by Robin Hobb
He glanced back at the thickly-forested island. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll find other game here,’ he assured her.
But she was not consoled. ‘Oh, certainly I will. Lean bony rabbits by the score, or a doe going to ribs already. That is not what I crave, Reyn. Such meat will keep me, but my body clamours to grow. If I had emerged in spring, as I should have, I would have had the whole summer to hunt. I would have grown strong, and then fat, and then strong again, and fatter still, until by the time winter threatened, I would have had the reserves to subsist easily on such lean and bony creatures. But I did not.’ She shook out her wings and surveyed herself dolefully. ‘I am hungry all the time, Reyn. And when I briefly sate that hunger, my body demands sleep, so it can build itself up. But I know I cannot sleep, nor hunt and eat as much as I should. Because I must keep my promise to you, if I am to save the last of my kind.’
He stood without words, seeing an entirely different creature than he had but a few minutes before. She was young and growing, despite having lived a hundred lifetimes. How would it feel, to step forth into life after endless waiting, only to be seized by the necessity for selflessness? He suddenly felt pity for her.
She must have sensed his emotion, but her eyes spun coldly. She tucked her wings back to her body. ‘Get out of my way,’ she warned him, but did not give him enough time to move. The wind of her wings sent a stinging cloud of sand against his abused flesh.
When he dared to open his eyes again, she was a flash of blue, iridescent as a humming bird, still rising into the sky. For an instant, his heart sang with the pure beauty of such a creature. What right had he to delay her in her quest to perpetuate her species? Then he thought of Malta and his resolution firmed. Once she was safe, he would be willing to devote all his efforts to aiding Tintaglia.
He chose a sheltered place in the lee of some boulders. The winter day was clear, and the thin sunlight almost warm. He ate sparingly of his dried food and drank water from his bag. He tried to sleep, but the bruises from her claws ached and the sun was too bright against his eyelids. He watched the sky for her return, but saw only wheeling gulls. Resigned to a substantial wait, he ventured into the forest to look for fresh water.
It was odd to walk beneath trees on solid ground. The lush Rain Wild growth towering over swamp was the only forest he had ever known. Here the branches of trees swooped lower, and the undergrowth was thicker. Dead leaves were thick underfoot. He heard birds, but he saw few signs of small game, and none at all of deer or pig. Perhaps this island boasted no large animals. If so, Tintaglia might return as empty as she had left. The terrain became steeper and he soon doubted he would find a stream. Reluctantly, he turned back towards the beach.
As he drew close to where the darkness of the forest was shot through with the light from the open beach beyond, he heard an odd sound. Deep and reverberating, it reminded him of a large skin drum struck with a soft object. He slowed his pace and peered from the brush before venturing out into the open.
The sea bullocks had returned. Half a dozen of them basked on the sand. One lifted his muzzle; his thick throat worked like a bellows to produce the sound. Reyn stared, fascinated. He had never seen such immense creatures at close range. The creature lowered his massive head and snuffed loudly at the sand, apparently puzzled by the unfamiliar scent of dragon. He bared thick yellow tusks in distaste, shook his head, then sprawled down in the sand once more. The other dozing creatures ignored him. One turned over on its back and waved its flippers lazily before its face. It turned its head towards Reyn, and widened its nostrils. He thought it would immediately roll to its feet and wallow towards the sea, but it closed its eyes and went back to sleep.
A plan unfolded in Reyn’s head. Silently, he retreated from the beach. Sticks were plentiful under the trees; he selected one that was straight, stout, and long, then lashed his knife firmly to the end of it. He had never hunted before, let alone killed for meat, but he was not daunted. How hard could it be to creep up on one of the fat, docile creatures and make an end of it? A single spear thrust through the neck would provide fresh meat for both of them. When his makeshift spear was to his satisfaction, he sharpened another stake to back it up, then circled through the woods to the far end of the beach. When he emerged from the trees onto the sand, he bent low and raced up the beach to put himself between the creatures and their retreat to the water.
