Blood of Dragons (20 page)

‘Yes! We sighted them coming on the river, not long after the dragons had their quarrel.'

‘Dragon quarrel?' Alise interrupted in alarm. ‘Was anyone hurt?' She must have been tightly focused on the city to have remained unaware of that!

‘No, no injuries among the keepers. It happened in the air, downriver. We couldn't see much of it, but we did see Mercor give Spit a good tumble. But Spit rose again, so he couldn't have been much hurt, and then the whole flock of dragons moved farther away down the river. So we still don't know what that was about. But shortly after that, we spotted Tarman!'

Alise's hands flew to her hair. Then she laughed at the instinctive gesture of a Bingtown woman. It would be silly to fuss over her appearance. Leftrin knew the conditions she'd been living under! Well, at least he would find her in better circumstances than when he had left. Since the keepers had moved across the river and into Kelsingra, they were all cleaner and better groomed. Nonetheless, she found herself pulling the precious few pins she still possessed from her hair and letting it down. She shook it out as she hurried after Sylve. Her hands moved as she strode along, smoothing the stubborn red ringlets, re-braiding it, and then pinning it back up. She wondered what it looked like and then discovered that, truly, she didn't care. And if Leftrin did, well, then he wasn't the man she thought he was. She found herself smiling confidently. He wouldn't care.

‘I wonder what upset the dragons. Was it the beginning of a mating battle?'

‘I don't think so. Didn't you hear them? There was a lot of trumpeting from Spit, and then the others came to see what he wanted. That was what caught Carson's eye, all the dragons converging. At least six of them went to Spit, in a big circling swarm. Then I saw Mercor clash with him! Why, we don't know and they haven't been paying much attention to us since then. But Mercor went up under him as Spit was diving down and then he just tipped Spit off sideways. We saw him fall and then the trees were in the way and everyone was terrified that he would land in the river. Well, except a few of us who were rather hoping the little beast would get a good cold dunking. But then we saw him come up again. I still have no idea what it was about.'

Her voice dropped on her last words and Alise heard the hurt in it that Mercor had not spoken to her since the fray. Since the dragons had become capable of feeding themselves, they had taken little interest in their keepers. Of course, any dragon might still summon a keeper at a moment's notice for special grooming, but few of them made daily contact with the young Elderlings. Some of the keepers seemed as affronted as snubbed lovers over this. Others, like Sylve, were sad but resigned to their loneliness. She and Boxter seemed to take the abandonment the hardest. Some of the others, notably Jerd and Davvie, seemed relieved to be free of their demanding dragons. Last night, as the keepers had shared a sparse dinner in the back room of the dragon baths, Sylve had bravely spoken the truth that the others preferred to ignore.

‘Nothing's changed, really. They feel about us as they always have. From the beginning, they were honest. They wanted to get away from Cassarick and become dragons again. They tolerated us because they needed us.'

The keepers gathered around the ancient table had grown still, food forgotten.

‘And now they don't. So, they tolerate us still, but they prefer their own kind. Or they prefer their solitude.'

She was right, but it had not lifted the gloom that had fallen over the company since the dragons had achieved flight. Alise could sympathize. She recalled how heady it had been to be the subject of Sintara's attention. And when the dragon had taken the trouble to cast her glamour over her? She smiled and swayed slightly at the thought of it. It had been all-encompassing. The delight and joy of being the object of a dragon's attention had been surpassed only by the giddiness of her infatuation with Leftrin, and then the swirl of excitement at realizing he reciprocated her admiration. Now that was something no one ever got from a dragon!

When she had first met the blue queen, she had felt light-headed each time the dragon deigned to speak to her. She had been willing to do anything, any task, no matter how menial, to keep that regard. She had felt such a sense of loss when the dragon had recognized that Thymara was a better provider and had chosen the girl over her. If Leftrin had not been there to cushion the blow, she probably would have been devastated to lose Sintara's regard. She smiled now as she thought how well he had distracted her.

In the days since the dragons had stopped paying attention to their keepers, some of them seemed to have chosen similar distractions for themselves. She had watched, uncomfortably, as Thymara swung between Rapskal and Tats. She pitied all three of them; yet at the same time, she reflected that each of the young men knew of his rival. Thymara did not deceive them as Alise had been deceived. Thymara respected her suitors and struggled to treat them well.

