Dragon's Egg (7 page)

The shepherd spoke. “Nay, you've no call, young one. 'Tis my flock.”

“The tree won't hold you,” Roger pointed out. The branches of the dead pine were dry and brittle, most broken off a foot or two from the trunk. In fact, Mella wasn't sure it would even hold Roger.

But before she could object or the shepherd could argue further, Roger had dropped his pack and was working his way up the lower branches. Mella stepped back to see him better. Close to the ground, the branches were near one another, and he made quick progress. But as he approached the
nest, the branches grew thinner, with more space between them.

“If he falls…” she said angrily to the shepherd, but she had no words to finish the threat with. If Roger fell rescuing the stranger's lamb, what could she do? Nothing.

Just as now she could do nothing but watch.

The shepherd stood beside her, his head tipped back so that he could keep Roger in his sight. Mella felt as though she were climbing with Roger, the dry splintery bark flaking off under her fingers, her arm muscles pulling her weight up, her toes curling to hold onto the branches. When a branch snapped under Roger's weight and he swung for a moment by his hands, she felt her stomach lurch, as if her own feet were dangling over emptiness.

Carefully, Roger got his feet back onto a branch and moved slowly upward. He was higher now than the roof of the Inn. Another minute and he had reached the fork where the eagle had made her home.

Roger braced himself and leaned over the nest. Mella held her breath. He would need both hands to pick up the lamb. Faintly, Mella could hear the squawks of the frightened chicks. If the mother eagle was anywhere nearby, the sound would bring her rushing back.
Hurry,
Mella thought urgently at Roger.

But he didn't hurry, and she realized that he didn't dare. Slowly, Roger reached into the nest and then brought his hands back over the edge. He held something. Mella could not see it distinctly, but she knew it must be the lamb. Roger tucked the small shape inside his tunic and prepared to make his way back down.

The shepherd's black dog sat up and barked sharply. Mella gasped.

In the sky she saw a dark shape winging toward the tree. Toward the nest and Roger.

E
mperor eagles had wings wider than a man was tall. Their beaks could break bone. They could kill a sheep or a full-grown deer. Not even a hunting cat could scare an emperor eagle off a kill.

Mella shouted a warning just as the bird screamed a high-pitched, angry challenge to the intruder near its nest. Roger began to climb back down as fast as he could, clutching at branches, trying to keep the trunk of the tree between himself and the furious bird.

The eagle dove, but it was hampered by the spiky branches. Roger slipped, snatched at a branch, recovered. Mella's heart thumped against
her ribs. He would fall. Even if the eagle didn't reach him, he would fall. He couldn't dodge an attacker, and hang on,
and
keep the lamb safe.

Mella grabbed up a stone and threw it with all her strength, but it fell far short of the eagle. The bird dove again, and Roger ducked his head between his arms to shield his face.

Mella heard a strange humming sound.

The shepherd had pulled a sling loose from his belt. It was simply a long strip of leather, wider in the middle than at the ends. He held the two loose ends in one hand and in the center of the strip, where the leather folded over on itself, he'd tucked a smooth, round river stone.

Now he swung the sling in a circle, making the humming sound Mella had heard. The leather strap moved so quickly that it looked as if the man had his hand in the center of a spinning wheel. With a flick of his wrist, the shepherd sent the stone flying at the eagle.

The missile crashed through dry twigs and must have struck home, for the eagle screamed
in pain and rage and swooped away from the tree. The shepherd's second stone missed, but it kept the great bird at bay as Roger slithered and scrambled the rest of the way down the tree. Six feet from the ground he grasped a thick branch, swung for a moment, and then dropped to land in a heap on the pine needles at Mella's feet.

“Roger!” Mella bent over him. “Are you all right? You're bleeding!”

“I am?” The eagle's talons had raked a deep scratch across the back of Roger's neck and down his shoulder. Roger got up a little unsteadily and twisted around, trying to see the injury. Mella dabbed at the blood with her sleeve. “Ow, Mella, stop that, it hurts. I think the lamb's all right,” Roger said, and reached into his tunic to pull out the little animal and hand it over.

The newborn creature looked tiny in the shepherd's large, brown fingers. It was so young that its wool was still damp, and it huddled into the man's hands and let out an occasional feeble, whimpering bleat.

