"Actually, we-"
"I didn't call for your help or ask you to tend my wounds," the dragon snarled. "I especially didn't ask you to wake me before it was time. You may have ruined my chances to aid my queen. For that alone I should kill you." Her leathery eye shy;lids opened wide in an expression of mock tolerance. "How shy;ever, I will acknowledge your aid, although unwanted and unwarranted, by letting you live."
Expecting a show of gratitude, or at least fear, Khisanth was surprised to feel Joad still wrapping her wing, the chest shy;nut-haired nyphid silently watching, arms crossed, expres shy;sion unconcerned.
Irritated, Khisanth snapped both wings painfully to her sides, sending the elder nyphid flying. She tried to pull her shy;self to her feet. Clenching the muscles in her mighty jaws, the dragon summoned the last of her strength, more determina shy;tion than power. She pushed her head and chest off the ground with her claw arms and rolled from her side. Resting for just a moment, Khisanth then planted her horned hind feet under her broad belly. Driving her legs up and locking them, the dragon managed to stand briefly. Her lips drew back in a mocking smile. Then she teetered and wobbled and crashed back down on her chest, setting the ground shaking.
Khisanth sucked in shuddering breaths through nostrils pressed to the sun-warmed dirt. Reluctantly opening her golden eyes, she saw pity on the faces of the nyphids. "Get away from me!" she bellowed, then weakly scraped her arms over the grass, as if to bat the nyphids away.
"Thou hast brought on the bleeding again," scolded Kada-gan. When the silent, elder nyphid began applying more leaves, Khisanth did not protest. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to listen to the noises around her: locusts buzzing, birds singing, wind rustling through leaves. The sounds were neither familiar nor unfamiliar. She vaguely remembered hearing the combined din as a young dragon, but had never paid much attention to it. Now she focused on it, used it to drown out everything else in her muddled, starved brain. Maybe if she kept her eyes closed long enough, all of it-the nyphids, the elements that had conspired to trap and weaken her-would disappear, and she would not feel so… defense shy;less. That realization made her want to lash out again, but she knew she hadn't the energy.
"Food will restore thy strength." Kadagan pulled several worms from the humus underfoot and laid them proudly before the starving dragon. "Here, I've found thee something to eat."
The scent at her nostrils brought Khisanth's red, forked tongue from between her sharp teeth. She lassoed the two tiny worms, pulled them back into her jaws, and let them slide down her throat without chewing. Opening her eyes, she looked around greedily for more.
"Were the worms not enough?" Kadagan asked in sur shy;prise.
"I'm not a bird," grumbled Khisanth, her senses awakened by this merest nibble. "I need meat!" She paused and eyed the creature warily. "But I don't need to owe you for any shy;thing else. I can hunt for myself." Khisanth tried to pull her shy;self to her feet again, but she couldn't even manage to squat on her haunches.
Kadagan saw exhaustion in the droop of the dragon's head. "We can discuss the details after thou hast feasted," he suggested. "What dost thou require?"
Khisanth sighed inwardly. Since it was obvious she couldn't hunt for herself, she might as well test the limits of their skills.
"A moose or other large creature would do nicely," she said artlessly, smothering a smug grin as the younger nyphid's flickering blue eyes grew as large as fists. How these tiny creatures would go about slaying a moose, so many times their size, was not her problem. The ludicrous vision gave her the first amusement she'd felt since waking. They shouldn't make promises they can't keep, she told herself.
Kadagan was, indeed, in a quandary. Nyphids derived most of their energy from sunlight, but they needed water and ate fruits and vegetables because they tasted good, and because they, too, needed sunlight to flourish. But a moose?
Joad touched Kadagan on the shoulder and suggested the obvious solution. Tucking the maynus globe into the neck of his tunic, the elder hefted a tiny sack woven of spiderwebs and led them on a moose hunt. No longer encumbered by the slow-moving lightning sling, the nyphids moved swiftly over the shady forest floor, headed southwest toward higher elevations. They scampered up trees and slid down sun shy;beams. The forest gave way to pine-covered foothills, and the nyphids' bare feet sent the dried needles snapping. Past the foothills, among low scrub and decaying pines, they saw badgers, mountain goats, and wolverines. They left the beasts alone, though, considering them too small to meet the dragon's needs.
