Dragon Haven (6 page)

“And if we do find Kelsingra do you think they’ll respect it as ours? No, Jerd. If we find Kelsingra and there are any Elderling artifacts left there, you can bet the Traders will claim them for themselves. I’ve seen Captain Leftrin at work, charting the path we’ve taken. There’s only one reason for him to do that. It’s so that if we find something valuable, he can return to Trehaug and tell the Traders. And they’ll know how to come back and find us and take it away from us. And we’ll be on the outside again, the
leftovers, the rejects. Even if all we find is a piece of land large enough for dragons to survive on, we won’t be safe. How long have the Traders been looking for arable land? Even that they would take from us. So we have to think ahead. We all know that Cassarick and Trehaug depend on outside trade for survival. They dig up Elderling treasure and sell it through the Bingtown Traders. They can’t feed themselves. Without Elderling stuff to sell, it would all have fallen apart years ago. But what will we have? Nothing. Maybe, if we find solid ground, we can build something for ourselves and our children. But even if all we plan to do is grow crops, we’ll still need seed and tools. We’ll need to build homes for ourselves. And we’ll need money, solid coin, to buy what we need.”

Thymara’s head was whirling. Was Greft speaking of a town for the keepers and their dragons? A future for them, a future separate from Trehaug or Cassarick? A future with children? With husbands, wives? It was unthinkable, unimaginable. Without consciously making the decision, she stretched out flat on the tree limb and wormed her way closer.

“It won’t work,” Jerd responded scornfully. “Any town site you find will be too far up the river. And who would trade with us?”

“Jerd, you are such a child sometimes! Now wait, don’t glare at me. It’s not your fault. You’ve never known anything but the Rain Wilds. I myself have only ventured out once or twice, but at least I’ve read of what the outside world is like. And the hunter is an educated man. He has ideas, Jerd, and he sees things so clearly. When he talks, everything just makes so much sense. I always knew that there had to be a way to have a different life, but I just couldn’t see it. Jess says it was because for so long I’d been told what the rules were that I couldn’t see they were just rules made by men. And if men can make rules, then other men can change them.
We
can change them. We don’t have to be bound by the ‘way things have always been.’ We can break out of it, if we just have the courage.

“Look how we are with the dragons. They remember how the world was, back when they dominated, and they think that’s how it’s going to be again. But we don’t have to give them that
power. None of the dragons needs to have that dragon’s body when it dies. It’s just meat to them, and we’ve given them plenty of meat. So, in a sense, they owe it to us, especially when you think what it could mean to us. With the kind of wealth we could get for the dragon’s corpse, we could make a foundation for a better life for all of us, including the other dragons! If we have the courage to change the rules and do what is best for us for a change.” Thymara could almost see Greft’s imagination soaring on what could be. The grim smile on his face promised triumph over old humiliations and wrongs. “Jess says that if you have money, anyone will trade with you. And if, from time to time, we have rare merchandise, unique merchandise that no one else anywhere can get, then there will always be people willing to come to you, no matter the difficulties. They’ll come, and they’ll meet your price.”

Jerd had rolled slightly to face him. In the dimness, the touches of silver in her eyes gleamed more sharply. She looked uneasy. “Wait. Are you talking about selling dragon body parts again? Not just now, maybe, if the copper dies, but in the future? That’s just wrong, Greft. What if I were talking about selling your blood or bone? What if the dragons were thinking of raising your children for meat?”

“It won’t be like that! It doesn’t have to be like that. You’re thinking of this in the worst possible way.” His hand came back, gentle, soothing. He traced her arm from shoulder to elbow and back again. Then his touch slipped to her neck, and his hand wandered slowly down her rib cage. Thymara saw Jerd’s breasts move with her indrawn breath. “The dragons will come to understand. A few scales, a bit of blood, the tip of a claw. Nothing that harms them. Sometimes but not often, something more than that, a tooth perhaps or an eye, taken from a dragon who will die anyway…Never often, or what is rare becomes commonplace. That would do no one any good.”

“I don’t like it.” She spoke flatly and pulled away from his exploring hand. “And I don’t think any of the dragons will like it. How about Kalo? Have you shared your plan with your own dragon? How did he take it?”

He shrugged, and then admitted, “He didn’t like it. Said he would kill me before he allowed that to happen. But he threatens to kill me several times a day. It’s just what he says when things don’t go his way. He knows he has the best keeper. So he threatens me, but he puts up with me. In time, I think even he would see the wisdom of the idea.”