Carefully, the shepherd wrapped the lamb in a scarf from his neck and tucked it inside his tunic, where the heat of his skin would keep it warm. Overhead, the eagle, perched now on her nest, screeched an angry warning, and Roger and Mella looked up nervously.

“Well, then,” the shepherd said. “I suppose you'd best come home with me.”

The shepherd's name, it turned out, was Gwyn. He and his family lived in a tiny village, five or six round houses, each with its barns and pens behind it, all neatly built from slabs of stone. The little settlement almost seemed to vanish into the landscape, so that you needed to be close by to see it at all.

Gwyn's wife, Lelan, was a small, plump, round-faced woman who fussed over the scratch on Roger's neck while her children watched, wide-eyed at the sight of strangers. Mella kept losing count—were there seven or eight? She could only be sure of Tobin, the oldest, a few years younger than she was, and of Jes, the baby
he was holding, bouncing her gently to keep her quiet while his mother took care of Roger.

Lelan, Mella thought, talked more than enough to make up for her husband's silence.

“An eagle, you say? Aye, they're vicious creatures. And the damage they do to the flock at lambing, it's terrible. We try to keep the ewes in the pens when they're near to birthing, but there are always a few who get out to have their babies in the open. Sheep aren't the brainiest of creatures, that's the truth. But what was Gwyn thinking, sending a slip of a lad like you up a great tree to an eagle's nest?”

“He was too heavy,” Roger explained, wincing as Lelan rubbed a greasy ointment into the cut. “Besides, he didn't really send—”

“You might have been killed, and surely a boy's life is worth more than a lamb's. I'll tell him so, have no fear. Now, off with that shirt, my dear, and I'll stitch up that tear in a half a moment.”

Roger was halfway out of his shirt when Gwyn came in, ducking under the low lintel of the doorway, the dogs at his heels.

“Lamb'll do well enough,” he said briefly. “Whose horse is that before Rhil's croft?”

“A stranger, indeed,” Lelan answered. “Can you imagine, three strangers in one day! I can't remember it happening before. A gentleman, well spoken he is, and he says he's looking for someone. Supper in a moment, my dears. The oatcakes are just baking.”

Another stranger? Here, in this tiny village? Mella met Roger's eyes with a feeling of unease, and he slowly pulled his shirt back on just as the door to Gwyn's croft swung open.

“Rhil,” said Gwyn, in greeting and question all at once.

The man who stood in the doorway was gray haired and gray bearded, stocky, and frowning. Other villagers, behind him, peered over his shoulders.

“Gwyn,” he said, with a nod. “I hear you've taken in two children for the night?”

“Right enough,” Gwyn said as Lelan paused, a spoon poised above a pot of stew over the fire. Jes whined in Tobin's lap and held out her arms for her mother. “They did me a service.”

“Someone is here who has an interest in them,” Rhil said and stepped aside to let Alain into the room.

Mella felt a shriek leap up in her throat, but she strangled it before it had a chance to get out. Roger, too, jumped as if he'd been stung by a wasp. But there were people all around. Gwyn was standing close by. Alain could hardly kidnap them in front of an entire village.

“Yes, this is them,” Alain said, shaking his head sorrowfully. He walked stiffly, as if it hurt him to put weight on his left knee. “Your mother's heartbroken,” he told Mella reproachfully. “How could you worry her so?”

Words knotted up in Mella's mouth, and she
couldn't loosen one to get it out. Her mother? Well, her mother must be worried, true enough, she thought with a stab of guilt. But why should
Alain,
of all people—

“You know these children, master?” Gwyn asked.

“Know them? Aye, of course. This is my niece. My own sister's child.”

All the knotted-up words burst out of Mella's mouth in a cry of outrage.

“That's not
true
!” she managed to say, gasping with indignation. “He's—he's a
thief,
he's a criminal, he's a
kidnapper
—”

But Alain was talking too, and Roger, and Rhil.

“Four days ago she ran away from home. She's always been a wild girl, but since she took up with this rogue here—”

“He's not Mella's uncle, we know him—”

“Master, now, the child says she doesn't know you.”

“If it wasn't for my sister I'd not have bothered
to look for her at all. Nothing but trouble since the day she was born.”

“It's a lie, he's lying!”

“And a thief as well, this time. Look in her sack. See if you don't find there the bracelet that's a match for this. She stole it from her own mother, the heartless thing that she is.”

