The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage Read Free

women choose the men they do? She’s still wrapped in sorrow over her Rhodry Maelwaedd, no matter what we may say.”
    That was doubly odd. What was a Sassenach woman doing married to some lord from Cymru? Or could this be the reason for her exile? Otho glared at the coals, then blew a bit of life into one of them and threw on a handful of tinder.
    “Do you have a home near here, lad?”
    “I do. I serve Lord Douglas and live in his hall.”
    “Then let me give you some advice. Get out of here while you can and head home, or you may never see it again. The snow’s stopped falling, and the boatmen will row you across.”
    “I’ll need to give the lady my thanks first.”
    “She’ll not come down till well past midday. Her grief rules her. Get out while you can, while the sunlight lasts, and that won’t be long, this time of year. I warn you.” The old man glared up at him, his face red and sweaty as the fire leapt back to life. “Haen Marn travels where it wills, and faster than spit freezes on a day like this.”
    Grammarie. His memories of the night before, of Evandar and the burning tree, came back like a slap in the face. Domnall grabbed his cloak from the straw.
    “Then I’ll be off. Good day to you, Otho.”
    The old man snorted and turned back to his work.
    Outside, Domnall found a day ice cold but clear, with the watery sun just rising—he’d slept late. At the door he paused, looking around him in the crisp day. Wind whined around walls and soughed in trees. He walked a few paces down the path, then turned back for a proper look at the place. In the sun the island seemed much larger than he’d thought the night past. The manse itself stood long and low, with behind it a rise of leafless trees, pale grey and shivering, and behind them a tall, squarish tower, perched on top of a little hill. He shaded his eyes and studied the tower for a moment; it sported three windows, one above the other, and a peaked roof covered in grey slates.
    In the middle window someone was standing and looking down. From his distance he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, but he suddenly knew that he was being watched, studied as intensely as he’d been studying the tower. There was no malice in the gaze, merely a shocking closeness, as if that person in the window had dropped down to stand in front of him. With a shudder he turned away. He could feel the gaze follow him until he started walking toward the lake. When he risked a quick glance back he found the tower window empty.
    At the end of the gravelled path he saw the jetty and the dragon boat, riding high in the water. No one seemed to be about, but by the time he reached the jetty, the head boatman and his oarsmen came strolling down the shore to join him. Otho must have sent a servant down to rouse them, Domnall supposed.
    “Ready to go back, lad?” the boatman said.
    “I am, though I wish I’d had a chance to pay my thanks to Lady Angmar.”
    “Ah, she won’t be down for a good while yet.” The boatman shook his head. “It’s a sad thing.”
    They all boarded, and when the oarsmen settled at their thwarts, Domnall sat in the stern, out of their way. Here in daylight he noticed a bronze gong, hanging in a wooden frame. The boatman saw him looking at it.
    “That’s for the beasts in the lake,” he announced. “In this cold weather they sink to the bottom and sleep, or some such thing. Like bears do, you know, in caves. In the summer, they’re a fair nuisance, but luckily they hate noise, and banging that gong keeps them off.”
    “Beasts?” Domnall said.
    “In the lake, truly. Huge they are, with long thin necks and mouths full of teeth. They can capsize a boat like this as easy as I can squash a bedbug.”
    All the oarsmen nodded in solemn agreement.
    “Ah,” Domnall said. “This lake must feed into Ness, then. That gives me hope.”
    “Here! You know of the beasts?”
    “Well, of one. It lives in our lake, though you don’t see it