Chapter Nine
The sorting of weapons and armor took longer than Brannie thought it would. Took so long, in fact, it was decided they would camp in the nearby forest for the night. As soon as a fire was started, Brannie dove headfirst into all the wonderful weapons and armor her cousin and uncle had created. Eventually, though, she had to borrow Aidan’s surcoat to cover her nakedness so that Uther and Caswyn would stop staring.
Idiots.
Like she didn’t know how those two really felt about her as a dragoness. Apparently her tail was “too short.” Uther used to call her “Stubby” behind her back. And if they didn’t enjoy looking at her true form, what did she care if they lusted for her human one? They both went together and she loved every part of herself.
Why shouldn’t she? As she always told her brother Celyn . . . she was adorable!
What Brannie didn’t know . . . ? How Aidan felt about her. She’d never heard that Aidan had said anything about her one way or another. But when she’d suggested they’d have sex for a little stress relief, he hadn’t been remotely interested.
Strange. She’d always thought he kind of liked her. Not seriously, but enough to fuck a time or two. She wasn’t asking for a lifetime mating. She had no doubts she’d find her mate one day, but she was sure it would be another warrior like her. Loyal to the army and the troops. Another captain perhaps. Or even a general. That would be nice.
But until that happened—and she knew it was a long way off—she still had “needs” as her mother liked to call it when her youngest daughter had volunteered for Her Majesty’s Army.
“You’ll have needs,” Ghleanna had said, picking a quiet time when everyone, even Brannie’s father, was out somewhere else. “And there’s no shame in that. You just have to be careful who you choose. Don’t be like your grandfather or cousin Gwenvael and choose whatever piece of ass crosses your path. Pick someone kind, who won’t call you a beauty to your face and a whore behind your back.”
It seemed a strange conversation with her mum. Especially when Brannie found out Ghleanna’s conversation with Celyn was “Treat females like trash, and I’ll hunt you down and cut your prick off. Understand?”
But as Brannie advanced through the ranks, she’d kept her mother’s words in mind and found she was right. Those she’d chosen to share her bedroll with had been fun, nice, and discreet. Only one had decided to get drunk in a pub and expound on what a “great lay” Brannie was. Too bad for him, her cousin Éibhear had been standing behind him. It was before he’d become Mì-runach but he was already becoming known for his temper.
But you know . . . some dragons don’t need their wings. Or tail. Or right front claw.
Rhona walked up to Brannie, pulling her out of her thoughts. “I have something special for you, cousin.”
Brannie sat up straight and didn’t bother to hide her grin. “A halberd? To replace the one I lost.”
Rhona held out her hand and Brannie stared at it. “Oh . . . how nice,” she lied. “A stick.”
Rhona glared at her. “It’s not a stick.”
“Really? Because it looks like a stick.” The glare became worse, so Brannie took the metal stick from her cousin and held it under her cousin’s nose and demanded. “What do you see, Rhona? Because all I see is a bloody stick!”
“Perhaps,” Aidan decided to interject, “it’s a stick that turns into an actual weapon with a thought. I believe you have a spear like that, Rhona. Yes?”
“It’s a spear?”
Rhona grinned. “It’s whatever you want.”
“Gold?”
Her cousin’s glare instantly returned.
“Bread?” Brannie tried again. Of course, now she was just being an ass. “Wine!”
“No, ya irritating cow!” Rhona let out a frustrated breath. She used to make that same sound whenever she had to train Brannie and Izzy back in those early days. When they were just privates with dreams of being more. It was, as Rhona had told them more than once at the time, one of her least favorite things to do in the “universe.”
She’d actually said “universe” not just “the world.”
“Think of your favorite weapon and see what happens,” she finally told Brannie.
Of course, Brannie liked lots of weapons. But her favorite? Well . . . that would be the halberd, wouldn’t it? But she did love swords. Short swords. And she did love axes . . . and hammers! Gods, she adored hammers!
“You are overthinking this, Branwen the Awful!” Rhona yelled in the same voice she’d used when she’d been training Brannie. “Make a decision!”
Startled, Brannie thought halberd! because she wanted to use it to strike down her bellowing cousin.
And the metal stick in her hand immediately began to grow. It lengthened and thickened right in her palm. The tip turned into a spearhead and from the right side of the tip grew an ax head.
Brannie immediately stood, her mouth open. She’d never seen anything so beautiful before.
