Traitor's Moon

far,” Seregil told him.
    â€œAn Akhendi mark says he can’t,” Riagil countered, producing a thick, square coin seemingly out of thin air.
    Seregil gave Alec a mischievous wink. “Looks like it’s up to you to defend our honor.”
    â€œThanks,” Alec muttered. Shading his eyes, he looked up at the sheep again. They were still on the move, at least fifty yards away now, and the breeze was uncertain. Unfortunately, a number of people had heard the challenge and were watching him expectantly. With an inward sigh, he went back to his horse and pulled an arrow from the quiver slung behind his saddle.
    Ignoring his audience, he took aim in the general direction of the hindmost sheep and released purposefully high. The shaft glanced off the rocks just over the large ram’s head. The creature let out a bleat and sprang away.
    â€œBy the Light!” someone gasped.
    â€œYou’ll make a living for yourself with that bow in Aurënen,” Nyal laughed. “Archery’s a betting sport here.”
    Objects of some sort were changing hands around the circle of onlookers.
    Several men showed Alec their quivers, where masses of small ornaments strung on thongs hung from bosses set into the sides. Some were carved from stone or wood, others cast in metal or fashioned from animal teeth and bright feathers.
    â€œThese are
shatta
, betting trophies, used only by archers,” Nyal explained, plucking one made of bear claws from his own considerable collection and tying it onto Alec’s quiver strap. “There, that shot of yours should earn you something. This marks you as a challenger.”
    â€œYou may not be able to lift that quiver of yours before we head home again, Sir Alec,” said Nikides. “If they let us bet for drinks, I’ll be laying my luck on you every time.”
    Alec accepted the praise with a shy grin. His shooting was one of the few things he’d been proud of growing up, though more for the success it had brought him as a hunter.
    As he returned to the spring to drink, he felt glad of those skills again. In patches of soft ground around the spring he saw the marks of panther and wolves, together with several larger tracks he didn’t recognize.
    â€œJust as well we missed him,” Seregil remarked.
    Looking where his friend pointed, Alec saw a splayed, three-toed print twice the length of his foot.
    â€œA dragon?”
    â€œYes, and of the dangerous size.”
    Alec placed his hand in the track, noting the deep imprint of talons at the end of each toe. “What happens if we meet one of these while we’re blindfolded?” he asked, frowning.
    Seregil’s impassive shrug was less than reassuring.
    The trail grew narrower still from here, barely wide enough in places for a horse to pass. Alec was pondering what it must be like to venture through here in the winter when something landed on the turned-back hood of his cloak. He reached back, expecting to find a clump of dirt. Instead, something slithered elusively beneath his fingertips.
    â€œThere’s something on me,” he hissed, praying to Dalna that whatever it was wasn’t poisonous.
    â€œHold still,” Seregil cautioned, dismounting.
    Easier said than done
, Alec thought as whatever it was scrambled up through his hair. The tickle of tiny claws assured him that it wasn’t a serpent. He kicked a foot free of the stirrup, and Seregil stepped in and pulled himself up for a closer view.
    â€œBy the Light!” he called out in Aurënfaie, clearly delighted by what he’d found. “First dragon!”
    The cry was taken up by the Aurënfaie, and those that could crowded around to see.
    â€œA dragon?” Alec turned his head to see.
    â€œA fingerling. Careful now.” Seregil gently disentangled it and placed it in Alec’s cupped hands.
    The little creature looked like a manuscript illustration come to life. Perfectly proportioned in every respect, it was scarcely five inches long, with batlike wings so delicate he could see the shadow of his fingers through the stretched membranes. Its golden eyes had slitted pupils. Spiky whiskers fringed its narrow jaws. The only disappointment was the color; from snout to tail, it was mottled brown like a toad.
    â€œYou’re the luckbringer today,” Riagil told him, emerging from the crowd of soldiers with Amali, Klia, and Thero.
    â€œIt is a custom we have, going over the