The Precious Quest Read online

  Nailia held the dagger horn handle so tightly, her knuckles whitened. The tender was hovering but stepped back when I looked her way. I was keenly aware of my sword leaning against the far wall of the tent.

  Nailia motioned at Jendara with the blade. Reluctantly, the young warrior stretched out her hand. Nailia clasped her fingers and pulled Jendara’s arm closer. With the dagger’s point, she made a small slice in Jendara’s finger.

  As soon as the cut was made, Jendara’s wound hound rose up from the corner of the tent and began to whine. The tender grabbed the hound by its neck fur, holding it back from the healing.

  A pang in my chest roused as I thought of my hound, Hinfūs. Grief made the sides of my mouth heavy.

  What is done is past. Look to what is coming.

  I focused on the drop of ruby-coloured blood welling up from the cut. Nailia gave it a cruel squeeze, and the blood rolled over Jendara’s dirty, broken nail and dripped onto the table.

  “Hm,” I grunted and gulped more tea.

  Nailia poked her own finger with the dagger and squeezed out another little pool of blood. She was careful not to mix her life juice with Jendara’s.

  My mind leapt to Dorn and his ward and what they might be doing together.

  “Shall we add a little more?” Nailia asked, as she held out her hand for mine.

  The war dragon burned like fire on my back. I flared my nostrils and glared darkly into Nailia’s glittering, sly eyes.

  “More of your blood?” I growled.

  The tender moved as if to fetch something, and then stopped. Jendara sat back, her hand not daring to slip to her own short blade.

  Nailia broke the tension with a smirk. “We have just enough.”

  She laid the dagger on the table closest to me. Then she turned her attention to the little pile of yellowing bones. Jendara released a long breath.

  I tipped the mug up to my lips but paused as the bones shivered. Carefully, placing the mug down, I looked closer at the pile. The bones were in the middle of the table where Nailia had placed them. Between the piles, the two pools of blood glistened, but when I turned my head to the side the bone pile shifted.

  “Now, we will chant.” Nailia reached out for my hand.

  When I didn’t give it, she explained. “We’ll all have to chant if we want to find out the answer to our question.”

  Jendara joined hands with Nailia but did not reach for mine. I hesitated, sniffing loudly to clear my nose. Nailia was not lowering her hand. She had much courage in the face of my scowl. I reached out my right hand and clasped hers, giving her knuckles an extra squeeze as punishment for her insolent tone. Without looking at Jendara, I reached out my other hand. She took it. Eavlyn watched nervously from the trunk.

  “Brownie ribs and fairy wings,” Nailia started. “Don’t build fibs with webbing strings.”

  Jendara joined in the next line with her soft voice, “Answer us true, when we ask. Dance the bones, fulfill your task.”

  The women repeated the chant. I chided myself in my mind, for the game was foolish time spent, and I was becoming uncomfortably aware of the moistness in Jendara’s palm. Yet, I didn’t get up and leave. In a small way, I was intrigued by this distraction.

  “Brownie ribs and fairy wings,

  Don’t build fibs with webbing strings,

  Answer us true, when we ask,

  Dance the bones, fulfill your task.”

  Just when I was wondering how I could sip another drink of tea with my hands trapped, the women stopped chanting.

  Without breaking our circle, Nailia leaned over the bones and hissed, “Who shall be next to flush?”

  Her voice screeched on the last word, sounding like one of the Cooks casting a spell. We held completely still, waiting for the answer to boom from above, or below, or blow in through the tent opening. But as time moved on, there was nothing but silence, and my growing awareness of discomfort. Jendara was holding my hand with all the pressure of a wet leaf. I let go, dropping her hand into her lap. She would not meet my eyes. Nailia was harder to release, for she hung on while she stared down at the brittle bones on the table.

  “Tell us!” she shouted, rippling the small circle of blood with her breath.

  Jendara reddened at Nailia’s desperate tone.

  I had not realized Nailia cared much about the flush. I had been so absorbed myself during the night of the choosing, I had not thought of her needs. Now I could see the fine lines around her eyes—signs of her aging. Like me, and Jendara, and the tender, she was barren and only getting older.

  I stopped trying to pull my hand from hers and instead, gripped back. “Perhaps the brownie needs another drink?” I said to soften her disappointment.

  Jendara waved at the tender who rushed to fill our mugs. My vision shifted again as I turned to the side. I was sure the tea was drugged, but not for harm, only for pleasure.

  Nailia straightened and released my hand. Gripping her hair by the roots, she made the short, black spikes stand straight up between her clenched fingers. I thought she might shriek, but instead, she laughed softly.

  “Bare-bones brownie,” she said to the pile. “Still mad at me for skinning you, eh?”

  Jendara snorted into her tea. I looked at Nailia with approval. It was not easy to catch a brownie. The little people were vicious and could blink in and out of our realm effortlessly to avoid capture. To fail to catch one could bring on a plague of revenge.

  I drank back half my tea. Some of it ran down the front of my neck. The tender rushed in with a soft cloth and dabbed at my face. I leaned to get away from her and fell off the back of my cushion with a thud. Nailia laughed out loud. The tender tried to get me back onto my cushion.

  “Get off, woman!” I stood and tried to regain some dignity, while staggering to the side.

  Eavlyn knelt, looking distraught. Her posture made me think of the captive woman when Rserker and I had questioned her. And that made me think of the serpent.

