Excerpt:

Chapter Three

There was no worry about her shoes, left behind, or the fact that every branch seemed to try to stop her, leaving razor slits in her clothes and skin. Granted, it was slightly inconvenient that she was leaving a bloody trail behind her, but that hardly crossed Charlotte’s mind. Her hair was knotted and tangled with leaves and twigs, and her butt and feet were thick with mud, but that didn’t matter.

After seeing the dragon entering the minuscule clearing she’d found in the woods, and odd sort of sound had filled the air. It was gasping, rattling, and yet high pitched. Something like the sound of terror, concentrated and morphed into something completely unnatural. For a split second, Charlotte wondered where it was coming from, but it wasn’t given all that much time, considering she needed her wits about her to be able to run without slamming headlong into a tree.

Her bare feet slipped and slid along the slightly muddy ground, and she caught herself on trees and rocks as she ran, intent on putting as much distance as possible between herself and that thing. She refused to say - or even think - the word dragon. It was impossible. Perhaps she was still in a dream. But then, the pain from colliding with tree branches repeatedly would have woken her up, right?

Not a dragon, not a dragon, not a dragon, she repeated to herself, over and over again, timing the words in her head with the sound of her feet hitting the ground. It was a gigantic lizard, or a hairless...something. But not a dragon.

One thing the not a dragon, not a dragon wasn’t doing was chasing Charlotte, and that sort of surprised her. Wasn’t that the point? Get her running, make meal time more like a very violent game of Tag? The frantic screaming broke off - because at some point Charlotte had realised that she was the one making that terrible noise - and she listened behind her as she ran. There were no sounds of falling trees, or incinerating underbrush. No roars of fury, or even amusement.

Skidding to a stop, Charlotte turned and looked behind her to see nothing but trees. No pursuing monster. Then she frowned.

“Am I not good enough to eat?” she wondered aloud, oddly put out by the fact that she wasn’t on a dinner menu. Or breakfast, as it were, given the amount of light in the forest now.

Her lip pulled between her teeth and she sighed, heading off in a different direction again. There was no way she was going back for her purse or shoes, and the forest looked a bit lighter than normal over there. Maybe it was the exit, finally.

It was a clearing, which was better than nothing, and a much more hospitable one than the one she’d spent the night in. Soft, flowing grasses, a few patches of wildflowers more beautiful than any she’d ever seen in a hot house, and a clear, bubbling lake.

She’d been ignoring her thirst until that moment, and with a cry of joy, let it overtake her, hitting her knees beside the pool and cupping the water into her hands, bringing it up to her mouth.

Before the cool, sweet liquid could hit her lips, however, Charlotte found herself hanging from the air, upside down, presumably by the waist of her slacks. She had a second to scream before she realised that she’d better hang on to her pants if she didn’t want to lose them, and so slid her fingers through her belt loops and concentrated on balancing herself so that she didn’t fall back to earth in her knickers.

There was the heavy, thick sound of wings moving air, and for a feeble, useless moment, Charlotte hoped that her kookaburra friend had gone through a growth spurt. However, the smell of sulphur was back, and she resigned herself to her fate. She was being carried off to be eaten by baby...hairless things, and her only other option was to let her grip falter and hope that her pants ripped. At least that death would be quick. She’d more than likely have a heart attack before she even hit the tops of the trees.

Instead of making a decision right away, Charlotte took the opportunity to get a better look at the wilderness she’d been trekking through.

Really, it was a good thing she’d gotten picked up, because based on the size of the forest below her, she would have never made it to the edge alive. It was expansive, reaching from one end of the horizon to the other without a break, until it butted up against the deep purple of far away mountains at the northern border.

In the centre of the forest, which they were flying over at that point, was what looked like the ruins of a once magnificent castle. Turrets and banners would have been raised proudly from the stones there in another age, and kings, queens, lords and ladies would have danced in the ballroom that now only had half of a roof. It was a sad sight indeed, and Charlotte sighed looking down at it, wondering if all the magic was really gone from such a world.

Then she remembered that she was being carted through the air by the seat of her trousers by a dragon, and perked up considerably.

