Dragonbards (13 page)

The courtyard was aflame with Iceflower’s
breath. She was rearing, dodging swords, screaming—she twisted away
from soldiers who leaped at her head, trying to throw ropes over
her. All attention was on the dragonling. Kiri grabbed Teb’s legs;
they pulled him from under the table, fled into the shadows of the
courtyard, and ran stumbling along the dark wall. They made for the
blackest corner, nearly knocked down by milling soldiers backing
away from Iceflower. Behind them, Quazelzeg had appeared in the
main doorway, shouting, “Get the nets—get the nets on it!” Kiri was
terrified he would see them.

Suddenly white fury dropped out of the sky
as Seastrider dove, spitting flame, crushing soldiers. She banked
to Kiri, took Teb in her mouth, and shoved him onto her back.
Marshy climbed up to tuck Teb’s legs into the harness. In the
center of the yard, Iceflower knocked chains away and melted them,
burning soldiers—but a captain saw Teb.

“The bard’s escaping! Get the bard!” The
soldiers abandoned Iceflower and charged Seastrider.

“No!” Quazelzeg roared. “Forget the bard!
The bard is mine now! Catch the dragon—
I want the
dragon!”

As the dark soldiers turned back to circle
Iceflower, Seastrider lifted clear. Kiri grabbed Aven’s hand, and
they ran for the slave cage. “The girl first,” Kiri said. “Get the
girl!”

Windcaller dropped down out of the sky to
them as the slave children swarmed around the gate. When Kiri flung
the gate open, she saw the bard girl. The bolder children surged
out, and the bard girl’s eyes met Kiri’s. She was pressing forward
three timid, confused children, but they fought her, backing and
staring. Aven moved to help her, and together they herded the
children toward Windcaller, pushing and dragging.

“Don’t be afraid,” the bard girl begged.
“It’s a singing dragon! She’ll free us.” But the three children
balked and turned back.

“She won’t
hurt
you!” Kiri cried.
“She’ll carry you to safety. Go to her!” She lifted one and pushed
him up onto Windcaller. “She’s a singing dragon, she won’t hurt
you!”

They got ten of the boldest onto
Windcaller’s back, Aven and the bard girl pushing the last ones up
as the big dragon lifted. In the center of the courtyard, Iceflower
was bleeding badly but she thrashed and roared, teasing and
distracting the soldiers.

Seastrider returned and Marshy slid down,
panting, “Tebriel is safe on the barge.” As they pushed children
onto Seastrider’s back, they saw soldiers poised on the wall above
Iceflower, spreading a net.

“Heave . . .

“
Now!”

The net fell over the fighting young dragon
in pale folds.

“Tighter—pull it tighter!”

Iceflower plunged and flamed, burning net,
burning soldiers, as Windcaller returned.

It was all Kiri and Aven and the girl could
do to get the last children mounted. Where was Marshy? Then Kiri
saw him in the center of the courtyard, clinging to Iceflower, both
of them tangled in the net. Kiri swung onto Windcaller’s back
behind a tangle of children, and Windcaller sped at the soldiers,
blasting flame. Seastrider, loaded with children, dropped to fight
beside her.

The dragons cut the net away, Marshy
scrambled onto Iceflower’s back, and the three dragons lifted,
Iceflower limping in flight, the big dragons heavy and slow with
the weight of the children. They made for the cadacus field as
soldiers with torches stormed out the gate.

While Seastrider and Iceflower circled,
Windcaller dropped to the oak, and Kiri reached in. “Quickly, come
on. Neeno, Afeena. Hurry.”

Tybee and Albee swept out to her shoulder.
Afeena and Neeno crept into her hand as torches appeared, coming
fast. She tucked the two owls into her tunic. The dragons pulled
for the sky, fighting to lift themselves above the treetops.

High up in cloud, Kiri felt the child behind
her relax against her. The pounding of her own heart eased. She
felt like screaming with relief. She looked across at Iceflower.
The poor dragonling was fighting the wind instead of using it,
breeching across it in weak, uneven struggle.
It won’t be
long,
Kiri said.
It isn’t far to the barge. You were very
brave—you did a fine job, both of you.

She could feel Marshy’s pride in the
dragonling and his shivering relief that they were out of there.
She could feel Aven’s wonder as the little boy looked down through
the night sky. Now that they were away, the bard girl seemed
strangely remote. They were just over the lights of Lashtel’s
harbor when Kiri remembered what Teb had intended to do. “Drop!”
she cried. “Circle, drop down!”

