past and meant no harm.

Maggie knelt in the dirt next to two children. One, a boy of about ten, lay still as death. For a moment, Jonathan thought he was dead, and then he picked up the faintest life energy. The girl, a little older, moaned but didn’t open her eyes. “What happened to them?” Maggie asked a woman with filthy, matted blonde hair.

“What didn’t?” the woman countered. “There’s not enough food. The water’s poison if you drink too much. It’s not as bad for us, but the little ones have a harder time. It didn’t help when a wild boar went after Alfie.” She pointed to the boy.

So at least some animals are still alive, but they don’t have enough to eat, either,
Jonathan thought and gritted his teeth together. If they were really only fifty years into the future, he could scarcely believe how much had gone to hell in such a short time. “Where are we?” he asked the woman.

“Scotland.” She bared a mouthful of yellowed teeth. “Doesn’t look much like it did, eh? Nothing like forty years of war to wreck a place.”

Jonathan glanced about. “Where do you live?”

“Underground. But we have to come out to hunt for food. It was what we were about when the boar attacked us, and then Deirdre,” she pointed to the witch, “said we must be still because others were nearby.”

“We won’t hurt you.” Jonathan’s heart ached for the scraps of humanity in the clearing. He clamped his jaw tight to keep from screaming his horror and disbelief to the skies and vowed he’d do damn near anything to make sure this particular future never happened.

“I’m a doctor.” Maggie ran her hands over the children’s limp bodies. The girl, who looked about twelve, moaned again, and Jonathan recognized it as the same sound that had gotten their attention in the first place.

“So?” A dark-haired man with a deeply seamed face stepped forward. “I don’t see your bag or any medicines.”

“She’s a witch, that one,” the resident witch, still standing next to Britta, said. “Maybe she can do more than you think.”

Maggie worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She rotated her body so she looked at Lachlan. “Go. Get the dragons. Come back for me once you’re done. I’m afraid if you wait—”

“Are ye sure?” Lachlan strode to her side and bent to kiss the top of her head.

Maggie nodded. “My magic’s good for healing. I’d just be in the way where you’re going.”

“Good call.” Arianrhod nodded approvingly. “We should be off. We may still have the element of surprise.”

“Tarika knows I am here,” Britta said.

“Aye, Lachlan’s dragon likely does, too, but would they be so stupid as to alert their captors?” Arianrhod shot back.

Britta bristled. Jonathan loped to her side and put an arm through hers.
“She didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I heard that.” Arianrhod laughed. “Nay, those like me were born abrasive.” She gestured toward Maggie. “Pay attention, witch. If I call for you, ye must drop whatever ye are about and come immediately.”

“I understand.” Maggie held the boy in her arms and began a low chant over him. The small body relaxed against her. “He’s the worst. If I can save him, surely I can mend the girl too,” she murmured. Magic rose around her, rich with the soothing scent of lilacs; the cadence of her chant soared.

“Cast your invisibility spell again, witch,” Lachlan instructed the woman standing outside the small group. “See my mate remains safe.”

Deidre nodded. Black hair, chopped off at shoulder length, bobbed around her weary-looking face. For the barest moment, Jonathan saw a gleam of life in her green eyes.

He walked toward Arianrhod with Britta; the spell to transport them enclosed him immediately. “We don’t want to come out on top of them,” he cautioned.

“’Tisn’t likely since we doona know exactly where they are. What is it with all of you? I scarcely require instructions,” Arianrhod muttered angrily as Lachlan joined them.

No, I don’t suppose she does.
Jonathan glanced sidelong at his mother.

•●•

Britta kept breathing. Being afraid for Tarika was a new experience. The dragon had always been the stronger of the two of them, and Britta had difficulty understanding how she’d allowed herself to be captured. Arianrhod’s spell spit them out on a bleak, barren-looking plain. It was a very different British Isles than those she knew. Their green, verdant aspect was gone. Had it stopped raining? The woman in the clearing said the water was toxic, so it must have worsened substantially from Jonathan’s time.

“Look what that bitch of a crow has done to our lands,” Arianrhod exclaimed, shaking her head angrily.

“She’d like it this way,” Lachlan said. “The less likely a place is to support life, the better it feeds into her plans to turn Earth into one big battlefield where she can stalk from one corpse to the next, tasting their blood.”

“If she kills off everyone, there willna by any more battles to feed her bloodlust,” Arianrhod snapped.

“I’ll make a point of telling her.” Jonathan’s sarcasm didn’t temper the fury heating his blood. The mostly-healed wound down the side of his face still burned from the slash of her beak.

Arianrhod laughed grimly. “Sure, and that will make all the difference.”

“Och,” Lachlan muttered. “I am sick to death of this. First Kheladin and I were swept into a sleeping spell. Once we wakened, ’tis been a constant attack on us—or Maggie.”

“And now Tarika and I,” Britta cut in. “We must take this in stages. Once the dragons are free, we can figure out what to do with Rhukon, Connor, and the Morrigan.”

“Ye doona give orders here.” Arianrhod’s gold and silver gaze pierced Britta. “The reason I dinna bring the crone-witch along was she would have challenged me at every turn.”

“Fine.” Britta bit off the word. “Battles united under a single commander have greater chance of success. What comes next…goddess?”

A winged shape took form on the horizon, flying toward them. “We’re about to find out.” Arianrhod planted herself, feet apart, hands on her hips.

The Morrigan fluttered to the ground a few feet away and shimmered into one of her human forms. She looked like a hag, with stringy black hair, sunken black eyes, and a shapeless body swathed in black robes. “You!” A surprised look washed over her face.

“Aye, ’tis one of your fellow gods,” Arianrhod sneered. “Ye have broken the covenant betwixt us and the dragons. I am come to bring you to justice.”

