Rain Wilds Chronicles (211 page)

Icefyre lifted his head at last. His muzzle dripped silver in languid drops. He stepped away from the well, stretched, and then sprawled out on the paving stones. He curled his head and his tail toward the center of his body and was abruptly asleep. Mercor advanced a step toward him and sniffed the air around him. “He was sickened but he will recover, and quickly,” the golden dragon announced.

He looked around at the others. Sintara tried to remember the last time they had all gathered in a group. Even when they had been on the other side of the river, they had seldom convened.
Cassarick,
she thought.
Back in the days before we were true dragons. When we were caught at the edge of the river, living in mud, fed on carrion.
Then Mercor had rallied them, and together they had concocted the plan that would persuade the humans to help them find Kelsingra. They had thought they were lying when they hinted of a storehouse of Elderling wealth in Kelsingra. Little had they realized that, to humans, the whole city was a vast treasure.

She thought of the days and distance they had traveled, the changes they had undergone. They had made their keepers into Elderlings and learned to feed themselves, to fly and to hunt. They had become dragons. And tomorrow?

“We go to battle against humans,” Mercor said gravely. “Truly, there is no choice.” He looked at Tintaglia. “You have done this before?”

She gazed at him oddly. “I have, and in my own life. But dragons have all done this before and more than once. You have no memories of this?”

Sintara kept silent. She possessed no such memories. Mercor was thoughtful for a time, his eyes whirling as if he spun his way back through years and lives. “A few,” he conceded. “But our memories are incomplete. We were too short a time in our cases, and you were but one dragon spread among many serpents when you helped us to spin them. You did what you could, but we are not dragons as you and Icefyre are. And our Elderlings are not as you recall them. They are newly made, and still discovering the memories of those who went before them. They will not know how to fight, or how to aid us in fighting.” He looked at her gravely and asked, “How dangerous is it to make war on humans? To ourselves and to our keepers?”

The large blue queen looked astonished that he would ask such a question. “We cannot worry about that!” she snapped. “Humans have risen against us. You saw my wounds! I nearly died of them. Icefyre was poisoned, but even before that, humans had attacked him, with nets and spears. They do not fear us as they should, and while they do not fear, they do not respect us. I have traveled far and had much to do with humans. Some cannot understand us at all when we try to speak to them; they think us dumb beasts, no different from a lion or a wolf. Or a cow, awaiting slaughter. Others are so overwhelmed at the sight of us that they are idiotic in their worship. You have been fortunate in the ones they chose to send with you when you left Cassarick. The changes they had already undergone seem to have readied them to be fit companions to you.

“But of the humans you will encounter where we must go? They are nothing like the humans you have known. They will try to kill you. They will not greet you or speak to you first. They will feel no wonder, but only the awe that is based on terror. Fear will motivate them, and killing you is all they will think of. And you
can
be killed by them. Do not think of them as puny or stupid. They are sly and treacherous, and they will kill you if they can.” Her gaze raked over the assembled dragons as if they opposed her. Her own words were inflaming her anger.

“You can stay here and hide from them. But the longer you wait before you make them recall their proper place in the world, the more resistance they will give you when you find you must defend yourselves. They will discover the places that we must use, the nesting beach, and the clay banks that we must use to spin our cases to change from serpent to dragon. They will find them, and they will fortify them against us. Do you want to wait until you have to fight for them? Wait until they come in and devastate our nests and the unhatched young?” Her colors had brightened, and Sintara could see her poison glands working.

Mercor spoke his question calmly. “Our keepers. Our Elderlings. If we take them into battle with us, the other humans will try to kill them, also?”