The dragon’s flight path dipped a bit, and Charlotte looked up at it over her shoulder, wondering where they were going and how much it was going to hurt whenever she got eaten. Unlike her dealings with the bird that had gotten her into this mess in the first place, she didn’t feel the need to ask too many questions, or really, any at all.

Instead, she merely kept looking at the forest below, to try and guess where they were going. The trees had thinned a bit, which made it far easier to see the occasional animal below, or the path of a woodland stream, or another small glade full of wild flowers. If she was going to die, really, this wasn’t a bad way to spend her last moments, and for that Charlotte was grateful.

Off in the distance was the oddest thing that Charlotte had ever seen, and she blinked the wind begotten tears from her eyes to make sure that she was seeing clearly. At first, she thought it might have been a lion, as the body was the right shape, as was the colouring. But the head was that of a man, a fierce, angry man who looked to be capable of anything. And with the tail he was equipped with, it wasn’t an unlikely assumption. It curled up, black and barbed, reminding Charlotte of a scorpion.

At the sound of the dragon’s wings, it looked up, and for one fraction of a second, his eyes locked with Charlotte’s, giving her the feeling that he could see straight into her soul. And he didn’t like what he found there in the slightest.

The dragon saw it the same time that it noticed them, and roared, veering out of it’s path and shooting down a stream of white hot fire at the creature. Charlotte screamed, terrified she’d be dropped at the threat, like a human cannon ball, and moved her grip from her pants directly to the dragon’s claws, attempting to hold on.

But before she could get a decent grip, there was a searing pain in her shoulder, and the dragon roared again, soaring higher.

Fire ripped through her body, and Charlotte was sure that it was going to set her heart aflame from the heat of it. A hand went to her shoulder and she gasped to feel a thick spike protruding from it, and blood flowing down her body, spattering the trees. She had a momentary thought of pulling the spike from her body before it did any more damage, but the pain was far too great, and she succumbed to the fire, her body hanging limply in the dragon’s clutches and her vision going black.

* * *

A short while later, Charlotte was set down relatively gently on the floor of a wide cave mouth. She could hear, vaguely, the pounding of footsteps, some heavier than others, and tried to open her eyes to see what they belonged to. Because who the approaching beings were was hardly of any importance anymore, not with everything that she had seen.

“What happened to her?” a rough, but oddly comforting voice asked, his words clipped at odd places in an accent that Charlotte had never heard before.

Manticore. The answer came like a voice from a dream, more inside Charlotte than belonging to another.

Somewhere in the expanse of time that she spent trying to understand the strange word and the odd voice, Charlotte lost consciousness again, the last thing registering being the feeling of being lifted up by strong arms, and cradled against a warm chest.

The next few hours were spent waffling back and forth between varying states of consciousness. Though she never truly woke up, Charlotte managed to open her eyes a time or two, taking in small details. The surface she was on felt like the consistency of a cloud, soft and warm, contrasting harshly with the icy burn of her shoulder. But it was better than the fire.

The next time she opened her eyes, they flickered up to the ceiling for a moment, taking in the warm, orange glow of flames bouncing off the walls. They were contained, most likely by a fireplace, as she could see the flue weaving its way out of the odd stone room, presumably to the outside.

And again, to see an out of focus face, and to feel an arm slip beneath her shoulders. Warm, thick broth was brought to her lips, and Charlotte drank down as much as she could - only a few spoonfuls - before the pain overtook her again.

When her eyes opened again, Charlotte knew that they wouldn’t close without her say so this time. The worst of it was over. Or she was dead. Except death shouldn’t have been this excruciatingly painful, should it? In trying to move, Charlotte found her injured shoulder bound in a sling, and so brought her free hand across her chest to touch the tips of her fingers gently to the bandage.

The spike was gone, but she wasn’t entirely sure that was the most preferable thing, given that, even through the packing, she could feel that a hole remained. “I have a hole in my shoulder,” she muttered, her voice hoarse and weak, barely able to permeate the air directly around her, let alone carry to any that might hear.

Upon further prone inspection, Charlotte realised that not only had she been cleaned and bandaged, but her clothing had been changed. She now wore a simple dress, lighter than cream and softer than satin, and that her hair and skin had been washed of all the mud and brambles that she’d gotten all over her.