“I don’t. I think he’d kill you.” Her voice was flat. She meant it. She stretched as she spoke and then glancing down at her own breasts, brushed at her left nipple as if dislodging something. Greft’s eyes followed her hand, and his voice went deeper.

“Maybe it won’t ever come to that,” he conceded. “Maybe we will find Kelsingra and maybe it will be rich with Elderling artifacts. If we do find our fortune there, then we must be sure that all recognize it is
ours
. Trehaug will try to claim it;be sure of that. Bingtown will want to be the sole marketplace for it. We’ll hear it all again from them. ‘This is the way it has always been.’ But you and I, we know it doesn’t always have to be that way. We must be very ready to defend our future from grasping hands.”

Jerd pushed blond hair back from her face. “Greft, you spin such wonderful webs of dreams. You speak as if we were hundreds of people in search of a haven, instead of just over a dozen. ‘Defend our future’ you say. What future? There are too few of us. The best we can think of would be finding a better life just for ourselves. I like how you think, most of the time, with your talk of new rules for a new life. But sometimes you sound like a little child playing with wooden toys and claiming them as your kingdom.”

“Is that wrong? That I’d like to be a king?” He cocked his head at her and smiled his tight-lipped smile. “A king might need a queen.”

She sounded scornful of him as she told him sternly, “You will never be a king.” But her deprecation of him was a lie, her hands said. Thymara watched in amazement as Jerd caught Greft’s shoulders in both her hands, twisted onto her back, and then drew him down on top of her. “Enough talk,” she announced. One of her hands moved to the back of Greft’s neck. She pulled his face down to hers.

Thymara watched.

She didn’t mean to. There was no moment when she decided to stay. Instead, her claws dug deep into bark and held her there. Her brow furrowed and she stared, heedless of the biting insects that found her and hummed around her.

She had seen animals mate, a male bird mounting a female. With a flutter and a shudder, it was soon done and sometimes the female scarcely seemed to notice it. Her parents had never spoken to her of mating, for it was forbidden to her and to those like her. Any curiosity about it had been firmly discouraged. Even her beloved father had warned her, “You may encounter men who will try to take advantage of you, well knowing that what they seek is forbidden. Trust no man who tries to do more than touch your hand in greeting. Leave his company at once, and tell me of it.”

And she had believed him. He was her father, with her best interests at heart. No one would make a marriage offer for her. Everyone knew that if those the Rain Wilds touched heavily had children, the children were born either completely monstrous or not viable at all. It made no sense for such as her to mate. The food she would eat during a pregnancy while she was unable to hunt or gather, the difficulty her body would endure in bringing forth a child that would most likely die…no. Resources in the Rain Wilds were always scarce;life was always difficult. No one had a right to consume and not produce. It was not the Trader way.

Except that her father had broken that rule. He’d taken a chance on her, taken a chance that she would pull her own weight. And she had. So perhaps the rules were not always right…Was Greft right? Could it be that any rules that men made, other men could change? Were the rules not so absolute as she has always believed them?

The couple below her didn’t seem to be thinking of the rules at all. It also seemed to be taking them substantially longer than when birds mated. They made sounds, small sounds of approval that sent shivers up Thymara’s back. When Jerd arched her back and Greft put lingering kisses on her breasts, Thymara’s whole
body reacted in a way that embarrassed and astonished her. Light flowed in glittering waves on the scaled bodies that moved in rhythm. Greft pounded his body against Jerd’s in a way that looked punishing, but the woman below him only writhed and then suddenly gripped his buttocks and pulled him tight and still against her. She gave a muffled moan.

An instant later, Greft collapsed upon her. For a long time, they sprawled there. Greft’s heaving breath gradually calmed. He raised his head and lifted himself slightly from her body. A moment later, Jerd reached a lazy hand to push her sweaty strands of hair from her eyes. A slow smile spread across her face as she looked up at him. Then her eyes widened, and suddenly her gaze shot past Greft and met Thymara’s stare. She gave a shriek and snatched uselessly at her discarded clothes.

“What is it?” Greft demanded, rolling off her and turning his gaze skyward. But by then, Thymara was two trees away and moving fast. She leaped from branch to branch, scurrying like a lizard. Behind her, she heard Jerd’s voice raised in an angry complaint, and then Greft’s laughter scalded her. “Probably the most she’ll ever dare to do is watch,” he said in a carrying voice, and she knew that he meant her to hear the words. Tears stung her eyes, and her heart hammered against her ribs as she fled.

