Free The Dragon's Prize by Sophie Park

down from Annie and held the reins loosely in her hands.  It signaled the move of the negotiation from ‘will we go with you’ to ‘how we go with you’.
    “15.”
    “9.”
    “You can’t do that!  You can’t go lower.”  The ferryman look flustered.
    “The longer we spend arguing, the less time we save.  The less time we save, the less it’s worth to us.”
    “12 and that’s my final.  If we go without any cargo or other passengers, it will look bad when I arrive on the other side.”
    “11.  If you arrive with a royal guard and her squire, then you look important.”
    “Squire?”  The ferryman’s face screwed up in confusion as he looked at Mira.  Mira tilted her hip out and rested a hand on it, looking impatient.  “Squire!  Of course!  Why didn’t you say so?”
    “I just did.”
    “Quite right.  Okay!  11 for the both of you to go now.”
    “Great.”  Mira almost held out a hand to shake on the deal, then thought better of it.  Instead she lead Annie toward the flat surface of the man’s barge.  For someone whose personal hygiene was so questionable, the barge was actually quite clean.
    Sandra, not wanting to ruin the delicate negotiation which had just gone on, jumped down from Lightning and rummaged through her personal coin purse.  The idea that this trip would cost money had not occurred to her until now.  Did she have 11 copper?  There!  She pulled out a silver and a copper and held them out to the ferryman.
    He hesitated.
    “What’s this?”
    “11 copper.”
    “No, it’s a silver and a copper… what am I gonna do with a silver?”
    “What?  Just a second ago you wanted 5 of them!”
    “Oh.” The ferryman looked disappointed.  Sandra wasn’t sure what he’d been trying to do, but he desultorily grabbed the money out of her hand and headed onto the barge.
    There were hitching posts available in the middle of the barge, and they each secured their reins so that Lightning and Annie couldn’t go anywhere if they got spooked and tried to bolt.  Lightning seemed perfectly at ease on the barge, like he’d done it before, but Annie was dancing around and generally unhappy with the situation.  As the ferryman unmoored them and started poling across the river, Sandra went over to Annie and lay a calming hand on the nag’s side.
    “Shhh.  Shh.  It’s okay.”  She checked the reins and quickly untied and redid the knot.  Mira looked sheepish.
    “Never done this before.”  Mira looked down and away sheepishly.
    “No problem.”  Sandra gave Annie a pat, then went back to Lightning.  Lightning ‘harumphed’ and gummed Sandra’s hair.  She wasn’t familiar enough with him to know what it meant, so she just patted him too.
    The trip across the river was short and uneventful.  Other boats plied the river’s murky waters, scudding up and down its length, but only a very few went to the other side.  There was a small dock over there with another ferry attached to it and an unhappy collection of buildings surrounding a central Tavern.  While the western bank of the river had a significant guard presence and was still technically inside the capital, no one wanted to be that close to the black forest if they didn’t have to.  Sandra didn’t blame them.  The ominous mass of trees looming just beyond the small outpost of civilization was not inviting.
    Even in the daylight, the path was quickly swallowed by the forest’s verdant darkness.  The canopy hung thick and tall, blocking all but the most intrepid light from reaching the bottom.  The trail was overgrown with vines and roots and looked like it would be a treacherous journey.  She even thought she could hear the howling of wild animals just out of view.  It was a stark contrast to the bustling urban center on the eastern half of the river.
    “We’re going in there?”  Mira came up behind Sandra, and couldn’t keep the worry out of her voice.
    “We are.”  Sandra nodded.
    “You know,