Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (29 page)

Rowan reached down and back, blindly, trying to find Willam,
to pull him forward. But then his hand was on her shoulder; he was already
standing. She did not look behind. She stepped, and he stepped with her:
forward, into the focus of the dragon’s garnet eye.

The small dragon watched, warily; Rowan watched it watch,
kept herself where it saw her, step by step. She walked, and Willam walked,
walked, as slow as the great dragon whose empty space they inhabited.

Then the small head tilted sharply in the other direction, at
something on the dragon’s far side. The creature twisted, scrambled away, and
was gone.

And the steerswoman was surrounded by dragons.

Small bright ones, half slithering, half walking. Larger
ones, rambling about, eyeing each other. The largest, lying down, or standing
with heads weaving, moving, slowly, with the smallest dragons scrambling away
from the swing of heavy tails.

Rowan smelled them, a scent like hot iron, and oil, and the
air before a thunderclap. It was hot in among them, then cool, then hot as
their bodies shifted, blocking and admitting the breeze. For one moment the
tang of the mud flats by the river appeared, like a voice calling freedom; then
it was gone.

The hole was still moving, it must still be moving—but
where?

There: were those two dragons studying each other? Or something
invisible between them? Or that one, there, moving—away from her, or toward
something else?

She tried to look everywhere, tried to catch the
dragon-glances, tried to see paths being cleared for her to follow.

There was an empty area ahead, but no dragon seemed to be
watching it.

Will’s hand on her shoulder urged her forward. Rowan managed
one quick glance back.

Wiliam had hoisted the captive dragon across his shoulders,
and was standing half-turned, one hand on her shoulder. The copper gaze was
wide, and frightened, but moving, scanning the dragons behind.

She had forgotten about him. She could not see everywhere,
all the time; but she had eyes behind, Wiliam’s.

Beyond Wiliam, a moss-green dragon was approaching, whipping
its head sideways, and Rowan felt she could see the ghost-tail of her
ghost-dragon flailing, the creature behind dodging it. She realized then what
she had not noticed before: the dragons never actually touched each other.

But this was all she had time to note. The dragon drew
nearer, and Willam’s hand told her again to move.

She moved, forward, into the gap ahead of her.

Where next? How could she guess?

Motion: only motion mattered. Only motion was information.

The steerswoman forced herself to stop glancing about
wildly. She gazed steadily ahead, watching with the whole of her vision,
ignoring shape, ignoring detail. She noted only movement: flicks and flickers
in the corner of her eye, shifts of large forms ahead and around, sinuous
shapes close to the ground, and the glints of light on garnet eyes.

A flick on the right, which was the tilt of a dragon’s head,
its gaze tracking her; she followed the track. Quickness, down on the ground:
small dragons hurrying out of her way.

She moved; Willam moved with her.

And it seemed to the steerswoman now that she entered some
sort of perfect state, where, like a dragon, she saw only motion; where, like a
bird’s, her task was simple, and clear, and without options.

She seemed to herself to be hardly present. There was only
motion, the sum of all visible motion, a mathematical operation that could not
complete, unless she moved.

She moved when she must; paused when she must; waited; and
moved again.

She did not know why she felt so very cold, in this heat;
but she was cold.

She moved.

At intervals, the pressure of the hand on her shoulder told
of the motion that she could not see, told her how to complete

234
THE
LANGUAGE OF POWER

the sum, saying:
Move left. Pause now. Move back.
Move
back again. Move back.

They reversed positions. The ghost-dragon had altered its
route. Rowan led again.

They passed among dragons. They paused at the approach of
large dragons. Small ones retreated from them.

It went on, and on. The steerswoman did not know for how
long; time vanished. She moved as she must, feeding her actions into the
pattern, reading the sum.

And then, the movements ahead: they did not give way. The
sum of all motions told Rowan to move back.

She did so, with slow steps that lifted with a wet sound.

The hand on her shoulder said,
No.
She stopped.

