The Dragonstone by Dennis L. McKiernan

Author:Dennis L. McKiernan [McKiernan, Dennis L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781101626429
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 43

After securing the Brise in a slip assigned by the harbormaster, Arin and her companions made their way up the steep cliff-side road to the headland above, Alos wheezing and complaining all the way, the old man stopping at intervals to rest and catch his wind.

“I should have stayed at one of the dockside inns,” Alos declared.

“Ha!” barked Aiko. “At a dockside tavern, you mean.”

Alos stuck out his chin. “Inn. Tavern. What do you care? You’ve no claim on me. When you get what you’ve come for and are on your way to who knows where, I’ll not be with you. I’m free at last and no longer part of this madness, dragging me over the oceans of the world and stealing peacocks and chopping off parts of queens. You’ve no claim, y’ hear?”

Aiko growled, but Arin sighed, and the old man would not meet her eyes. Delon hefted the oldster’s gear, and Egil said, “Let’s go.”

They came in among buildings of stone and tile and brick; the only wood in sight was that of brightly painted doors. They made their way into the city and, after asking about, procured rooms in the Blue Moon, an inn overlooking the bay below.

Following hot baths and a hot meal they took to their beds, and when morning came Alos was gone.

* * *

“Gone?” asked Egil. “Gone where?”

Delon shrugged and gestured out beyond the windows of the common room, where an early morning fog curled up across the headland and through the streets of Pendwyr. “I don’t know. His bed had been slept in, but when I awoke he wasn’t there. His goods are gone as well.”

Egil gazed at Aiko, but the yellow warrior merely stared back, her face impassive. Then he turned to Arin. “Fear not, love, we can always find him and cast him aboard the ship.”

Arin looked away from the fire in the nearby hearth, the blaze driving the damp chill away from the room. “Nay, chier, let be.” She glanced at Delon, then back to Egil. “To do such to Alos would be no better than clamping an iron collar ’round his neck.”

Egil took a deep breath then let it out. “As you will, love. As you will.”

A serving girl came to the table bearing a great platter heaped with eggs and rashers of bacon and biscuits and honey and a pot of freshly brewed tea. Delon took it upon himself to serve them all, shoveling food onto each of their trenchers and filling their mugs with hot drink.

As they dug in, Egil peered ’round the table. “I suppose our next move is to go to the caer and look for the High King’s cage, eh?”

Delon set his mug aside. “Perhaps it isn’t at the caer at all. Perhaps there’s a garden of beasts elsewhere.”

“It may be that King Bleys doesn’t keep ferrets at all,” said Aiko.

Delon cocked an eyebrow.

Aiko shrugged. “Perhaps the ferret in the High King’s cage is a person, just as you were a mad monarch’s rutting peacock.

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