  “Woman!” I bellowed to the bowed head, louder than I had intended. “I would bring you a skin.” I could hear the slur in my words. “I want you to make boots from it.”

  Jendara moved quickly to my side. “Look at these, my Queen.”

  In her rush, she tripped and almost went tumbling past. I grabbed her arm to straighten her and was impressed by the rock-hard muscles in her sword arm. Nailia cackled like a crow.

  “What fun is steamed tonight?” I asked Nailia, releasing Jendara to stand on her own.

  “That which is long overdue,” She lifted her mug to me, and then drank deeply.

  Finally standing still, Jendara handed me a pair of brown, leather boots. Fingering the hide, I was amazed at how soft and supple the edges were as they bent to my touch. I turned the boot to better see the stitching sewn around the top of the foot.

  “These are good.” I shook the boot at the tender. She ducked her head and smiled. I felt the need to show them to Nailia.

  Moving to the table, I leaned down and pushed the boot in front of Nailia’s face. She snickered. Then she went back to her bones, pushing them around on the table with her dagger.

  I sat down on the cushion, landing harder than I had planned. Holding the boot beside my leg, I saw they would come to my knee.

  “Look! The sides are high,” I declared as if I had discovered something of value.

  “They keep out water,” Jendara added, nodding like a vulture.

  I reached for my mug again, but it was gone. I narrowed my eyes at Nailia who burped loudly. The tender placed a full mug near my hand. I grabbed it up and downed more brew.

  “From which beast will the skin come?” Eavlyn asked softly.

  I frowned at her, unable to make sense of her question.

  “For the boots?” She prompted, and her body rippled in the air. “Which manner of skin?”

  “Snake,” I hissed, pushing my chin out with the word.

  Remembering the serpent brought a return of rage. I turned to the brownie
bones with a hungry face. Dropping Jendara’s boot, I grabbed Nailia’s dagger by the blade and pulled it from her hand. She shrieked and tried to grab it back, but I shoved her roughly, and she slipped off the back of her cushion. Closing my hand over the sharp blade, I squeezed my blood onto the bones.

  “Brownie ribs and serpent scales,” I chanted slowly, feeling the bite of the dagger and hearing the threat in my words. “Don’t build fibs with foolish tales.”

  Jendara and Nailia sat up, their eyes bright as they watched me, “Tell me true, for I know you know. Who will slay the scaly foe?”

  At first, the only movement was the running of my blood over the yellowed pile of ribs and skulls. But then, the bones started to wriggle, so slightly I thought it was the tea playing with my eyes. Jendara’s gasp left me holding back my blink as the bones rose up, each sliding on top of the other, until the pile tipped and swayed in a trembling tower. Seemingly alive, the bones leaned towards each of us as if testing our pull. Then the tower shivered and toppled, the bones falling in front of me in a twisted arrow of curved ribs. It pointed straight at my heart.

  I dropped the dagger and slapped the table with my bloody palm.

  “Ha! Ha!” I shouted, sounding much like Rserker.

  “You see?” I looked around, satisfied and pointed to my chest. “I am the one.”

  The other women nodded, excitedly. Lifting our mugs, we knocked them together over the bones and drank back our drugged tea.

  “You!” I pointed at the tender. “You will make me boots from the serpent’s skin, and I shall walk on his back all of my days until the horizon swallows me!”

  The tender spoke with surprising spirit, “I would be humbled to make boots for a warrior Queen.”

  I spent the rest of the night showing Jendara and Nailia the many ways I could slay the serpent with my sword, while the tender struggled to catch my feet for measurements.

  In my pleasure of the small gathering, I forgot to simmer about Dorn touching his ward with his hands of silk. I forgot the taunting ache of unfulfilled revenge.

  But the morning brought it all back with a jab as rigid and sharp as a loosed spear.

  Continue Laywren’s story with book II of The Precious Quest

  http://www.cherylcowtan.com

  Image Copyright

  Don't miss out!

  Click the button below and you can sign up to receive emails whenever Cheryl R Cowtan publishes a new book. There's no charge and no obligation.

  https://books2read.com/r/B-A-QHOD-IVGL

  Connecting independent readers to independent writers.

  Also by Cheryl R Cowtan

  The Fergus She

  Girl Desecrated: Vampires, Asylums and Highlanders 1984

  Master of Madhouse: Sadists, Mansions and Mayhem 1894

  The Precious Quest

  The Precious Quest: An Epic Journey of Love, Identity and Power

  The Precious Quest II: An Epic Fantasy of Love, Faith and Redemption

  Watch for more at Cheryl R Cowtan’s site.

  About the Author

  Cheryl R Cowtan is an award-winning educator and fantasy author who loves to write on the wild side, digging deep into those unspoken secrets of society's seedier sins. If you love suspenseful, edgy fantasy that digs up the unspeakable, then Cowtan is the author for you. Her novels won't leave you morose, but they will make you think about a lot of things, things better left buried... forgotten. Did you know some people strip the flesh from Brownie bones and use them to tell the future? Did you know there are descendants of the Salem witches still practicing dark vengeance? Did you know... Well, maybe you should just go find out for yourself. http://www.cherylcowtan.com Warning, though... once you start reading her books, you might not be able to stop.

  Read more at Cheryl R Cowtan’s site.