Tintaglia looked amazed at the stupidity of Mercor's question. “Of course they will! And they will most likely shoot first at them. Your Elderlings will be more vulnerable to their weapons, too, as well as to our own venom. Our attack must be coordinated. One dragon attacking a city can do as it pleases. But when we fly to war together, then we must consider the wind, and what targets we wish to destroy, and how to keep venom from drifting onto another dragon or his Elderling. So. If you bear your keepers into battle, you must have a care for them, if you wish them to survive.” She paused as if thinking. “But they are useful to have in a battle. If you are caught on the ground, they will fight alongside us. When your eyes are fixed on one enemy, they can spy another one behind you and give warning. They can slay only one at a time, but they are useful.” She paused and then added, “Sometimes it is kinder to take them with you than to leave them alone. If you do not return, they will mourn and then die anyway.” She walked forward to the Silver well. As she bent her head to drink, she added, “It is a decision every dragon must make for herself.”

“T
hey fly at dawn,” Leftrin told her. He and Alise were leaning on Tarman's rail, drinking tea and looking across the ever restless river. “And I think we should leave tomorrow too.”

She looked at him in astonishment. “Tomorrow?”

He nodded. “My dear, Reyn has sent his last bird, but news such as this cannot depend on those little wings. Nor do I think it was well trained, for when he set it free, it seemed to fly off randomly. No. When the dragons take flight, Tarman must leave as well. The dragons all say it is dragon business, but Chalced may very well view it as a strike by Bingtown and the Rain Wilds. We need to get to Cassarick and warn them, so they can send on word from there. The Traders must be given the chance to prepare for whatever may come.”

The sun was setting on a day that had shaken Alise's world to its foundations. Yesterday, her life had had a routine. She had Leftrin in her arms again at night, a fascinating city to study, and a lifetime of useful tasks before her. Then Icefyre had arrived, a dragon such as dragons had once been. His accusations of human treachery and his call for vengeance had fallen on fertile soil. She had been willing to admit that something must be done, but she was horrified at how quickly the dragons had decided to destroy Chalced. For that was their avowed ambition. Alise and Leftrin both suspected that Tintaglia had already been preaching the necessity of war to the other dragons, just as Rapskal had been trying to stir the keepers. And the keepers! How willingly the youngsters had leaped at the chance to ride off to war. They had raced one another to the armory, selecting armor and battle colors, working earnestly to repair ancient weapons. Sylve had come to her, begging her to come and help them make sense of the dragon harnesses and armor. And so she had gone, taking her sketchbook of all the ancient murals, and using her drawings as examples of how dragons were once garbed for battle. She had been torn between fascination at making her sketches come to life, and dismay that she would help the young Elderlings ride off to risk their own lives.

And to kill.

It made no sense to her. When had the keepers become capable of killing? Did they not understand what they were going into? Her own memories of the Chalcedeans invading Bingtown flooded back into her mind. She smelled again the stink of the burned-out warehouses in the days that had followed the raids and looting. Her mother's sister and her entire family had perished in the first attack, slain in their nightrobes, even the youngest girl, a child of three. Alise had gone with her mother, to find the bodies and take them to their house on a cart and wash them for burial . . .

“Alise? Do you agree we must leave tomorrow?” Leftrin took her hand and tugged at it gently to turn her gaze to meet his. She had been silent and thoughtful for too long. He would be fearing she was wandering in her stone memories again. She would not tell him she had been somewhere far darker.

“The dragons are right. The old saying is true. ‘Sooner or later, there is always war with Chalced.' It is all they know there. And better that we take war to them than that they bring it to us again. Leaving tomorrow isn't a problem, my dear. I have little enough to pack. I've spent so much time on Tarman lately that most of my things are already in your cabin.”

“Our cabin,” he said, and grinned. “Our home now. I wish I could offer you a more pleasant voyage than what is before us. The crew will rig shelters on the deck, and more than half of the slaves have decided to build new lives here. The other slaves want to be taken back to Trehaug. But even leaving some behind, the galley will always be crowded. I'm glad the weather has turned milder. Half our passengers are going to have to sleep out on the decks.”