Jerd had plunged herself into yet another torrid romance; Alise did not know which keeper she had chosen this time, and wondered wearily if it truly mattered.

It was strange to watch Davvie and Lecter be so absorbed in each other. In Bingtown, it would have been a scandal for two young men to be so openly passionate about one another. Here, their relationship was accepted by their fellow keepers, much as they accepted that Sedric and Carson were partnered. Perhaps once one realized how deeply one could bond with a creature as foreign as a dragon, all forms of human love seemed more acceptable. The two young keepers could often be seen wandering the town together. Their laughter at the smallest shared joke made others smile, while their tempestuous quarrels, it sometimes seemed to Alise, were only because both of them so enjoyed the drama of parting and the relief of coming together again.

Others of the keepers, such as Harrikin, had immersed themselves in hunting. Tats seemed as fascinated by the engin-eering of the city as Carson was. A few, such as Nortel and Jerd, had become devoted treasure-seekers; while Rapskal spent his free time, when he was not trailing after Thymara, in a different sort of exploration of the city. Since he had asked her about the buckles, he spoke often of weaponry and techniques of fighting and how the city had once defended itself from the dragons of another city. It frightened and alarmed her to hear that once there had been such rivalries among Elderling cities and the dragons that inhabited them, but when she asked what was at the base of their quarrel, Rapskal had gone silent and looked confused. It worried her.

Alise and Sylve emerged into the streets; the fresh spring wind bludgeoned them, whipping Alise's freshly confined hair out into wild red strands. She laughed aloud, and reached up to salvage the last of her pins before they could be scattered. Her hair flounced free onto her shoulders. So be it.

‘Hurry!' Sylve called over her shoulder, and broke into a run.

Alise broke into a dogged trot but the Elderling girl ran effortlessly away from her. Sylve had shot up taller than Alise and her face was beginning to be that of a woman rather than a child, but she had growing still to do, and not just her body. Alise was glad that Harrikin apparently had the patience to wait for her. The girl obviously enjoyed his company, and all spoke of them as a couple, but Alise had seen no indication that he had attempted to gain more than her promise from her. They walked hand in hand sometimes, and she had witnessed a few stolen kisses, but he was not pressing her. For now, he was her true friend, and Alise did not doubt that in time he would win all that he sought.

As Leftrin had.

The thought warmed her suddenly and she abandoned her reserved jog, stretching her legs into a run and astounding herself and Sylve by catching up with the girl. They glanced at one another, windblown hair netting their faces, and then both burst into laughter. The final hill before the run down to the docks fell away before them, and they both raced down it.

Leftrin risked one backwards glance. The gyre of dragons had dispersed or perhaps they had descended below the tree-line to harry the hapless Bingtown ship. He felt sorry for that crew but knew he could do nothing for them. The dragons would probably be content with just chasing the boat away, and good riddance to it. Surely the dragons could not have changed so much as to casually slaughter humans? Could they?

He pushed that thought out of his mind and focused on the problems that he could do something about. He had some very immediate worries. Tarman was struggling as he approached the Kelsingra docks. The steady current pushed the barge on relentlessly. The water that swept past the city was deep and swift, eating away at the bank and the structures on it. Obviously, it had been doing so for a number of winters. In some stretches, the current foamed and crashed over the stony bones of recently conquered masonry. Leftrin gritted his teeth at the sight and refused to imagine Tarman suddenly slammed against it by a trick of the current.

As the ship approached the heart of the city's waterfront, Leftrin could see that the keepers had attempted to rebuild the dock. Rough logs had been roped or pegged to the standing-stone pilings that were all that remained of the ancient docks. It did not look very sturdy and he questioned his wisdom in listening to Rapskal. Right after they had witnessed the dragon attack on the boat, Heeby had flown over them, Rapskal on her back. The keeper had shouted down to them, over and over, to come to Kelsingra, not the village. When Swarge had waved that he understood the message, the dragon and boy had flown off. It had taken the combined efforts of Tarman and the full crew to battle their way across the river and work their way along a shore where the water ran deep and swift. The village side of the river had offered slower and more shallow water, and a wide and sandy bank for the ship to wedge itself against. Here, they had only the makeshift new dock and a strong deep current pushing against them. Leftrin was aware of how stubbornly his liveship paddled against that rush, how his hidden tail thrashed as his crew pulled valiantly at their oars, steering him toward the dock.

