The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey Read Free Book Online Page B

destructive ones of course, and only the ones that couldn’t be reasoned with—defeated wicked knights, drove out bloodthirsty barbarians, destroyed rampaging giants and killed every manner of monstrous beast that your average village was having problems with. He hadn’t rescued any Princesses yet…but there was a reason for that. He had come to the aid of a prince or two, a lot of counts, one duke and assorted adventurers. But not Princesses. On the whole, he was trying to avoid Princesses, just on general principle. He could not afford to have the wrong sort of Princess fall in love with him.
    At the moment, having crossed over the eastern border of a mountainous Kingdom he was hacking his way through the undergrowth of a forest that seemed to go on for an awfully long way. There were all sorts of rumors of war in this area, and war was a good way to do heroic deeds without the complications of princesses or even maidens in distress.
    The first woman that young Siegfried had ever seen was one of his aunts. So was the second. And the third. And the fourth.
    And, truth to tell, every other woman up to the point where he left his childhood home of Drachenthal. When your mother and father are also your aunt and uncle, things tend to be complicated that way. When both are half-godlet, and both blessed and cursed by other gods, things get even more complicated.
    Such things generally lead to a life of Heroism and Doom. The Heroism part was enjoyable enough. It was the Doom part that Siegfried wasn’t too fond of. Doom was generally painful, and there wasnever anything good when it was over, unless you were a religious fanatic who was really looking forward to the afterlife.
    “So, this Kingdom is rich?” he asked his companion, a little, brown, nondescript bird. Heroes didn’t usually have any interest in birds, and the names and categorization of them were generally limited in a Hero’s education to “good to eat,” “not good to eat,” and “singing while I have a hangover, kill it with a rock.”
    Birds don’t snort, but the bird, which he just thought of as forest bird, since that was where he had met it, made a derisive chirp. “This Kingdom is rich in the way that Eitri’s Forge is a little warm.”
    “Well, that’s good,” Siegfried said with relief. “Hero work doesn’t exactly pay well. Maybe if I smite enough of whoever is on the side of evil, they’ll give me a reward.”
    Now those who are destined for a life of Heroism often begin it precociously early, often as a mere baby, with little events like strangling great serpents in the cradle—the Hero’s cradle, not the serpent’s. Siegfried had been no exception to that. But from everything he’d learned since, the rate of his Heroic development had overshot all others by leaps and bounds. Where other Doomed Heroes waited until their beards had begun to sprout, their voices to descend to rich baritone or melodious tenor, and they began to manifest a distinct interest in Females before slaying their first evil, gold-hoarding dragon, Siegfried had done so much earlier.
    Age ten, to be precise. The age when Girls are, Traditionally, Icky. Besides, the only Girls he knew were his aunts.
    So, when he tasted the Dragon’s Blood and suddenly could understand the language of all of the birds and animals, and when the little forest bird began talking sense to him instead of merely shouting “Look! Look! Look at meeeeeee!” he paid attention rather than merely making use of it as a glorified guide.
    “Oh I wouldn’t take that,” the bird had warned as he reached fora particularly enticing golden ring. It was a beautiful thing. It glistened in the sunlight as if it was made of liquid, and it called to him. It whispered to him….
    But it was, after all, a ring. Jewelry. Girlie stuff. So— “Why not?” he had asked the bird.
    “Well, since you ask, ” the bird had replied, with incredible ebullience in its voice, “I’ll tell you why!”
    So