LITMIR.BIZ

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arm. It got crushed in the tunnels.”

      Turning away from her mother, Rhona went to the young soldier. “That’s broken. You.” She pointed at the gold dragon. “Take him to the healer. And you”—she pointed at the Lightning—“back to the tunnels. The commanders need all available troops working there. Now go.”

      Rhona faced her mother and asked, “So where were we? Oh. Yes. I’m a viperous little . . . what was the rest of it?”

      Slamming down her tail, her mother marched off. Rhona knew this argument wasn’t over, though. Not when it had been going on since the first time Rhona turned down her Uncle Bercelak’s offer to train at Anubail Mountain. As consort of Her Majesty, the Dragon Queen, and commander of the Queen’s armies, Bercelak the Great did not offer the chance to be one of the legendary Dragonwarriors lightly. In fact, Rhona’s mother had actually left mid-battle to seek out her daughter and tell her what an idiot she was being by turning Bercelak down. But Rhona would not let her mother bully her, cajole her, or finesse her into changing her mind. Rhona prided herself on knowing her strengths and weaknesses. Her strength was being as stubborn as her mother. And her weakness was not wanting to be a Dragonwarrior. All right. Perhaps not a true weakness, but her mother seemed to think it was.

      “You all right?”

      Rhona looked at her younger sister Delen.

      “Aye. Just the same damn argument. How can she never get bored with it?”

      “The beauty of Mum is that she never gets bored. She can kill and kill for days at a time without ever feeling boredom. I think that’s a foreign word to her. Like rational. Or caring.”

      Rhona laughed with her sister, putting her arm around her shoulders. “Excellent point. And how are you doing?”

      “Fine. I’ll be working in the tunnels the next couple of days with my troops. I’m hoping to push them along to get the tunnel done. Sooner we can get under those mountains, the sooner we can wipe out the Irons and go home. Unlike our mother, I do get bored. Now”—her sister patted Rhona’s shoulder with her tail—“why don’t you go on and take your break. You’ve been working nonstop for days. You’re no use to any of us if you’re asleep once we hit the other side.”

      Rhona chuckled. “Good point.”

      “You going for a bath?” her sister whispered.

      “Trying to.”

      “Take that exit.” She pointed at a narrow tunnel cut through the cave rock. “You’ll have to go outside for a bit, but you’ll avoid Mum.”

      “Thanks, luv.”

      Rhona slipped away without being noticed and eased through the narrow tunnel until she found herself on the mountain’s summit. She stopped, gazing out over Euphrasia Valley. A stretch of land caught in the middle of the Northland territories, the Western Mountains, and the Southlands. A rough and dangerous valley with thick, almost junglelike forests during the summer and brutally cold winds and ice storms during the winter. It was surrounded by a ring of mountains in varying sizes. They’d made the Hesiod Mountains their stronghold while the Irons were directly opposite from them using the Polycarp Mountains as their protection. Could be worse, though. At least they had access to fresh water and supplies.

      “Nice, yeah?”

      Rhona’s shoulders slumped, her eyes closing. “I can’t get a break,” she sighed.

      “Now what did I do?”

      She didn’t bother facing the Lightning. What was the point?

      “Nothing.” She started to walk across the ridge of the summit, but the Lightning cut in front of her.

      “What if I bought you a long sword?”

      “What?” What was he babbling about? Gods! She only wanted a bath!

      “A long sword. To replace your spear.”

      “I don’t need you to buy me anything. Especially weapons.” She took a step, but he stepped with her.

      “I can teach you to use it if that’s your concern.”

      Rhona’s front claws curled into fists. “I don’t need you to teach me how to use a sword.”

      “You shouldn’t use one unless you know how.”

      “I know how.”

      “Then why were you still using a spear?”

      “Because I like them. Because my father made it for me. And why am I discussing this with you?”

      She took another step and he stepped with her.

      “What about an ax?” he asked. “A small one. With a weight you can handle.”

      And that’s when Rhona became a little cranky.

      Gods, she was such a pretty little She-dragon. A bit scarred for his usual tastes but still . . . very pretty. He’d thought so from the beginning, from the first time he’d seen her all those years ago. A brown-scaled She-dragon with shoulder-length brown hair that she kept in simple warrior braids, and dark brown eyes that were bright and lively—when they weren’t glaring at him. Something that had become rare these days. She seemed to always be glaring at him. He could only imagine it was the strain of the war on her. She was a Southlander and a female, after all. Northlanders knew nothing but war, so five years in battle was no real strain for them.

      Although she wasn’t just some Southland She-dragon, was she? She was a Cadwaladr. They bred nothing but unstable females from that bloodline. But Rhona wasn’t much like the others. She’d kill, but it didn’t seem as if she enjoyed it too much. Not like Rhona’s mother, who only smiled when she was sawing someone’s head off. No. Rhona the Fearless was different, so Vigholf had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on her. A sweet thing like her could easily fall prey to the more forceful of his brethren, which was why he’d warned them off. Strongly. And it’s not like he followed her around or anything. Just . . . watched out for her.

      Although it seemed sometimes that the biggest problem in Rhona’s life was that mother of hers.

      Vigholf nearly shuddered at the thought of that particular female—if you could call her that. Yet she had mostly pleasant offspring. Rhona, the triplets, and a few of her other daughters and sons. Then again, Vigholf had heard that Rhona had raised the lot of them, which explained much in his estimation.

      “I don’t need an ax,” Rhona snarled between clenched teeth.

      “There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re easy enough weapons to handle.”

      “I know how to handle an ax, foreigner. I don’t need lessons from you. Why don’t you just accept the fact that you destroyed a beloved weapon because you have so little control of that warhammer of yours.”

      “I have absolute control of my hammer, thank you very much. But once it’s moving, it’s not always easy to stop, my lady.” He grinned, feeling cheeky. “I can say that about all my hammers, in fact.”

      “First off, ew. And second, I ain’t a lady. I’m a Cadwaladr and a sergeant of Her Majesty’s Army. You want to deal with a royal, go see my cousin Keita. She couldn’t be more royal.”

      She stepped around him and he turned to follow, but her tail suddenly lashed out, aiming for his eye. Vigholf stumbled back and Rhona, glaring over her shoulder at him, snapped, “And stop following me around.”

      “I wasn’t. Just . . . keeping an eye on you. These caves can be dangerous.”

      “The day a She-dragon can’t move around a cave as she likes is the day she should climb onto the funeral pyre.”

      “Or you could just have an escort.”

      Her brown eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head, but before she could say another word, they both heard her name.

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