It took her a good five minutes to manage it, but she got herself upright in the bed where she’d been laying, for who knew how long, and looked around the room. There were signs that a vigil had been held there, if the small pile of used plates and cups were any indication. A low table was covered in an assortment of medical supplies, the few that Charlotte could name looking far too old to be of any use, and the ones she couldn’t scaring her quite a bit. Jars of ointments lined one wall, each more revolting than the last, and she finally began to wonder just what she’d gotten herself into. And more importantly, where.

Pulling back the blankets over the lower half of her body, Charlotte got to her feet, clinging to anything in reach with her useable hand as she made her shaky way across the room and to the door, which was cracked open.

Looking through the small space, Charlotte saw another cave like room, a medieval kitchen, from the look of it, a pot hanging over the crackling fire place. The smell coming from that was enough to make her stomach growl audibly, and for a moment, all Charlotte could do was concentrate on the simply delicious smell. Some sort of stew, she reckoned, though nothing in her world had ever smelled so good.

The table caught her eye next, or rather, the occupants of said table did. A man sat in one seat, turned so that Charlotte could see his profile. Though her only memory of him had been hazy at best, she recognized him primarily by his voice, which was coming from him in a hushed tone.

“If her fever doesn’t break soon, I don’t know that she’ll survive,” he sighed, and his strong jaw twitched irritably as he raked his fingers through his light brown hair. He was ruggedly handsome, and had the weathered look of a man that had spent a great deal of his life dealing with things that most never would, and being the better for it.

Charlotte’s eyes followed his line of sight to the person he was speaking to, if person could possibly be the right word.

The being standing across from him couldn’t in any right be called a woman, though it was blatantly obvious that she was female. Her skin had the visible texture of calm water, and the faint blue tinge only amplified that effect. Her hair flowed white and curled down her back, reminding Charlotte distinctly of the frothing of waves against rocks. The way she moved was like water as well, fluid and free, without any sort of effort to make it so. And her face.

For as long as man has been able to handle a pen, he has been attempting to describe that face. Beauty, strength and serenity flowed seamlessly in her eyes, down the slight ski jump of her nose, and across her flawless complexion. Wars were lost and won over that face, though no one in their right mind would want to possess it, for fearing that something so commonplace would ruin the beauty that lay beneath the thin sheaf of her skin. She took one’s breath away and gave it back in the same instant, and looking at her, Charlotte had the sudden urge to cry.

“Then you will be happily surprised.“ The water woman smiled, and though there was no indication that either of them had noticed Charlotte’s voyeuring presence, they both looked at her.

Before Charlotte had the chance to do more than shrink back a pace, the man was on his feet, and had the door pushed all the way open. “You shouldn’t be walking around yet,” he chided, and her knees were knocked out from under her by his arm so quickly and smoothly that she hadn’t realised it had happened until she was tucked securely against his leather clad chest.

As he carried Charlotte toward the long farm house table, the fluidly moving woman set a cushion against the bench, smiling serenely at the injured girl before returning to the fire to stir the stew.

“Thank you,” Charlotte started meekly as she was set on the cushion, and the ranger wrapped a coarse but warm blanket around her shoulders, tucking it in much more efficiently than she could have managed with her one working hand.

Her tongue pressed up into the roof of her mouth, as if it was attempting to hold back the words that Charlotte longed to speak, but she fought through the choking feeling and said them anyway. “Where am I?” she asked quickly, visibly terrified at the answer, and hurried to continue speaking, to prolong the heavy drop of the gauntlet. “You’ve been so kind, I hate to ask you for anything else,” she admitted, looking at the man now sitting at her elbow, his hands slightly outstretched, as if he were prepared to catch her should she swoon again. “But I don’t even know where I am, let alone what happened to me,” she sighed.

“Perhaps,“ the woman responded, ladling two bowls of the mouth-watering stew and setting them on the table in front of Charlotte and the traveller. “That answer is better left until you’ve eaten and rested some more.” And the tone of her voice, though perfectly kind and smooth, told Charlotte to not argue.