Free Hunting of the Last Dragon by Sherryl Jordan Page B

for smoke, but the boy threw a bundle of wood on the fire, and in the leaping flame-light I saw three little children go and cling to their mother’s skirt. Their eyes, as round as plates, were fixed on Lizzie’s face. Two other children moved closer to a boy of about ten summers, who crouched on the dirt by the fire and stirred a cauldron of broth. Pigs and poultry roamed in the rushes on the floor, and a cow with large curving horns was tethered in one corner. The smells, the homeliness, awoke a deep longing in me.
    â€œYou’ve brought the freak,” said the woman, holding her babe closer, and making the sign of the cross. “The freak from the fair. Like Old Lan. God help us all.”
    â€œHer name’s Lizzie,” I said. “I beg of you, good mother, let us stay. And give us, if you will, a bite offood each, and we’ll be gone by morning. We’ll not harm you or rob you, I swear by Jesus’ blessed tree.”
    â€œIt’s not robbing I’m worried on,” she said, jiggling the babe to keep it quiet. “The freak’s an evil maid, a heathen. I’ll not have her in this house. Nor you. It’s not right, you travelling alone with her. I’ll thank you to leave, and right quick.”
    I began to plead with her, but the eldest boy edged past us and opened the door again, and began to push me out. Lizzie clung to my sleeve, and I was still begging for a bed for the night, when the woman started to scream.
    â€œOut! Out!” she shrieked. “Out, afore I call the priest to chase you out, and your devils with you! Out!”
    I picked Lizzie up and backed out into the night. Still the woman yelled, and people began to come out of the other houses. Hearing the woman’s shouts, and doubtless thinking we were thieves, they all started screaming, and some threw stones. One hit Lizzie, making her cry out. A man came out and set his hound on us. I ran then, raising dust in the shadowy lane, while people shouted and cursed, and stones rained all around, and the hound snapped and snarled at my heels. I don’t know how far I ran, trying to get away from the damned thing, while Lizzie nearly choked me with her arms, and I shook all over from terror andfatigue. We left the dog at last, and I stumbled on down the pitch-black road. A silver moon was rising, and I could see wheat on either side, and trees black against the starry sky, but little else. Then somewhere in the fields a wolf howled, and I glimpsed yellow eyes in the darkness to my left, and was sure a pack was after me. I started running again, gasping and blind, half choked by Lizzie’s arms about my neck. Then something flew out of the wheat beside the lane, its wings whirring in the quiet dark, and I near lost my wits from fright. I ran again, and tripped and fell. I remember that, as I went down, I tried to turn so I would not fall on Lizzie. There was a sharp pain in my foot, and I suppose I smashed my head upon a stone, for all became bright stars and blackness, and that is the last thing I remember of that night.
    And that, I think, is enough to write for now. It must be almost time for bells, Brother, and a mug of mead.

nine
    Straight to our tale today, and no meandering! It was daylight when I came to. My left foot burned and ached, and my head throbbed as if it were being hammered by a fiend. I opened my eyes and saw a brilliant light shaped like a man, and thought it was an angel. I closed my eyes and dreamed that I had died and St. Peter was stabbing his finger at my skull, trying to knock some sense into me. When I opened my eyes again I saw that it was not an angel before me, but a silver robe. And later still, I saw that I was in a room with sunlight pouring in the door and falling on a soldier’s armour that hung on a hook. And beside me was an old woman, brown and shrivelled as a nut, with wispy white hair pulled back in a knot, and white whiskers on her chin. And her black