Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (26 page)

Jannik could not allow that. He would return immediately to
deal with the spells.

It had all seemed so very simple when they had discussed it
that morning. Now, in the full light of day, with very real fire-breathing
dragons ahead, the steerswoman began to suspect that the entire mission
bordered on insanity.

She looked back. Will’s horse was trailing hers, with Willam
lost in thought, tilting his head from side to side a bit in a rhythm
independent of the mare’s gait, as if following some internal music. He
stopped, sighed, shook his head.

Rowan dropped her mare back beside his. “Patterns,” she
said. Uncontrolled dragons, he had told her that first night, did nothing, or
moved in patterns.

“Yes. And that’s why we should be able to capture one.”

“And the dragon we take won’t”—she still found this hard to
believe—“won’t fight us?”

“It should ignore us, and go on trying to follow its
pattern. But if we want it to stop, covering its eyes should do it.”

He had explained this when explaining the plan: if unable to
see, the dragon would assume it was injured, and would wait for assistance.
However, Rowan herself had half blinded one dragon during the attack on
Saranna’s Inn, and the creature had continued to fight.

But that dragon had been under command. This time matters
would be different: “Because of the jammer-spells ..”

“That’s right.”

Rowan was not reassured. “Can we kidnap one of the ones that
are doing nothing?”

“If it’s doing nothing, it might be dead,” Will said.
“Jannik won’t even notice that it’s gone.” He glanced about, reined in. “I
think we should leave the horses here. The dragon we set loose might catch
sight of them, and attack.”

“And they won’t have the sense to stay still.” They dismounted,
led the horses into the cranberry bushes.

He grinned at her. “I’d forgotten that you’ve already met
some dragons.”

She could not be amused. The nameless woman in Saranna’s Inn
was standing in the back of the steerswoman’s mind, behind her thoughts,
burning.

“At least,” Rowan said, as they tied the reins to a bush,
“out here in the countryside our victim won’t find victims of its own.

Past a collection of grassy hillocks, the mud flats appeared
again. Between the mud and the hillocks: a wide marshy field, with a stand of
scrub pine on its far edge, and another similar field visible beyond.

Willam and Rowan stood atop one hillock, Rowan tense, Willam
with such brazen casualness that the steerswoman glanced at him, occasionally,
sidelong. He seemed not to notice.

Below, in the near field: rather a lot of dragons.

The largest was bigger than a horse. The smallest visible,
the size of a cat. Little pockets of motion on the ground suggested the
presence of others, perhaps as small as mice.

They gleamed, green with glints of silver about the eyes,
and on the taloned tips of their feet. The smaller dragons fairly glowed with
vibrant color; the larger showed a darker green, with hints of dull pewter; and
the very largest, the somber color of moss, with brown shading at the head,
feet, and tail.

Their heads were flat, their snouts long, with wide nostrils
that shut to slits when their breath became flame. Eyes were side-set, a deep
garnet red, faceted like jewels, glittering.

Long necks wove, tails flailed. The smallest dragons half
walked, half slithered, with a weasel-like sinuosity, sidling around each other
and dodging the largest creatures, which moved with heavy dignity.

Most were in motion: either slowly or quickly, they roamed
the field, often passing close by each other. There were occasional
confrontations between like-sized dragons, involving threatening displays,
screams and hisses, and gouts of flame directed toward the sky.

All of the creatures ignored the humans.

“I think this is not going to be as easy as we hoped,” the
steerswoman said.

Will said nothing.

Pick one; approach from behind, to avoid any flame. Cover
its eyes. Carry it away.

Simple.

Madness.

Rowan mentally rehearsed the actions, selecting a cat-sized
creature that seemed to be wandering outward toward the edge of the herd,
imagining herself and Willam stalking it. But halfway to the edge, the small
dragon paused, industriously scratched at the back of its head with one hind
leg, turned about, and moved back toward the center of the group.

Rowan wondered what sort of flea or tick might call a dragon
hide home.

Beside her, Willam let out a huff of frustration. “They’re
staying very close together.”

