One Good Knight (20 page)

“Oh!” he said with delight. “
Oh!
Two of you! I can't choose!”

And the male Unicorn continued to stare at them both as if he had found his own personal paradise.

Her mind was always slow to wake up in the morning, and having a male Unicorn standing beside her wasn't making things any easier. Part of her just wanted to stare back at him with the same rapturous delight that he was showing. Because—well, because he was a Unicorn, of course! Magical, unbelievably magical, Unicorns practically breathed magic. He was to a horse what a horse was to a pig. Four tiny cloven hooves shone like burnished silver, slender legs as graceful as an antelope's led to a slender body, a delicate neck with an arch like the stem of a lily-blossom
and a head like the blossom itself, crowned with that glorious pearly horn. And the eyes—big golden-brown eyes you could fall into and never come out of—

It's a male Unicorn, Andie.
Her brain prompted her with that information.
Male Unicorns are attracted to female virgins, female Unicorns are attracted to male virgins. And what did he just say? “Two of you, I can't choose—”

Two of you…

She sat bolt upright. George was glaring at the Unicorn as if the Champion was seriously contemplating doing something un-Champion-like like drawing sword and lopping his head off.

“You're a girl!” Andie blurted.

George growled and pulled off her helmet. Yes, George was definitely a girl. Despite short hair and a firm jawline that a lot of young men would really have liked to own, now that she knew the truth, there was no doubt. The Champion was a young woman.

“I guess you don't have to worry about me falling in love with you now,” Andie said faintly.

George—and
now
what was she going to call her companion?—transferred the glare she had been giving the Unicorn to Andie.

“I could have done without that particular remark.” She glared at the Unicorn again. “You. Go. Now.”

The Unicorn stared at her for a moment, then drooped all over with dejection. His head went down, his ears went flat, his whole body sagged and some of the light went out of his eyes. His lower lip quivered.

“You don't like me?” he said forlornly.

“Only in stew,” George growled, and reached for her dagger.

The Unicorn gave a squeak of alarm and leapt up in the air, somehow turning in midair and coming down on all four hooves, but facing the opposite direction. He tore out as if George had set his tail on fire. Andie stared wistfully after him.

“That wasn't very nice,” she ventured.

George gave an exasperated sigh. “The wretched thing could destroy in a heartbeat everything that allows me to be here. The spell that has been keeping Champions out of your land is very specific that no
man
intending to slay the dragon can pass the borders. Fairy Godmother Elena unraveled that, and that's why I'm here. But if whoever set the spell finds out that's how the Chapter got a Champion across the spell-barrier, the Magician can correct it and I'll be forced out.”

Andie kept looking wistfully at the spot in the woods where the Unicorn had vanished, and George made an exasperated sound. “I don't want to interrupt your reverie or anything, but we need to pack up our things and get out of here.”

She suited her actions to her words, and after a moment of hesitation, Andie followed suit. The Champion was right.

“Look, I know he was pretty,” the Champion continued, “but the blessed things are the worst nuisances in the world! They follow you around like
lost puppies, keep wanting to put their heads in your lap, moon over you, sigh at you and just generally get in the way. You know, the whole Traditional force for ‘if it's pretty, it must be stupid,' was never better exemplified than in a Unicorn. I can't think of anything more useless than a Unicorn, unless it's
two
Unicorns. And I won't get into how their mere presence tells the entire world that you're a virgin, which under some circumstances is something you might not want someone to know.”

“I—suppose,” she said reluctantly, and turned back to the Champion. “So if your name isn't George, which obviously it isn't—what is it, then?”

“You'd better remember to call me George in public,” the young woman warned. “Absolutely you had better. Unless you want the dragon to continue to have free rein here.”

Andie shrugged. “I'm not stupid,” she pointed out, nettled. “I can remember. But your name obviously isn't George and I'm not going to call you that, all right? What is it? Georgette?”

The Champion winced. “Georgina,” she said, and added hastily and crossly, “Call me Gina if you want. Just remember to—”

“Call you George in public, yes, I perfectly well understand that,” Andie replied just as crossly. “Try to look on the bright side, will you? At least now you won't have to sleep in that armor.”

But Gina barked a laugh. “Firstly, if the dragon decides to come after us in the middle of the night,
it would be a good idea if I didn't have to scramble after the scattered bits and hope I can dodge him long enough to get it on. And secondly, I wasn't lying, it
is
more comfortable to sleep in this than it is to make up a bed in a pile of leaves.” But she paused, and added reluctantly, “I will admit to you that I'll like to be able to get a bath and a change of clothing without hiding from you.”

Andie shrugged. “If it's that comfortable, then by all means—”

“It is. I'm not the first Champion that's had to hide his or her identity by any stretch of the imagination,” Gina replied, and looked around nervously. “And hopefully our little spy doesn't know enough about the differences between men and women to tell that I'm not a man.”

