Dragon Haven (24 page)

But then her hurt would break through, and she’d feel indignant and slighted all over again. The least he could have done was let her know sooner. If Rapskal had known of it, how private could it have been? Why had he let her be ignorant of it so long? It made her feel so stupid, so naive.
My pride,
she thought.
It’s my pride that’s broken, not my heart. I’m not in love with him. I don’t want an exclusive claim on him. I don’t want him to claim me. We are just friends, friends who have known each other for a long time. And he kept a secret from me and made me feel stupid.
Just her pride. That was all.

It might be true, but it wasn’t what it felt like.

Spurred by emotion, she climbed higher and more swiftly through the trees than she usually would, making Tats struggle to keep up with her. She found food and by the time he caught up with her, she had gathered most of it. Tats had fashioned his shirt into a crude carry-sack. As soon as he arrived, she packed whatever she had found into it and moved on. Other than discussing what food she had found and what they might next look for, there had been little conversation. She could see that Tats was aware she wasn’t really talking to him, but he seemed content to leave the situation alone.

They returned to the floating morass that was their current sanctuary just as it became too dark to see under the trees. On the river, there was still some light from a distant sunset. The others had been successful, both in raising a small shelter on their raft, and in creating another platform for their floating fire. The yellow light it cast was cheering. As Alise had suggested, it was tethered to their sleeping raft in such a way that it could be quickly shoved away if the fire began to spread. For now, the welcome light and warmth it gave off cheered everyone. Boxter and Kase were tending it, stripping branches of leaves and tossing them on the fire to create a haze of smoke to drive insects away. Thymara was not certain that she preferred eye-watering smoke to stinging insects, but she was too weary to argue with them about it.

The dragons had returned for the night. It was somewhat comforting to see their hulking silhouettes braced against the trees that barred them from entering the flooded forest. They were becoming more adept at capturing their own timbers and hooking their rib cages over them to float. She wondered if they had come back because they missed the humans, or only because they knew their keepers would help shore them up and keep them afloat for the night. Sylve and Harrikin seemed to have devised a technique for trapping several logs under a dragon’s chest. The dragons were not thrilled with their night’s lodgings, but it was better than treading water. The acid-killed fish had proven both a boon and a liability to the dragons. They had eaten to satiation, but their bulging bellies were uncomfortable, and more so when braced against a log.

“And they’re tired of being in the water. Really tired. Some are complaining that their claws are getting soft,” Sylve said as she sat next to Thymara when they ate that night. To her surprise there had been meat to cook as well as the fruit and vegetation that she and Tats had foraged. A disoriented riverpig, half drowned and stupid with weariness, had climbed right out on their raft. Lecter had clubbed it. It had not been a large animal, but it had been fat, and it tasted delicious to Thymara.

Greft walked behind them on his way to sitting down and commented, “There’s no use their complaining about soft claws. No one can do anything about it.”

Thymara rolled her eyes at Sylve, and the girl bent her head over her plate to hide a smile. “I’m sure the dragons will take that thought to heart,” Thymara muttered to her, and they both laughed softly. She glanced up just in time to see Greft giving her a dark look. She returned his gaze with a flat stare and then went on with her eating. She didn’t respect him, and she refused to quail before him.

The sleeping shelter was small, and the floor was very uneven despite a layer of leafy branches. The positive side of that was that everyone was a bit warmer when packed so closely together, but it also meant that no one could shift positions without disturbing two others. It had been decided that they would keep a watch on the fire outside, adding wood to feed it and adding leaves for smoke. “Flames to signal anyone who might be trying to find us. Smoke to keep the insects away,” Greft had needlessly informed them all.

The task was trickier than Thymara had thought it would be. There was a layer of matted leaves and mud between the fire and the mass of floating wood that made its platform. When it was Thymara’s turn to keep the watch, Sylve came to wake her and showed her how to feed the fire without letting it burn down deep into the lower part of its raft. Sylve left her sitting on the edge of the main raft with a plentiful supply of leafy branches and a stack of broken dry wood for the fire.

