Dragonseed

up to Bitterwood. He snorted in a demanding tone.

'You'll get your turn, Poocher,' said Zeeky.

'Do we get to drink before the pig?' Shay asked Jandra quietly. He was adapting to the idea that the rules of Zeeky's world were somewhat different. Poocher squealed and shook his head in response.

'Stop being rude,' said Zeeky. 'Skitter will go first. He's had to do all the hard work carrying us. Then Jandra, because she's a lady, and Lizard, since he's still little. Then Shay, because if you're going to be mean, Poocher, you'll have to go last.' Poocher made a noise that was part grunt, part grumble, and trotted away, back toward the stream. Apparently, he wasn't going to wait around for the well water.

'He's been so bratty lately,' said Zeeky, shaking her head.

Bitterwood heard the bucket splash. He began to turn the wooden wheel to raise it back to the surface. He noticed he'd been left off Zeeky's list of who would get a turn drinking. He also noticed that no one beside Poocher had challenged her list.

As he lugged the heavy bucket up over the rim and sat it down on the cobblestones for the long-wyrm to drink, he heard a noise behind him. The door of a nearby cottage had opened a crack. Hushed voices whispered back and forth within. The cottage was larger than most in the village; a few weeks ago, it had been stripped of its slate shingles. Now, the shingles had been replaced. Whoever resided there must be someone important among the locals.

A pot-bellied older man stepped out of the door. He was followed by four guards, wearing stolen earth-dragon chainmail and helmets and armed with spears. The armor might have fit a large man reasonably well, but it was laughable on these four-as near as he could tell, they were all teenagers, younger than Jandra. In fact, unless the dimming light was playing tricks on him, they were all girls, which made sense. Most able-bodied men who'd been at the Free City had run off to join Ragnar's rebellion. Only women, children, and elderly men would have returned to Winding Rock.

'Strangers,' said the pot-bellied man, looking nervously at the long-wyrm. 'You didn't ask permission to use our well. I must inform you that there's… there's a user fee.'

'For water?' Bitterwood scoffed.

'Hello, Barnstack,' said Zeeky.

'You know him?' Jandra asked.

'Sure. Barnstack's the mayor of Winding Rock.'

Barnstack eyed Zeeky astride the long-wyrm. He looked mildly befuddled, as if he didn't know why she knew him.

'I'm Zeeky. From Big Lick.' Big Lick had been a collection of miner's shacks not five miles from here. It wasn't quite large enough or organized enough to truly be called a village.

Barnstack nodded slowly upon hearing the name. 'You're Jeremiah's sister.'

'You know Jeremiah?' Bitterwood asked.

'No,' said Barnstack, shaking his head solemnly.

'No?' Bitterwood asked.

'Oh,' said Barnstack. 'Um. I mean, yes, obviously, I knew him. I knew his name, didn't I? Alas, he's dead now. All of Big Lick was burned to the ground. There were no survivors.'

'Actually, everyone survived,' said Zeeky. 'Sort of. It's complicated. But, for Jeremiah, it's simple. He ran away and escaped.'

'Have you seen him?' asked Bitterwood.

'Now listen here,' said Barnstack, trying to sound angry, but not quite achieving it. 'You're changing the subject. Our town has been through hard times. We were taken to the Free City, and when we returned, everything of value was gone. That's why there's a fee to drink from our well. But I'm a fair man. You didn't know about the fee. So that first bucket is free. If you want to keep drinking, you'll need to pay up.'

'What's the matter, Barnstack?' asked Zeeky. 'Have you already spent Albekizan's gold?'

Barnstack turned pale. His lips twisted into an expression that bore little resemblance to a casual smile. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I was hiding in your kitchen when you took a bribe from an earth-dragon and agreed to tell the rest of your village to go to the Free City without fighting.'

Barnstack's right eye twitched. He chuckled softly at Bitterwood. 'Children have such imaginations.'

Skitter had finished drinking the water in the pail. The long-wyrm looked toward Barnstack with a lazy eye. Bitterwood assumed that Zeeky wasn't angry at Barnstack; if she had been, Skitter would be showing signs of hostility. Bitterwood dropped the bucket back down the well.

'Go back inside, old man,' he said. 'We'll drink our fill and move on.'

'Actually, we won't be moving on,' said Zeeky. 'Jeremiah didn't have that many places to run. He might turn up here. Right, Barnstack?'

'There's no place for you to stay here,' said Barnstack.

Jandra interrupted. 'We're only a few miles from Dead Skunk Hole. That's the entrance to the realm of the goddess. Perhaps we can return here after we go there?'

'You and Shay are going to have to go without us,' said Zeeky. 'We're not going to Dead Skunk Hole.'

Jandra looked surprised by these words. 'You won't take us the rest of the way?'

Zeeky shook her head. 'Bitterwood and I don't have much time to save Jeremiah.'

'Save him from what? How do you know he's in danger?'

Zeeky gave an inscrutable half smile.

'Fine,' said Jandra, sliding down from the long-wyrm. Shay dismounted as well.

Zeeky reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a pair of silver visors like the ones she and Poocher wore. She tossed them to Jandra. 'We took these from the guards Bitterwood killed in Dead Skunk Mine. They let you see in the dark.'

'What about Lizard?' she asked.

'He won't need one,' said Zeeky. 'He can see in the dark just fine.'

By now, Bitterwood had drawn up another bucket of water. Since the others were focused on Zeeky and Jandra, he paused to take a sip of the cold water.

Barnstack made a choked noise, glancing back at his quartet of guards. The girls looked sheepish, as if they were aware of their failings as intimidating muscle. Barnstack opened his mouth, looking as if he were about to yell, then snapped it shut again. He turned and stomped back into his cottage. The girls followed, slamming the door.

'What a pleasant man,' said Shay.

Bitterwood nodded. 'I look forward to talking to him further.'

AS SHAY AND Jandra walked away from the well, Lizard waved in a fashion that Shay found unnerving. It was slightly too human a gesture from a scaly green beast that currently had its foot long tail wrapped around Jandra's neck. Shay wondered about the wisdom of choosing to follow Jandra on her quest into the underground kingdom. There were certainly less dangerous paths available to him to gather books.

Yet, he didn't have to dig deep into his own thoughts to discover that he liked Jandra. It wasn't simply that she was smart and driven; he found himself admiring her for her compassion toward Lizard. Despite her own history of mistreatment at the hands of dragons, she didn't display the faintest sliver of hatred. This was a rare quality; it was difficult not to appreciate Jandra for it. Not that this changed his mind about Lizard. With luck, perhaps the little beast would run off as it got bigger and never bother them again.

They followed a well-trod path that wound near the creek up toward Big Lick. It was quite dark now, especially here in the shadow of the mountains. The sky above was gray with clouds.

'Once we get a little higher, there are caves everywhere. We can take shelter in one of them,' said Jandra.

Shay stumbled on a tree root in the dark and nearly lost his grip on the shotgun as he reached out and grabbed a tree trunk for balance. Visions of bright red horse bone jutting from a hide flashed into his mind. 'I wouldn't mind sleeping on the ground,' he said.

'Take this. It should make travel at night much easier.' She held out a circlet of silver metal identical to the ones Zeeky and Poocher wore. The visor was surprisingly light. For something that looked like solid metal, it weighed no more than a sheet of parchment. Curiously, despite the chill of the evening, the metal was warm to the