“If it's a fox, I shouldn't think so,” Andie said reluctantly. “A thing used to living in the wild isn't going to get enough close views of people to be able to do that. The biggest difference so far as it can tell is that you're in armor and have weapons and I don't. For all I know, it might not even recognize that
I
am female.”

“I hope you're right.”

The two of them made short work of the camp, and were back on the trail again in no more time than they usually took, Andie half on fire to ask questions, but at the same time afraid of being rebuffed. Gina was no more talkative than “George” had been on the long ride. But the questions were nearly eating her alive by the time they stopped for the night.

Once again, they set up camp early, but this time for a very different reason. “I want a scrub,” Gina announced, in a tone that suggested that “want” was, perhaps, not nearly strong enough a term. “We might just as well take turns, if you think you can set a reasonable guard.”

“I can at least warn you if something is coming,” Andie said, irritated at feeling so helpless. Odd that when it had been “George” who was on guard, it had not seemed to matter that Andie was about as helpless as a child when it came to defending herself, but now that it was “Gina,” she was chagrined and annoyed that all she knew about fighting and weaponry was “the pointy end goes in the enemy.”

Gina regarded her thoughtfully. “You can't be everything, you know,” she said abruptly. “No one can.” And with that, she turned her attention to unpacking and setting up the campsite. “Let me scout out a place to bathe. I want you to get hobbles for the beasts and bring them along when I find a good spot.”

“Why?” she asked curiously.

“Well, for one thing, I don't want them left alone at the camp,” Gina replied. “And for another, their senses are better than yours, and if something approaches, they'll know before you do.” She ran her hand through her hair and scowled. “And stay alert. If ever there was a Traditional disaster waiting to happen, it's this setup.”

“What?” Andie heaved the packsaddle off the mule and stared at Gina.

Gina rolled her eyes. “Please, don't tell me you're that naive. Lady Warrior taking bath in open pond ‘guarded' by a slip of a girl? That's the fodder for at least a hundred lecherous—” She stopped and stared at Andie's perplexed expression. “Good gods. You
are
that naive. Maybe I ought to call back that Unicorn.”

“No need to call me back, maiden!” said a swooningly eager voice from behind both of them that made them jump. “I am already here, and so is my brother, my uncle and my second cousin twice removed.”

Four stunningly beautiful Unicorns stepped out of the underbrush. Andie stared at them, entranced. If one had been gorgeous, four were overwhelming, the more so as they stepped daintily toward her and surrounded her. Unconsciously, she clasped her hands together and began to breathe heavily, Gina completely forgotten.

That is, however, until one of them glanced to the side and said, “Cousin? Why is the Warrior Maiden beating her forehead upon the tree?”

A bargain had been struck with the Unicorns. They could come along so long as they stayed out of sight on the trail and played guard at night or when Gina and Andie were taking baths. In return they were allowed to accompany them on the journey and to come into camp at night for petting and grooming and virgin-adoration.

“I'm not going to ask you to help us with the dragon,” Gina said. “And once we are out of your herd's territory, you don't have to come with us any farther.”

The first of them, predictably called “Florien,” bobbed his horn. “Thank you, Warrior,” he said. “It will be grief to leave you, but we are not much use against a dragon. Rapacious men, yes—dragons, no.”

It was a good campsite. A cliff at their back had a series of ledges going down it that were rather like
terraces. At the bottom was a stream that supplied a large pond that watered the valley immediately below the ledge they were camping on. With four Unicorns standing watch, even Gina let her guard down, though she didn't do so enough to let Andie have a bath at the same time.

As they switched places, Gina in a clean gambeson, vigorously toweling her hair dry, Andie asked Florien, “Why did you follow us? And why bring your friends?”

“Alas,” Florien said mournfully, “these are the lands of the Satyrs. Virgins are exceedingly difficult to find.”

Gina choked.

But even Gina conceded that the Unicorns were very welcome once the sun went down and the temperature plummeted. They arranged themselves on either side of the two bedrolls, providing not only something to lean against, which apparently put them in sheer bliss, but a source of gentle warmth.

With the Unicorns playing guard, Gina elected to wear only the body-pieces of her armor, keeping the helmet and gloves off. And for the first time since the beginning of this journey, Andie was able to look at a face across the fire. Gina was a girl Andie would have called “handsome,” rather than pretty. Her features were strong and striking, though hardly unfeminine. Her short hair was cut in the “bowl” fashion favored by many Warriors who had to wear helmets; it was curly and rather unruly and a chestnut-red in color, a hue that Andie had only ever seen
on one or two foreigners before. She had greenish eyes and a boyish figure, but was clearly quite strong.

Very clearly. After all, Andie had seen her fight.

Still, Andie had never heard of a female Champion before….