A crafty look stole into the Morrigan’s eyes. “The other Celts will let me go.”

“We doona know that,” Arianrhod said. “I canna remember the last time a Celt imprisoned a dragon. It may never have happened afore.”

“I’ll free them.” The Morrigan tried for a bright smile. She rubbed her hands together. “We can pretend this never happened.”

Lachlan grunted something, but Arianrhod held up a hand. “Free the dragons, and we shall talk further.”

The Morrigan narrowed her eyes, sensing a trap. “Ye must give me your word, Celt, afore I loose them.”

“Really?” Arianrhod cocked her head to one side. “Ye’d ask me to break the covenant right along with you?”

“Um, aye. Equal guilt and all.” The Morrigan grinned, displaying badly stained snaggle teeth.

Arianrhod blew out a breath and tilted her chin up. “I doona know when ye decided ye could play sovereign over the rest of us.” Power crackled from her outraised hands. The Morrigan’s robe began to smoke; she batted at it. “The way I see it,” Arianrhod continued, “your only chance at clemency is to cooperate. Ye’ve already been caught.”

The Morrigan shifted her gaze downward and studied the parched earth intently. Britta could almost feel her mind working. She chafed at just standing, talking, though she recognized Arianrhod’s wisdom. It might take hours to unravel whatever magic held the dragons, particularly since iron was involved. Time passed. Finally, the Morrigan gave a terse nod. “I have just instructed my…comrades to unshackle the dragons.”

“No!” Lachlan strode forward. “Britta and I will do that. Drop whatever magic ye’re shielding the precise location of that tower with so we doona waste as much as a minute hunting for it.”

Tarika burst into Britta’s mind.
“Hurry, bond mate.”

Jonathan must have heard because his expression softened. He caught her eye. “I’ve missed her too.”

Lachlan raised his arms skyward in anticipation. “Kheladin may be young and untried, but I love him. He is a part of me.”

“See what mischief ye’ve done,” Arianrhod told the Morrigan.

“Aye.” The crone’s smile broadened. “All this misery. I love it. It feeds me.”

Britta rounded on her. “What an unnatural creature ye are. Even Arawn, god of the dead, holds respect for living creatures. Dragons are beasts out of legend. How could you—?”

Lachlan beckoned to her, face grim. “I’ve found them. The Morrigan must have complied with my request.”

Britta leaped to his side. Lachlan managed the magic to transport them. Seconds later, an enormous, crumbling stone tower came into view. She heard someone shrieking, realized it was her, and raced forward, intent on Tarika, straining against thick chains. “By the goddess,” Britta swore, revolted by the sight of her dragon suffering. “How could anyone have done this to you?”

“Take care!” Lachlan shouted as he hurled toward Kheladin. “We doona know for certain that the Morrigan hasna left us a few unpleasant surprises.”

“Stop!” Kheladin’s voice rasped as if he were in pain. “There is a barricade afore ye can unlock the chains.”

Britta screeched to a halt, digging her heels into the hard earth. She sent power skittering outward and found a huge barrier circling the tower. Beginning at ground level, it was at least twelve feet high, constructed of multiple bands of intertwining magical ropes thicker than the chains binding the dragons. She stared at it, thinking, and then walked closer. The nearer she got, the weaker her magic became. Britta slapped her forehead with a palm, turned, and put some distance between herself and the fell magic circling the tower.

Of course. I’m making this too hard.
“Lachlan! If we work together, we can defeat it.”

“What do ye mean?” He cast a plaintive glance at Kheladin before trotting to her side. “Soon,” he told his dragon.

Britta held up a hand. “Tarika. If we blast through the chains, can ye fly through the barrier?”

“Aye. It never was a problem. The Morrigan constructed it sloppily, mayhap because she assumed we’d never escape iron chains.”

“Your idea,” Lachlan demanded in a sharp voice. “Och aye. Sorry, I dinna mean to be rude.”

“Can ye gin up enough power to cut through their chains?”

“Of course.”

She nodded. A feral grin split her face. “The barricade may be not be elegantly constructed, but it’s enormous, and it dampens my magic if I get too close. I will create an opening, but I will do it from here. ’Twill be far simpler, and much faster, than dismantling the entire thing—”

“Brilliant!” Lachlan clapped her on the back. “Do it. I’ll funnel my magic through the opening and free the dragons.”

Britta focused her attention—and her power. It was harder than she imagined and took three tries before the hole was big enough that Lachlan’s magic wouldn’t boomerang back and hurt them.

“Yes!” she shrieked as a steady stream of power poured from Lachlan. “It’s working.” Iron creaked and clattered; chains shattered and fell to the ground, raising choking clouds of dust. “Thank the goddess—”

Wing beats drowned out her words. Tarika descended in a flurry of leathery wings and scales, lifted Britta in her forelegs, and hugged her tight. When she looked up, Lachlan was astride Kheladin, arms as far around the dragon’s neck as he could manage. The muscles in his face and neck rippled; he looked as if he were trying not to cry. Britta’s cheeks were wet, and she realized she was crying. Gemstones clinked around her. Dragon’s tears. “Aye, dragon shifter,” Tarika said. “’Tis glad I am to be reunited.”

“Where is our mate?” Kheladin asked Lachlan.

“Caring for sick children. We will go to her as soon as we are done here.”

“Let us return to the others,” Britta said. “The sooner we finish what we have begun, the better.”

“Fine by me,” Lachlan said. He and Kheladin took to the skies.

After a final hug, Tarika settled Britta onto her back, spread her wings, and followed Kheladin and Lachlan. They touched down near where Arianrhod and the Morrigan faced off against one another. Jonathan stood near his mother. The moment he saw her and Tarika, he sprinted toward them.