Kindle bit down on the rag, then backed away, ripping it.
“No!” Lyf jerked hard on the rag.
Kindle reared up, spat out a spray of sparks at the hatchling, who broke into frenzied peeping.
Lyf lunged for Kindle, but the dracling streaked away to a far corner of the hut. She looked back reproachfully, then lay down with her chin on her talons.
If Kindle had her way, Lyf thought, the hatchling would starve.
Lyf fed the hatchling the last of the milk, keeping her glance carefully averted from Kindle, trying to ignore the odd little aching in her chest.
They waited. Owyn began to drum on the walls with his spoon. The draclings, restless, romped about the shed, bumping into Lyf and Owyn and Spens in playful skirmishing. Skorch always came out on top in a fray; he could cow most of the others by simply spitting sparks.
Soon, the draclings were flying. The elder ones were better skilled. They could spiral up into the air, flit neatly through the hole in the thatch and, huffing out a steady flame, float down to alight on their feet. Lyf fretted that they might be seen above the hut, but Spens assured her that no one ever came near this place. “And the trees are too tall and too thick for the flame light to be seen,” he said.
The middle-sized draclings were clumsier, with many jerky ups and downs, many chin-and-belly landings, many perilous gouts of flame. It was good that the hut was stone-built, or they would surely have set it afire.
Kindle’s wings had come all the way unfurled: thin and gossamer as damselfly wings. She floated timidly, close to the ground, tentatively fluttering one wing and then the other.
Dusk shaded slowly into night. A gibbous moon bleached the sky to luminous gray. Below, in the hut, all was dark.
“Let’s be going”Spens said.
Taking Owyn by the hand, Lyf followed Spens back down the path, then along the tree-lined riverbank. The draclings bounded along behind. But Kindle made no move to climb up on Lyf’s shoulders. And, though Lyf had often wished for the sake of her aching neck that Kindle would get down and walk, she found now that she missed her.
It’s just as well, Lyf told herself. Kindle might do barm to the hatcbling.
Through the pungent fragrance of the tanlars, Lyf caught a faint whiff of fish and salt and tar. They were very near the sea. Before long, Spens halted. Peering through the trees ahead, Lyf spied a stone bridge spanning the river.
“We’ll cross—” Spens began, then,”Wait!”
Lyf heard it then—a rumbling of hooves. They were nearing, coming this way.
“Get down!” Spens said.
Lyf crouched low, holding Owyn beside her.
They crowded in close about her, thrumming, sniffing at the air.
The rumbling rose to a loud, hollow drumming. She could see them now, coming out of the trees ahead and pounding across the bridge: horses dark, capes billowing behind, torches streaming trails of yellow light.
Soldiers.
A whinny. A rearing horse. It lit down, shied away. There was a curse, a voice she knew. In the light of a passing torch, Lyf saw him: thin, dark-haired, beak-nosed, and capeless.
Nysien. He was with them. He was riding with the Krags.
Harper’s Tale
Unbeknownst to Kaeldra and her friends, the queen’s men had followed them ever since they had left the castle. Nysien had shown the way. For he knew that Kaeldra would never lead the soldiers to dragons—unless she did so without knowing.
Unbeknownst to Jeorg, he was stalked whilst stalking Nysien. The soldiers knocked him on the head. They stowed him bound, gagged, and senseless in a heap of brush.
Unbeknownst to Kaeldra, the queen had had new tone pipes forged for the trancing of the dragons. Her men were schooled in the use of them by a soldier from years before.
Much, my lords, was unbeknownst.
And what of Lyf, you ask? You say I never tell of Lyf?
It was unbeknownst, my lady!
(But save me a bit of that roast, and perhaps it will be known to you soon.)
CHAPTER 17
Borrowed Troubles
This way!” Spens said when the soldiers had disappeared over a rise to the north.
Lyf stood gaping after, the sound of hoofbeats still drumming in her ears.
Nysien. With the soldiers. What could that bode?
Might Kaeldra have been with them?
“Lyf, come along!” Spens plucked at her sleeve, urged her up over an embankment, onto the road. She reached for Owyn’s hand and summoned the draclings.