“Yes …” There did seem to be some definite limit to their
wanderings, an invisible circle beyond which they would not pass. “But they’re
not moving in patterns.”

“No, they are,” Will said, definitely. “But the movements
are designed to look like the sort of thing they’d be doing naturally.”

Rowan watched for a while. “It’s very convincing.” Too convincing;
the animals gave every semblance of a collection of reluctantly social
creatures, disliking each other but for some reason unwilling to separate from
the herd.

Will hazarded, “I suppose I could just make a dash for the
edge, grab the nearest small dragon, and get back before some other one happens
to spit fire my way …”

The burning woman transformed into a burning man … “Wiliam.”

He continued to study the scene below. She repeated his
name, and he turned to her.

“Are you absolutely certain that these animals are … are
completely caught up in these … patterns?” She had almost said
hypothetical
patterns.

He could not miss her distress, and said, with such kindly patience
that she felt embarrassed, “Yes. Absolutely. They have no outside direction
now, not from the controller spell, and not from Jannik. They can’t decide for
themselves what to do, they’re too simple. All they can do is follow the
pattern.”

She would have to take his word for it. “Very well.”

But he continued to regard her, seeming faintly
disappointed. Then an idea occurred to him; and before Rowan could stop him, he
stooped to the ground, rose again, and flung a small rock directly into the
center of the dragons.

Rowan cried out, in a sudden flare of terror.

The stone struck the wide side of the largest dragon,
bounced, and dropped.

Completely oblivious, the dragon continued its slow,
imperious stroll through a collection of smaller creatures, which were
squealing annoyance at its intrusion, scrambling to get out from under its
feet.

Stunned, Rowan turned back to find Willam regarding her with
a small, self-satisfied smile. He had another stone; he tossed it straight up,
caught it, then shied it out among the creatures. It fell toward the littler
dragons, skidded across several backs, then dropped out of sight.

When Rowan turned back, Will was holding out to her a third
stone.

Before fear got the better of her, she snatched it from his
hand, turned, and, with a sudden weird, fierce glee, flung it.

It struck a horse-sized dragon directly below its left eye.

The animal showed no reaction at all. It proceeded on its
way, paused to scratch at the ground, then circled like an immense dog, and lay
down, nose to tail.

The steerswoman gave a weak laugh. “You’ve convinced me.”
Willam grinned at her. She felt her heart slowing; she had not realized it had
been racing. “Let’s choose our target,” she said, “and get this over with.”

His amusement faded. “Well”—he turned back to the scene
below—“that’s the problem.”

The dragons continued to keep close together; and there was
the fire. “You’ll have to choose a point in the pattern when none of them is
breathing flame …”

Willam sat down in the grass on the hillock, pulled his
knees close, wrapped his arms around them, and studied the movements in the
dragon field, his expression intent, analytical.

Something dawned on Rowan. “You don’t know what the pattern
is, do you?”

“No … I’ll just have to keep watching until I can figure
it out. Or enough of it to know when it’s safe to make a try.” Rowan was silent
for a moment. Below, the dragons contin—

ued, wandering, writhing, facing each other off. “But didn’t
you see it when you were here before, placing your jammer-spells?”

“The spells have a range of about half a kilometer. I didn’t
have to get close to the dragons. Just near enough to set the jammers.”

A silence somewhat longer than the first. “Will … is this
the closest you’ve ever been to any dragon?”

He replied with a nod, still watching the creatures.

At least they would not be attacked while they sorted this
out. Rowan sat down beside Willam, leaned back on her elbows in the grass. They
both watched in silence for a while.

The wind picked up, bringing to them the cloying stink of
the mud flats, and the scent of smoke; and then a small pocket of heat from a
pony-sized dragon that, in an apparent fit of exuberance, had reared back to
send a plume of fire toward the sky.

Eventually, Rowan said: “You don’t know what the patterns
are, but you do know something about their nature.”