“Bet you never heard of a female Champion before,” Gina said, giving her a shrewd glance from across the fire.

Andie started. “Can you read thoughts, too?” she gasped.

Gina smirked. “No, but the look on your face was fairly clear. There aren't many of us. Some Chapters simply won't accept them, and to be honest, there aren't a lot of female Warriors willing to put up with the hardships of a Champion's life. The ones that are fighters out of necessity know that they can get very good pay working for men who want their wives or daughters guarded by people who won't seduce them. The ones that are fighters out for some other reason are generally following a lover or acting out of loyalty to a liege. That leaves very, very few interested in becoming Champions.” She stretched, and popped her neck in a way that made Andie wince. “We are something of a secret weapon. This is not the first time that someone has created an exclusionary spell that specifies ‘no
man
will do such and such.' In fact, at this point, it just might be a Traditional path.” She chuckled. “Though, another way to get around it is to have someone give up his real name and be dubbed ‘Noman.' That works, too.”

“But in this case they sent you?” Andie asked.

Gina nodded. “It's because young women were involved, Princess. Godmother Elena has strong feelings about young women being forced down the Traditional path of falling in love with their rescuers. Though I must admit, you were clever with that oath of blood-siblings. That was one I hadn't thought of, nor had she. When I get back to the Chapter-House, I will have to make sure that goes into the record books for future reference.”

“Please don't call me ‘Princess,'” Andie said, as Gina speared a roasting mushroom with her knife, looked at it and took a bite. That was another area where the Unicorns were proving handy. It didn't matter if the mushrooms so abundant in this part of the forest were poisonous or not. A Unicorn's horn could purify every sort of poison. So Andie had gathered up as many as she could stuff into a sack and one of the four had dutifully touched each one with the tip of his horn before they were arranged around the fire for roasting. “I'm Andie. At least until this is over.”

Gina nodded, mouth full. “These are really good,” she said, after swallowing. “Never thought of this aspect of having a Unicorn along. I take back all the nasty things I said about you four.”

“We don't mind, Warrior Maiden,” said Florien, his eyes misting over with stupefied devotion. “You can say anything about us that you like.”

Gina rolled her eyes but did not comment.

“How did you end up a knight?” Andie asked. “I
mean, you
are
a knight, right? I thought all Champions were knights.”

“I am and we are,” Gina replied. “And it's not very complicated, really. My father was a Champion, out of the Chapter-House of Earendell. When he started feeling himself going stiff in the knees he knew it was time to think about settling down. He really didn't want to retire to the Chapter-House—he wanted to raise a family. So he started looking for the right opportunity, trusting, oddly enough, that The Tradition would put something in his path. And sure enough, he got one of those ‘save the Kingdom from the rapacious beast' jobs. It was a tiny little Kingdom and the reward was small enough that it didn't tempt any of the mercenary types. So they asked for a Champion, and he answered. It was an easy task as such things went and he was offered the reward of a title and a little bit of land and the hand of the Princess. It was exactly the situation he had been hoping for, exactly the right size Kingdom and reward. And—” she added with a smile “—exactly the right person to settle down with.”

Something about that smile prompted her to respond, “But not the Princess.”

Gina shook her head. “The Princess he'd been offered was only six. Her personal guard, however…that was another story. He's quite famous in our part of the world, though I doubt you'd have heard of him here. Sir Septimus of Galenstein.”

Andie shook her head.

“Didn't think so,” Gina said cheerfully. “Godmother Elena hadn't heard of him, either, so I doubt his fame would have spread this far. Anyway, the lady he settled down with, my mother, was the Princess Iselda's bodyguard, and Poppa found her a lot more to his liking than a six-year-old. The King was a bit put out about having to find a new Guard but—well that was just his bad luck. She wanted lots of children, he wanted lots of children and—” she laughed “—wouldn't you know that was just what they got. With Mama being something of a sword-bearer herself, he never saw much reason to keep his girls at their embroidery frames if that wasn't where they wanted to be. So we all got good educations in whatever we thought would be our life work.”

Andie listened to this with envy, thinking how much easier her life would have been if her own parents had been like that….

“I'm the middle of fourteen children,” Gina continued. “The only Champion, though. There are too many of us to inherit what's really a pretty small estate, and Poppa had some ideas about that, too. Whichever of us shows the most aptitude for running the duchy, the most love of the land and the most care for our liege-men and farmers, is going to get the lands and titles. So all of us chose things that would support us. I've got a couple of siblings in the clergy, a couple in the King's service, one that's a Wizard, two that are Sorceresses—let me tell you, that kind of startled my parents, they had no idea that there was magic in their blood, but the
sibs in question are the seventh born, the ninth born and the thirteenth born, so that probably explains it.”

Andie nodded.