S
EDRIC STOOD ALONE
on the deck of the
Tarman.
He gazed toward the shore. There was no sign that anyone intended to travel today. Instead, Leftrin was hurrying about with a steaming bucket, doing some sort of doctoring on the dragons. It made Sedric anxious to see that the major gathering of people and dragons was now clustered around the prone copper dragon. It wasn’t his fault. The animal had been sick when he first visited it. Uneasily he wondered if he had left any sign of his passage there. He hadn’t meant to hurt it, only to take what he so desperately needed. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, not sure to whom he apologized. Leftrin joined the keepers clustered around the prone dragon. He could not see what they were doing now. Was
it dead? Keepers and other dragons formed a wall. What were they doing down there?

Sedric gave a sudden low cry and curled forward over his belly. Terrible tearing cramps uncoiled inside him. He sank to his knees, then fell over on his side. The pain was such that he couldn’t even call for help. It wouldn’t have done him any good anyway. Everyone else had gone ashore to help with the dragons. His bowels were being torn from his body. He clutched at his gut but could not shield himself from the agony. He closed his eyes as the world seemed to swirl around him and abruptly surrendered his consciousness.

Day the 7th of the Prayer Moon

H
est stood over Sedric, looking down on him, a sneer distorting his handsome face. He shook his head in disappointment. “You fail because you don’t try hard enough. When it comes right down to it, you always back down from the challenge.” In the gloom of the small cabin, Hest seemed larger than life. He was bare chested, and his broad shoulders and the musculature of his well-kept body framed the black triangle of thick curly hair on his chest. His belly was flat and hard over the waistband of his trim trousers. Sedric looked at him with longing. Hest knew it. He laughed, short, low, and ugly, and shook his head. “You’re lazy and soft. You’ve never been able to keep up with me. I really don’t know why I took up with you in the first place. Probably out of pity. There you stood, all mawkish and shy, bottom lip trembling at the thought of what you’d never have. What you didn’t even dare ask for! So, I was tempted to give you a taste of it.” He laughed harshly. “What a waste of my
time you were. There’s no challenge left in you, Sedric. Nothing left to teach you and there’s never been anything for me to learn from you. You always knew this day would come, didn’t you? And here it is. I’m tired of you. Bored with you and your whimpering. Tired of paying you wages you scarcely earn, tired of you living off me like a leech. You despise Redding, don’t you? But tell me, how are you better than he is? At least he has his own fortune. At least he can pay his own way.”

Sedric moved his mouth, trying to make words come. Trying to tell him that he’d done something significant, that the dragon blood and scales would make a fortune for him, one he’d be happy to share with Hest.
Don’t give up on me,
he tried to say.
Don’t end it now and take up with someone else when I’m not even there to try to change your mind.
His lips moved, his throat strained, but not a sound emerged. Only drops of dragon blood dripped from his lips.

And it was too late. Redding was there; Redding with his plump little whore’s mouth and his stubby-fingered hands and greasy gold ringlets. Redding was there, standing beside Hest, running the back of one finger lightly up and down Hest’s bared arm. Hest turned to him, smiling. His eyelids drooped suddenly in a way that Sedric knew well, and then like a stooping hawk he swooped in to kiss Redding. He could no longer see Hest’s face, but he saw Redding’s hands starfish on Hest’s muscular back, pulling him closer.

Sedric tried to shout, strained until his throat hurt, but no sound came out.

They hurt you? Shall I kill them?

“No!” The sound suddenly burst from him in a shout. He jerked awake to find himself sprawled on his sweaty bedding in his small, smelly cabin. Around him, all was murkiness. No Hest, no Redding. Only himself. And a small copper dragon who pushed insistently at the walls of his thoughts. Dimly he felt her inquiry, her dull-witted concern for him. He pushed the contact away, shut his eyes tightly, and buried his face in the bundle that served him as a pillow.
Just a bad dream,
he told himself.
Only a nightmare
.

But it was one that was all too possibly real.

When he was morose, he thought that perhaps Hest had wanted to be rid of him for some time. Perhaps his defending of Alise had given Hest the excuse he was looking for to send Sedric away.

He could, by an effort of will, recall how it had been when they first began. Hest’s calmness and strength had drawn him. In moments alone, in Hest’s strong embrace, he felt like he had finally found safe harbor. Knowing that shelter existed for him had made him stronger and bolder. Even his father had seen the change in him and told him that he took pride in the man his son was becoming.

If he’d only known!

When had Hest’s strength stopped being a shelter and become a prison wall? When had it become, not the comfort of protection, but the threat of that strength turned against him? How could he have continued unaware of how things had changed, of how Hest was changing him? He hadn’t, he admitted now. He’d known. But he’d stumbled on blindly, excusing Hest’s cruelty and slights, blaming the discord on himself, pretending that somehow, things would go back to the way they had once been.