Thymara sighed as she settled into her task. Her back hurt, in a way that was different from her aching muscles. She’d pushed herself as well as Tats today; she had only herself to blame for her weariness. But she was very tired of the injury along her spine and the dull ache she endured at all hours.

Night had passed into its quietest hours. The evening birds had stopped their calls and swooping insect hunts and settled for the night. Even the buzzing, stinging insects seemed less prevalent. She watched the reflection of the firelight on the water. Occasionally, a curious fish would make a slow shadowy pass
beneath the mirroring water, but for the most part, all was still and calm. The river lapped placidly against the logs as if it had not tried to kill all of them only a day and a half ago. The dragons looked like strange ships as they dozed, heads bent and half their bodies hanging under the water. She tried simply to enjoy the night without thinking, but her thoughts ranged from Rapskal to the silver dragon and back to Alum and Warken. Three of the keepers were missing and probably dead, and three dragons, all female. That was a blow. Veras had still not appeared; Mercor had told Sylve that he had not felt her die but that she should not take that as an assurance that Veras was still alive. It was maddening news to Jerd, and she had seemed more weepy rather than less after hearing it.

“I need to talk to you.”

Thymara startled and then felt angry she had done so. Greft had ghosted up behind her; she hadn’t even felt the raft rock as he approached her. It hadn’t been an accident that she’d been unaware of him; he’d wanted to surprise her. She glanced up at him, keeping her face expressionless, and asked, “Do you?”

“Yes. For the good of us all, I need some answers from you. We all do.” He hunkered down beside her, closer than she wanted him to be. “I’ll put it simply. Is it to be Tats?”

“Is what to be Tats?” The question irritated her and she let him hear it in her voice. If he wanted to be mysterious and officious, then she could be obtuse.

His scaled face, always a study in flat planes, hardened. His lips were so narrow, it was hard to tell if he clenched his jaw or not. She suspected so. He crouched down beside her and spoke in a low growl. “Look. No one understood why you chose Rapskal, but I told them all that it didn’t matter. You’d made your choice and we had to respect that. A few wanted to challenge him. I forbade it. You should appreciate that. I respected your first choice and kept the peace for you.

“But Rapskal is gone now. And for all our sakes, the sooner the matter is settled, the better it is for all of us. So choose and make it clear.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say. But I think I pre
fer not to know. This is my watch and I’m doing my task. Go away.” She spoke flatly, torn between anger and fear. Greft seemed somehow inevitable tonight, a force she must deal with, and a force she seemed unlikely to defeat. His words were either mysterious, or made a horrible sense. She didn’t want to know which.

But he wouldn’t spare her ignorance. “Don’t pretend,” he said harshly. “You aren’t good at it. You heard me warn Nortel earlier today. If you’ve chosen Tats, well, then, you’ve chosen him. Make that choice plain to the others and there won’t be any problems. I’ll see to that. Tats isn’t what I would have picked for you, but even in a time and place of new rules, I respect some of our oldest traditions. I was largely raised by my mother, and she kept the old rules, the rules from when the Rain Wilds were first settled. Back then the Traders agreed that a woman could stand on an equal footing with her husband and make her own choices. That I am alive today is due to my mother’s choice. She kept me, and she demanded that others respect her right to do so. And so I see the wisdom of letting women have a say in their lives, and I’m willing to respect it. And to demand that others respect it also.”

“And who made you the king?” she demanded. She was afraid now. Had she been blind to this, as well? Did the others accept him as leader, and beyond leader, as someone to set the rules and dictate their lives to them?

“I put myself in charge when it became plain to me that no one else was equal to the task. Someone has to make the decisions, Thymara. We can’t all blithely go our own ways, letting things fall out as they may. Not if we hope to survive.” He annoyed her by picking up wood and putting it on her fire. It caught almost immediately. She retaliated by poking it off the fire into the river, where it hissed and then bobbed next to the fire raft. He got her message.

