The Dragonstone Read Free Page A

slanty-eyed and yellow and all.
    Armed and armored and standing perhaps but five feet two, she looked at Tryg, her tilted eyes black and impassive. “
Kanshu,
my mistress would speak with this one,” she said quietly in a strangely accented voice as she canted her head toward Alos. The old man smiled a snag-toothed grin at her, his few remaining teeth yellow-brown.
    Tryg glanced at the Dylvana in the corner then back at the yellow woman. “Lady, he be nought but a derelict, a beggarly drunk, and no good’ll come o’ this.”
    The swords shifted slightly, glimmering.
    Tryg released Alos. “’Tis all on y’r heads,” he muttered under his breath, backing away from this female. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ye.”
    With a great show of dignity, Alos stood erect and gripped the lapels of his sodden cloak and straightened the garment, stretching his dirt-encrusted wet scrawny neck as he did so; then he turned his white eye toward his rescuer and bobbed his head and grinned a mindless, gap-toothed,ocherous smile. “First we’ll have us a drink, aye?”
    For a moment the yellow lady eyed him impassively…then with a quick turn of her hands she reverse-gripped her swords and fluidly sheathed them. Then she spun on her heel and stepped toward the shadows where the Dylvana waited, the old man trailing water and licking his lips in anticipation as he lurched after.

C HAPTER 2
    E ven before Tryg could leave the table the sodden old man slurped down his ale, running his grimy finger about the rim of the mug to pick up the remaining light froth of foam then licking the finger clean, dirt and all. He looked up at Tryg expectantly and then over at the two ladies and smiled his brown-stained gap-toothed grin at them and bobbed his head eagerly.
    The saffron-skinned, black-haired female warrior merely stared back at him impassively. The Dylvana sighed and looked into the blind white eye of the oldster as if considering her options.
    Tryg cocked an eyebrow at the Dylvana. She, too, was dressed somewhat like a man: a long-sleeved pale green silk jerkin and tan breeks and brown boots. Her chestnut hair was held in place by a green silk ribbon bound ’round her head. He guessed she was shorter than the yellow woman by as much as seven or eight inches—perhaps no taller than four feet six or seven—though it was difficult to judge with her sitting down. As far as he could tell, unlike her companion she was unarmed. He cleared his throat. “Lady?”
    She turned her tilted hazel eyes his way and nodded, and Tryg took up the empty mug and headed for the bar, the old man’s full attention now locked upon his retreating back.
    “The taverner seems a decent sort, Aiko,” said the Dylvana. “I do not think thou didst need show him thy swords to have him release our guest.”
    Aiko’s almond-eyed gaze followed Tryg as well. “Even at rest a sword in the hand speaks with a loud voice, Dara.”
    The Dylvana smiled, then turned to Alos, but the oldster was totally absorbed in watching Tryg refill the mug. The Dylvana sighed but said nothing, instead studying the old man’s face, her gaze returning ever again to his white eye.
    Shortly the tavernkeep came back to the table, and Alos avidly reached out both of his liver-spotted hands to eagerly take the mug. Again he quickly drained it and once more fingered up the remaining froth of foam. He ardently looked at the Dylvana in anticipation and smiled his yellow-brown snag-toothed smile, but his face fell as she shook her head and waved Tryg away and said, “We will talk first and then perhaps have some more ale.”
    “But, mum, I could talk better if—”
    Aiko’s hand struck viper-swift across the table and snatched the old man by his still damp wrist. “
Kojiki,
you will address her as ‘Lady’ or as ‘Dara,’” she hissed. As if to underscore her words, a thunderbolt cracked the night sky, light flaring through the window, Aiko’s face standing out in bold relief.
    The old