Had it ever really been that good? Or was it all a dream he had manufactured for himself?

He rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow and closing his eyes. He would not think about Hest or how things had once been between them. He would not dwell on what their relationship had become. Right now, he did not even have the heart to try to imagine something better for them. There had to be a better dream somewhere. He wished he could imagine what it was.

“A
RE YOU AWAKE?”

He hadn’t been but now he was. A slice of light was falling into Sedric’s room from the open door. The silhouette standing in it had to be Alise. Of course. He sighed.

As if that were an invitation, she ventured into the room.
She didn’t close the door behind her. The rectangle of light fell mostly on the floor, illuminating dropped clothing. “It’s so dark in here,” she said apologetically. “And close.”

She meant smelly. He’d scarcely stirred out of the room for three days, and when he did, he spoke to no one and returned to his bed as soon as he could. Davvie, the hunter’s apprentice, had been bringing him meals and then taking them away again. At first, he’d been in too much pain to be hungry. And now he was too despondent to eat.

“Davvie said he thought you were feeling better.”

“I’m not.” Couldn’t she just go away? He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to confide his problems to anyone. Davvie was bad enough, with his pestering, prying questions and his voluntary biography of his own unremarkable life. At fifteen years old, how could the boy imagine he had done anything that could possibly interest anyone other than himself? All of the boy’s meandering stories seemed to be leading up to some point that Sedric couldn’t grasp and the boy couldn’t seem to make. He suspected that Carson was using the boy to spy on him. He’d woken twice to find the hunter sitting quietly beside his bed. And once, he’d struggled out of a nightmare and opened his eyes to that other hunter, Jess, crouched on the floor nearby. Why all three of them were so fascinated with him, he didn’t know. Not unless they had guessed his secret.

At least he could order the boy out of his room and he obeyed. He doubted that tactic would work on Alise, but abruptly decided to try it. “Just go away, Alise. When I feel well enough to deal with people, I’ll come out.”

Instead, Alise came into the room and sat down on his shoe trunk. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone so much, especially when we still don’t know what made you so ill.” Her fingers tangled in her lap like writhing serpents. He looked away from them.

“Carson said it was something I ate. Or drank.”

“That makes sense, except that we’ve all had the same food and drink that you’ve had, and no one else was affected.”

There was one drink she hadn’t shared. He pushed the thought
aside.
Don’t think about anything that could incriminate you, or bring those alien thoughts back into your mind
.

He hadn’t answered her. She was looking down at her hands. She spoke as if the words were teeth she were spitting out. “I’m sorry I dragged you along on this, Sedric. I’m sorry I ran off to help the dragons that day and wouldn’t listen to what you had to say. You’re a friend; you’ve been my friend for a very long time. Now you’re ill and we’re so far from any real healers.” She halted for a moment, and he could tell she was trying to hold back tears. Strange, how little he cared about that. Perhaps if she knew the real danger he faced and was moved by it, he would feel more sympathy for how she struggled with her guilt.

“I’ve talked to Leftrin and he says it’s not too late. He said that even though we’ve traveled farther upriver, he thinks Carson could still take one of the smaller boats and get us safely back to Cassarick before autumn closes in. It wouldn’t be easy, and we’d be camping out along the way. But I’ve persuaded him.” She paused, choking on emotion, and then went on in a voice so tight that her words almost squeaked. “If you want me to take you back, I’ll do it. We’ll leave today if you say so.”

If he said so.

It was too late now. Too late even on that morning when he’d demanded she go back with him, though he hadn’t known it then. “Too late.” He hadn’t realized he’d whispered the words until he saw her reaction.

“Sa’s mercy, Sedric. Are you that ill?”

“No.” He spoke quickly to stop her words. He truly had no idea how ill he was, or if “ill” was a way to describe it. “No, nothing like that, Alise. I only mean it’s too late for us to attempt to make our way back to Cassarick in one of the small boats. Davvie has warned me, numerous times, that the autumn rains will soon be falling, and that when they start to come down, our journey upstream is going to be more difficult. Perhaps then Captain Leftrin will recognize how foolish our mission is and turn back with the barge. In any case, I don’t wish to be in a small boat on a torrential river with rain pouring down all around us. Not my idea of camping weather.”

He’d almost managed to find his normal tone and voice. Maybe if he seemed normal, she’d go away. “I’m very tired, if you don’t mind,” he said abruptly.