Mella choked as Alain held out his bandaged hand. Dangling from it was a necklace with five coral beads. When she'd last seen it, he had tossed it aside as worthless. With all that had happened that night, she'd completely forgotten to pick it up out of the grass.

“That's
mine
!” she said with fury. “He
stole
it from me!”

Frowning, Rhil picked up Mella's sack.

“That's mine!” Mella cried out again. But Gwyn's hand fell heavily on her shoulder.

“Hush a moment, child.”

“But he—”

“You'll have your say. I warrant it.”

Rhil's fingers looked thick and clumsy, but
they were surprisingly deft as he sorted through Mella's possessions and found the bracelet easily.

“There now,” Alain said with satisfaction. “Didn't I say so?”

“Well enough.” Rhil frowned at the trinket. “There's proof, of a sort.”

“It's
not
!” Mella shouted.

“Let the child tell her side, Rhil.” Gwyn's voice was sober, his hand firm on Mella's shoulder.

“Tell them, Mella.” Roger nodded at her.

“He's not—” Mella caught her breath and tried to order her thoughts. “He's
not
my uncle. He stole that necklace from me. He's the thief!” Awkwardly, the story of their encounter with Alain came out, Roger nodding eagerly to confirm everything she said. There was silence in the little croft after she had finished.

“Dragons?” Rhil looked dubious. “Never heard of wild dragons attacking a man.”

“Kidnapped you?” another villager, leaning in the doorway, asked. “Why, then?”

“Well, because…Roger's father…he's rich,” Mella explained.

Alain laughed shortly. “Rich?
That
one?”

Roger—torn shirt, unwashed hair, dirty face, scratched hands—looked helplessly at Mella.

“You see?” Alain sighed. “What my sister's had to endure from this one, I can't tell you. Enough of this storytelling now. You're both to come home with me.”

Roger, with two quick strides, crossed the room to stand by Mella's side.

“But it's not
true
!” Mella shouted.

“Why were you wandering the hills then?” Rhil asked fiercely, turning a sharp look on her. “Two children, alone in the mountains? If you weren't fleeing home for a good reason, what were you doing there?”

“We were…” Mella's voice faltered.

“We needed to—” Roger said at the same time.

“And what's this, then?” Rhil, still holding Mella's sack, was looking at something inside it. He reached in and drew out the metal box that held the Egg.

“Don't touch that!”

“Mella, don't—”

“What have you stolen this time, girl?”

“That's mine, that's
mine
—”

But the babble of voices hushed when Rhil flipped open the catch and lifted the lid.

“What
is
it?” Fascinated, Rhil tilted the box so that firelight flowed silkily across the glossy surface of the Egg.

“What have you stolen now, the pair of you?” Deftly, Alain lifted the box from Rhil's hands.

“Don't you touch that!”

Roger clutched at Mella's arm. “It's just a rock,” he said sharply. “It's nothing valuable. Mella liked the color, that's all.”

Alain shut the lid on the Egg smartly. “Enough of this. I must take these children home. Then they'll be no more trouble to you.”

Rhil turned to Mella and Roger, his face serious. “Can you give me a better account of yourselves than you have so far?”

Roger looked steadily at Mella. Mella opened
her mouth and shut it again. What could she say that would be believed? She twisted to look up at Gwyn. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, it's true—”

But Gwyn didn't look back at her. He was frowning at the metal box in Alain's hands. And when he spoke, his deep, low voice caught the attention of everyone in the tiny room.

“I don't believe that's yours to handle, master.”

Hope flared up brightly in Mella's heart. Did the shepherd believe them after all?

Alain laughed shortly. “You can't mean you think it belongs to them? Two children?”

“You said she'd taken a bracelet. Not…such a thing as that.”

Alain shrugged. “I told you she's a thief. Who knows where she took this from?”

“If it's not hers, it doesn't follow that it belongs to you.”

Alain turned to Rhil. “This is idle talk. Surely you can see who's lying here?”

“Lies enough,” Gwyn agreed before Rhil
could answer. “But because the children can't account well for themselves, that doesn't mean this man's words are true.”

Alain snorted. “You've two stories to choose from. One of us must be telling the truth.”

“Indeed?” Gwyn looked keenly at Alain. “Nothing so far as I can see shows that all three of you are not lying.”