What a Dragon Should Know
Saamik stood. “I have more, my lady.” The girl’s warm smile doing nothing but annoy Dagmar, so she felt quite deserved of the several biscuits she took when Saamik held out the tin.
“There’s something else …” Saamik again took her seat. “But it’s only a rumor. I know not if there’s any truth to it.”
“There’s usually a little truth in every rumor, Saamik. You might as well tell me.”
Saamik leaned forward, looking uncomfortable. “They say … well … They say he has a truce with dragons.”
Dagmar snorted. Not because she didn’t believe Saamik, but because her own dragon was so startled that the biscuit he’d been eating flipped from his fingers and pinged him in the forehead.
“I know, I know,” Saamik went on. “It sounds ridiculous. I mean, they’re animals, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Dagmar readily agreed. “Yes, they are.”
“How does he even communicate with them? They can’t read or write. And I hear they understand our words the same way a dog does.”
“All very true. I’m sure I could easily train one to do my bidding. Although they’re not nearly as bright as my Canute. Their brains are quite slow. So it’s very possible someone like my uncle Jökull can easily bend them to his will.”
“Tragically, I think you’re right, my lady.”
A soft jingle sound from the store had Saamik jumping up. “I’ll be right back. Let me see who this is.”
“Of course.” Dagmar tapped her finger against the table. This was much worse than she thought. Much worse. Saamik had provided a good starting point for Dagmar, but she needed Brother Ragnar’s real knowledge to help her now.
“ ‘Slow brains’?”
“Well,” she answered absently, “we both know the truth of that, now don’t we?”
He was out of his chair so fast, all Dagmar had the chance to do was squeak in surprise and protest before he yanked her out of the chair.
“Train us like dogs, eh?”
She batted at his hands, which seemed a waste of time, but when his fingers caught hold of her on her sides, under her arms, Dagmar let out a strangled giggle and began to fight. It wasn’t pretty.
“Wait. Have we found a weakness on my lady?” he teased, his hands seemingly everywhere.
“No, you have not!”
“I think we have.” His fingers moved up and down her sides, making Dagmar squeal like a child. Although even as a child, she was never one to squeal. Or laugh. Or giggle. A chuckle now and then, but that was the most she could manage on a good day.
It didn’t help that Gwenvael seemed quite entertained at the moment, swinging her around like a tiny kitten while his fingers kept up the pressure.
He suddenly stopped and ordered, “Apologize.”
“Never.”
He began again, whirling her around. They were both laughing, Dagmar trying desperately to get his hands off her when she saw Saamik standing in the doorway. She knew Gwenvael saw her, too, when Dagmar’s feet suddenly landed on the floor with a thump.
“I can come back, my lady,” Saamik said, not even bothering to hide her smile.
“No, no. Don’t be silly.”
“Actually,” Gwenvael cut in. “Five more minutes—ow!”
Bercelak the Great, Consort to the Dragon Queen, Dragonwarrior Supreme of the Old Guard, Supreme Commander of the Dragon Queen’s Armies, and All Around Kicker of Ass of the Dragon Queen’s Royal Brats, landed near the blood-covered battlefield. His youngest son, Éibhear, had accompanied him and hadn’t shut up in hours.
He loved all his offspring. He truly did. But they each had personality traits that wore the edges off his nerves on his best day. This was not one of his best days. Far from it. Running errands for his queen and love was nothing new and normally he didn’t mind.
Yet this particular errand galled him more than any of the others because he knew it was too dangerous a move. But would she listen? Of course not. Instead she followed the dictates of her idiot hatchlings. His idiot hatchlings.
But to involve the Cadwaladrs was foolish. Bercelak had always considered his kin a last resort.
If one wanted to raze an entire city to the ground—followed by one of his cousins saying, “Ohhh … didn’t mean to do all that, now did I?”—then one called in the Cadwaladrs.
Originally Rhiannon had wanted him to put out a call to all his kin, but that was simply too horrifying a prospect because he knew, without one iota of doubt, they’d come. Instead, he promised to secure his more rational sister and brother. They’d been fighting in the west for months with most of their offspring plus quite a few others of the Cadwaladr bloodline. That would be more than enough to protect one human queen and his son’s spawn.
“I don’t understand,” his youngest blathered on. “How am I supposed to become a great warrior if you won’t send me into real battles?”
“You’ll get there eventually. Just stop whining about it.”
“I’m not whining. It’s a fair question. You’re holding me back.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? Fearghus, Briec, and Gwenvael had all been sent off to fight long before they were in their nineties. Yet here I am, running errands and being treated like I’m newly hatched.”
Éibhear really didn’t understand, did he? He couldn’t compare himself to his older and much more devious brothers. Unlike that lot, Éibhear cared. Not merely about himself, the acceptable selfish attitude of most dragons, but about everyone. He cared if humans were safe, if they were happy. If dragons were happy! When were dragons ever happy—at least in that ridiculous human sense of the word? And why would he care if they were or not?