At last the nyphids spotted their prey, lazy-lidded, loung shy;ing on a knoll in the last rays of day. Placing a finger to his lips to keep Kadagan silent, Joad slipped his hand under the lump inside his tunic and removed the large globe, letting it hover at his shoulder. The maynus made no sound and cast a dull yellow glow in broad daylight; the small bolts of light shy;ning within were gone. The elder nyphid then reached into his spiderweb sack and removed some crumbled, pungent herbs. Joad sprinkled them atop the globe. Soundlessly, he bade the maynus to float until it was over the unsuspecting moose's fuzzy, oak-leaf-shaped antlers. The globe reached the beast and slowly rotated, spilling the herbs bit by bit. Nearly invisible, the dust sifted down through the air to settle on the animal's head and shoulders.
The natural sedative properties of wood betony, chamo-mile leaves, cowslip petals, and valerian root put the already drowsy moose to sleep. At Joad's wordless command, the bands of lightning formed within the maynus, then encircled the moose. The creature snorted and twitched from the movement, but did not awaken. The lightning was benevo shy;lent and didn't set the moose's hair afire any more than it had singed the dragon's scales.
Their captive in tow, the nyphids headed back downhill to their hamlet in the grasslands and the hungry waiting dragon.
* * * * *
Darkness had descended, and Khisanth was sleeping fit shy;fully by the time Kadagan and Joad returned. The glowing bands deposited the moose before her. As the scent pene shy;trated her dreams of food, the dragon's red-rimmed eyes popped open in disbelief.
Khisanth vaguely heard a sound-a voice-but she was beyond hearing, beyond caring. Her jaws stretched wide, and her daggerlike teeth pierced the creature's rib cage. The moose awoke, screaming with surprise and pain and rage, and tried to scramble away from the dragon. Blood sprayed and gushed across the ground. The moose thrashed until Khisanth, strengthened by every grisly bite, slashed and sev shy;ered its head with her mighty tail, silencing its death cries.
Kadagan and Joad watched, both repulsed and mesmer shy;ized. The nighttime sounds of the forest were drowned out by the clamor of crunching bones and slurping. In barely the time it had taken Joad's herbs to put the moose to sleep, the ravenous dragon had consumed the entire corpse, spitting out only the hooves in distaste.
Kadagan stared mutely at the gory remains.
"The hooves are too bitter and tough," Khisanth explained, "not moist on the inside like bones." With that, a great belch
ruffled the dragon's blood-flecked lips. She sighed happily, deeply, then picked at a pearly tooth with a razor-tip claw. "More."
Beyond amazement, the nyphids delivered two beavers, a goat, and four long-eared hares before Khisanth's gluttony was slaked that night.
"Art thou fit enough to speak now?" asked Kadagan after a time. He sat cross-legged in the center of an unusually large, three-foot-wide seed pod, low enough to the ground to be obscured by the surrounding tall grasses. Its soft, waxy sections fanned in a circle around him. Joad was similarly perched in the open center of another of the pale green plants. Khisanth was curled before a fire Joad had made for her. The yellow glow of fireflies blinked on and off across the field, and a small benign swarm even clustered on the fringes of their camp.
"I'm feeling generous," said the dragon, leaning back on an elbow lazily, still picking her teeth. "Go ahead and name the price for your unwanted aid, and I'll consider it."
Kadagan looked mildly surprised by her attitude. "Ny shy;phids do not embrace the concept of indebtedness," he said. "We helped thee because it was mutually beneficial."
Self-interest. Here, at last, was a concept Khisanth could understand.
"We intend to pay thee for thy services." Khisanth's brows raised in surprise. She could not think of anything they could pay her that she would value … gems, perhaps, but unadorned as the nyphids were, jewels seemed unlikely.
