The Dragon Keeper (54 page)

Tats looked surprised that she’d think of it that way. She was surprised that he’d think of it any other way. For a long moment, the silence held. Then Sylve said quietly, “I can do the silver’s tail alone. You can go get your meat.”

Thymara relented. “Let’s just get it done and then we’ll all go.”

Sylve kept her eyes down and her child’s voice thickened as she said, “Thank you. Mercor made a kill today and he didn’t complain of hunger, but I don’t think it really satisfied him. I tried to fish, but the boys had the best places all staked out. When Captain Leftrin said that there would be a serving of meat portioned out to each dragon tomorrow morning, I hoped it would be enough for him.”

“Well, let’s get this dragon patched up and then we’ll go fetch meat for the others,” Thymara surrendered.

The heat had loosened the tar. Sylve and Thymara held the bandage firm around the silver dragon’s tail while Tats daubed the tar on with a stick. He worked carefully, and to Thymara it seemed that it took an age before the entire bandage was well covered with tar and sealed to the dragon’s thick tail. The silver, thank Sa, hadn’t even fluttered an eyelid. That thought gave her a moment’s concern. The two least-capable dragons seemed more exhausted every day. How long could they keep up this pace? What would happen to them when they could not? She had no answer to that. She forced her mind back to today’s problem.

Tats could almost keep up with her as she led them through the forest, moving through the trees rather than on the ground. Sylve trailed him, but not by much. It was easy to find the way back; she just watched for the trail she had made dragging the meat back to Skymaw. She judged they were about halfway there when she heard voices below her. She moved down the tree trunk, her heart sinking. Her worst fears were realized. Greft was below her. He was dragging a hindquarter of her elk. Behind him came Boxter and Kase. Boxter had the other front leg of the elk, and Kase had taken part of a hind leg but not the full quarter. They were chattering about something to one another, their voices full of triumph when she dropped out of her tree and into the path before them. Greft stopped short in front of her.

She didn’t mince words. “What do you think you’re doing with my kill?”

She heard Tats coming quickly down the tree. So did Greft. He looked up to watch Tats’s descent, his face deceptively mild. “I’m taking it back to the dragons. Isn’t that what you intended?” He managed to put a mild rebuke into his voice.

“I intended to take it back to
my
dragon. Not yours.”

He didn’t reply right away. He gave time for Tats to reach the ground and take a stance behind Thymara. There was a shower of twigs, a brief shriek, and then a thud as Sylve half fell and half slid the rest of the way down. Once she was there, Greft glanced up at the tree, as if to assure himself that this was the whole of their party. Behind him, Boxter and Kase had halted. Boxter looked confused, Kase defiant.

Greft’s eyes roved over them. He seemed to be making a mental tally of who they were and how each could best be played, as if he were studying a game board. When he spoke, his voice was calm, his words reasonable. “You took a quarter of the kill for your dragon and left the rest here. You told me you were going to go get Tats. But I knew from looking at it that there was more than you and Tats could haul back in a single trip. Even recruiting Sylve doesn’t change that! So I went back, got Boxter and Kase, and started in on the work. I don’t understand why you seem to be upset, Thymara. Isn’t this what Tats advocated, quite some time back? Surely that is what you told me, that you’d give a share to those who helped bring the meat back. It seemed fair to me.”

She stood her ground. “That isn’t what I said. I said I intended to get Tats, and that he and I would haul
my
kill back to our dragons. I intended to keep back some of the meat for the other keepers to eat tonight. But I didn’t offer to share my kill with you, or with your friends.”

Greft looked surprised, almost hurt. “But surely we’re all friends here, Thymara! We are too small a company not to be. You told me yourself, at the campfire one evening, that you’d never before had friends such as you had now! I thought you meant it.”

Tats was silent behind her. She didn’t want to look back at him; he’d think she was seeking his guidance. Nor did she want to see Sylve’s face right now. Surely they could see how Greft was twisting everything? Wanting to take care of her friends first was not selfishness. Speak plainly and all would be right. She took a breath. “I killed that elk by myself, Greft. And I decide who I’ll share the meat with. I chose Tats. And Sylve, because she helped me. I didn’t choose you, or Boxter, or Kase. And you can’t have the meat.”

