The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [142]
"I'm sixty," Drone snarled. "She's eighty-eight. Get your prejudices straight, boy. Now scat! You'd make an ugly toad."
Steele opened his mouth to retort, then thought better of it. He hurried from the room and down the outer staircase.
Olive opened one of the tower windows and looked at the courtyard. "They're down there now," she told Drone.
"Keep an eye on 'em," Drone ordered, "while I dig out some scrolls. I'll need more power than I usually carry." He began rooting through the scrolls, tossing them about willy-nilly. "Gods, that girl really took the cream of the crop. If I find one good scroll, I'll be lucky. Aha! Perfect! I'm lucky. Has Giogi transformed yet?"
"Not yet," Olive said, putting her eye to one of the telescopes and focusing it on the nobleman and the mage.
*****
Cat ran to catch up to Giogi as he strode out into the center of the courtyard. She touched his arm, but he wouldn't look at her.
"I love you," she said.
Giogi whirled around angrily. "If you loved me, you would stay here as I've asked you."
"Why? So I can die of a broken heart like your mother did?"
"Don't say that," Giogi snapped.
"I'm not the sort of woman who can sit around and wait, Giogi, unless I'm sitting around and waiting with you. Mistress Ruskettle is right, you know. We're better off if we look after each other. Isn't that what Wyvernspurs are supposed to do?"
The anger in Giogi's heart melted away, leaving only a sad feeling that, having just met and fallen in love, they might both die. "We should say good-bve here," he said softly. "We may not get another chance."
Cat laughed unexpectedly. "I've never seen you so grim. Adventurers never say good-bye. They say, "'Til next season.' What we should do is kiss each other good luck."
"We should," he agreed, his heart lightening a little. Giogi pulled Cat close to him, and they wrapped their arms around one another.
*****
"Has he transformed yet?" Drone asked Olive again, impatiently.
"No" Olive said with a quiet sigh, stepping away from the telescope.
"What is he waiting for?" Drone looked out the window. "Well, can't begrudge them that," he muttered, tucking a scroll into his shirt.
"I don't suppose you have a plan?" Olive asked hopefully.
"As you said, Ruskettle, it's out of my hands."
"Then what is that scroll for?"
"If they're very lucky, I might have an opportunity to interfere. If they're very unlucky…" Drone let his words trail off.
"Then what?" Olive asked.
"Then I will have no choice but to interfere."
The halfling and the wizard looked back down on the courtyard. Cat stood alone in the center. She held the finder's stone so that Giogi's flight would not be made in complete darkness.
Giogi had taken wyvern shape and was already aloft. He flew in a low glide toward the mage, snatched her up gently in his talons and spiraled upward, beating his wings heavily. When he'd cleared the towers, he flew away from the castle until he reached the edge of the massive rock that hung over Redstone. He spiraled up again and was lost to view.
*****
It's as if we fell off the edge of the world and now we're trying to get back on top, Giogi thought as he climbed through the cold spring evening air to reach Flattery's fortress. He was several thousand feet above Immersea. Hundreds of miles to the west the nobleman could see the Storm Horn Mountains as dark purple silhouettes against the twilight sky. The flying rock obstructed his view to the east.
Finally he reached the top. The moon hadn't risen yet, but the finder's stone shone out like a beacon, illuminating the vast desert plain that lay before them. Red boulders were strewn across the red-brown sand. As they drew closer to the center of the plain, Giogi sighted other things scattered in the sand-corpses, thousands of them, arranged in orderly rows. Then the fortress wall appeared in the stone's light and Giogi pulled up to fly above it. Mother Lleddew had not exaggerated; it was twice as high as the wall about Suzail.
He swooped downward once they cleared the