“I'm sure I will be fine. As long as I can retreat to the cabin and have a bit of time alone with you, I can manage. And I'm looking forward to journeying with Tarman again. He will show these ‘impervious' sailors how a true liveship runs the river.” She ran her hand along Tarman's railing in a caress, as if she stroked a dragon. Leftrin shook his head in wonder as he felt his ship give a shiver of pleasure. Her hand stilled as she added in a lower voice, “But I'm not looking forward to being around Hest. I know I must see him, and so must you. Pledge to me now that you will not let him provoke you to violence.”

“Me? With my mild temper?”

She seized his shirtsleeve and shook it lightly. “I'm not teasing you, Leftrin. The man's arrogance knows no bounds. No matter what anyone says or does to him, he sees the world only as it relates to him and what he wants. You haven't truly seen how he is. Any situation, he always finds a way to turn to his advantage. He will find some sort of profit from this. Some advantage for himself. Nothing else has ever mattered to him.”

“Well . . .” Leftrin hesitated, and Alise felt dread rising in her soul. He met her gaze, wet his lips, and added, “Transporting Hest may be a problem that we don't actually have.”

“The keepers haven't offered him asylum here, have they? Who did he talk to? They should be warned! That man can make any lie believable! Does Sedric know Hest will be staying here?” She felt sick with dread.

“No. Nothing like that, my dear. Actually, I've been wondering how to tell you this. Harrikin has been in charge of those keeping watch on the captives. He always had at least two guards on the doors at all times. He allowed a few of the captives to go out for walks, well chaperoned, but the Chalcedean hunters and Trader Candral, he kept on a tight leash.”

She was nodding, her brow furrowed. “And Hest?”

Leftrin licked his lips, clearly uncomfortable with the news he had to share. “Hest is missing.” He blurted the announcement and added hastily, “When they took a count tonight, there was no sign of him. Davvie was the last guard to see him. He let him go up the tower and look out of the windows. Sedric and Carson both vouch that they last saw him there, on the second landing. They admit there was a quarrel and it got physical, but they left him there and walked out right in the middle of Icefyre coming down. The guards didn't leave their posts, but they were distracted. Hest could have come down the steps, gone into the baths, hidden, and then escaped when everyone was caught up in Rapskal's speech making. However it happened, Hest is gone.”

Alise felt sick. Hest. Hest loose in her city, looking for treasure. Hest where she might round a corner on one of her rambles and suddenly confront him. She knew an instant of chilling dread. Then she reconsidered and smiled at Leftrin. “He'll have gone treasure hunting, to try to fill his pockets with whatever he can carry. But soon enough, he'll discover that we have the only food supplies in the city. And if he knows somehow that this boat is leaving tomorrow, he'll want to be on it. I doubt he wants to stay in Kelsingra any longer than he has to.” She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “Eventually, I'll sit down with him and get what I need from him. But until then, I'm not going to worry about him.”

“Then neither shall I,” he promised, and he drew her closer. Then he looked at the sun and sighed. “Go gather your things. I have to stay here. The crew is loading supplies for tonight. They'll bring our passengers down in the morning.”

T
he moment she opened the door to her chamber, she was aware of him. Rapskal was sitting on the edge of her bed, waiting for her. She halted where she was, the light from the long hall spilling into the room. Wariness rose in her, and she felt a surge of hatred for the circumstances that made her so wary of him.

As she moved into the room, the light strengthened. “Shouldn't you be sleeping?” she asked him, her voice tight.

“I wanted to see you before I left tomorrow. I don't know how long I'll be gone. Or if I'll come back. I thought we might have a last night together. Not a commitment from you, just a last night.”

Thymara stared at him. He looked very fine. His long hair had been brushed until it gleamed and was fastened back from his face. It bared his features and made him look older than she knew he was. But his face had changed from the boyish Rapskal who had embarked on the expedition with her. His jaw was stronger, the planes of his face flatter. Heeby had scaled him red to match her, but his scales were as fine and supple as those on a tiny fish. The tunic he wore was gold and brown, and the breadth of his shoulders filled it. He was muscled differently from the other keepers, his body deliberately built rather than showing the strengths of his work. His eyes gleamed blue at her.