“Fine. You can defy me. Well, you can try. But life and fate are what you can’t defy. Fate has given us a bad balance here. Even with three males out of the picture, the ratio of keepers is still badly skewed. Do you want men to fight over you? Do
you want to see our fellows injure one another, create lifelong vendettas with one another, so that you can feel valuable?” He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes dark and unreadable in the night. “Or are you waiting to be raped? Does that sort of thing excite you?”

“I don’t want that! That’s despicable!”

“Then you need to choose who you will accept as a partner. Now. Before all the males start competing for you. We are a small company. We can’t afford to have boys hurting one another over you. Nor can we allow anyone to force you. Where that would lead, I can imagine only too well. Choose a mate and have it be over.”

“Jerd didn’t choose. She mated where she wanted.” She flung it at him as the only weapon she could find. “Or didn’t you know that?”

“I know that all too well!” he snarled back. “Why do you think I had to step in and take charge of her? She was being foolish, setting the men against one another. A black eye here, a bruised face there. It was starting to escalate. So I took her and made her mine, to keep the others from quarreling. She wasn’t my first choice, if you want to hear me say that. I don’t think she’s as intelligent as you are. Nor as competent to survive. I let you know of my interest from the very beginning, but you preferred Rapskal the no-wit to me. I forced myself to accept that decision, even though I thought it was a poor one. Well, he’s gone now. And I’m with Jerd, for better or worse, at least until the child is born. Because that is the only way I could force the others to stop striving to win her regard. I can’t very well claim you as well. So before the rivalry and competition for your attention become violent, you’d best make a choice and stick to it.”

Thymara’s head whirled. A child? Jerd was pregnant? Was there a worse time and place to be pregnant? What had she been thinking? And before she drew another breath, she wondered angrily what any of the males had been thinking. Had any of them considered that they might be fathering a child? Or, like Rapskal and Tats, had it simply been a thing she was allowing
them to do, and because they could, they did? Anger washed through Thymara.

“Who is the father of Jerd’s child?”

“It doesn’t matter really, does it? I’ll claim it, and that will be that.”

“I think you go about claiming too many things already. You may have appointed yourself king or leader, Greft, but I have not. I’ll tell you bluntly, I don’t accept your authority over me. And I am certainly not going to ‘choose’ one of the ‘males’ simply to stop the others from quarreling. If they are stupid enough to fight one another over something that is not theirs to claim, then let them.”

She nearly stood up and walked away. But her watch was not over, and the fire was her responsibility. She looked at him flatly. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

He shook his head. “You may wish it to be that simple, but it isn’t. Wake up, Thymara. If you don’t choose a protector and if I don’t enforce your choice of one, who is going to protect you? We are alone out here, now more than ever. There are four females and seven males. Jerd is with me. Sylve has chosen Harrikin. If you think—”

“
Four
females? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you including Alise in your crazy plans?”

“She’s here and she’s female, so she’s included. That choice isn’t mine; it’s simply the reality of what is. I’ll let her adjust for a time before I speak with her about it. The reality is this, Thymara. We are all marooned here together. Just as the original Rain Wild settlers did, we will have to learn to make our homes here. This is where our children will be born and grow up. We, right now, this little huddle of sleeping people, are the seeds from which a new settlement will grow.”

“You’re insane.”

“I am not. The difference between us is that you are very young, and you think that ‘the rules’ mean something when there is no law and punishment to back them up. They don’t. If you don’t choose someone and make that choice plain, then someone will choose you. Or several someones. And you’ll ei
ther end up going to whoever battles his way to the right to claim you or being used by several men. I’d sooner not see the outcome of that.”

“I choose no one.”

He stood slowly, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s an option for you, Thymara.” He turned away from her and then turned back. He spoke disdainfully. “Perhaps Tats
is
the best match for you. You can probably make him wait and lead him about by the nose until it suits your fancy to come to his bed. But he isn’t what I would choose for you and I’ll tell you why, plainly. He’s too tall; if he gives you a child, it will be too large for you to birth easily. I know you’ve said you won’t listen to my advice, but I suggest that you look at Nortel. He is one of us in ways that Tats can never be, and he’s more compatible in size. You don’t have to be with him forever. It’s possible that eventually you’ll take a different mate, or possibly several in your lifetime.”