To Marry a Dragon

14. Meet the Bandit

Along the Twisted Gulf, the mountains crowded the waves for most of the year until the waves took their vengeance in the winter when the wind changed direction. The roads that hugged the coastline often had entire sections washed away by these storms. Forts and towers watched the waves, the mountains, the wealthy merchants and the smugglers closely. Antikapey and Gallicia fought over each wall fiercely, because the gates meant tolls.

In short, this was not a road that a fugitive from the law would choose willingly. Sigvart took to the smaller trails through the mountains, a trek fit for the desperate and the brave of heart.

That's why Elvira picked a sure-footed horse from the Order's stables, a chestnut mare with eyelashes as long and black as Ferrante's. Yes, this was a chase, but sometimes the slow road was the fastest way to get there.

And good thing it was that she acted on her hunch!

The horse followed her without complaint in inching over a natural bridge connecting one precipice to the other, over the dizzying emptiness.

I am both brave and desperate, Elvira reminded herself, shuffling forward, step by careful step. Besides, it's the same distance either way now. No turning back.

A gust of wind made her cry out in alarm. Only out of sheer stubbornness, she didn't drop the reins of her horse when it whinnied behind her.

"We can make it," she assured the horse.

As soon as her heels touched the solid ground, she fell to the stone, taking in huge gulps of air.

The horse danced, urging her to get farther away from the edge. She crawled forward, her knees still mud, until she remembered how Ferrante tossed himself off the cliff and lifted into the air on the black wings. How could he be sure that it would work every time?

He couldn't, and he jumped anyway. She thought and pushed to her feet.

An acorn jumped out of its pouch. Elvira exclaimed in alarm again, pawing the sloping stone, afraid that the acorn would bounce over the edge, but Cerne sprouted out without an accident.

"They are close now," Cerne said and poked the bare rocks desolately with a green fingernail. By the look of it, she spent lots of time polishing them into perfect oval shells. "I hope we'll find them in a place where grass still grows. I didn't realize that travelling was so depressing. Too much of the world is bare."

Pushing her wind-blown hair out of her face, Elvira looked over the rough folds of the mountain shoulders, the cloud-dappled sky overhead and a screeching eagle holding itself aloft in the air. The beauty of this place was severe, but she couldn't deny a note of sadness in it too.

Alas, she didn't expect the landscape to change for a while. "I'm not sure that the bandits' nest will be much more cheerful."

Cerne only sighed in reply.

***

The mountain trail took a sharp turn, leading them over the scree, before diving below the treeline, much to Cerne's delight. She hugged the fluffy pine branches to her chest and ran ahead, leaping over the roots. A gleeful smile said, now we're traveling to the right places! Every time she looped back to see what held Elvira up, and her impatience had a re-energizing effect on Elvira.

Soon, the track widened enough for Elvira to ride instead of leading her mount behind her. A herd of shaggy cows lifted their heads to watch them with hopeful mooing. The smell of cooking fires drifted on the wind... they were close to a settlement. Or a bandit camp.

Elvira loosened her chains in their holster just in time, because Sigvart stepped out of the underbrush in front of her.

"Sigvart!"