"Art thou interested?" pressed Kadagan "You don't waste much time, do you?" asked the dragon. "We have none to waste," Kadagan said, suddenly grim-faced. "Dela is dying."
Khisanth sat up. "I'm listening."
"First, watch the maynus," said Kadagan, then nodded to Joad. The gray-haired nyphid stepped up before the dragon and cupped his slender hands. The bright globe slipped between them. As Khisanth watched, a moving picture began
to form where before small bolts of lightning had danced.
The image of a nyphid in a white tunic appeared, curvy and golden-haired, obviously female, with the same backlit glow of the others. There was an etherealness about her that instantly engendered in the dragon a notable urge to touch the globe. Khisanth looked at Kadagan.
"Dela," the dark-haired nyphid supplied. "My betrothed. Watch closely," he commanded with an insistent gesture toward the globe.
Dela knelt at the bank of a stream that appeared to cut through the grassy plain. Lying on its side in one of her tiny hands was a hummingbird. Its head sagged as it gamely sipped water Dela had scooped into the other palm. With the maynus a barely visible glow at her shoulder in daylight, Dela touched her finger to the bird's diminutive, iridescent breast. Sparks flew. Khisanth thought Dela had killed the thing. But the creature, more butterfly than bird, sprang up, and its wings began to beat so swiftly they blurred.
"Dela heals animals. That is her gift, as herbs are Joad's," explained Kadagan.
Khisanth's eyes remained on the maynus. In the globe, a smiling Dela tossed the rejuvenated hummingbird into the sky, and it flew away. The nyphid pulled herself up to her bare feet and turned away from the creek.
Four creatures sat above her on horseback.
"Human males," supplied Kadagan, noting the dragon's puzzled look. Khisanth had seen all forms of animals as a young dragon before the Sleep, but never a human. She was not particularly impressed.
The men were obviously impressed with Dela, though, their stares entranced, covetous. Dela blanched, flabber shy;gasted by their unexpected and unwanted presence. Diapha shy;nous wings sprang from between her shoulder blades. She had cleared the grass on the bank when a fine net dropped upon her. Its weight knocked the nyphid back to the ground. Two of the men slid from their horses and reached for her, to secure the net and simply to touch. The two still on horse shy;back closed in on either side and waited.
The men's hands fell upon the two-foot nyphid crouched under the net. Dela's mouth opened in a shriek, though the image in the maynus was silent. Two bolts of blue-edged lightning shot from Dela's body. The flashes slammed into the chests of the men who'd touched her, tearing a huge, black-rimmed hole in each and tossing them high into the air.
Their comrades on horseback looked stunned but unafraid. One had vivid green eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. Lashed across the rump of his horse was another human, his hands and feet bound. The other horseman was small and wiry with slanted eyes. They pulled their horses back just slightly. The green-eyed one waved and pointed toward Dela. Abruptly, a number of oddly colored creatures, much taller than the humans, streamed into the maynus's field of vision for the first time and rushed the netted nyphid.
"Ogres," said Kadagan.
"Why doesn't she stand and use the lightning bolt again?" demanded Khisanth as Dela collapsed under the net.
"Dela did not do it intentionally the first time. The electri shy;cal bolt is our involuntary response to contact with humans and others like them. Thou art not like them, which is why we sought thee. Humans cannot help but touch nyphids when they see us, and we cannot help but harm them when they do. The contact with them so drained Dela's energy that she fell unconscious herself."
Khisanth remembered the tingling she felt whenever the nyphids touched her. Shuddering, she looked back into the maynus, where a large drawstring sack of rough weave was being lowered over Dela. The nyphid was carefully hauled up by the strings of the sack. With that, the green-eyed human put two fingers in his mouth, blew, and the entourage set off toward the south, horsemen in the lead. One ogre car shy;ried the sack at arm's length. Then the picture in the globe blurred to the usual yellow glow.