“Spens! I saw—”
“Sh!” Spens led them over the bridge. Now Lyf could see the town to the south—dark houses against darker earth—and directly west before them the gleaming, veined delta where the river met the sea. She hurried, for there was no hiding on the bridge; the line of romping draclings would be clear to view.
They followed Spens as he scrambled off the road on the other side, backtracked along the river through the trees, then waded through a field of rye behind the town. At last he turned into a back lane, veered off into an alley, crossed a cobbled street. “Come on, now!”he said. “We’re home!”
He pushed on the door; it didn’t budge. He assailed it with a flurry of raps.
“Sh!” Lyf said. She glanced anxiously at the nearby cottages, then up at the lintel.
No dove.
The door creaked open. A woman peered out. By the dim light that seeped through the doorway, Lyf could see that her eyes were small and anxious, her lips pursed tight.
“Spens!” she hissed. “Get you within, and be quick about it! Cletus has gone; now’s no time to be abroad. Make haste now, get—” She stopped, looked past Spens to Lyf, then Owyn. Lyf knew the moment her gaze reached the draclings, for her scalp lifted and she moved her hand in the sign against evil.
“Get them away from here!” she whispered hoarsely. “We can’t be caught with them! The soldiers—”
“But Auntie, Uncle Cletus wouldn’t turn them out. I know about the dove sign now. I know what he’s been doing.”
“Shoo! Shoo! Away with you!” Spens’s aunt pushed past him, brandishing a broom at the draclings.
Spens grabbed the broom. “Auntie, stop! We’ll be discovered. You’ve got to take them in, or Uncle Cletus will be wroth!”
“If Cletus chooses to risk his own neck, there’s no stopping him. But I won’t do so, and neither will you. Don’t be borrowing their troubles and making them yours. Now, shoo!” She wrenched the broom out of Spens’s hands and advanced upon the draclings. They backed away, huffing out smoke—all but Skorch, who stood his ground.
“Hell burn it!” Lyf warned. “He hates brooms!”
Spens’s aunt rounded on Lyf and Owyn, shook the broom at them. “And you two as well! Git! We can’t be havin’ you here!”
“Auntie!” Spens was aghast.
“They’re searchin’ for them, Spens!” she said. “Them and their beasties. They’re a peril to us all!”
Skorch lunged at Spens’s aunt, breathed out a lick of flame.
“No, Skorch!” Lyf lunged forward, threw her arms about Skorch’s neck, tried to drag him away. He strained against her, snorting out smoke.
Spens’s aunt opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Blue flame crept along the edge of her sleeve. She roused, flung down the broom, and beat at the flame with her skirt. Then she bolted within the cottage and slammed the door behind.
Lyf stared at the door, her arms still about Skorch. Her mind was numb. Slow.
Spens was saying something, was stumbling through the press of draclings into the alley. Lyf heard doors opening, heard voices. A torch flared in the shadows down the street. She leapt to her feet, snatched Owyn’s hand, and ran after Spens; the draclings swarmed behind.
“I’ve friends in this town,” Spens said when they caught up to him in the alley. “Never you fret.”
“I think they saw us!” Lyf said. “Those
folk in the street” Little use his friends would be if the whole town raised hue and cry.
“You go back to the hut. I’ll come after, with help.”
Lyf ran through the dark alley into the lane, still clutching Owyn’s hand. The draclings flocked after them. She heard voices back where they had been. She came out into the field and made a dash for the river, hugging the hatchling with one arm so that it would not thump against her belly, pulling Owyn through the waist-deep rye. It was not until they reached the tanlar trees that she dared to look back.
In the moonlight, the field looked smooth, undisturbed by movement. None, so far as she could tell, had pursued them. Maybe they hadn’t seen. Or maybe Spens had managed to forestall them. The draclings crowded about her, rubbing against her legs. She could feel their agitation, as surely they felt hers.
“I want my mama,” Owyn said. “I want to go home.”
“Oh, Owyn.” Lyf knelt to hug him. “So do I. But we can’t, just yet.”