But before her, little motions, low to the ground: small dragons.
Not retreating. Approaching. Rowan stepped back from them again.

No.
Rowan looked behind.

A shape, approaching, without hesitation.

Left: another shape, huge, not moving, not watching, giving
no clue. Right: no pathway being cleared.

Front and back, all motion slowly closed in. The hole was
shrinking around them, vanishing.

Willam’s hand pulled, hard. Off-balance, Rowan fell to her
left—and then she was half sprawled, half leaning, directly against some great,
dark object.

Her focus broke.

Dragons, everywhere.

The blue of the sky above, and the green and silver of light
on dragon scales, flashing, large and small dragons moving, slowly and quickly,
claws and faceted eyes gleaming, all around. Their hides creaked as they moved;
they hissed, whistled, and shrieked at each other. The air consisted only of
the scent of them: Rowan saw, heard, breathed dragon.

Her shirt was wet with sweat, and she was trembling: not
with cold but with a battle taking place in her nerves and muscles, the need to
flee fighting the knowledge that flight would be suicide. Her very bones wished
to run. Her heart banged like a fist against the walls of her chest. There was
a sour taste at the back of her throat.

Willam was beside her, leaning back, panting and shuddering.
He had shifted the weight of his captive dragon slightly off his shoulders, and
onto the curved surface behind him.

The dark green, scaled surface.

They were leaning against a dragon.

The steerswoman made a helpless sound through her teeth,
quelled it instantly.

The dragon’s cold, hard form was motionless against her
back. Its scales, under her left hand, were streaked with dust. Half-crumbled
leaves lay in the fold of its foreleg. A small drift of ash had accumulated
against its nose.

No breath stirred the ash.

It was the corpse of their own ghost-dragon.

It reclined, head on forelegs. It must have died in its
sleep; the pattern must have included it walking to this spot, lying down, and
sleeping.

The hole had not vanished. It was here. Will and Rowan were
safe inside it.

For how long?

How long before the dragon was scheduled to wake, and the
empty hole would move?

How long was the full cycle of the pattern, how long before
the hole again reached the edge of the herd, how long before Willam and Rowan
could escape?

How long had they been among the dragons?

She might guess the hour by the angle of the sun—but she
could not spare the attention. She had lapsed, she had lost that perfect state
of pure observation of the sum of all motion. She must get it back.

Do not look at individual dragons. Do not identify them as
dragons. See motion. See only motion.

Motion beside her, as Willam wiped sweat from his face,
leaned his head back against his burden

Heavier
than
they look,
he had said. How long
could he carry it?

Don’t think about that; see motion.

Details faded. Living dragons became, slowly, only shapes,
then blocks of mass.

The masses moved. Movement was everything.

She saw waves, ripples of response. Eddies that swirled,
then dispersed. Little jumps. The parting of great shapes.

And, some unguessable time later: movement away from the
dead dragon’s head, making way

Blindly, she found Willam’s hand. Together, they sidled
around the corpse. When the hole left the dragon behind, they were in the
moving gap once more.

They went on.

The shapes grew more numerous, and closer together—many more
shapes, crowding close now.

Good. More motion: more cues.

In the grip of pure logic, Rowan walked, paused, backed,
turned, moved.

Motion ahead, shifting the shapes. Motion approaching. Rowan
stopped, waited; it grew nearer. She tried to back up.
No,
Willam’s hand
said.

No opening to either side; and the movement ahead, a scrambling,
still coming near. She tried again to back.
No.

She glanced behind. One large shape, that was standing
still, not giving way.

The movement ahead became commotion; there were dragon-whistles,
and hisses. Then it froze, and small glinting eyes turned on her, turned away,
turned back.

Then the shapes ahead split, moved to each side, quickly,
fleeing.

From nothing.

There was a gap directly ahead, and Willam’s hands, both of
his hands, on her shoulder, urging her forward. But Rowan refused; she stood
solid; she tried, by stance and resistance, to tell him that the gap he saw
ahead was not theirs to enter.

