Blood of Dragons (25 page)

Hest gritted his teeth and wrung out the shirt. It was a chill and blustery day. He had started the washing with hot water, but the wind had quickly cooled it. It was one of his own shirts, he'd noted with grim silence, appropriated by the Chalcedean, as had been most of his possessions. He wore Hest's fur-lined cloak out onto the deck even in pouring rain, while Hest shivered in his shirt-sleeves as he went about his tasks. He had never so hated a man as he hated the Chalcedean. He hated, too, the moments in which he wondered if this was how Sedric had sometimes felt about him, when he had indulged in utter domination of the younger man. As the boat bore him on, ever closer to a possible reunion with Sedric, he found his feelings about him were in turmoil. When he slept on the wooden planks that floored his cargo compartment, it was hard not to recall how the young man had once been eager to assure every aspect of Hest's comfort. He would have gently rubbed Hest's aching shoulders and back, and exclaimed in horror over Hest's ruined hands. Sedric's devotion to him had actually begun to grate on Hest toward the end of their relationship. He recalled now how deliberately he had challenged his affection, trampling on Sedric's sentimental gestures, turning his tender advances into rough encounters and mocking his efforts to discover how he had displeased his lover. At the time, it had all been so amusing, and Redding's suggestions as to how he might test his lover's ardour had resulted in many anecdotes that he had later used to regale Redding and stimulate his rivalry with Sedric. How they had laughed together during their early assignations. With his clever tongue, how Redding had mocked Sedric's gullibility and trusting nature!

And yet, despite all of Sedric's declarations of devotion, he was responsible for this disaster. It was all Sedric's fault that he had been reduced to scrubbing out someone else's laundry, his life daily endangered and his reputation as a Bingtown Trader in tatters. In the dark hold at night, during the hours when he had the most leisure to pity himself, Hest sometimes imagined the poignancy of a possible reunion. When Sedric looked at his friend and benefactor and saw him bruised and thin, worn with hardship and unjust imprisonment, would he then realize how badly he had wronged Hest? Would he grasp the magnitude of the evil he had done with his pathetic efforts to become a Trader in his own right? Would he, perhaps, risk his own life to save Hest's? Or would he turn aside selfishly and leave him to his fate?

Sometimes Hest played through the possible outcomes in his mind. Sedric risking his life to save him, and Hest magnanimously welcoming him back into his life. Sometimes he ground his teeth in fury as he imagined Sedric rejoicing at the mischief he had done. But perhaps Sedric himself was already dead, the victim of his own foolishness. It was certainly the fate he hoped had befallen Alise!

At other times, when bitterness and desolation weighed him down most heavily, he simply hoped he would die quickly. He had no illusions as to why the Chalcedean had preserved his life and those of the other Bingtown Traders. ‘Having a few valuable hostages is always a nice bit of security,' the man had told him as Hest waited for him to finish eating one evening. ‘We've no idea what we'll encounter when we come back past Trehaug. Hostages may buy us safe passage. The only ones we have taken are those with the misfortune to have been on board our ship, and those Traders who had agreed to help us obtain dragon parts for the Duke. Since they broke their word to us, they deserved to come with us and aid us however they may in getting what they promised us. But even if they are useless at that, hostages can be offered for ransom from Chalced once we are home again. Waste not, want not.'

And then, just as Hest was reflecting that his mother, at least, would pay handsomely for his return, the man added, ‘But don't think of becoming more trouble than you're worth. Right now, you are useful. Continue in that role, and I'll continue to spare your life. Become any sort of a nuisance, and I won't.'

Hest wrung the shirt out a final time, feeling the mild sting of the acidic water on his hands. The fabric was a paler blue than when he had begun; the river was only mildly acid right now, but given enough exposure, it would eat the shirt to a rag. Too bad. It had been one of Hest's favourites. Sedric, he recalled bitterly, had chosen the fabric and the tailor for it.

He gave the wet shirt a shake, snapping it out in the crisp breeze. Clean enough. He carried the bucket to the side to dump it overboard. He sighted the other vessel at the same moment as one of the Chalcedean deckhands. ‘There's a boat headed toward us!' the lookout shouted. ‘It's an impervious vessel, twin to our own!'