Greft made a show of looking at the sky. He couldn’t see it through the canopy, but all of them knew that evening would soon plunge them into darkness. “You’d rather let the meat rot or be eaten by scavengers than let us have some of it? There’s still more than half an elk there, Thymara, more than you three can haul back in one trip, I’ll wager. And you haven’t time to make another trip. Be sensible, not selfish. It hurts you nothing to share this. Boxter’s dragon didn’t make a kill today, and Kase’s got a fish, but not a big one. They’re hungry.”

She knew she should choose her words carefully, but she was so angry at how he was making it seem. “Then they should go hunting for meat for their dragons, just as I did! Not wait and take mine! I’ve a dragon to feed, too, you know. In fact, I’ve two dragons to feed.”

“And both of them were sleeping with bulging bellies when last I saw them,” Greft replied smoothly.

“Mine isn’t!” Sylve blurted out suddenly. “Mercor has fed, but not well, even though he is too brave and noble to complain. And Tats’s little copper fellow probably got nothing at all. He needs meat, not this argument! Please, can’t we just take the meat back to the camp and settle it there?”

“That seems wisest to me,” Greft abruptly agreed. He glanced back at Kase and Boxter. “Do you both agree?”

Boxter nodded. Kase, his copper eyes gleaming in the gathering gloom, hunched his shoulders. Greft turned back to Thymara. “Then it’s all settled. We’ll see you when you get back to the river.”

“It’s not all settled!” Thymara snarled, but Tats put a warm hand on her shoulder. She felt the weight of it, but she wondered if he was reassuring her that he was with her or holding her back from what he regarded as foolishness. He spoke past her to Greft.

“It will be all settled when we get back to the river. We all know night is coming on and we can’t waste time in arguing right now. But it’s not all settled, Greft. I agree that meat should be shared, but not the way you’re doing it.”

Greft’s narrow lips moved. It might have been a smile or a sneer. “Of course, Tats. Of course. We’ll see you back at the river.” He suddenly leaned into the load he was pulling, and Thymara found herself stepping aside, back into the pressing brush behind her, to allow him to pass. Boxter and Kase came behind him, and both of them were plainly grinning. Kase spoke in a low voice as he passed her. “Only fair to get a share of meat if you’ve done work for it,” he observed.

“No one asked you to do any work!” she growled after him. He kept walking. “It’s like paying a thief because he worked hard to rob your house!” She raised her voice to hurl the words after him.

“No! It’s like giving your workers a share of the harvest!” he shouted back. She drew breath to point out that merely taking the harvest was not working for it when Tats spoke again. She realized then that he’d never let go of her shoulder, for he tightened his grip on her as he said, “Not now, Thymara. Focus on the most important thing. We need to get that meat back to the river before nightfall. And before the insects get any worse.”

“Parasites!” she snarled after them, and then turned away. “The meat is this way. Or what’s left of it!” She strode angrily through the forest.

Tats was right. The stinging little pests had already begun to swarm around them. Biting insects were never absent in the Rain Wilds, but the evening always brought them out in droves. Well, at least the thieves had broken a better trail for them to follow. She wanted to rant and rave as she thudded along but saved her breath.

When they reached the carcass, she heard the small sounds of several little scavengers scampering away. The smallest ones, the ants and beetles, had already flocked to the feast and were undeterred by the arrival of the humans. They swarmed over the elk’s body, congregating in black, shimmering masses wherever the raw flesh was exposed.

Tats had thought to bring a small hatchet. It was messy, for the blade flung blood and bits of meat on every swing, but between it and her knife they cut the rest of the elk into manageable hunks much faster than she could have done alone. She grumbled as she did so. Greft and his cohorts had taken the most manageable parts of the elk. They cut the head and neck free, and then divided the trunk into the rib cage and haunches. It stank as they cut through the torso. The guts would spill and string; there was nothing they could do about it. They could have left them, but Thymara knew that to the dragons they were a delicacy.

