Dragon's Egg by Sarah L. Thomson

breakfast. Mella had expected Roger to object, remembering how fussy he’d been over borrowing Damien’s horse for a few days. “Isn’t this stealing?” she asked pointedly as he carefully arranged a thick slice of cold bacon between two chunks of brown bread.
    Roger looked honestly surprised. “Spoils of war,” he said. “It’s entirely different.” He didn’t seem to understand why Mella laughed.
    After they’d eaten, Mella nodded toward Alain, still tugging at his bonds and grumbling blasphemously under his breath. “What are we going to do with him?”
    Roger frowned, worried. “We can’t leave him here to starve.” In the morning light, Mella could see the bruise across his cheekbone where Alain had struck him. “But I can’t…Mella, I can’t justkill him. He’s our prisoner. I can’t hurt him.”
    Mella couldn’t imagine Roger using a sword on a helpless, bound man. She couldn’t imagine herself doing it either. It had been one thing to hit him last night. But this was different.
    â€œWait,” Roger said suddenly. “I have an idea.”
    First they gathered their belongings and filled their sacks with Alain’s food. The kidnapper had stopped cursing by now and slumped against the wagon wheel, sullen and silent.
    â€œOne more thing,” Roger said with a slow smile. It made Mella think of the way he had sounded the night before when he’d warned Alain of his father’s vengeance. He went to the back of the wagon.
    Mella watched, puzzled at first, as Roger picked up bolts of cloth in his arms and carried them to the smoldering remains of the fire. He built the flames up again with fresh wood and began to toss armfuls of silk and brocade into the conflagration.
    Alain groaned.
    Mella joined in, breaking glass bottles against a rock and letting the dark, syrupy liquid inside runout. The sweet, heady smell made her blink.
    â€œSpiced plum wine,” Roger said with interest, coming over to look. “From the islands off Tyrene. I don’t suppose you paid the taxes on it?”
    Alain banged the back of his head against the wagon and looked sick with the pain.
    After they had burned or broken or trampled everything Alain had in his stores, Roger knelt down behind the man and slightly loosened the ropes holding his hands.
    â€œYou should be able to work yourself free before noon,” he said, coming around to look Alain in the face. The trader looked up at him without gratitude, rage tightening his jaw, as if Roger’s mercy were more of an insult than malice would have been.
    â€œIf the wild dragons don’t come back before then,” Mella added spitefully. She supposed Roger was right that they couldn’t leave Alain to starve. But that didn’t mean she had to be nice to him. From the sudden pallor of his face, he didn’t know that dragons never came out until sundown.
    â€œAnd another thing,” she added. “Dragon bitesalways get infected.” This part was true. She’d had enough nips from her own herd to know. “You’d better get that hand seen to by a healer. If you don’t, by nightfall it’ll be swollen to the size of a melon. So don’t try to follow us. Because if we find you in the woods, out of your mind with fever, I won’t let Roger help you.”
    Alain had camped by the side of a road that was not broad and well used like the highway from the Inn to Dragonsford. It was a dirt track, barely wide enough for a wagon. In one direction, it led back to Dragonsford. In the other, it twisted and wound its way among the foothills. To get farther into the mountains, they’d have to strike out through the woods.
    â€œHe could at least have taken us along a decent road,” Roger grumbled, surveying the forest, thick with brambles and undergrowth. “We can’t even take the horse through that. We’ll have to go