“As it happens, I'm a good fighter.” Gina shrugged. “And I like it. So did Christine, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. So father trained and knighted all of us. On top of that, I really believe in the ideals of the Champions, so I went looking for a Chapter-House that fancied me once I was knighted.”

“What an enlightened fellow your father is!” said an interested voice from above. “I'd like to meet him!”

Andie didn't even get a chance to blink before Gina was instantly on her feet, sword at the ready, with one hand throwing something on the fire that made it flare high, revealing the cliff-face at their back.

A dragon perched above them on a ledge well out of reach. It was big—Andie had forgotten just how big dragons were. The ledge where it perched was easily of a size to support a large farmhouse and gardens and the dragon overflowed all of the edges.

The four Unicorns bleated, scrambled to their feet and bolted, leaving Gina facing the beast alone. Not that Andie blamed them. Against a creature that size, their horns would scarcely be of much use, and they would merely serve as appetizers.

It was hard to tell what color the dragon was in the shadows and firelight. Something dark, and there couldn't be that many dragons about, so it was probably “their” dragon. It craned its neck down along the rock, peering at them, eyes gleaming redly in the fire.

“My dear Sir Gina,” it was saying. “Please put that away, I have no intention of—”

But Gina was already moving, jumping up the slope with the agility of a cricket, and halfway to him by the time he got the word
intention
out. It looked absurd, but there was no doubt that she was going to reach him in a moment.

He uttered a yelp and leapt up, flapping heavily off into the night sky. Which was equally absurd—he had the highest position and he would have no difficulty in picking her off the cliff, and yet he acted as if he was afraid of her.

“Come back here, fell beast!” Gina screamed after him, shaking her fist and waving her sword. “Coward! Scum! Wretched thing of evil! Come back here and taste my steel!”

The dragon evidently had gotten more than enough of a “taste” of her steel the last time, and wanted no part of her. His shadow crossed the moon, wings flapping hard to gain him height and distance, and it was obvious from the speed he was going that he had no intention of coming back.

Gina stood on the ledge he had vacated, waving her fist furiously in the air.

It took her a long time to calm down enough to descend again, and it was quite clear that their Unicorns had abandoned them altogether. Not that Andie blamed them.

She strapped on the rest of her armor, made sure it was secure, and remained sitting on a rock staring
into the fire, her expression furious, long after Andie crawled into her bedroll.

For her part, Andie was confused.

The dragon, this horrible creature, this rapacious beast that had devoured maiden after maiden, had sat above them on a ledge and listened to their conversation. And it wasn't as if what they were talking about was the strategy of how they were going to deal with the dragon, either. It could have plucked them right off the cliff wall. They had no defenses against it. The dragon had the advantage of height and stealth. If it hadn't spoken they would never have known it was there.

Gina's stony expression and rigid posture told Andie that she was furious. Andie, however, was thinking hard, and coming up with a great many things that made no sense—because the dragon had not attacked, had not attempted to defend itself, had, in fact, flown away with a yelp that would have been more appropriate coming from a dog than a dragon.

Gina didn't have any sort of mystical dragon-slaying sword, Andie was relatively certain of that. It had looked absolutely ordinary, and Andie was sure that Gina would have mentioned something if she
had
possessed something like that. After all, that would have been one more way to invoke The Tradition on their side.
Fear not, for I have in my hands, the mighty blade Wyrm-slayer, known throughout the Five Hundred Kingdoms!
That sort of thing turned up in tales all the time, and as versed in The Tradition as
Gina was, she would have made sure to get something like that said aloud.

So why would the dragon flee like that?

And why, back when she herself had been rescued, had the dragon been defeated so easily? At the time, she had just been terrified out of her wits, sure they were both going to die, and ready to faint with relief when they didn't. Now, in retrospect—

Looking at those claws, Andie knew there was no way that Gina should have escaped without a puncture or gash. She had barely even had scratches. It hadn't bitten her once, not once—and teeth were one of its chief weapons. It hadn't flamed her, either, using the other chief weapon.

In retrospect, it almost appeared that Gina's injuries were accidental, the result of her doing something stupid, or of the dragon misjudging its own strength. That made absolutely no sense unless you posited that it hadn't wanted to fight in the first place, and…

She went to sleep with the puzzle churning over and over in her mind.

She woke up just as puzzled, and Gina was clearly just as furious. Their road took them upward today, far upward, above the green valley into the rocky cliffs and stony tops of the mountains. The road, clear though in poor repair, wound around and through crags like a snake writhing through rocks—a dust-covered snake. It was warm and very dusty up here.

Gina's back was all that Andie could see. The
Champion had been silent all through breakfast and pack-up, and now her back looked as rigid and angry as her face had. Gina was taking this personally.

Andie felt duty-bound to at least try to posit some of her own theories, however. She coughed. “Uh, Gina?”