“It automatically knows if you’re in human form or dragon and will adjust accordingly,” she heard her cousin explain, but Brannie was barely paying attention anymore.
She thought about a hammer and watched her halberd turn into a war hammer with an oversized head. Then it turned into a gladius. Then a spear. Then a bow. Then a long sword. Then back into a halberd.
That’s when she squealed.
* * *
It was that smile. He watched it spread across Brannie’s face. So wide, it almost made her eyes disappear entirely, her poor nose forced into a scrunched-up position, her shoulders coming up until they practically covered her ears.
Her glee exploded from every pore on her body and she went up on her toes as she began to sort of . . . dance around with her newly formed halberd in her hands. Yes. She danced.
Over a weapon.
And then there was the squealing. Aidan was sure he could hear nearby wolves howling in response, and Uther and Caswyn moved as far away as they could without leaving the fresh roasting meat the triplets had hunted down and put on the fire. But Aidan wasn’t annoyed at all. How could he be when he’d never seen Branwen the Awful this happy or excited before?
She was so busy hugging her new weapon to her chest and grinning that Brannie didn’t notice that her triplet cousins were walking up behind her, their own weapons at the ready. Triplet one had a hammer. Triplet two had a double-headed lance. Triplet three had a long sword.
Triplet one brought her hammer up and over, aiming toward Branwen’s head. The second swung the sharp end of her lance at Brannie’s legs. The third went straight for her gut.
No one said a word to Brannie. Not one word of warning. Not even a grunt from her cousins. They did nothing but attack. With full force.
Yet she must have sensed them. She must have known they were there. How else could she move so quickly, using the blunt end of the halberd to block the blades of the lance so they never reached her legs? At the same time, she used the curved spike on the opposite side of the halberd’s ax-head to catch hold of the wood handle of the hammer.
But Triplet three was still coming with her sword. So Brannie, gripping her weapon tight, jerked just her torso far enough over that the blade missed her and sent her cousin falling forward. She would have landed on Brannie, but the army captain stepped back and her kin hit the ground hard. Then Brannie twisted her weapon and body, sending the other two flipping up and over in different directions.
Her cousins immediately tried to get back up but Brannie brought the blunt end of her weapon down against Triplet one’s head. As she roared in pain, Brannie flipped backward, away from the hammer Triplet two was swinging at Brannie’s legs while she was still on the ground.
When Brannie landed, she brought the ax-head of her weapon down on the wood part of the hammer, breaking the handle into two pieces.
Without a word and with absolutely no anger, she slammed her foot down on the back of Triplet three’s back, pinning her to the ground. And the halberd she held in her hands stretched and lengthened until it could reach the other two. Metal spear tips grew out of both ends and she pressed each against her cousins’ throats, quietly waiting until they both raised their hands in defeat.
Brannie stepped back and, with a quick twist of her hands, she spun the weapon up and back until she held it behind her body. By now it had changed once again so that it was a six-foot metal staff.
And she’d done all that while wearing only his surcoat and a belt around her waist.
Uther and Caswyn gaped as well until Caswyn demanded, “I want one.”
Rhona rubbed her hands together and shook her head. “No. That is not a weapon for you.”
“Why not? I can handle anything. I’ll pay if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not about money,” Rhona explained calmly, quickly organizing the chain mail and armor they would wear for the rest of their trip. “You’re simply too stupid.”
Aidan snorted out a surprised laugh and Brannie’s eyes widened in shock at her cousin’s words.
“Rhona!” Brannie chastised. “What a horrible thing to say to someone!” She jerked her thumb at a stunned Caswyn. “And I say this as someone who doesn’t even like him.”
“Did you have to add that last bit?” Caswyn asked.
“Puddles!” she reminded him.
“It’s nothing personal really.” Rhona tossed each of them chain mail shirts. “He just doesn’t think fast enough. You do. Where’s the shame in that?”
“You didn’t have to call him stupid!”
“Dumb?”
“Rhona!”
Now she tossed metal sword belts at them. Their sword belts were usually leather but these were different. Aidan examined his. It was made of chain mail, was flexible, and had a clasp at the front to secure it rather than tying it into a knot.
“All I’m saying,” Rhona explained to Brannie, “is that your weapon is the kind that can help some warriors or get others killed. I trained you, Branwen the Awful, when you were just Branwen the Black. I know exactly how you work and how fast you think on the battlefield. I also know your mother started training you long before that. And what every Cadwaladr knows is how to make anything a weapon. Your battle-mind is”—she snapped her fingers several times—“fast. We all just witnessed that. But that weapon is only as fast as the one who wields it.”
