Read Online Moving Water by Sylvia Kelso - Free Book Online

fire, and they never broke.” The twins were enraptured, lurid visions weaving in their eyes. “Then one archer put an arrow in a wing and brought it down, so we charged. The trouble was, the worst thing about a dragon isn’t the fire, it’s the tail. When we came in range it knocked the whole front rank over. Then it spat fire and bit and clawed the rest of us, and in the end we had to give up.”
    Zem and Zam did not. “But what happened to your face?”
    â€œI,” he said lightly, “was more stupid than any commander ought to be. I took a spear and blindfolded my horse and charged it myself. No.” He grinned wryly at their idolatrous looks. “I didn’t kill it. The horse and I came off worst.”
    He touched his cheek. “As you see.”
    His eyes lifted to mine. “Military,” he murmured, “hotheadedness.”
    They drew breath to burst. I was beyond speech, for I could put fact between the carefully edited lines. Phalanxmen, the troops must have been. Against a dragon. I knew in theory what one was like. My hair rose at thought of what had to be no bare defeat but a massacre. Hotheadedness? Sheer berserk. . . .
    â€œLunacy,” he supplied. “Homicidal nerve,” I corrected. He shook his head. “Desperation,” I amended. “That,” he answered dryly, “came later.” And before the twins could rend him for details he was moving their feet in readiness to rise.
    â€œI’m sorry to be so long,” Callissa was in the doorway. “Rema’s just—”
    She saw the twins. A hand flew to her mouth. “Zem, Zam,” she snapped, “come out of that. Come out!”
    They gaped, amazed as I. He said swiftly, “They’re all right, ma’am. I won’t hurt them,” and she grew positively wild-eyed. The whole by-play still had me mystified when the twins took advantage of the gap.
    â€œMi, mi, he’s fought a dragon, we can’t go yet, he hasn’t told us the rest, we haven’t talked to Da, it’s not time, we always have supper with Da first night home—”
    Two small square faces reddened, four gray eyes glistened ominously. “Halt!” I said in a hurry. “You eat with us, but you’re quiet. Quiet or the cells. Right?”
    They were quiet. At least, until our guest hesitated at the lamb cutlets Rema had “found,” and Callissa intervened, too kindly for kindness. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. Would you like them cut?”
    I wished wives were subject to army discipline. He gave her a steady, unresentful look. “I can manage, thank you, ma’am. If you don’t mind Sathel manners, that is.”
    The boys’ eyes were already circular. When he took up a cutlet left-handed, discipline broke. “What happened to your arm?” the nearer one burst out. “Was that the dragon too?”
    â€œYes, Zem,” he replied without the slightest hesitation, and I heard Callissa gasp. She too had been sure it was Zam. “It threw the horse and me up in the air with its tail. I smashed the nerve in that arm when I came down.”
    â€œIt’s a wonder,” I exclaimed, impulsive as my son, “you’re alive at all!”
    â€œNo wonder,” he answered mildly. “Just a very good friend to pick me up.”
    â€œMy husband,” Callissa observed, “has been wounded too. Was it five times, dear? Or six?”
    What, I signaled, is the matter with you? She ignored me. He said, “The war with Phaxia?” She agreed, in detail. Full detail. Two-year campaign, begun as a troop-leader, promoted to squadron-leader, then wing-leader, three pitched battles, a turn with the swamp guerillas, victory pulled from the fire when an ambush commander fell, two mural crowns in the forts beyond Stirsselian, a corps commander at the peace. He heard her out. Then he said modestly, “I can hardly