Hest watched it come toward them, carried on the river's swift current and pushed by the wind against its single square sail. He stood as he was, holding the rail, listening to the shouts from the other ship, and the round of orders issued by both captains. Each appeared surprised to see the other vessel. Hest thought of calling out and warning him that there had been a mutiny, that Chalcedean pirates now held the ship, but in the end he chose caution and silence. The captain and crew of the sister ship were Jamaillian, and as the vessels manoeuvred closer to one another, it was obvious to him that they had already faced some sort of trouble.

‘Dragons!' someone on the other ship shouted. ‘We were attacked by dragons! Have you a surgeon aboard? We have need of one.'

There were gouges in the ship's hull, and part of one deck railing was completely gone. The lookout who shouted carried one arm in a sling and his head was bandaged in a turban. Hest craned his neck, trying to see more, but suddenly the Chalcedean was at his elbow. ‘Go below. Now.'

And Hest went, like a beaten dog, followed by his master, to be shoved down into the storage compartment again. The hatch closed and he heard it secured. He went and sat down in the corner of the locker and leaned his head back against the bulwark. Sound, he had discovered, carried oddly throughout the ship. He listened. He could not make out individual words, but there was some sort of a shouted conversation, and then, as he had dreaded, running feet on the deck above him and loud commands, heavy thuds and men yelling in anger or fear, and one clear scream of agony that was cut short. The thunder of pounding feet on the deck and the shouting went on for some time and he sat hunched in suspense, wondering what was happening and how it would affect his chances of survival.

A brief quiet fell, and then noises resumed. He heard the cover of the other hatch being dragged open. The prisoners there no longer shouted and pounded on the walls as they once had; he suspected they were given enough food and water to keep them alive, but little more than that. But now the sounds he heard made him suspect the Chalcedeans had just added fresh specimens to their collection of ransomable captives. Did that mean they had captured the other vessel, or simply taken prisoners in some sort of skirmish? And why, in Sa's name, would they do that?

He drew his knees up to his chest and huddled onto his side, shivering in the chill. His mind raced, trying to think as they would. Of course. The other ship had shouted a warning to them about dragons. The other captain had found the way to wherever the dragons were. And now the Chalcedeans would use his knowledge to go where they must. To where dragons had attacked them. And Hest would go with them into that danger.

Tintaglia flew again. Not gracefully, not easily, but she flew. With every flap of her wings, fluid pulsed in a slow dribble from her toxic wound. Pain echoed each beat. The infection was spreading, taking a toll on her whole body. All around the wound area, her scales were beginning to slip, leaving the bared area of skin soft and painful. When she slept long, she awoke with her eyes gummed shut and had to snort mucus from her nostrils. She was hungry constantly, but no matter how much she ate, she took no strength from her food. Everything was a task; all pleasure had fled from her life.

Her landing in Trehaug had been disastrous. She had exhausted her strength quickly, and foolishly stooped to attack a herd of river pigs in the shallows. She caught one, but it was small, and she had eaten it standing in the fast-flowing water. Her efforts to take to the air after that had failed. Three times she had beaten her wings furiously, and each time she had fallen back into the icy river. She'd been forced to spend a night in the cold water.

By daylight's dawning, she'd been scarcely able to stand. The thick canopy of trees leaning out over the river had made it impossible for her to take flight from the shallows. It had taken all her will to force herself to wade upriver. Only luck had delivered a basking tusker to her jaws that evening, after which she had slept on a narrow strip of reeds and mud. Two more days of sluggishly toiling up the river, eating whatever she could find, carrion included, had taken a toll on her. On the night she found a broad sandbar to sleep on, one that protruded beyond the over-reaching trees, she had wondered if she would wake the following day.

But she had. Lightened by privation, driven by desperation, knowing it was her final chance, she had leapt, beating her wings. And flown again.