The keepers had come down to greet them. Wisely, most of them remained on the shore. Carson was on the dock, ready to catch a line as soon as it was thrown to him. Harrikin was with him, and, to Leftrin's amazement, so was Sedric, looking more muscular and fit than when Leftrin had last seen him. Harrikin and Sedric were clad in bright clothing, as were the rest of the keepers; evidently the city had yielded up a bit of its treasure to them. His brow furrowed as he wondered how Alise felt about that.

The tethered logs of the dock moved with the current, rising and falling steadily. On the crumbling street behind the docks, the other keepers were massed. Much as he longed to scan that crowd for Alise's face, he knew that his ship required all his attention just now. He kept his place on top of the deckhouse, bellowing course corrections as Tarman fought the seething current as they moved toward the dock and pushed steadily upstream until they were past it.

‘Drop anchor!' Hennesey roared and Big Eider obeyed, deploying a kedge anchor first on the port side and then another on the starboard side of the barge. Chain and then line played out swiftly as the crew continued to fight the current. Then the anchors caught and the liveship curtseyed to the water as the lines took the ship's weight. A moment later, there was a lurch as the port anchor dragged a short distance before lodging firmly on the bottom.

‘Even them out!' Leftrin bellowed to Hennesey, but the mate was already in motion, assisting Big Eider in that very task. As the ship came into alignment, they began the careful process of paying out line to let the current carry them downstream to a position parallel to the docks.

Leftrin prayed there were no concealed pilings from the old dock hiding beneath the river's rush. The space between Tarman and the dock narrowed and still the ship's unseen legs and tail fought to gain a place alongside the dock and hold there. Plainly, Tarman did not trust the kedge anchors completely. It made the task of docking him more difficult, but Leftrin allowed the liveship to follow his own instincts. Finally, they were close enough for lines to be flung. Sedric caught the first one and quickly wrapped it around one of the few remaining stone supports from the fallen dock. Carson caught the next, and quickly wrapped it around a wooden upright. It groaned, swayed slightly and then held. Other lines were tossed, caught, and tied. As soon as Tarman was somewhat secured, longer lines were run out, past the dock and up onto dry land. With a fine disrespect for the city's antiquity, one was tied off around an Elderling statue, while another was taken in through the window of a small stone structure and then out of the door before being made fast. It was a sloppy tie-up, as if an immense spider had trapped the liveship in a web. Leftrin waited, but the lines held. He breathed out.

‘It will do for now,' he told Hennesey. ‘But I don't like it and neither does Tarman. I want you or me on board at all times, and I don't want the crew to go far. At least three hands on board at every moment. Once we get off-loaded, then we'll head back across the river and beach Tarman there. Jaunting back and forth in the ship's boats from the village to Kelsingra won't be fun but at least he'll be safe there.'

Hennesey nodded grimly.

‘Let's unload right away, then,' said Leftrin. ‘As soon as we see our passengers safely ashore. Get it started. I want a word with the ship.'

Hennesey jerked his head in a nod and was gone. In a moment, he was shouting the orders that would get the cargo moving onto the deck for off-loading. A chorus of greetings rose from the waiting crowd on shore. Leftrin gave a single wave as he made his way forward. He saw Hennesey leaning over the side, exchanging words with Carson. The big hunter could move with alacrity when he needed to, and as if by magic, the keepers were suddenly lining up like ants as they readied themselves to act as stevedores. Big Eider was personally assisting Malta across the deck and down onto the wobbly dock. She clutched her baby, refusing to surrender him to anyone, while Reyn followed closely behind her, looking anxious. Leftrin noticed that Hennesey was waiting to perform the same service for Tillamon. He folded his lips, and then decided that it was up to Reyn to intervene if he thought anything improper was going on. And perhaps not even Reyn, given that Tillamon was a woman grown.