A lump of sympathy rose in Elodie’s throat. His Lordship had reason to be shy. She swallowed her disappointment and the lump. “Of course.” With luck they’d meet a brunka on the road, and with more luck, the brunka wouldn’t greet an ogre with fright and loathing. Then the count might really want to come back.
At night, after the evening meal, they slept under bright stars, Elodie rolled up in her cloak, His Lordship rolled up in his, Nesspa curled in the crook of his knees, the three of them close enough to Masteress Meenore to enjoy ITs warmth.
A wet dawn woke them. They crossed the valley between Bisselberg and Ineberg in a steady rain. As the carts climbed the lower slopes of Ineberg, the downpour turned to snow. His Lordship lifted Nesspa into his cart. IT spread a wing protectively over Elodie, whose cloak steamed dry in a trice. While the landscape turned the page from fall to winter, she sat, munching on a raisin roll, in an alcove of summer.
The snow thickened. Occasionally they passed a path, which would be the route up the mountain to a farm cottage or down to the river.
By evening, they were in a blizzard. Snow invaded Elodie’s haven under Masteress Meenore’s wing.
The road vanished. Elodie’s oxen halted. She couldn’t see the cart ahead—or her hand an inch from her eyes. Snow surrounded them, wove them into a frigid cocoon. She wondered how His Lordship, Nesspa, and the oxen could draw air to breathe.
Where was His Lordship? Were his oxen still lumbering on?
People and beasts died regularly in blizzards on Lahnt, although she was in no danger. Nor was His Lordship—if he could make his way back to them. Masteress Meenore would keep them both warm, but she doubted IT had heat enough to prevent the oxen from freezing to death.
Where was His Lordship?
CHAPTER TWO
IT broke into song, bellowing loud enough to almost drown out the howling wind.
“There once was a dragon called Kacial
who stayed in when the day was glacial.
Because ITs flame would snuff out
from any snow on ITs snout,
IT remained in ITs lair palatial.”
His Lordship’s form took shape out of a white world. He deposited Nesspa in the cart with Masteress Meenore and shouted into ITs earhole. Elodie could hear him only faintly: “I’ll bring the oxen past you and round and round. If you warm them, and they keep moving, one or two may live.”
One or two? Out of eight!
She couldn’t hear ITs answer, but she did hear IT sing again.
“There once was a dragon named Gizzard,
who, when caught in a blizzard,
danced with a spin and a hop,
a heated and happy dragon gavotte
that would have astonished a wizard.”
The oxen filed by under ITs outstretched wing while IT continued to bawl out verses about dragons named this and that. The evening dragged on.
A new shape, no bigger than Elodie, arrived just outside the scope of ITs wing. It brushed snow off itself and became a small woman, waving a hand in front of her nose. Even in a blizzard, IT stank.
Elodie blinked. Not a small woman. A brunka!
Lambs and calves! High Brunka Marya?
Elodie formed an impression of a bulbous nose and intent eyes. The brunka wasn’t smiling, though brunkas almost always smiled. But this was a blizzard, and she was encountering an ogre and a dragon.
She spoke words that vanished into the wind.
IT roared, “I am gratified you liked my warbling enough to come. Can you conduct us to safety?”
Her masteress had sung to bring help? Elodie shook her head in admiration.
The brunka nodded and made a flinging gesture back in the direction they’d come. Elodie gasped. A rainbow flowed from her finger. The snow, rather than hiding the rainbow, picked up its colors. Snowflakes sparkled like tiny rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. High Brunka Marya—she could be none other—started away under the rainbow, leaning into the wind, struggling through the drifts.
Elodie clasped her hands in delight. Thank you, blizzard. They were going to the Oase after all. The oxen would live, and she’d see the Replica.
The three abandoned the carts. By rainbow glow, Elodie saw His Lordship go by with Nesspa in his arms (licking his face), driving the oxen ahead of them. Elodie set out even with ITs neck but fell back to next to ITs belly and then ITs tail, fighting the wind through snow that mounded, here and there, to her waist.
Masteress Meenore lowered ITself and rolled onto ITs side. “Climb on, Lodie. You are delaying me.”
She did. In the past she’d been on ITs back only when IT flew. Now she slipped from side to side on wet scales as IT lumbered along under the rainbow, which arched only a few inches over her head. She tugged off a glove and thrust her hand into the miracle—and yanked it out instantly. Her hand tingled with pins and needles as if it had awakened from a month’s sleep.
IT wreathed around ITs head to face her and moralize louder than the blizzard, “Pain, Lodie, is the deserved consequences of a rash act.”