It was the second hole, the second ghost-dragon. Rowan was
no longer the only missing parameter in the equation.

She could not guess the sum. She could not tell which cues belonged
to her. She did not know what was happening, what should happen next.

The sum of all motions was failing her.

But the list: these actions were on a list, designed to look
natural. If the dragons could act freely, what would they do? What would they
do
now?

Her dragon was large. The other dragon was smaller. It
should defer to her, and back off.

But no: no such sign was visible. Instead, it seemed to her
that the other ghost moved even closer, slowly.

Yes, it was smaller; but it was more aggressive. She had
seen that, watching its path before. It would confront her.

And now, flickers of movement, the glances of garnet eyes,
as the animals all around looked first to one ghost then the other. Wondering
about the outcome.

The second hole was a negative presence; she could not see
its limits—until midsized dragons at the edge of the crowd whipped their heads
back to avoid a flail of the second ghost’s tail.

Tails moved for balance. The invisible dragon was moving
left. Rowan shifted to the right, felt Willam shift with her; and from the
corner of her eye she caught the motion of the dragons behind as they shied
back from the swing of her own heavy tail.

She had seen confrontations; she knew how they went. Her
adversary would now search, head weaving side to side, seeking an opening.

She turned slightly, adjusting Will behind her, remaining
face-on, not allowing her flank to be exposed.

The crowd startled; the ghost was making its move. Not to
one side, by the watching eyes: straight on.

Which way should she move?

No!

She was huge, she was the second largest dragon in the
field. The audacity of this small, vicious animal—how dare it?

In her mind, she reared. She rose tall on hind legs,
screaming hatred; she flailed with her front claws, threw back her head and
with one great breath sent a gout of white fire into the blue sky.

And all around, like a wave moving outward, green and silver
flashed as dragon heads dropped, as dragons shied back, as dragons cowered from
her, from her fury, from her power

From nothing.

Through it all, Rowan had remained motionless, tense and silent,
with Willam’s hands damp on her shoulders. Merely two human beings, standing in
emptiness, at the heart of a horde of dragons.

And the second emptiness before them, where the other ghost
should now drop its head, retreat

The creatures beyond separated like wheat stalks, turning
their heads to watch the flight of the vanquished dragon.

Gazes flicked back to the victor. By hint and inference,
Rowan saw her path.

She walked, and Willam walked, through dragons that hurried
to make clear the way.

But ahead, jittering motion, a dragon with no room to
retreat. It hissed, twisted, whistled fear, then found an opening and backed
off. Another shape, close to the ground, startled at Rowan’s approach, and
scampered urgently away.

This was familiar …

Two shapes, side by side; abruptly, both looked back at Rowan,
hesitated, and separated. Rowan led Willam between them, where a small writhing
on the ground stopped, then spread out ahead: half a meter away, a pause, then another
meter.

She knew this. The pattern was repeating.

Behind Rowan, Willam’s steps now shuffled. His hand on her
shoulder was heavy. She reached up and laid her hand over his, pressed down
firmly, trying to communicate that he should put more weight on her.

He did so. He used both hands. She felt herself heavier; but
she had been walking unburdened all this time. She would manage.

And she could remember now, from this point on, many of the
movements the hole would make. She had been watching. She no longer needed
Willam’s eyes behind.

She led him on.

Later, at last, ahead, in the path that would be theirs:
scuffed earth, footprints and claw marks left when Willam had first captured
his dragon. And beyond that, when just one more dragon shifted aside, there was
only open land from Rowan’s feet all the way to the safe perimeter.

The hole in the pattern, the absent presence in the list of
all actions, moved, as it must, to the edge of the dragon herd. But although
she could not see it, Rowan knew: the second hole was again not far away; other
dragons were retreating from it, along the edge; one of them would soon move,
as it had before, to close off the path to the perimeter. When the time came,
Rowan and Will must move very quickly.