He had expected some alarm at the sight of him. One or two turned their heads to regard him, but the bulk of the herd went on dozing and sunbathing. Even the nervous fellow who had earlier bellowed at the dragon’s scent ignored him. Emboldened, he chose a target on the outskirts of the scattered herd: a fine, fat one, scarred by a long life. It would not be tender, but there would be lots of it, and he surmised that would be more important to Tintaglia.
His crouching stalk was a foolish waste of time. The sea bullock did not so much as open an eye until Reyn was within a spear’s length of him. Feeling almost ashamed for killing such dull prey, Reyn drew back his arm. The creature’s wrinkled hide looked thick. He wanted to give him a swift death. He took a deep breath and put all his weight behind his thrust as he stabbed.
A moment before the point touched flesh, the sea bullock rolled to its feet with a roar. Reyn knew instantly that he had misjudged the creatures’ temperaments. The spear that he had aimed at the animal’s neck plunged deeply in behind its shoulder. Blood sprayed from the sea bullock’s nostrils. He’d pierced his prey’s lung. He clung doggedly to his spear and tried to thrust it deeper as the entire herd stirred to sudden activity.
With a roar, the animal spun to confront him. Reyn was carried along on his spear, his feet dragging in the sand. He barely managed to keep a grip on his sharpened stake. It now looked as effective as a handful of daisies, but it was the only weapon he had. For a stride, he managed to get his feet under him. He used his thrust to push the spear deeper. The animal bellowed again, blood starting from its mouth now as well as flying from its nostrils. He would win. Through the shaft of the spear, he could feel its strength waning.
Then another sea bullock seized a great mouthful of his cloak and jerked him off his feet. He lost his grip on the spear, and as he went down, the wounded animal turned on him. Its big dull tusks suddenly looked sharp and powerful as it lunged at Reyn, jaws wide. He rolled clear of the attack, but that wrapped his cloak around him. He fought his sharpened stick clear of the entrapping fabric, and then jerked his foot away from the snapping jaws. He tried to stand up, but the other animal still gripped a corner of his cloak. It threw its head from side to side, jerking Reyn to his knees. Other sea bullocks were closing in swiftly. Reyn tried to tear free of his cloak and flee, but the knots defied him. Somehow he had lost his sharpened stake. Another animal butted him, slamming him into the bullock that still gripped his cloak. He had a brief glimpse of his prey sprawling dead on the sand. Much good that did him now.
Tintaglia’s shrill ki-i-i split the winter sky. Without releasing his cloak, the animal that held it twisted its head to stare up at the sky. An instant later, the entire herd was in a humping gallop towards the water. Reyn was dragged along, his cloak snagged on the sea bullock’s tusks.
When the dragon hit the bullock, Reyn thought his neck would snap. They skidded through the sand together, the sea bullock squealing with amazing shrillness as Tintaglia’s jaws closed on its neck. With a single bite, she half-severed its head from its thick shoulders. The head, Reyn’s cloak still clutched in its jaws, sagged to one side of the twitching body under Tintaglia’s hind feet. Dazed, he crawled towards it and unsnagged his cloak from its tusks.
‘Mine!’ roared Tintaglia, darting her head at him menacingly. ‘My kill! My food! Get away from it.’
As he stumbled hastily away, she lowered her jaws over the animal’s belly. A single bite and she lifted her head, to snap up and gulp down the dangling entrails. A waft of gut stench drifted over Reyn. She swallowed. ‘My meat!’ she warned him again, and lowered her head for anot
her bite.
‘There’s another one over there. You can eat him, too,’ Reyn told her. He waved a hand at the sea bullock with the spear in it. He collapsed onto the sand, and finally succeeded in undoing the ties of his cloak. Snatching it off, he threw it down in disgust. What ever had made him think he could hunt? He was a digger, a thinker, an explorer. Not a hunter.
Tintaglia had frozen, a dripping mouthful of entrails dangling from her jaws. She stared at him, the silver of her eyes glistening. Then she threw her head back, snapped down her mouthful and demanded, ‘I can eat your kill? That is what you said?’
