Rhiana. Michele Hauf

slayer.”

      Rhiana tugged back her hand. Fleche? But that was…

      “Actually,” he continued, “I am the greatest slayer in all the land, which includes the English isles, all of Italy and the upper parts of Spain. I remain unmatched by any who claim the same occupation. I’ve twenty kills to my record, all within a decade.”

      Twenty kills? Impressive. Two a year. What a prize the doom below their feet would offer. Said prize, being more than mere notches to his crossbow. For slayers who took out a dragon were promised all they could carry from the hoard as payment. It was an unspoken rule of the land.

      Macarius Fleche. That name…

      “Know you Amandine Fleche?” Rhiana tilted her head to dissuade the raindrops from her lashes. “He is a dragon slayer.”

      “Was.” And the man’s face changed, the twinkle in his eyes flitting away. With a hook of the crossbow over his shoulder he paced away from Rhiana, walking the expansive curve of the megalith.

      Was? But that would mean—

      Rhiana rushed after the slayer. “He is dead?”

      “Last summer,” the man called.

      Mon Dieu, Amandine was dead?

      There waited a horse behind the megalith, hobbled beneath a copse of maple, and soaked to the hide. The horse bristled its back as Macarius attached his crossbow to the flanks and secured it with a tug to each of the leather belts. The man then turned to Rhiana.

      “You are the female dragon slayer I have been told about.” A statement. He did not wait for her response. “I did not believe it. And yet now, mayhap there be some tidbit of truth to it.” He stretched his hand up her length. “Very fine armor. Remarkable even. Rather, I can believe in the possibility of a female slayer, but there yet remains the proof of it.”

      Well. Not at all pleased with his indifference, Rhiana took a step toward him, and then marked her anger. Now was no time for arguments. Besides, she need prove herself to no man. Most certainly not to one who considered himself the greatest.

      “What be your name, my lady?”

      But of course, she was being rude. How easily a foul mood clouded her better senses. Odette would surely admonish her for playing the ruffian when delicacy of manner was required to attract a man’s eye.

      Not that she’d any intention of enacting her pitiful powers of attraction.

      Lifting her chin proudly, she declared, “Rhiana Tassot. I am a dragon slayer. And I have no cause to prove it to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I am off to my home. The weather bechills me, and the wounded rampant will not show again this day, to be sure.”

      “St. Rénan?”

      Reluctant to answer, Rhiana knew it was the closet village for leagues. “Yes.”

      “I am headed there myself.” The man mounted the horse and reined it toward Rhiana. He bent at the waist and offered a hand. “I can carry another rider behind me.”

      Staring at the black leather palm of his gauntlet, Rhiana vacillated. ’Twasn’t as if the plague crawled across the leather. But the offer made her sort of crawly inside. He had demanded proof of her skills. Had almost cast her aside as an impossibility, and so, of little concern. He was as all other men, bullheaded and prideful. Believing women belonged slaving over the hearth fire, or sweeping out their men’s dirty boot-prints, or moaning beneath them between the sheets.

      The greatest slayer in all the land? Ha! And how many kills had he marked in the past day? Likely, zero to her two.

      Cocking her head to the left, Rhiana shook it in answer. “I favor walking. It keeps me strong.” With that, she marched off toward the walls of St. Rénan.

      For the longest time, Rhiana was aware the man followed her from a distance. Marking her long strides with a slow pace that surely put his beast to misery for the rain. The trek down the mountain went swiftly. Over the decades a path down the counterscarp that wedged a gouge all around St. Rénan, made for a quick, if plummeting walk. Her pace continued across the field of rape that would be harvested for oil and grain come autumn. She would not turn to look at him. That is what he wanted, no doubt, a pleading look.

      Eventually the man passed her by, tipping a nod to her, and then pressing his horse to a canter for the village drawbridge.

      It was then Rhiana stopped and fisted her hands over the scales that ended just below her hips.

      “The daring…”

      Well, he had offered her a ride. She should not be angry for that.

      But why did it miff her he’d not offered a second time? As he’d passed her by? She would have turned him down again. Of course! But he could not have known that. Any man would have continued to press her to accept a ride. A gentle man who believed in chivalry, grace and honor.

      “Macarius Fleche, eh?”

      The surname was common. There was a Fleche who fashioned arrows in St. Rénan. He could not be related to Amandine Fleche. Not once, while training her, had Amandine mentioned a son or other relation.

      Amandine was dead? How? When? This man had announced his demise with little regard. He could not be a relative, for would he not have shown some emotion?

      Struck to her very heart, Rhiana’s tears mixed with the rain as she trudged onward. Her belly began to ache with an inexplicable hollowness. She had lost without having been aware. The old man had taught her selflessly, giving to her the gift of his skills, and asking in return that she strive to be the best.

      “I have become quite good,” Rhiana murmured as she stalked, wet and weary, onward.

      But the best? She had only begun her adventures in dragon slaying. To take her measure now would not be fair, especially when matched against one who had been slaying for a decade.

      I am the greatest slayer in all the land.

      “We’ll see about that.”

      CHAPTER NINE

      He passed by a set of boots, slumped over, but as if standing in wait of a knight to jump into them and race to action. The main gate to the city was imposing, stretching three stories and mounted with a barbican lined in spikes. The entire stretch of battlements was mounted with spikes.

      Macarius wondered did the city see siege. Seaside villages often invited pirates and plunderers merely because access was so easy. And yet, the very air seemed so still. Complacent.

      His mount pawed the ground impatiently as he again called out for notice, and finally got an answer.

      “Who goes there?”

      “Macarius Fleche, the great—”

      “You are a stranger,” droned back at him from somewhere behind the stone walls. “No admittance.”

      He looked about. Not a soul to be seen or heard, save the woman tromping through the field behind him. Pretty, be she. But a woman stalking dragons at night and in the rain? “I seek an inn to stay for the night, if you please.”

      “All strangers must be vouched by a resident and accompanied as well.”

      “But—” Macarius searched for the squint hole behind which he might find an eye that belonged to the obnoxious voice.

      “Display your weapons, stranger!”

      Obliging, for he was tired and did seek a bed, with a frustrated sigh Macarius drew out his sword and moved his mount to reveal the crossbow.

      “Insufficient proof of affability. And not even peace-tied!”

      “What? Why you—”

      Rhiana walked up behind Macarius and kicked the portcullis door. “Open up, Rudolph. I will vouch for this man.”

      Silence