To Tempt a Dragon

Contemptibly Silly

Lady Bryony sat down against a tree on the edge of the clearing. The five horsemen gathered around her to hear her last instructions. She was terse: "Return to the castle. I'll be around before too long." Four men cantered off, her horse in tow; Lord Ozias, her fiancé, remained.

"May I sit with you?" he asked, smiling. He began to dismount.

"Sorry," she said shortly. "You'll frighten off the unicorns." He gallantly accepted his dismissal by a simple bow and took off after the others.

Lady Bryony was alone.

She looked around. She had chosen worse unicorn rendezvous points. The trees were of the silver birch, quaking aspen, and live oak type, all tall and leafy but still allowing stippled sunlight to filter down to the forest floor. The clearing before her was spread with clover and little white wildflowers. Corn lilies and lupines sprouted here and there, their tall stalks still waving from the recent rush of horses. The slightest breath of wind caused the whole forest to sing with the distinctive rustle of aspen leaves. All in all, it was quite a decent place to catch a unicorn.

Why had Ozias even asked to stay? He knew that his presence would keep the unicorns away. It was sweet of him to want to be with her, but not at the expense of her success in the hunt.

She absently began yanking up blades of grass. She probably should not have been so irritated with Ozias, but the attitude of men towards the skill of hunting unicorns was grating. They held it in amused contempt. Unfortunately, Bryony shared their feelings. She hated hunting the silly things, and was close to hating unicorns as well!

"Blast the creatures," she cursed. "Why is it always me that must do the hunting?" But she knew the answer. Unicorns could not be caught by men, but if a fair maiden waited alone in some lonely forest glen, the unicorn would wander up and lay its head in her lap and be tamed. She, with her long dark hair and skin like luminous silk, was the fairest maiden in the western wilds, where the unicorns lived. Thus, the job of hunting them always fell to her.

The unicorn desired had been cut from its blessing a week ago by skilled riders and driven south—that much could be accomplished by anyone, male or female, provided they had the ability. It was now left to Bryony to actually catch it. "It would not be so bad," she lectured to a large beetle crawling deliberately along the tree bark beside her, "if I were allowed to help with cutting the unicorns. But I can't. I can't do anything, by order of the honorable Prince Teilo."

That was her father.

The beetle was a good listener. "My part requires no skill. No strength. Garners no glory. What are unicorns good for?" Lots of things, said the sensible part of her. They made excellent mounts. Their horns were used in a myriad of potions and elixirs. They inspired horses to greater strength and better behavior. Besides, they were fantastically beautiful. "So what would I rather do? Hunt dragons, of course!"

For the western wilds were home to untold numbers of dragons. Some were indifferent to men and their comings and goings and left them alone, but many sought men out to kill and devour them. Therefore, in order to protect the unicorn trade, a perimeter had been set up around the castle. It was regularly patrolled and fiercely defended, and hunting and killing dragons was a consistent occurrence. Bryony had longed to join a dragon hunt her entire life. Having grown up in a castle surrounded by soldiers, she knew how to fight with the best of them, and had learned all the dragon lore that a hundred different hunters could pour into her mind. Sadly, for safety's and propriety's sake, the honorable Prince Teilo had forbidden her from ever participating in a hunt.

Instead, she got to sit in a pretty forest glade and look for a unicorn.

The beetle disappeared in a crack in the tree trunk, so she settled herself more comfortably against the tree, and waited.