‘I killed it for you. You don’t think I could eat an animal that size, do you?’
She turned her head as if he were something she had never seen before. ‘Frankly, I was amazed that you could kill one. I thought you must have been very hungry to try.’
‘No. It’s for you. You said you were hungry. Though maybe I could take some of the meat with me for tomorrow.’ Perhaps by then the sight of her feeding and the smell of blood would not seem so disgusting.
She turned her head sideways to shear off most of the sea bullock’s neck hump. She chewed twice, and swallowed. ‘You meant it for me? When you killed it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what do you want from me in return?’ she asked guardedly.
‘Nothing more than what we’ve already agreed upon: help me find Malta. I saw that you wouldn’t find much game here. We’d travel better if you were well fed. That is all I was thinking.’
‘Indeed.’
He could not read her odd inflection. He limped over to the animal he had killed and managed on his third effort, to pull out the spear. He recovered his knife, cleaned it off and put it back in its sheath.
Tintaglia ate her kill down to a collapse of bones before she began on his. Reyn watched in a sort of awe. He had not dreamed her belly could hold that much. Halfway through his kill, she slowed her famished devouring. Jaws and claws, she seized what remained of the carcass and dragged it up the beach out of reach of the incoming tide and adjacent to his fire. Without a word, she curled herself protectively around the carcass and fell into a deep sleep.
Reyn awoke shivering in full dark. The chill and damp of the night had penetrated his misused cloak and his fire had died to coals. He replenished it and found himself suddenly hungry. He tiptoed past the curl of Tintaglia’s tail and hunched over the chewed carcass in the darkness. While he was still trying to find some meat that was unmarred by the dragon’s teeth and saliva, she opened one huge eye. She regarded him without surprise. ‘I left you both front flippers,’ she told him, and then closed her eyes again.
He suspected she had portioned him the least appetizing part of the animal, but he cut off both platter-sized limbs. The fat, pink, hairless flippers with their dulled black claws did little to tempt his appetite, but he speared one on a stick and propped the meat over his fire. In a short time, the savoury smell of fat meat cooking filled the night. By the time it was cooked, his stomach was rumbling his hunger. The fat was crisp and dripping, and the meat of the reduced digits was as flavourful as anything he’d ever eaten. He put the other flipper to cook before he’d finished eating the first one.
Tintaglia woke, snuffing, just as he took the second fin from the fire. ‘Do you want some?’ he asked reluctantly.
‘Scarcely!’ she replied with some humour. As he ate the second flipper, she finished off the rest of the animal. She ate in a more leisurely manner now and her enjoyment was obvious. Reyn nibbled the last meat from the bones and tossed them into the embers of the fire. He washed the grease from his hands in the icy lap of the waves. When he returned, he built up the fire against the deepening chill of the night. Tintaglia sighed contentedly and stretched out, her belly towards the fire. Reyn, seated between the dragon and the fire, found himself cradled in stupefying warmth. He lay on top of his cloak and closed his eyes.
‘You are different to what I expected humans to be,’ Tintaglia observed.
‘You are not what I thought a dragon would be,’ he replied. He heaved a sigh of satiation. ‘We’ll fly at first light?’
‘Of course. Though if I had my choice, I’d stay here and pick off a few more of those sea bullocks.’
‘You can’t still be hungry.’
‘Not now. But one should always have a care for the morrow.’
For a time, silence hovered between them. Then Reyn had to ask, ‘Will you grow even larger than you are now?’
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘I just thought … well, you seem very large now. How big do dragons get?’
‘While we live, we grow. So it depends on how long one lives.’
‘How long do you expect to live?’
She gave a snort of amusement. ‘As long as I can. How long do you expect to live?’
‘Well … eighty years would be a good, long life. But few Rain Wilders last that long.’ He tried to confront his own mortality. ‘My father died when he was 43. If I am fortunate, I hope to have another score of years. Enough to have children and see them past their childhood.’
