"You killed my dragon," Dougal said. "That will cost you."
Chapter Seventeen
Sean just stood there, lazily, next to a shattered tree, as smooth and sleek and darkly elegant as ever in the gray pullover and gray slacks that were nearly a uniform to him and to Fiona. His smile twisted gently at the corners of his mouth, and malice danced like firelight in his eyes.
Brian's thoughts jumped from Sean to Dougal to David to his kukri lying on the ground. He swore quietly to himself, even inventing a few new phrases when the accumulated vocabulary of fifty years of army life seemed to come up short.
Even if he broke the holding spell, neither he nor David could lift a finger for another fight. And Dougal was wearing chain mail over leather and carried an ugly clawed mace. Whatever else Brian might think about the misshapen troll, he recognized a competent and vicious fighter.
Cooling sweat stung Brian's eyes and trickled down his back and forehead. Flies buzzed his head, attracted by the spattered blood and eye-jelly of the dragon, the sweat, and the dirt. He twitched a finger, trying to swat at them, but couldn't move. Somehow, the filthy little buggers bothered him more than the certainty that he was about to die.
"Darling Fiona's heart will break," Sean drawled. "Poor darling Brian. Killed by a dragon, a blow to the head even as the beast twisted in its death-throes. It must have been a valiant fight between worthy opponents."
He took the mace from Dougal. "What do you plan to do with the other one, my noble ally? Add him to your collection?"
"He's a poor trade for my dragon," Dougal growled. "You wouldn't believe how much time and trouble the beast cost me. I don't know where I'll find another."
"Ah, yes. An endangered species. And I'll bet my dear brother didn't even file an Environmental Impact Statement. He's left you with a lot of damage to repair."
Brian wrestled with the spell holding him. Power drained away as fast as he gathered it, water pumped into a bucket with no bottom. Where in hell had Sean learned that kind of trick?
But Brian was too tired and muddle-headed from the fight to really care. His tongue seemed thick in his mouth when he tried to speak, as if he'd swallowed dragon's blood and his throat was swelling up to choke him.
"Quit gloating and kill me, you scrawny little freak. Or don't you have enough muscle to lift a weapon? Wouldn't you prefer to have Dougal do the sweaty work and keep the nasty gore off your pretty clothes?"
Get the runt mad enough, he might lose concentration. If he just lost his grip on a single thread of the binding . . . Sean was the dangerous one; Dougal couldn't use that kind of spell.
"You can't goad me into hurrying." Sean smiled, running words over his tongue as if savoring a fine wine. "I've waited half a century to bash your brains out. A few minutes of triumph are small enough payment for all your insults and interference. Even Fiona doesn't really like you, you know. She just has this genetic experiment she wants to try."
"So shut up and kill me before I get enough strength back to break your hold and then your bloody little neck."
"Temper, temper. Wait your turn. I was asking Dougal about your human friend."
One of the flies landed on Brian's nose, and he hated it more than he hated Sean or Dougal. He couldn't even purse his lips to try to blow it loose. The only reason he could talk at all was Sean's hunger for a chance to taunt him. How could Brian twist that weakness into a weapon?
He had to keep a hope for Maureen and Jo. David had been blooded now, he ran and then came back again. He wouldn't run a second time. He knew how to fight, and he truly cared. They couldn't both die here.
"David is a bard. His life is sacred. Let him go or bring the curse down upon you both."
Dougal clenched his jaw, and then bit off words like chunks of jerked beef dried a touch too long. "I think you're lying. But bard or no, he owes me blood. He owes blood to the land. I can think of ways to get that without killing him. He'll pay."
Sean's smile broadened. "You interest me. I hope you'll let me watch, even if you don't want help. Things would have been so much tidier if he hadn't killed your dragon. Now I have to get all sweaty, as my brother with the perfect genes so crudely pointed out. He might even splash blood on me, and these pants are wool. My cleaners get so upset if I make them take bloodstains out of wool."
He lifted the mace.
"I don't think you want to do that," said a clear soprano voice. Fiona glided out from behind a tree. "Sean, love, I am not pleased with you. Protecting the dragon against your brother's magic--I could overlook that. It made the fight much more interesting." She shook her head. "Killing him yourself? No, I don't think I can allow that, love. He's worth much more to me than you are. Especially once I've prepared him properly."
Fiona. That explained the drain. It wasn't Sean, or some new skill Dougal had found late in life. Fiona.
The mace slipped from Sean's hand and thudded to the ground, barely missing his foot. Sweat beaded his forehead, but Fiona smiled and shook her head again.
"You're no match for me, love. You never were. Genetics, as you said. Those flaws express themselves in more than just your fertility. Among other things, they make you so predictable."
She glided across to Brian and ran a finger along his cheek and jaw. "Your brother, now, he's a different matter. Much more entertaining. If he weren't hurt twice over, I don't think you'd have held him. What do you think, Dougal? Wouldn't that be an
