Out over the meadows and pastures, the village still swarms like a kicked anthive; when you’re in reach of the kind of threat that won’t even notice any number of Militiamen, every heartbeat counts. The market square is near clear of wagons now, most of the way to being turned into a healer’s camp. She’s seen it like this only once before, when the heartland sent warning of a Scartide they’d been fighting off for a week and a half already.
Getting through the village takes longer than it should. Anyone who sees her with empty hands will try to set her working: take this to someone else, watch some children, fill these gourds, pack that cart… it’s all important, but right now she’s the Bronze Judge’s messenger and she doesn’t have time to stop and explain. Even when it gets her shouted after and glared at. Even when –
“Milly! Ho, Milly, where are you rushing off to?”
– no. No, she doesn’t have time for this –
Young Tom grins, swinging grain-sacks off his shoulders as he steps out in front of her. Stoyan and Martin are either side of him, as usual; there’s only one path up to the Magistrate’s manor, narrow and switchback. She can’t go around them.
Valko, at least, will be in the smithy with his father, turning out nails and toolheads and other spares to spread among the carts. Nobody ever knows where Hann is if he’s not right in front of you. Even Young Tom doesn’t like Hann, he just knows it’s less trouble to have him where you can mostly keep an eye on him.
There’s no way out but through. “How many times’ve I told you, Tommy? My name’s Emilia.”
It goes as it always does, from there. She doesn’t blush or smile or duck her head the way girls are supposed to when a boy is interested in them; when he leans in, she steps away. Young Tom laughs it off, but his eyes are as cold as the Bronze Judge’s only seem, and the warmth in his voice is hollow when he reminds her how lucky she is that he wants to marry her when nobody else does – because she’s plain and rude and mannish; because she’s never ‘prenticed a craft to support herself and the children she’s obviously going to have; because she has no brothers to look after her if she doesn’t find a husband.
He goes back and forth with his shadows, acting like this is all new, basking in Stoyan’s mock praise of his kindness – the tales tell it like wildsmen are all strong and hardy loners, but even though Stoyan’s ‘prenticed to Hunter Diyan he looked at the Magistrate playing bootlick for the Baron and thought that was really how the man got his riches. Martin sneers and smirks and tries to convince Young Tom to give up on her, like he only means well even though he’s really just goading her in a way she can’t fight without getting in more trouble for talking back to a boy.
She almost can’t believe they’re doing this. She’d force-marched back to the village yesterday with her warning, then second-guessed herself and rushed up the mountain before anyone could stop her for an explanation. Nobody knows they’re preparing for a dragon, let alone that he’s called for parley – it could be something out of the Scar, or a foreign alchemist preparing a war-working, or a chunk of glacier ice damming up the caverns where the Meltwater passes through the ridge and building up a flash-flood.
Wasting time like this could cost lives.
But apparently that’s her fault – when they finally bring out something different, it’s all about how she hasn’t bothered to help anyone even though she set this warning in the first place. Hann’s part in today’s hassling, most likely. She holds her tongue; pointing out that they aren’t helping either will just make it worse. It always does, when she’s right.
She’s used to them getting away with saying things she’d never be allowed to, tying her in knots with rules that don’t apply to them. It still knocks the breath out of her when Young Tom wonders why she wasn’t anywhere to be found yesterday, if there’s even any threat at all, like lying about the kind of danger that comes from living next to the Scar isn’t an awful thing to do –
– that’s the point; she can see it in his eyes. Nobody would ever trust her again. He always makes such a fuss of her being proud and stubborn and refusing to act like a girl should, puts it on her that he spends so much time hounding her: he’s only trying to help. She doesn’t know all of who agrees and who only goes along for fear of his father and the Magistrate, but together, that’s most of the village.
He won’t even get in trouble for this when the Bronze Judge comes down. He’ll just be so relieved she hasn’t let the Moon in after all. Everyone knows how ungrateful she is. They’ll understand he was worried.
Fine. Fine.
She swings her bag around and pulls out the scale. His silence is sweeter than birdsong at dawn.
“…What’s – what is that?”
“It’s a dragon scale, Tom.”
“Bullpat. You’re Moontouched true, you are!” Martin gestures a wardoff – the old kind, passed down out of the lost history after the fall of the arch-alchemists. It might have puffed more than a breath of magic at her if his hands weren’t shaking, but she doubts it.
Emilia has never had Young Tom look her in the eye without some glint of mockery or greed. She holds his gaze, watching worry drain the last of the pride from his face.
Scarbeasts aren’t easily killed, but most aren’t so insane they can’t be driven off by Rangers and Militiamen. A bad flood can drown herds and ruin harvests and take the wooden upper-stories off buildings if it’s too sudden, but the wildsmen keep an eye on the caverns and the course of the Meltwater.
There’s no answer to a dragon.
Maybe that’s why Young Tom decides not to believe her. Even seeing his face set as he decides she must be lying, it’s a shock; she hates him, but he isn’t stupid.
It slows her enough for him to snatch the Bronze Judge’s scale. “Martin’s right. There’s no way. What’d a dragon be doing here?” He turns it, feels both sides, weighs it in his hands. “Too light. Way too light, this has to be Scar-warped. There was that snake beast this spring, you must’ve picked this up then and hidden it!”