Rhona looked Caswyn, Uther and, finally, Aidan over before announcing, “These dragons are Mì-runach. Slow. Lumbering. Like bears.” She shrugged. “They run naked and screaming into battle to terrify the weak and startle the strong. So I will give them very good weapons that fit their”—she thought a moment—“skills. That fit their skills better than your weapon. Okay?”
Brannie opened her mouth, but Rhona quickly cut her off with “Good.”
Not bothering to argue any of this with Rhona the Fearless—she’d always made her feelings on the Mì-runach abundantly clear—Aidan held up the new equipment she’d provided and asked, “Anything we need to know about this?”
“Chain mail shirt and leggings, sword belt, and weapons will shift with you. Chain mail boots are for when you are human, but when you shift to dragon, they will turn into greaves to protect your lower legs and cover your heel tendons.” She handed each a dark red cape and stated, “These are bewitched. They’ll shift when you do and the color will change as needed. Shadows will be your friends in these.”
“Will we be invisible?” Uther asked.
And the look Rhona gave him . . . no wonder she didn’t trust him with Brannie’s weapon. “No.”
Uther recoiled a bit. “I was just asking.”
“These surcoats are like the capes and have the crest of a royal family that hasn’t chosen sides one way or the other. It should keep you safe enough on these roads.”
After the clothes, Rhona handed out swords and short daggers for eating, expertly crafted by her and her father. Once done, she gave Uther a big ax, Caswyn a medium-sized hammer. And Aidan she gave a long-bladed dagger. All these weapons would change size when the wielder did.
Aidan held up his long-bladed dagger. “What am I to do with this, Rhona the Fearless?”
“What you do best,” she replied with a wink.
Then she handed Brannie an ax, a war hammer, and a gladius. All for her and her alone.
“But me stick?” Brannie asked.
“Looks like a stick. Use it when they least expect it.”
With a yawn, Rhona pointed at the meat over the fire. “Is that done? I’m starving and we need to get some sleep. We start early tomorrow.”
Uther and Caswyn pushed past Rhona, the triplets, and the dragon protectors traveling with them to be first in line for food. Then Rhona had to pry a hammer from one of the triplets, who tried to use it to crush the pair’s heads in.
Chuckling, Aidan slipped the dagger into its sheath.
“What did Rhona mean?” Brannie asked. “What do you do best?”
“When I first came for training, I was known for my skill of sneaking up on the other trainees and slamming their heads against walls.”
Brannie smirked. “Give you a hard time, did they?”
“I was the only royal in that class. They thought I was easy prey. I enjoyed pointing out how wrong they were. Sadly, my trainers didn’t appreciate my . . . reluctance to stop my reign of terror against my enemies.”
“That’s how you ended up in the Mì-runach?”
“The queen thought I’d be better suited in small groups of dragons who enjoyed sneaking up on others and smashing their heads into walls.” He held up the sheathed weapon. “Eventually I moved from smashing heads to a quick flick against the throat. A little messier but faster. Unlike you, I don’t need to revel in the destruction of others.”
“I don’t revel,” she lied, walking away in hopes of getting food from the cold, dead hands of Uther and Caswyn. “I just like to make sure they’re really dead. Nothing worse than when they pop up behind you. Still breathing.”
* * *
They ate their meal on large stumps, no one saying much.
When a large burp filled the silence, they all jumped a bit and everyone looked over at little Breena.
Picking venison out of her teeth with the tip of her finger, she stopped when she realized she was being stared at. “Wha’?”
“A little class, sister,” Nesta chastised.
Breena leaned in close, her nose against her sister’s cheek, and unleashed a burp that went on for a good two minutes.
Brannie saw Uther’s and Caswyn’s mouths drop, stunned as they gawked at the triplets. It wasn’t merely that Breena was still midway in her burp display or that Nesta, her jaw tight, was sitting there, silently raging. But that Edana had continued to shovel food into her mouth as if it was her last meal, completely ignoring or oblivious to her sisters’ antics.
As Brannie glanced over at Aidan, their gazes caught, held, and both ended up turning away, their stifled laughter shaking their bodies and causing tears.
