Rain Wilds Chronicles (63 page)

But they had not. They had not, and the vial of blood that he now held in his hand was his prize for all he had gone through. He stared at it, at the slow shifting and tangling of the trapped red stuff inside it.
Like serpents twining round one another,
he thought, and a ghostly image of sea serpents wrapping one another in the dim blue of an undersea world invaded his thoughts. He shook his head clear of the fancy, and he resisted the sudden urge to uncap the flask and smell the contents. He had sealing wax in his case. He should melt some over the neck of the flask to seal it securely. He should. He'd do it later.

The sight of his treasure left him oddly calmed. He put the flask back into the secret drawer and took up a small shallow box made from cedar. He opened the sliding lid and looked inside. The scales rested there on a shallow bed of salt. They were slightly iridescent in the dim light of the cabin. He closed the lid, replaced the box in the secret drawer, and shut and locked it. They'd probably find the brown dragon dead. They wouldn't suspect him, he suddenly knew. He'd covered his tracks well. He'd smeared the blood away, and the wound from his knife was so tiny that no one would find it. He hadn't killed the beast, not really. Everyone saw that it was nearly ready to die anyway. If his bleeding of the dragon had hastened its death, well, that didn't mean he'd killed it. It was only an animal anyway, despite how Alise might moon over it. A dragon was only an animal, just like a cow or a chicken, to be used by a man in any way he saw fit.

Exactly the opposite, really.

The intrusion of that thought was so sudden and foreign that it shocked him. The opposite? That man was to be exploited by dragons as they saw fit? Preposterous. Where had such a silly idea come from?

He straightened his jacket, unlatched his door, and stepped out onto the
Tarman's
deck.

Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

A missive from Trader Kincarron to the Councils of Trehaug and Cassarick, expressing confusion and concern about the Councils' contract with his daughter Alise Kincarron Finbok and asking for clarification. A speedy reply is requested.

Detozi,

When Trader Kincarron dropped this off, he promised a handsome bonus if both his query and a response traveled quickly. If you can prod anyone at the Council there to send a response before the day is out, and use your swiftest pigeon, I would consider the debt settled for the peas.

Erek

Year the 6th of the Reign of the Most Noble and
Magnificent Satrap Cosgo
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

This night have dispatched to you four birds, bearing in two parts our agreement with the dragon Tintaglia, to be ratified by the Rain Wild Council. Trader Devouchet, leader of the Bingtown Traders' Council, suggested that duplicates be sent. They sum up the formal agreement between the Traders and the dragon. We are to aid her serpents in traveling up the Rain Wild River in exchange for her assistance with defending the Trader cities and waterways against the Chalcedean invaders.

PLEASE DISPATCH A BIRD AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
TO CONFIRM RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE.

Detozi,

A brief message of my own, penned in haste in a very small space. All is chaos here. My bird coop scorched in the fires the invaders set, many of my birds dead from smoke. I'm sending Kingsly as one of the messenger birds tonight. You know I raised him from a squab by hand after his parents died. Please keep him safe there and do not return him until we know that all is well. If Bingtown falls, treat him well and keep him as your own. Pray for us here. I do not know that Bingtown will survive this invasion, dragon or no.

Erek

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DRAGON KEEPER
. Copyright © 2010 by Robin Hobb.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hobb, Robin.
Dragon keeper / Robin Hobb. — 1st ed.
p. cm — (The rain wilds chronicles; v. 1)
ISBN 978-0-06-156162-7
1. Dragons—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3558.O33636D73 2010
813'.54—dc22

2009027318

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OV/RRD
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EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780061966149

Version 11012013