Nightpool (10 page)

But though they couldn’t yet hear the
pounding of approaching troops, the earth had begun to tremble
under their paws, so Ebis wasn’t far behind.

The dragon remained very still, poised over
Tebriel.

The soldiers began to wake, and the two
foxes crouched lower. The camp had seemed as if dead, even the
tethered horses nodding where they stood, their knees locked, quite
gone in sleep standing up.

“I think that’s Sivich there,” said Luex,
gesturing with her nose.

“How can you tell?”

“That great dark leather cape thrown over
him, and the way he has the best place by the fire. But what is the
dragon doing?”

“She still has her head in the trap,” he
said impatiently.

“I can see that. But why?”

“It’s Sivich, all right. He sees her.” They
both hugged the ground as Sivich leaped up shouting.

“To arms—arm yourselves—the dragon
. . . Chase it into the trap. . . . Use
your spears, force it in!”

Men leaped up half dressed, grabbing swords
and spears, hastily fitting arrow to bow, and soon the dragon was
surrounded from behind and forced against the cage. The foxes
stared and shivered as she faced her attackers, then turned away
from them again almost disdainfully, and gave her attention to the
boy, forcing and worrying at the great logs of his prison.

“Oh, fly away. . . .”
whispered Luex. “Fly away. . . .”

“She’s trying to free the boy,” breathed
Faxel.

Bellowing, and her breath flaming, the
dragon tore at the log bars. Suddenly out of the sky burst a second
dragon, black as caves. He descended straight down to the female.
At the same moment the pounding of hooves grew to thunder, and
Ebis’s troops roared into view around the hill, straight toward
Sivich’s army.

They rode into the midst of the soldiers,
scattering horses, charging the men who thrust and slashed at the
dragon. The black dragon was battling beside her now, bellowing and
throwing men against the timbers.

Then suddenly out of the maze a small figure
darted, dodging beneath dragon wings and around galloping, rearing
horses.

“He’s free! Oh, she’s freed him!” Luex
yipped.

As Sivich’s troops were driven back, and the
black dragon nudged the female skyward, the foxes lost sight of
Teb. The two dragons rose against the sky, belching flame down on
the warriors; they were above the battle, covering the sky, then
lifting toward the moon.

“Where is the prince?” The foxes sought that
small running shape, but the battle was terrible now, as Ebis’s men
pounded Sivich’s raiders. Had Tebriel escaped? Or had he fallen
beneath pounding hooves?

‘There . . .” Luex cried.
“There—the prince . . . Someone has taken him
up. . . . “ They could see Teb then, limp and
clinging in front of a rider who sped and dodged away from the
battle, whipping his horse, holding the boy against him.

“It’s Ebis’s sergeant,” said Faxel. “The
white horse . . .” But six riders were converging on the
fleeing soldier, their bows raised. They fired, the white horse
stumbled, ran, stumbled again under a second volley, and fell, the
rider spilling under its shoulder, trying to throw Teb free.

Riders and horse lay in a heap. The battle
raged around them, and a rider leaped down and nudged the bodies
with his toe, stood watching a moment, then mounted again and was
off. The three lay unmoving.

“Are they dead?” Luex looked at Faxel, her
eyes huge. They fled down the hill and onto the battlefield between
rearing, plunging horses and swinging swords. They reached Teb and
nuzzled his cheek with their noses.

“He’s breathing,” Luex panted. “But the
horse—it’s lying on his leg. Is it alive? Bite at it.”

They bit and harried at the white gelding
until, tossing in agony from its wounds and from this new torment,
it heaved itself away from Teb, freeing him. But he did not
move.

It was then, as they stood nosing Teb and
licking his face, that suddenly the jackal broke out of a clashing
mêlée, bloody from the fighting, dripping blood from its jaws, and
was on them; neither had seen the jackal or known one was near, and
they both faced it now frozen with shock before Faxel let out a
staccato yipping challenge and attacked it as it bore down on them;
Luex close behind screamed her fury, their sharp teeth going for
its throat.

