Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [111]
“Ahem,” the Wolf said. “I heard that. Pot, kettle. You aren’t exactly running around on two legs yourselves.”
“Don’t mind me,” Gina replied. “My mate will tell you I talk before I think sometimes.”
“But if I do, she’ll hit me,” the grey dragon said, his red eyes sparkling with humor in the light of the rising moon.
“We really need to find Sergei,” Sasha said urgently, ignoring them both. “It’s about that Jinn that’s in the Katschei’s Castle.”
“The one making the forest into a desert?” The Wolf growled. “Even if it wasn’t paying off my debt, I’d help you with that. What call has he bringing his wretched desert into my forest, I ask you!”
His tone was light, but underneath it was a deadly seriousness.
“He thinks to conquer us easily, because The Tradition here does not know him,” Gina replied.
“Bah. What need have we for The Tradition to guide us, when we know what to do with interlopers?” He snapped his jaws. “I wish I were something more than large and fierce and a good tracker. But never mind. I will find the Horse. He is still on this mountain somewhere, I scent him now and again when hunting. It could be, Prince Fool, that he is hunting for you.”
“I hope so.” Sasha smiled a little in the dark. “If you can find him, he could be a key to being able to defeat this Jinn.”
“Then I go!” the Wolf said, shaking his huge head. “You are staying here, yes?”
“It’s too dark to fly,” said Adamant. “Crashing into things in the dark is bound to get you mocked when other dragons hear about it.”
The Wolf laughed deep in his chest. “Makes me glad I am not able to fly then,” he said. “And that I can see in the dark. If the Horse is on this mountain tonight, I will find him!”
He was a bounding silhouette against the night sky for a moment, and then he was gone.
Sasha sighed. “The Tradition seems to be working for us, Champions,” he said to the dragons.
“It does not like this Jinn,” Gina replied. “I think—”
She was suddenly interrupted by a howl of triumph in the distance. All three of their heads swiveled in that direction.
“You don’t think—”
The howl came again, nearer.
“Surely not—”
The howl came practically on top of them, and the Wolf bounded in like an oversized, overexuberant dog, tail and head high, tongue lolling. “What did I say! What did I say! I am the best tracker on the mountain!”
“And it is not as if I was trying to hide!” said a voice in midair above them, crossly. “In fact, I have been rather obvious! You could have found me at any time today, but no! You wait until I am just falling asleep! I ask you!”
“Oh, land and be done, old woman!” the Wolf laughed. “The Fool will think you are more foolish than he is! He will set you up as a jester!”
Sergei trotted down toward them; the moonlight, from a moon in its first quarter, was just bright enough to show that he was trotting in a descending spiral, as if the air were hard and he was using a ramp to come down. He heaved an enormous sigh as his four hooves touched the ground, then his long ears pricked up and he shook his head so that they flapped. “Hello Prince! I am pleased to see that the Queen has not made you forget everything but her!”
Sasha rapped him lightly on the top of the head with his knuckles. “She is the loveliest creature in the world, but my heart goes elsewhere,” he replied. “And right now, she who has my heart is behind the walls of the Katschei’s Castle in the heart of that growing patch of desert!”
Quickly, he and the dragons explained the situation, as Sergei listened quietly.
“I have a feeling,” he said. “I think that it would be very dangerous for her to use that paper bird again.” The Horse pawed the ground. “I will be your go-between, as you hoped. I think I can get into the herd and the stables tonight and tell her what you plan. And if need be, I may well be able to get out again to carry messages. It is the least I can do.”
Sasha impulsively flung his arms around the Horse’s neck. “Sergei, you—”
“Are wise and noble, yes I know.” The Horse whinnied a chuckle.