“Yes.” He pulled his attention in. “They’re lists,” he told
her. “Each dragon has a list that it’s following, of movements and behaviors.
When it reaches the end of the list, it will go back to the start.”

Rowan could not fathom this at all. “These creatures are
intelligent enough to remember a list?” She had expected something much
simpler, as a dog might be trained to do a number of actions in a row, when
prompted by a single cue.

“It doesn’t take intelligence. Remembering things just takes
memory. Even a book has that kind of memory. Just a place to hold something.”

“But … they must then read the list.”

“They don’t read it. They just do it. Whatever is on the
list, they do.”

This remained incomprehensible. She decided that he must be
using an analogy, one that unfortunately did not correctly communicate the
principle.

The steerswoman struggled. “We have to watch for the point
when they start repeating. Then, watch the whole pattern, all the way through.”

“That’s right.” He went back to studying the actions in the
dragon field.

“How long are the lists of actions?”

The pause told her that she would not like the answer. “I
don’t know. They can’t be too short, or any fool walking by would notice that the
dragons repeat.”

“Then, this might take some time …”

They both watched. After some minutes had passed: “Nothing
yet?” the steerswoman asked.

“No.”

“I don’t see anything, either.” Nothing other than the
natural movements of a group of animals. For a moment she studied Willam
instead. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, his chin on his
forearms, the copper gaze scanning the field below. He seemed to her to be very
good at focus, and concentration; his attention never lapsed.

His lips were moving, silently. Rowan guessed his thoughts,
and said: “I count thirty-two dragons. Not counting the ones too small to see
clearly. But I notice that those haven’t spit fire yet.”

“The littlest ones can’t. We can ignore them. And I think
there are only thirty active dragons. Two of them haven’t moved at all; I think
they’re dead.”

There was no vegetation within the dragon field, no living
thing other than the dragons themselves. Scorched ground, a number of boulders,
charred skeletons of bushes. Nothing else.

“What do they eat?” Rowan wondered.

“Nothing at all,” Will said.

“How can they grow?”

“They don’t. They’re each already the size they’ll always
be. Some of them are hundreds of years old.”

In the field, two dragons faced off, screaming fury. It was
an impressive display: the two backed and twisted their bodies, weaving their
heads, now low, now high, studying each other, first from one side-set eye,
then the other. Smaller dragons nearby scrambled away, giving out whistling
calls of annoyance. Halfway across the field, the largest dragon lifted its
head to watch, emitting a low rumbling.

The steerswoman found herself analyzing, hypothesizing patterns
of dominance, drawing comparisons to other sorts of creatures—wolves, perhaps

Lists?

“All of that”—Rowan indicated the confrontation below—“is on
a list?”

Willam nodded. “This is good. When this part repeats, we’ll
notice it.”

Rowan said, bemused, “We could hardly fail to.”

She returned to watching. She continued to discern no repetition,
no pattern.

Beyond the dragon fields, beyond the mud flats, the wide expanse
of Greyriver was visible, murky with the black mud transported by the current
from farther north, which gave it its color and its name.

At the water’s edge, Rowan sighted a blue-gray shape that by
its posture and actions she recognized as a heron. She allowed herself a few
moments to watch the bird.

In her arid homeland, so far to the north, birds were rare.
When first she had traveled south, crossing the entire breadth of the Inner
Lands to reach the Steerswomen’s Academy, Rowan had been surprised on her
journey, and then astounded, by the birds.

They were everywhere, tucked into every corner of the country:
squabbling, hunting, fleeing and fighting, singing to the morning sun, and
above all else flying. They seemed to her perfect little pockets of life,
bright-eyed, intent, utterly certain in all their small tasks, and by virtue of
this, utterly free. She loved them.

At the river’s edge, the lone heron stretched its wide
wings, canting them as if testing the air; then with one, two down-strokes, it
lifted. Rowan hoped it would approach, and then saw that it would.

To closely observe the flight of so great, so nearly royal a
bird, was a privilege. The steerswoman watched, feeling a poignant joy as the
heron moved with its characteristic slow grace.