It took all her concentration to keep to her path. Each stroke of her wings now demanded a conscious effort and an iron will as she defied both pain and weariness to drive herself on. Soon she would have to divert from her course and find something to kill and eat. Only then would she allow herself to sleep. Already her body nagged her with weariness. She wanted to stop now but every day she flew less and rested more. One day she would not be able to rouse herself and make the immense effort to rise once more to the skies. If that day came before she reached Kelsingra, then she would die. And dragonkind would die with her, her immature eggs never laid. Ever since she had seen the incompetent weaklings that had emerged from the last serpents' cases, she had known that she was the sole hope of her race.

Until, that was, the single arrow of a treacherous human had doomed her dreams. Sometimes, as now, when the pain blossomed brighter and brighter in her side and made every muscle in her body ache with its echoes, she took refuge in hatred. She fed it with plans and dreams of how she would take vengeance on those humans, how she would return to Chalced when she had her strength back, to sear their paltry cities with dragon fire and dragon might. She would kill hundreds,
thousands
of them in her revenge, and teach them forever-more to fear the wrath of a dragon.

With every downward stroke of her wings she renewed her vow to fill the streets of those cities with screaming humans.

Kelsingra. Not far now, she promised herself. Much farther than Trehaug, true, but she could make it. She could because she must. Sometimes, just as sleep claimed her, she heard the distant dragons. They had found Kelsingra, and created Elderlings for themselves and wakened the city. Awake, she could not reach their minds. It was only when she was on the verge of exhaustion that their distant thoughts intersected with hers. Once she had even thought that Malta reached out to her, her thoughts full of anxiety and reproach. She had tried to respond to her Elderling, tried to command her to be ready to serve her dragon. But awake, the pain fogged her mind and made tasks as simple as flying and hunting challenges for her. Still, that their thoughts could brush hers meant that it could not be much farther.

At least the rain had stopped for a time. At least she was not flying against the wind. Such small comforts were all she had. She beat her wings steadily but flew lower over the river, watching for game, and thus heard the cacophony of sound before she saw the source. When she saw the two boats below her, she knew a moment of fury. The two vessels were locked together, their crews shouting at one another and throwing each other into the river. Not a hunt for meat, just killing each other, as usual. Noisy, useless, smelly humans! Their uproar would have driven all game from the area. Just when she needed her hunting to be effortless, they had complicated it. No game of any size would venture within earshot of their useless squabbling. If she could have spared the energy, she would have circled back and spat venom at them for the trouble they had caused her. She flew low over them, hearing their cries as the wind of her passage rocked both vessels. As she did so, she caught a scent that lifted her hearts.

Dragon venom.

Grunting with the effort, she banked her wings and circled back. Yes. There were acid runs and scorches on the deck of one of the vessels. It was clearly the work of an angry dragon. Or dragons? She took a long snuff of the air as she passed over the ship. Possibly more than one. Certainly it was not the work of IceFyre. She knew his rank musk well. No, the vengeance below did not reflect his temperament either. The boat still floated and the crew had been allowed to escape. Not IceFyre, then. Other dragons. Other dragons that could fly! Fly, and spit acid fire.
Real dragons.
Hope blazed up within her and she resumed her course, her will to ignore the pain and live reinforced. Other dragons. Her dreams had steered her true. Other dragons lived and flew in the sky over Kelsingra. A future awaited her.

She followed the river, leaving the humans and their noise behind, around a lazy bend and then on, until she came to a long muddy spit covered in winter-dead rushes. Fortune favoured her in the form of a herd of river pigs that had emerged from the water to snout and dig in the rushes. Some ancient memory or perhaps a more recent experience alarmed them as her shadow swept over them, for they squealed and began to rush back toward the water. She answered their squeals with a scream of her own, expelling pain and hunger as she banked far too sharply on her injured side. She more fell than dived on the herd, coming down with every taloned foot extended wide. Her chest hit a large pig, pinning him to the muddy bank, and her left claws raked another wide open. With her right she convulsively seized an animal, pulling it in close to her body and uniting its squeals to the cries of the one trapped under her chest. Her eyes spun with red fury at the pain it had cost her to make her kill, and she savaged the two trapped pigs to a messy death, tearing them into pieces.