But it was a big jackal, twice their size,
and maddened already from battle, and though they matched it they
could not best it. When it grabbed Luex by the throat, Faxel tore
at its eyes until it dropped her, then, “Run, Luex—find shelter,”
he yipped, and they were both dodging among fallen bodies and
writhing horses as the heavy jackal winged over them. “Keep
low—under that horse. . . . It will tire before we
do,” breathed Faxel as it dropped and doubled over them. “Keep it
following, away from the boy.”

*

Teb woke squirming with pain. His ribs were
on fire, and his leg hurt so much it sent pain all through his
body, and his vision would not come clear. He reached out and felt
a great hairy bulk. He pushed at it and felt the inert stillness of
death. He rolled away from it, instinctively, into shelter and felt
the marsh grass bend and snap up around him as he pulled himself
through it, squirming, pulling himself in deeper across the mud,
the pain in his leg hitting him in waves as he moved, but the
sounds of battle behind him keeping him moving. He drew in where
the grass was tall and thick, then fainted again from the pain.

The marsh lay bright green all along the
coast clear from the Bay of Fear, the eel grass and wild oats and
cord grass heavy and tall and rich with the life of crabs and
shrimps and water snails and small hatchling fishes in among its
waters. Otters hunted there sometimes, as now did two young males
out alone on a roving spree. They sat taking a meal of oysters from
a muddy bed among the sprouting grasses when they heard the high
yipping. They had been hearing the sounds of battle for some time,
feeling the tremble of the earth in the marsh mud.

“That’s a kit fox barking,” said
Mikkian.

“Are you sure? All I hear is horses thudding
and humans shouting.” Charkky stared toward the barrier of tall sea
grass, trying to imagine what was occurring beyond it. Then the
yipping of kit foxes came again. “Oh, yes—I hear it, too.”

“Why would kit foxes be mixed in a battle
with the dark raiders?” said Mikkian.

“I don’t know. But I know dragons were mixed
in.”

“You only think you saw dragons. Why
would—”

“I saw them, I tell you. If you hadn’t been
stuffing your face with oysters, you’d have seen them, too. Two
dragons, Mikk. I saw. . . .”

“Hah,” Mikk huffed as if he didn’t believe a
word.

“Well, I did see them. And I heard the foxes
cry just now, as well as you did, and I am going to find out what’s
happening.” And off went Charkky, humping through the tall, waving
grass.

Mikkian sighed and slid up out of the mud,
to follow. “We’ll make better time by water,” he said, nipping at
Charkky’s fat tail.

Charkky didn’t answer, but he swerved and
doubled back and headed for the surf, so the grass thrashed above
him.

They dove into the breakers and were quickly
beyond them, to head west, following Baylentha’s shore, swimming
mostly underwater, and so with no more arguing, for the moment.
They reached the scene of battle and slid in under the waves, then
stuck their noses out very close to shore, to hear the scream of a
dying horse and smell the stench of blood. They didn’t see the
foxes, only the teeming battle, and they heard a groan. Then Mikk
caught the scent of the foxes, and they followed it into the marsh
grass, near a dead white gelding.

“The foxes were here,” said Mikk. “Two of
them, and—”

“I can smell them!” said Charkky. “There!”
he cried, and leaped forward to part the thick grass.

Before them lay a still, bloodied human
form.

“It’s no bigger than we are,” Mikk said,
sniffing at Teb’s face. “It’s just a child—a boy child.”

“Is it alive?”

They put their noses to Teb’s nose and could
feel his breath. Teb groaned again.

It took the two otters some time to decide
what to do. Because the boy was small, he appealed to them more
than an adult; they would likely have left an adult human to die.
This boy was no older than they, and he was in need.

“They’ll trample him,” Mikk growled as a
skirmish of fighting closed in on them. “Drag him farther into the
marsh.”

They did. “What now?” Charkky said. “We
can’t leave him. We’ll have to take him home. But how? He’s too
sick ever to swim.”

“Human boys can’t swim much anyway. We—we’ll
have to make a raft.”

“Like a fish raft for the winter catch,”
said Charkky.

“Exactly.”