The unliving conquer by changing all memory
and naming themselves our saviors. Only the bardsong can destroy
their lies, and without dragons, the bardsong is all but gone from
Tirror.

*

“The ships,” Kiri cried. “Burn the
ships!”

The dragons dropped with their burden of
children, and skimmed low over Aquervell’s seaport, driving a wind
before them that rocked the tethered boats. They belched out sheets
of fire—a ship blazed up, another. Dry decks and masts exploded
into flame. Soon the whole harbor was burning. In the pulsing red
glare, men dove into the water or ran along the quays, screaming.
From the backs of the dragons, the children watched wide-eyed.
While the harbor roared and crackled with flame, the dragons rose
into the smoky wind and headed for the tip of Aquervell.

The late moon hung behind cloud, the sea
black shadows cresting and moving—every shadow might be the barge,
they couldn’t see it clearly until they were nearly on it.
Seastrider breathed a small flame, and they saw it rocking below
them. In the red light, they saw Garit and the children crouched
beside the still body of Tebriel. Two rebel soldiers stood guard.
The dragons came down on the sea.

Children slid to the deck, the soldiers
catching the smallest ones. Seastrider nuzzled at Teb. Kiri slid
down, to kneel beside him.

He was unconscious, his face cold and white,
smeared with dark bruises. Garit had covered him with a pile of
blankets. Kiri looked up at Garit, helpless and afraid. “He hasn’t
moved, or spoken?” Garit shook his head. Kiri held Teb’s hands,
trying to warm them. What could she do for him? How could she help
him?

Desperate, she began to talk to him—maybe
the sound of a voice would touch something in him. Maybe a voice
could be a lifeline of human warmth, to draw him back. She told him
they had gotten the children out, that they now had two new young
bards, that the dragons all were safe. She told him how Iceflower
had kept the soldiers busy while they carried him out of the
castle, how they got the children onto the dragons. She told him
that they had burned the harbor. Teb showed no sign that he heard,
and Quazelzeg’s words rang cold in her mind.
The bard is mine
now.

Stricken, she kept talking—it didn’t matter
what she said; all that mattered was that she connect with what was
alive deep within him. Somewhere within his wounded mind he
must
hear, something of his spirit
must
hear her. She
paid no attention to the bustle around her as the men set sail. As
they sloughed through the surf, she talked about Nightpool, about
the otters, about Charkky and Mikk, about how Thakkur and Hanni had
been so excited to find each other. The slave children listened,
entranced. As the moon dropped below clouds, Kiri could see the
children’s faces, hungry for story, hungry for life and warmth. She
could feel Seastrider’s smooth summoning of Tebriel, too, as the
dragon sought to pull him back from emptiness with silent power. As
the barge moved across open sea, Kiri spoke of the magic places, of
the sacred sanctuaries, and how men and speaking animals had once
found fellowship there. She could see the wonder and longing on the
faces of the slave children.

They were nearly past Ekthuma, the night
fading. Teb’s eyelids moved. When Kiri felt his cheek, it was
warmer. She told him again that they had escaped from Quazelzeg,
that the children were safe. Garit poured tea from the crock—he had
given the children tea and bread and cheese. Kiri brushed the warm
tea across Teb’s lips, and after a long time, when he licked his
upper lip, she felt like cheering.

“Lift him, Garit. Help me lift him, to lean
against the mast.”

When he was sitting up, she put the mug to
his lips.

He swallowed. The cup shook in her hand.
Seastrider pushed at him and licked his face. He was alive; he had
come back to them.

But there was no recognition in him. He sat
staring at them blankly, his body awake but his mind not yet
returned. Seastrider nudged and worried at him. Then, frustrated,
the white dragon began to sing to him, forming lucid visions of
moments she and Teb had shared.

As the raft made its way south toward Dacia,
Seastrider’s song took them across the shifting endless skies,
buffeted by twisting winds, soaring on thrones of rain and swirling
ice. She lifted them above islands of dark clouds humping like the
backs of a million giant animals, and over cloud plains white as
snowfields. She dodged lightning through crashing black storm, and
she sang of silent lands like green jewels, where rivers ran in a
tracery of blue.