‘A mere sneeze of time.’ Tintaglia stretched negligently. ‘I suspect that your years will stretch far longer than that, now that you have journeyed with a dragon.’
‘Do you mean it will just seem that way?’ Reyn asked, attempting levity at her confusing words.
‘No. Not at all. Do you know nothing? Do you think a few scales or bronze eyes are all a dragon can share with her companion? As you take on more of my characteristics, your years will stretch out as well. I would not be surprised to see you pass the century mark, and still keep the use of your limbs. At least, so it was with the Elderlings. Some of them reached three and four centuries. But of course, those ones had generations of dragon-touch to draw on. You may not live so long, but your children likely will.’
Reyn sat up, suddenly wide awake. ‘Are you teasing me?’
‘Of course not. Why would I?’
‘Nothing. I just…I am not sure I wish to live that long.’ He was silent for a time. He imagined watching his mother and older brother die. That was tolerable; one expected to see one’s parents die. But what if he had to watch Malta grow old and die? What if they had children, and he had to see them, too, become feeble and fade while he himself remained able and alert? An extended lifetime seemed a dubious reward for the doubtful honour of being a dragon’s companion. He spoke his next thought aloud. ‘I’d give all the years I hope to see for a single one assured with Malta.’
The speaking of her name was like a magical summoning. He saw her in his mind’s eye, the lustre of her black hair, and how her eyes had shone as she looked up at him. His traitor memory took him back to the harvest ball, and holding her in his arms as they swept around the dance floor. Her Presentation Ball, and he had given her but one dance before he had rushed off to save the world. Instead of which he had lost everything, including Malta.
His hand remembered the smallness of her fingers in his. Her head came only to his chin. He pushed away savagely the thought of Malta on a Chalcedean galley. The ways of Chalcedean men and unprotected women were well known. Terrible fear and seething anger rocketed through him. In their wake, he felt weak and negligent. It was all his fault, that she had been so endangered. She could not forgive him. He would not even dare ask it. Even if he rescued her and took her safely home, he doubted that she would ever endure his presence again. Despair roiled in him.
‘Such a storm of emotions as humans can evoke, all on the basis of imagination,’ the dragon observed condescendingly. In a more reflective voice she asked, ‘Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.’
‘Perhaps,’ Reyn agreed grudgingly. Her amusement stung him. ‘I suppose dragons never need imagine futures, being so rich with
pasts to recall.’
She made an odd sound in her throat. He was not sure if she was amused or annoyed at his jab. ‘I do not need to imagine a future. I know the future that will be. Dragons will be restored to their rightful place as Lord of the Three Realms. We will once more rule the sky, the sea and the land.’ She closed her eyes.
Reyn mulled what she had said. ‘And where is this Land of the Dragons? Up river from Trehaug, past the Rain Wilds?’
One eye opened halfway. This time he was sure he saw amusement in the silver glints. ‘Land of the Dragons? As if there were only one, a space defined by boundaries? Now there is a future only a human could imagine. We rule the sky. We rule the sea. And we rule the land. All land, everywhere.’ The eye started to close again.
‘But what about us? What about our cities, our farms, our fields and vineyards?’
The eye slid open again. ‘What about them? Humans will continue to squabble with other humans about who can harvest plants where, and what cow belongs to whom. That is the way of humanity. Dragons know better. What there is on the earth belongs to the one who eats it first. My kill is my food. Your kill is your food. It is all very simple.’
Earlier in the day, he had almost felt love for her. He had marvelled at her blue sparkle as she glinted across the sky. She had come to his rescue when the sea bullocks would have killed him and freed her from her promise. Even now he rested in the shelter she made with her body and the fire. But whenever they approached true companionship, she would say something so arrogant and alien that all he could feel for her was wariness. He closed his eyes but could not sleep for pondering what he had turned loose on the world. If she kept her word and rescued Malta, then he must keep his. He imagined serpents hatching into dragons, and other dragons emerging from the buried city. Was he selling humanity into slavery for the sake of one woman?