Eddie.”
“Know what?”
Something grew young and sad and hopeful in her eyes. “Were there really dragon eggs down there?”
I nodded.
“You’re not just telling me that because you think I’m about to die, are you?”
“No. Because you’re not about to die. There were eggs down there. One hatched.”
I’d never seen a look of such sad eloquence. “What?”
“It hatched. There was a dragon down there. I had to kill it.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “A real dragon?” she said in a small voice.
I nodded.
“And it’s dead?”
“I had to, sweetie,” and felt myself unaccountably wanting to cry, too. “It would’ve killed me, and maybe you, too.”
Her lower lip trembled. “Can I see it?”
The second-to-last thing I wanted to do was climb back down in that hole and drag the dragon carcass out. The very last thing I wanted to do was cause Liz any more pain or distress. So I did climb down in the hole, tossed the surprisingly light headless dragon over my shoulder and was about to climb out again when a thin voice, barely audible, said, “Don’t leave me.”
At least I think that’s what it said. Candora was moving, his arms-if you could still call them that-reaching imploringly for me. His face was completely gone, with only a gaping orifice through which his distorted voice emanated.
I didn’t say anything. He couldn’t see me, or probably even hear me. At best he felt my movements through the ground; maybe he just hoped someone was still there.
“Don’t leave me,” he repeated.
Burns from dragon flames never heal.
I remembered Laura Lesperitt, and Nicky. I remembered Liz hanging in the shack.
I turned away and climbed out of the hole.
The sun had now officially risen, blasting us with its golden light. The morning wind stirred, and crows announced their interest in the cooked meat down in the hole. Liz sat up now, clutching the jacket around her. She coughed and trembled, but when she saw what I carried a look of such heartbreak filled her face that I could say nothing. I gently stretched the headless carcass out before her; in death it appeared far more delicate and fragile, and in the sun its black scales shone with the same rainbow pattern as the eggs.
I stood over it. Liz just stared with a look I could not identify.
“There’s another egg in the cave,” I said quietly. “It’s still in one piece, and I think it’s about to hatch. I need to go smash it before it does.”
She didn’t look up, but reached one hand out to gently touch the creature’s shiny skin.
“Did you hear me?” I asked gently.
She nodded without looking. “This is no time for the fire dreams are made of,” she said, and in those words I heard the little girl who’d once believed in the divinity of dragons. “No time for gods you can touch.”
I went back down in the hole, retrieved Candora’s sword and used it to smash the last remaining dragon’s egg. The smell was awful, and the mostly formed creature that spewed forth writhed for a few agonizing moments before I mercifully cut it in half. Then I drove his own sword through Candora’s heart, an act of mercy that most of me argued against. But I was too weary to be a total bastard.
I speared the severed dragon’s head on my knife and brought it up with me. I placed it beside the rest of the corpse. The eyes were still open, still black, and the teeth gleamed white. Liz sat just as I’d left her, one hand on the dragon.
“She’s a female,” Liz said between gulping breaths. “You can tell by the coloring.”
“Lumina,” I said.
She nodded. “Lumina.” Then she sobbed the way people do when they’ve lost something precious. And I guess she had.
THIRTY
I collected all the horses-mine plus Liz’s, Candora’s and Marion’s-and after retrieving my sword burned down the old miner’s hut. The crows, vultures and rats attracted to Candora’s handiwork squawked and ran madly from the smoke. The ground was too rocky to give Marion a proper burial, and I doubted what was left of him would survive the trip back to Neceda intact. A pyre is a good way for a warrior to go, anyway. Even one who cried like a baby as he was eviscerated; even one who killed Hank Pinster. Candora had definitely balanced the scales for that crime.
Liz was in really rough shape and couldn’t ride on her own. I searched the hut before I torched it, but her clothes were gone. Rather than try to get back to town right away, I made for Bella Lou and Buddy’s place. It would give us shelter and Liz a place to rest, and maybe I could find some discarded clothes for her as well.
As we approached, though, I saw smoke rising from the chimney. When we reached the clearing, Bella Lou and the two kids emerged to greet us. Bella Lou looked sad, and tired, but when she saw Liz’s condition she went right to work. The children cleared a bed, Liz drank some medicinal tea and she was hard asleep within minutes. Bella Lou then treated her injuries with some homemade remedies. At no point did Bella Lou ask me what had happened.
Later, after I’d cleaned up a bit as well, Bella joined me on the porch. She packed and lit a long pipe, and together we watched the trees wave in the wind. The kids played quietly in the yard.
“So you came back,” I said.
“Yeah.” She handed me Frankie’s money bag. “It’s all there. We don’t do charity. We’d always planned to leave if the government came after us, but this wasn’t the government’s doing. It was Buddy’s.”
I nodded. “He really did kill someone. A friend of mine, actually.”
“I know. He came and told me about it first. Cried like one of the children. I made him go to town and confess.”
“You did?”
“Yes. And I know you tried to help him. Thank you.”
“I owed him one. But if you knew he was guilty, why were you outside his cell yelling about conspiracies?”
Her expression didn’t change. “I wanted him to die knowing his beliefs went on. He was a weak, spineless little man, but I loved him. It was the last thing I could give him.”
The little girl Toy brought me a cup of tea. She curtsied after I took it. I thanked her and kissed her hand just the way a prince would. She grinned and ran away before I could see her blush. To Bella Lou I said, “Yep. Beliefs are important.”
Now she smiled, wry and very sad. “Only if they’re true.”
“If it’s any consolation, there should be no more dragon people bothering you.” I nodded at the horses, indicating Candora’s and Marion’s. “And those two? You can have them.”
She shook her head and blew a puff from the pipe. “Like I said, we don’t take charity. We’ll be fine.”
“Charity, hell. The guys those two belonged to are dead. I don’t want the bad luck.”
She thought for a moment. “I can understand that,” she said at last. “Thanks.”
LIZ slept most of the day, and did not stir until sundown. I dozed on the porch, and when I woke every injury I’d accumulated made sure I knew it was around. The red-scarf’s knife cut on my shoulder was particularly painful. Bella Lou cleaned and bandaged it for me, and while I slept she also mended and got the bloodstain out of my coat. Buddy had been an idiot not to treat her better.
We all ate some vague stew that Bella Lou conjured up. I didn’t recognize the meat in it; I assumed it was best not to ask.
Liz still needed genuine medical attention, especially for the cut on her thigh. She borrowed some of Bella