There had been. The Scar had spat out a serpent nearly a span thick; it came over the eastern ridge and ate six sheep before the Militiamen killed it. It’s a good tale, a believable tale, and bronze is close enough to brown that memory alone won’t show the lie.
He’s smiling again. Stoyan and Martin relax, toasting him on catching her out. They’re going to get their way, like they always get their way. She’ll have nothing to prove she even talked to the Bronze Judge because she just let them steal his scale!
… Only, the Bronze Judge lives right up the ridgeline. She’s made the climb once already; she can surely do so again.
Every time they do this, she stares them in the eye and keeps her voice level and refuses to let them walk all over her. Laughing in their face is new, but she can’t help herself. They won’t get in trouble, but they won’t get her in trouble neither, because they can’t say she’s lying about a dragon when the dragon is right there. For the first time in her life, they can’t ruin this for her.
“D’you think making everyone fear for their lives is funny, then?”
She scoffs. “You’re so lucky the Bronze Judge wants to talk. If it were the Mountain Breaker or the Ruby Wrath up on the Twin Peak –”
Martin is Baker Leos’ youngest son, and spoiled with it. His cheeks wobble, even with his face screwed up. “Shut up! Stop lying, if you met a dragon you’d have insulted it and it would’ve eaten you –”
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“I’m not lying!” It tears out of her, all in a rush. River-muck finally releasing a stone and sending her tumbling. “Not pretending to like you isn’t an insult! I don’t have to like you!” Young Tom squares his shoulders, but it’s too late to hide the fact he flinched from a girl. “You treat me like a toy and then get angry at me when I don’t thank you for insulting me!”
“Hey, we’re not the ones who say it! I’m only letting you know what everyone says behind your back –”
Of course he is. Young Tom is always on her side, he just wants to help her settle down and stop making trouble. Like if she just does as she’s told everything will –
“What’s going on here?”
A Militiaman – Goran, she thinks, or maybe Gordan – slows to a walk as he rounds the lowest switchback. Stoyan grins.
“Cousin Gordan!” Of course. Of course – “Milly lied, she stole a scale from that snake beast this spring and we gotta tell the Magistrate, there’s no dragon – fuck! Gordi, you’ve got your fucking gauntlets on –”
Stoyan crumples, retching, as the second hit takes him in the gut. Militiaman Gordan undoes a gauntlet, works his fingers under the collar of his gambeson, and draws up a leather cord.
The scales strung on it are huge, for a snake. Finger-length. Held next to the Bronze Judge’s scale, the size of a grown man’s arm, their dullness hardly even matters.
“The blood we share shames me. You’ve risked all our lives today; you’ll be lucky if it’s only Uncle that hears of this. Your fathers, too.”
Martin hunches his shoulders. There’s something about Young Tom’s face that… oh. She’s never seen him scared before. She would have thought she’d enjoy it more, but mostly she’s just tired. Her throat hurts.
“Emilia, with me; the Magistrate needs to hear this. Nobody’s had any idea – you’re a reader, do you know anything about this dragon? Sun save us, tell me it was only passing over –”
She tries to calm him as best she can while they climb, but Militiaman Gordan is still closer to grey than pale when he leads her into the manor hall. Nobody’s time is their own when death looms over the village, but even a fit man can’t work for days on end. The hall is split three ways: barrack-cots and napping bodies, food-laden trestles and man-laden benches, and only at the far end any open space.
Old Yorl, Militiaman Demir, and Carter Brodny are arguing over the Magistrate’s map-table. Everyone knows how to scatter, how to get to cover or high ground or low ground, where the cache sites are. Uprooting the entire village at once is different. It has to happen, sometimes – there are stories Uncle won’t tell, times he arrived low on provisions because one of the burhs on his route wasn’t there any more – but that doesn’t make it easier having to bring everything you’ll need to start over, not knowing where you’re going or what you can find or grow or forage there.
The covetous sneak-weasel himself lets them go back and forth. He hides his Moon-touched heart like core-rot in a roofbeam – he looks like he’s right out of a hero-tale, like he’s heartbeats from sallying out to slay the Bronze Judge singlehanded.
Emilia doesn’t doubt he would if he could. Why share the glory or the riches?
Whispers run through the hall as they stride down the narrow aisle. People are turning to watch, sitting up on their cots, nudging their neighbours awake. Emilia is used to sideways looks, to being pointedly talked about at just enough of a remove to make her the rude one for interrupting, but she’s never been paid this much attention.
Old Yorl, never pleased to repeat himself, lands a solid thump to Carter Brodny’s arm when he turns away. Aurochs are wealth, even if they’re also animals – strong, hardy, loyal, and slow to breed. They aren’t for testing new carts or hauling loads you can draw by hand. Carters are big, broad men; a Militiaman must be quick and sure, but a Carter only needs strength, and to keep his wind.