Alise stood up, looking remarkably unattractive in trousers that only emphasized the female swell of her hips. The shirt she wore was beginning to show signs of hard use. He could tell she had washed it, but the water she had used had left it gray rather than snowy white. The sun was taking a toll on her, bleaching her red hair to a carroty orange that frayed out around her pins, and making her freckles darker. She’d never been a beauty by Bingtown standards. Much more of the sun and water, and he wondered if Hest would take her back at all. It was one thing to have a mousy wife, and another to have one who was simply a fright. He wondered if she ever thought of the possibility that when she returned, Hest might not take her back. Probably not. She had been raised to believe that life was meant to be a certain way, and even when all evidence was to the contrary, she couldn’t see it differently. She’d never suspected that he and Hest were more than excellent friends. To Alise, he was still her childhood friend, erstwhile secretary to her husband and temporarily serving as her assistant. She so firmly believed that the world was determined by her rules that she could not see what was right in front of her.

And so she smiled gently at him. “Get some rest, dear friend,” she said, closing the door quietly behind her, shutting him into his oversized packing crate and leaving him in the dark with his thoughts.

He rolled to face the wall. The back of his neck itched. He scratched it furiously, feeling dry skin under his nails. She wasn’t the only one whose appearance was being ruined. His skin was dry, his hair as coarse as a horse’s tail now.

He wished he could blame everything on Alise. He couldn’t. Once Hest had banned him, dooming him to be her companion, Sedric had done all he could to seize any opportunity the trip might present. He was the one who had schemed to take advantage of every opportunity to take a scrap of dragon flesh, a scale, a drop of blood. He’d planned so carefully how he would
preserve his collection; Begasti Cored would be waiting to hear from him, anticipating that his own fortune would be founded on being the man to facilitate supplying such forbidden merchandise to the Duke of Chalced.

In some of his daydreams, Sedric returned to Bingtown to show Hest his loot, and Hest helped him to get the best prices for his wares. In those dreams, they sold the goods and never returned to Bingtown, establishing themselves as wealthy men in Chalced, or Jamaillia, or the Pirate Isles, perhaps even beyond, in the near-mythical Spice Islands. In others, he kept his newly gained wealth a secret until he had established a luxurious hide-away in a distant place. In those dreams, he and Hest took ship by night in secret and sailed off to a new life together, free of lies and deceptions.

And, of late, he’d had other daydreams. They had been bitter but sharp-edged with sweetness, too. He’d imagined returning to Bingtown to discover that Hest had replaced him with that damn Redding. In those dreams he took his wealth and established himself in Chalced, only to reveal to Hest later all that he might have had, if only he’d valued Sedric more, if only he’d been true of heart.

Now all of those dreams seemed silly and shallow, the stuff of adolescent fancy. He pulled the itchy wool blanket up over his shoulders and closed his eyes more tightly. “I may never go back to Bingtown,” he said aloud. He tried to force himself to confront that. “Even if I do, I may never be completely sane again.”

For a moment, he let go his grip on himself as Sedric. Instantly, she was hip deep in chill river water, wading against the cold current. On her belly, he felt the tar plugs that Leftrin had smeared over her injuries. He felt her dim groping toward him, a plea for companionship and comfort. He didn’t want to give it. But he had never been a hard-hearted man. When she invaded his mind, pleading, he had to reach back.
You are stronger than you know,
he told her.
Keep moving. Follow the other ones, my copper beauty. Soon there will be better days for you, but for now you must be strong
.

A flow of warm gratitude engulfed him. It would have been so easy to drown in it. Instead, he let it ebb past him and encouraged her to focus what little mind she had on keeping up the grueling pace. In the small corner of his mind that still belonged solely to himself, he wondered, Was there any way to be free of this unwanted sharing? If the copper dragon died, would he feel her pain? Or only the sweet release of freedom?

A
LISE WENT BACK
to the galley table. She sat down opposite Leftrin and his perpetual mug of black coffee. All around them, the work of moving the barge went on, like the busy comings and goings of an insect hive. The tillerman was at his tiller, the pole crew moved up and down the decks in their steady rhythm. From the deckhouse window, she watched the endless circuit of Hennesey and Bellin on the starboard side of the barge. Grigsby, the orange ship’s cat, perched on the railing and watched the water. Carson had risen before dawn and set off up the river to do his day’s hunting for the dragons. Davvie had stayed aboard. The boy had developed a peculiar fixation on Sedric and his well-being. He could not tolerate anyone else preparing the sick man’s meals or waiting on him. Alise found it both endearing and annoying that a lad from such a rough background would be so fascinated by an elegant young Trader. Leftrin had twice muttered against it, but she could not grasp the nature of his complaint, and so had ignored it.