When Breena finally finished, she kissed her sister on her cheek and went back to putting food in her mouth. Nesta’s brutal glare should have engulfed her sister in flames but, sadly, life didn’t work that way and she, too, eventually went back to eating her meal.
Once everyone had finished eating, it was Edana who pulled out a flask of Cadwaladr ale. She had the stopper pulled and the flask to her lips when Rhona snatched it from her hands and tossed the entire thing into the fire.
“You mad cow!” Nesta and Breena screeched in unison, the pair united in their need for ale. Edana just kept looking at her empty hand as if she expected the flask to reappear.
“We were drinking that,” Nesta barked at a steely-eyed Rhona.
“No. You weren’t.” Rhona looked over all of them. A sergeant in Her Majesty’s Army. But a general in the Cadwaladr Clan. “We are not on holiday. We have duties. Important duties that need to be accomplished quickly and efficiently. Can’t do that if you lot are drunk off your asses, now can we, Branwen the Awful?”
Blinking, Brannie looked up at her cousin. “What the battle-fuck did I do?”
“How many times have you gotten drunk one night, only to wake up the next day someplace else, with no idea how you got there?”
Brannie opened her mouth to argue that, but Aidan leaned in and whispered, “Let it go.”
He was right. Nothing Brannie said would convince Rhona that she was wrong on this point. She was a firm believer that the Cadwaladrs, as a whole, drank too much. And it was one thing to drink when you just had to get up the next morning to perform some basic army duties or handle guard duty. But when on a mission . . . there was no excuse for “that,” as she liked to call the Cadwaladr Clan’s love of heading out to a local pub and indulging in a few pints.
“You lot going off to do that again?” she’d ask with that tone.
Not that Rhona didn’t drink. She did and she did it well, but it’d better be the right time. And traveling on an important mission for the queens was not, in her mind, the right time.
“Now”—Rhona pointed at the triplets—“you three take first watch.”
That was met with eye rolls that had Rhona walking over to them, but the She-dragons were off the log and disappearing into the surrounding trees before their older sister could launch into one of her famous tirades.
“The rest of you get some sleep,” Rhona ordered. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time for your watch.”
“Are you going to get some sleep?” Brannie asked her.
“I will. But you know me.”
Brannie did. Her cousin slept like a house cat. Waking up the instant she heard a sound that she knew wasn’t normal. And as soon as she woke up, the dragoness was ready for battle.
Although Brannie often woke up swinging, she wouldn’t say she was necessarily ready for battle or even really awake. One time she was halfway through a battle before she realized that she hadn’t been dreaming but had actually been knee-deep among the enemy.
Brannie tossed the bones from her meal out into the woods so that the local animals could eat and gratefully took one of the bedrolls that Rhona provided her and the others. Sleeping on hard ground was not one of her favorite things. Unless, of course, she’d been drinking with her kin. Then, wherever Brannie landed would be her bed for the night.
As Brannie yawned and dropped her bedroll on the ground, she noticed Keita standing off to the side, staring up at the sky.
Brannie would never call her cousin pensive. Far from it. This was usually Keita’s time to shine. Flirting with the males and joking with the cousins. But she’d been of few words for hours now.
At first, Brannie was just going to get some sleep and leave her cousin to whatever her problems were, but . . . that simply didn’t feel right. She didn’t dislike Keita. She was annoyed by her. And some days she wanted to punch the little twat in the throat, but they were still kin.
Leaving her bedding, Brannie walked over to Keita, standing next to her.
“You all right, cousin?” she asked when Keita didn’t acknowledge her.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re worried about Ren,” Brannie guessed.
“Concerned.”
“We’ll do our best . . . to find him, I mean. Promise.”
Keita glanced at her, forced a smile. “I know.”
Keita headed to her own bedroll, which was placed near Uther and Caswyn because Brannie knew that pair would destroy anyone or thing that came too close to her cousin.
Brannie returned to her own bed and as she snuggled down, she saw that the always observant Aidan was watching her, his brows raised in question.
She only had to tilt her head a bit, shoulders giving a tiny shrug for him to understand her perfectly. Of course, they’d been in battle together for years now and Aidan had been protecting his Mì-runach brethren from her since the beginning. The dragon knew how to read her.
With a sweet, understanding smile, he stretched out on his own bedroll. Brannie followed suit, her hands behind her head, her gaze focused on the sky above.
Except for Caswyn’s intolerable snoring, it was a nice evening.
And probably the last one they’d have for a very long time.