Tats had brought more rope as well. It was almost annoying to think of how well prepared he always seemed to be. They spoke little, working swiftly. Thymara tried to focus on what she was doing rather than let her simmering anger interfere. Tats was his quiet, competent self, limiting his words to conversation about the task at hand. Sylve hung back on the edges of the operation, stepping in to help whenever she was asked, but keeping silent in a way that began to bother Thymara. She wondered if the blood and stink bothered the girl.

“Sylve, are you all right? You know, some people just can’t do this kind of thing. It makes them sick. If you need to step back from it, just say so.”

She saw Sylve give her head a shake, sending her hanks of hair flying wildly around her pink scalp. She had a strange look on her face, as if she didn’t want to be there but couldn’t bring herself to leave.

“I think,” Tats said, between grunts as he fastened rope harnesses to each chunk of meat, “that Greft’s arguments . . . made Sylve uncomfortable. She’s wondering—hold that while I tie this knot, would you?—if you resent her taking a share of the meat.”

The girl turned her face aside abruptly, her hurt so obvious that it smote Thymara. “Sylve! Of course not! I invited you to come and help with this, and of course you deserve some of the meat. I said I’d take care of the silver, and instead that task fell to you. Even if you hadn’t come, if you told me that your dragon needed meat, I’d help you. You know that.”

Sylve lifted bloodstained hands to wipe her cheeks before turning back to Thymara. Thymara winced. She knew that when you were that far along in being scale-faced, it hurt when you cried. Sylve sniffed. “You said they were thieves,” she said thickly. “Well, how am I different?”

“It’s different because you didn’t take it without asking! It’s different because you were helping me with the silver dragon for no other reason than that is how you are. It’s different because you put in before you take out. Those three don’t care anything about any dragons but their own.”

Sylve lifted the front edge of her tunic to dab at her messy face. She spoke from its shelter. “How is that different from us? We’re only talking about feeding our own dragons.”

“But that was the deal!” Thymara almost exploded. “That was the agreement that each of us signed. Each of us said we’d be responsible for a dragon. And here we are,
we
each have
two
to worry about. Without some ignorant louts coming in and poaching our hard-earned meat. Well, they’re not going to get away with it!” As she’d spoken, Thymara had slid her arms into the makeshift harness that Tats had created. She had the front end of the carcass with the rib cage. Tats had taken the heavy hindquarter for himself. Without saying a word, they’d agreed that little Sylve could drag the head and neck back. It was lighter than what they were hauling, but still not an easy load to get back to the river through all the brush and swamp.

“Actually, I think it’s likely they will.” Tats spoke as he leaned into his load and followed her. Sylve came last of all, getting the advantage of the broken trail through the brush.

“Will what?”

“Will get away with it. What we were just talking about. Greft and Kase and Boxter will get away with taking your meat.”

“No, they won’t! Not when I tell everyone!”

“By the time we get back, they will have told everyone the story their way. And it will seem to everyone who didn’t get a kill for their dragon today that it would only be sensible for you to share with everyone.” He added something else in a softer voice.

“What?” she demanded, halting to look back at him.

“I said,” he said defiantly, his ears turning a bit pink, “that in some ways it would be only sensible.”

“What? What are you saying? That I should do all the work of hunting and making a kill, and then just give it away to everyone else?”

“Keep pulling. Night’s coming on. Yes, that
is
what I’m saying. Because you’re a good hunter, probably the best we have. If you were free to hunt, and everyone else had to do the butchering and hauling the meat, you’d be able to get a lot more prey. And all the dragons would have a better chance of a real meal.”

“But Skymaw would get less! A lot less. She should have had almost half an elk today. Your way, she’d get one-fifteenth. She’d starve on that!”

“She’d get one-fifteenth of what everyone caught. I think you may be our best hunter, but you’re not our only one. Think about it, Thymara. There is you, and the three professional hunters, and some of the rest of us are not too bad at fishing and small game. Each dragon would be almost certain of getting at least something to eat every night.”

She was sweating now as she dragged the meat through the forest. It was getting dark, and the mosquitoes and gnats had found her. She swiped angrily at her brow and then slapped the back of her neck, crushing half a dozen of the persistent bloodsuckers. “I can’t believe you’re taking Greft’s side,” she observed bitterly.