Soon Charkky was chewing off great hanks of
cord grass and braiding them into twine, while Mikk searched for
driftwood logs along the shore, where they had dragged Tebriel. The
battle moved off to the north, away from them, so the otters worked
with less frenzy. They dragged three good logs together and laced
them tight, then pulled the raft into the surf, dragging Teb on
board before it was quite floating, then pulling the whole heavy
mass out into the waves. The journey that followed nearly killed
Teb, for he almost drowned in the cold seas that lapped over him,
choking him again and again. The otters had to stop pulling and
pushing the raft each time and hold his head up until he could
breathe. The salt water started his wounds bleeding harder, and
stung fiercely.

“The blood will attract sharks and killer
fish,” said Mikk. “Maybe we should have left him.”

“He’d have died,” said Charkky.

“If you have any ideas about how to explain
bringing a human home to the island, I’d like to hear them.”

“It was your idea, too.”

“I’m having second thoughts, is all.”

“We’ll just have to tell Thakkur the truth,”
Charkky said, shaking spray from his whiskers. “There’s nothing
else one can do, with Thakkur.”

When Teb woke again, confused and frightened
to find himself adrift in the sea, Charkky dove for sea urchins and
opened them for him. Then, seeing the boy was too sick to eat
properly, he shelled the urchins and chewed them, then spat them
into Teb’s mouth. Teb was too weak to resist, and the rich protein
seemed to give him strength.

By late afternoon they had worked their way
around the coast past the Bay of Fear, and past Cape Bay, into the
deep shelter of the Bay of Ottra, and to the wetlands that marked
the Rushmarsh Colony. The two otters had cousins and all manner of
relatives here. They were surrounded at once by a crowd of
inquisitive otters chittering and staring and shouting questions,
otters so thick in the water around the raft that Teb could have
walked to shore on their heads.

“What is it?” shouted a curious young otter,
splashing up to the raft.

“It’s a human,” Mikk said shortly, scowling
at him.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“It’s not an
it
. It’s a
he
.
He’s hurt; we’re taking him home to Nightpool.”

An old otter, heavily whiskered and portly,
came to float on his back near the raft, ogling Teb. “They won’t
let you keep him. The council won’t allow such a thing.”

“That’s silly,” said Mikk. “Why wouldn’t
they? Mitta can doctor him, she—”

“It’s no good having a human at Nightpool.
Having a human know its secrets. You should know better, young
Mikk.”

“He’s only young, like us. He wouldn’t—”

“So much the more reason. Ekkthurian will
never allow it.”

“Ekkthurian is only one of the council, and
he is not the leader,” Mikkian said. “Thakkur won’t turn him away.”
But he wondered if he was right. He wondered what Thakkur would
say.

And he wondered if he dared to suggest they
spend the night in Rushmarsh. They could not make it home before
dark, and he didn’t much like the thought of traveling with the
smell of blood from the boy’s leg all around them, in waters where
sharks were known to swim. He saw the Rushmarsh leader swimming out
toward them, his pale tan head clearly visible among the crowds of
darker, teeming otters.

“Feskken will let him spend the night here,”
Mikk said boldly.

“He never will,” said the portly otter.
“Never.”

The dragons’ mating dance grew frenzied;
they raced between tall white clouds, banked and leaped through
Tirror’s winds, while below them the seas spun away, scattered with
strings of small island continents like emerald beads upon the
indigo water. The winds twisted and changed direction, driven by
the dragons themselves, caught in raging and time-honored
passion.

At first, Dawncloud wanted to turn back to
Tebriel, but her breeding cycle was very close. It was the only
time the eggs could be made fertile, and this breeding was so
important, for she and the male might be the last singing dragons
in all of Tirror. She knew she had loosed Tebriel—she had seen him
run. She began to sense at last, with the feel of rightness that
sometimes came to her, that the boy was safe, that there was
someone to keep him now, tenderly feed and warm him. Such a little
while more, in the dragon’s time sense, that the child need be
tended and watched over.

The male bellowed to shake the peaks and
breathed lightning and flame into the sky, so the winds grew
searing hot and beat around the twining two with gale force. The
male was old; this would be his last breeding. He was heavier and
much larger than she, and of rougher build, but he was as graceful
as a male can be in the mating dance. When Dawncloud’s inner clock
was sure, she rose directly into the sunset and he followed her,
and they danced the final rituals, then bred high above Tirror in
the orange-stained sky.