The slave children drank in the splendid
wonders, hugging to themselves hungrily all Seastrider’s wild
freedom and fierce love. But Teb sat quiet and pale, staring at his
hands, seeming aware of nothing. Seastrider pressed her big white
head against him, and Kiri held him close, but he did not respond
to them.

When an agitated rustling began in Kiri’s
pack, she opened it, and little injured Neeno crawled up out of the
darkness, his wings dragging. The tiny owl stood tottering on the
leather strap, staring at Teb, his round yellow eyes deep with
puzzled concern. “He is very ill.” Neeno blinked, clacked his
curved beak in a loud staccato, and shouted with all his remaining
strength,
“Wake, Tebriel! Ooo, wake!”
He peered at Teb.
“Do you hear me? Wake!”
He cocked his head, looking.
“Oooo! Wake, Tebriel! Wake! Wake!”
He clattered again, and
his angry shout rose to a commanding shriek.
“Bring yourself
back, Tebriel! Wake up, Tebriel! Wake up!

“
DARE you wake, Tebriel? DARE YOU? Are
you afraid to wake?”

Teb stirred and looked at Neeno. That angry,
clacking shout had brought him back. Perhaps it was like the angry,
chittering sound an otter makes; perhaps it made Teb think of Mitta
commanding him to get well. He reached to touch Seastrider as she
nuzzled him, he touched Kiri’s cheek. He looked at the crowd of
children, at Marshy, at Aven and Darba and Garit and the two rebel
soldiers.

He frowned at the little owl’s bloody,
twisted wings and held out his hand for Neeno to climb on. “What
happened? Where are the others?”

Albee and Tybee and Afeena came swooping
from the top of the mast and crowded onto Teb’s shoulder.

“Theeka? Keetho?”

“They were killed,” Kiri said. “The
jackals . . .”

Teb touched Neeno’s bloody feathers and held
the little owl to his cheek, his eyes filled with sorrow. Neeno
closed his own eyes and snuggled against Teb.

As they neared the coast of Dacia, Teb told
them a little about Quazelzeg’s torture. His cheeks burned with
shame that he had been so used. He did not speak of the abyss where
his every human need had been a sickness, but Kiri knew, she and
the dragons knew. For those terrible hours, they had felt Quazelzeg
owning him. Kiri moved within Teb’s encircling arm, and he held her
close. The slave children pressed against them in a warm wall of
small bodies.

Only Aven stood apart. His rusty brown eyes
had changed suddenly and grown dark with excitement.

“What is it?” Kiri said.

“There are four dragonlings in Dacia,” Aven
said.

“Yes,” Teb said. A smile twitched the side
of his mouth.

“One is blue,” said Aven.

“Yes!” Teb and Kiri cried together. The
dragons’ eyes gleamed.

“He has named himself Bluepiper,” Aven said,
“after a snowbird from across the western sea.”

Teb laughed out loud—the first time he had
laughed—and hugged Aven.

Darba pressed against Aven. “You
. . . you have found your dragon.” Excitement filled her
dark eyes, but beneath that excitement were shadows of loneliness.
Kiri drew the little girl to her. She studied Darba’s heart-shaped
face and dark, tangled hair, then dug into a pocket of her tunic
and took out her small shell comb.

She combed Darba’s hair as gently as she
could, taking her time, working out the tangles, humming to Darba.
The questions Aven was asking about Bluepiper, and Teb’s exciting
answers, came easier for the little girl when she was stroked and
loved. By the time Garit put ashore at Dacia, Aven knew almost
everything about Bluepiper and the clutch of young dragons. And
Darba’s longing jealousy had eased. Kiri tied the child’s shining
hair back with a bit of white leather. “You are lovely, do you know
that? Some decent food, and you’ll feel better, too.” She drew
Marshy to her, so the three of them stood close.

‘Take Darba to the palace with you, Marshy.
Iceflower’s wounds will be all right; she’s bathed them in the sea,
and she’s rested. Shell be strong enough for the two of you for
that short distance.”

Marshy put a protecting arm around Darba.
“Come on,” he said. “Iceflower will take us home.” He gave Darba a
leg up onto Iceflower’s back and climbed up behind. As dawn touched
the sky over Dacia, Iceflower lifted carefully into the wind and
headed for the palace.

I watch the sky for dragons that will never
come. My king knows my pain; he knows that Tirror is dying. He
knows the empty faces of the young.