Yet even a seasoned master like Carter Brodny can’t stand up to the head of Old Yorl’s cane. Whatever it is he does to make it hurt no matter how big and tough you are, the nervous quiet of the chuckling that goes around the room at Carter Brodny’s yelp says the laughers have all felt it too.
Emilia’s fairly sure it’s some kind of alchemy, but her sense for magic is nothing special and Old Yorl used to be Scrimshawer Yorl. His fiddly little bone-charm wardoffs, strung on their sinew cords, were once as much to thank for their safety as the Militia or the Apothecary.
Keeping her thoughts on that is enough to manage a passable curtsy. Beside her, Militiaman Gordan takes a knee; he’s no heartland Knight nor even a proper Armsman, but even a Militiaman swears Oath. The Baron’s appointed Magistrate speaks with his noble voice, holds his power and duty over their village in the brute’s stead.
“Magistrate. Militiaman Demir.”
“I see you found her.”
“Aye, Magistrate. I… we may yet be in peril true, but the Sun has lit us a path. Young Emilia failed to report yesterday because she climbed the western ridge to the Twin Peak, to seek the dragon she saw and brought warning of. It – the Lord Bronze Judge sent her back with an offer of parley.”
She should have stopped to explain. Their safety lies on the Magistrate’s shoulders; he could have her punished for not telling him what he needed to know.
Taking the Bronze Judge’s scale from Militiaman Gordan’s upraised hands, he looks it over much as Young Tom had, if without a ‘prentice Miller’s fine sense of weight. For eight long heartbeats, Emilia near believes he might judge the wrath of a dragon above his greed.
He smiles, slick as seed-oil, and dashes her hopes.
“Parley. With a dragon? And through such a strange choice of messenger.”
“Well. I was there, Magistrate.” Sweat prickles at the back of her neck. Her shift is sticking to her spine, but with so many eyes on her there’s no chance of hiding a wriggle in hopes of moving it.
“Indeed you were. Indeed you were.” The drumming of his fingers on the scale – a history-chant, she thinks, Oliga could tell her just which one – should ring or chime or at least make a weightier sound than the dull, empty tapping that fills the heartbeats he takes to think. “Why?”
“There’s near nobody as can fight a dragon, Magistrate. Kings, if they break their kingdoms in the doing, and that’s the ones as don’t have the Scar. And fleeing –” she shrugs. They all know how few of them would survive crossing to the heartland. “So why not talk? The worst he could do was what everyone expects a dragon’ll do, and if it went well, there might not have to be any fighting at all.”
Under the light of the Sunstone lamps hanging from the rafters, the Bronze Judge’s scale shines. It’s not a patch on the whole dragon, and still near every eye in the hall is drawn to its glittering as the Magistrate tilts it to and fro. “There doesn’t have to be. Not as long as –”
For the first time, the Magistrate looks at her straight on.
“– I only mean to say, the Baron’s used to the Scar. No matter what you meet in there, it’s always taint-mad. So you don’t never have to wonder if it might be happy to just talk.”
“Wisdom from the mouths of babes.” He says it like she won’t greet the Sun in less than a year. Like it’s a surprise she might know anything worth knowing. She’d like to see what he thinks of her knowing he stole that from Poet Matej, for whom near every book on literature has at least a passing mention. “I would be foolish indeed to disregard an opportunity to treat with a dragon. It is well to suggest… caution, in alerting the Baron of this matter. I will be sure to phrase my missive appropriately.”
A serving girl sweeps the scale out of the room at the Magistrate’s gesture. No doubt it’ll be hanging somewhere very obvious just as soon as he gets it mounted, and he’ll never breathe a word of how he really got it. She almost argues, because the Bronze Judge gave it to her – but the Magistrate looks at her like Young Tom does after goading her, when he’s waiting for her to say something he can get her in trouble for. Emilia shuts her mouth.
“If you have nothing more..? Rest well, then. Best we not test the patience of this… Bronze Judge with an unfamiliar messenger. One does not lightly intrude upon a dragon’s lair. Even a dragon so young as to lack any tales to his name.”
Curtsying again, she withdraws, still facing the Magistrate until she leaves the empty space before the dais.
For all his slyness, the Magistrate can be an awful fool. Here, surrounded by men and older sons all caught up in his nets, he doesn’t think he needs to be sly. He lets his cleverness show a little, so he can be flattered and praised for it. To remind his bootlicks what a good choice they made in following him, and how dangerous it might be to stray.
What does it matter if a handful of servants see the truth of him? An unprenticed girl the village half-tolerates for her foraging and the strings she puts on her Uncle? The Magistrate is proud, but he can swallow it where it counts. He cloaks himself in lies: a hard man but an honest one, keeping them honed for the Scar’s next sally, keeping the Baron in provisions and fighting men. Servants and women don’t understand fighting; it’s only natural they’d think him cruel.
As she passes the trestles, one of the serving girls passes off a platter and draws her aside. She’s hurried through the kitchens and out of the servants’ door and straight into a desperate embrace.
“Where have you been?! We’ve none of us seen you these last two days – Sun and Stars, Emilia, we th – we thought you were dead.”
Knowing the truth of people, being in the right place at the right time, the gossiping of women and girls – such things have an alchemy all their own.