Dog And Dragon – Snippet 17
***
The ladies’ bower was all Meb feared it would be. For a start it was a-buzz above the clicks of weaving shuttles — like an angry beehive — with woman talk when she came around the corner, following Neve. She grabbed Neve’s shoulder, and they stopped. And Meb proved that eavesdropping is a sure way to prove that you do in fact never hear anything good about yourself.
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 16
CHAPTER 6
“I think, m’lady,” said Neve firmly, once they were out of earshot of the tower, “that I am going to faint.”
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 15
“Not really playtime, boy,” said Fionn pushing on. Díleas growled at him and stood resolutely in his path. And then, when Fionn would have snagged him with a foreleg, he grabbed a talon with his mouth, but gently, holding not biting, and pulled Fionn back the way they’d come. Whining anxiously between his teeth. Wagging his flaglike tail furiously.
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 14
“What’s money to a corpse? You’re lucky to be alive out there, on your own in the dark. Wolves or monsters get most such fools.”
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 13
A minute later he was sitting high above the stream, wet and a little wary, with a sheepdog nearly on top of him, inspecting the damage to himself and the dog. Fionn could feel Díleas’s heart pounding. Fionn realized that under all that fur, he was still not a very large dog. He was not too sure if the dog thought he was defending the dragon, or seeking a safe spot. “I think,” said Fionn, “that we’re in the forests of Brocéliande, dog. Which makes that thing one of the nicer creatures that inhabit these dark woods. I think my dragon form is probably wiser and safer. The blasted thing has half shredded my cloak and given me a rather sore forearm. But that could have been the end of you. And I do not want to have to explain that to your mistress. So, could you cope with riding over the water on my back? And I should probably take those boots of yours off. You’ve got them full of water.”
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 12
CHAPTER 5
Fionn and Díleas walked on down the hexagonally paved “causeway.” Now out of sight of the travelers, Fionn stuck to being a dragon. While it was fun to tempt the creatures of smokeless flame into folly, they tended to see too clearly to be easily fooled. Besides, he had other things to do.
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 11
She stood up, and Neve held the mirror. She wasn’t sure she recognized the stranger in it. “Well. That will just have to do. What do we have for footwear, because I don’t think my water diviner’s boots will do, will they? They’re the best boots I’ve ever owned.”
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 10
“Him? No, m’lady. He’s scarcely noble enough to raise a magefire on his blade. Without Aberinn the wizard, Dun Tagoll would have nothing magical. You’d barely think the prince was of the old blood, but he’s good at turning troubles to his advantage, as they say.”
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 09
CHAPTER 4
Meb awoke to the sound of someone in her room. She had only vague, exhausted memories of how she got to this bed. Of the women, talking around her. But the sound of someone there, now, trying to keep quiet was enough to make her instinctively nervous. She opened her eyes just a crack. Unless she was due to be murdered with a ewer by a young, scared-looking female, she was in no danger. There were towels and a basin set on the tall kist already, and a wisp of steam suggested that the water was hot. It brought back to Meb that her last wash had been in a horse trough, and that had not had warm water in it.
Dog And Dragon – Snippet 08
***
In a place where time ran slowly enough to at least sustain the illusion of immortality, where even free energy danced slow minuets, and the beings called the First dwelled, occupied by and large with passions of immortality, beyond most mortal ken. The First were not a matter for easy understanding. The dragon Fionn was one of the few beings that actually remembered them, which was…less than desirable. They had become distant and disconnected observers of their immeasurably vast creation.
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