The Dragon & the Alpine Star by Allison Norfolk

Author:Allison Norfolk [Norfolk, Allison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

As Frau Beck had feared, Brig was nearly deserted when she arrived, though she passed no one on the path down from the mountains. The townsfolk were already spread throughout the hills, searching for the monster threatening them. Her invisibility spell was hardly necessary, but she felt better with it in place nonetheless. She only dropped it once entering her own still flat.

The quiet kept itching at her nerves, however. She had to make herself take several deep, calming breaths before laying her notebook out on the table with the page on which the spell was copied open. Then she began bustling around collecting everything the spell required. There would be quite a large load to be lugged back to the old cottage; Frau Beck was glad she spent so much of her time on her feet and working or she would have doubted her ability to carry it all.

The sun was just sinking behind the mountains when she left the outskirts of town, and the sky had darkened to pinkish-mauve when she reached the cottage again. The barrier she had set up to circle the cottage by about thirty yards meant that at first she didn’t see Herr Lindworm, but once she passed through the barrier (set so that only she could enter) he winked into existence, curled around the house so only his front and back ends were exposed. Only once she was inside did she drop the invisibility spell on herself. She was taking no chances.

Herr Lindworm raised his head sharply when he saw her. He blinked a few times, and then seemed to relax. “Do you have everything that you need?” he asked.

“I’m absolutely sure. I checked at least three times before I left the flat.” She set her pack down and began to remove everything, setting it all in a careful line in front of the cottage’s gaping, doorless entrance. “I would have preferred to do this inside the walls just for some wind protection, but you won’t fit.”

A grumble of thunder made them both look up. Dark clouds were indeed rolling in, just visible as the last of the daylight faded.

“Perfect,” grumbled Frau Beck. “Just what we needed: atmosphere. I might as well conjure up a cauldron and start chanting over it.”

Herr Lindworm actually laughed his huffing not-quite-human laugh at this.

“That reminds me, I need to build a fire.” She set about collecting deadwood and stoking up a good blaze. “It may not last once it starts to rain, but until then I’ll be glad of it.”

“I, too,” said Herr Lindworm, moving his head in close. “Is there anything I may to do to help?”

“No, but thank you. Now hush, I need to concentrate.” Going line by line, she started the spell. First she had to create a salve, which was rubbed all over seven thin, flexible birch branches. Then she began heating a metal wash bucket full of water mixed with ashes and more herbs. Jokes about witches and cauldrons aside, this was the largest implement she thought she could carry that could be used to hold liquid.

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