“Why?”
Lyf took thought, tried truly to answer him this time. “Because the draclings will be killed if we go home right now. We have to find a mama for them. Then we can find your mama.” She held him at arm’s length, studied his face. “Do you understand?”
Owyn nodded gravely. And he did understand—she could see it. She was struck anew with the certainty that there was more going on beneath that grubby little brow than she credited him with. She hugged him again, feeling the solid bulk of him, blinking back the tears that, unbidden, sprang into her eyes. He had been a stout companion to her, all this long while.
They edged along the river through the tanlars until they were nearly at the bridge. Lyf hesitated. They would have to leave the sheltering trees to cross it.
Wait.
Voices. Deep voices.
They came not from town or road or fields, but from upriver.
Soldiers? But she had seen the soldiers leaving town.
Lyf crouched behind a mass of thorny bushes, pulled Owyn down beside her. “Hush!” she said to Owyn and, to the draclings,
Now, through the web of branches, Lyf could see something on the river: a boat. Another. Yet another. Voices. Elythian voices. The boats drew near, passed straight before them. Moonlight glinted on a crossbow, the hilt of a sheathed sword, a quiver of arrows.
Bounty hunters.
Lyf waited until they disappeared beyond the bridge, until she could no longer hear their voices. Then she waited more— but not too long. That door she had heard opening, those voices in the village …They might come searching soon.
Lyf took Owyn’s hand and fled across the bridge, expecting to be cried out at any moment. She plunged into the darkness among the tanlars beyond. Her heart pounded in her throat. The draclings thronged about her legs.
Silence.
Only the sounds of the river.
More slowly now they made their way back to the hut and huddled together in the dim light within, waiting.
Owyn curled up and slept, his head on her lap. The draclings slumbered too, thrumming softly. But Lyf was strung too taut for sleep. Her ears strained into the silence of the night. Every snap of a twig, every rustling of leaves set her heart pounding with hope and terror. Hope that it was Spens. Terror that it might be another.
The hatchling began to peep. Lyf scrabbled round to find the bladder and tried to squeeze more milk from it, but only a few drops splashed down on the hatchling’s snout. The peeping grew weaker, subsided. Lyf stroked the little one’s head, reached down into the carrier to cup its fuzzy belly. Its breath rose weakly—too weakly.
It needed milk.
At last she heard footfalls purposefully nearing. The door creaked open.
It was Spens.
Lyf let out a grateful breath.
In the thin moonlight that sifted down through the broken roof, Lyf could see that his eyes looked bruised, as if he had been crying. He waded through the mass of draclings and came to sit silently by her. “They wouldn’t help,” he said at last. “They turned me away, each last one of them.”
Lyf was frightened. What would they do now? And another thing: those bounty hunters. “Your friends … wouldn’t tell, would they? That we’re here?”
“No, they never would! Or … I don’t think so. Anyway, I didn’t tell them where we’re hiding. But I never thought they’d send us away.” Spens turned to her . “I’m sorry, Lyf. I thought I had friends.”
“You do have friends; it’s just… just us.” Lyf gestured at the draclings. “We’re beyond what they can bear.”
“If they were truly friends, they would have helped.”
Lyf did not know what to say. He seemed so wretched. She touched his shoulder, briefly. “The wonder,” she said, “is not that folk would turn us away, but that there are folk like you to borrow our troubles and make them yours.” And like Yanil and Kymo and Lunedweth, she added to herself. And Alys. Alys, who had thought that she owed. “You’re risking your life for us,” Lyf said. “I could never do that. I’d run away.” She had run away, Lyf remembered.
“But you’re doin’ it already—for them? He motioned toward the draclings.
“That’s different. I’ve no choice in it. They won’t let me get away.”
“You could give them to the hunters.”
“No!”
“You could, though. But you don’t. You’ve taken their troubles on yourself.”
Lyf thought about that. It was true, she supposed. She didn’t choose to take on their troubles, but now that she had, she wouldn’t abandon them. Couldn’t. She could not even imagine doing so.
She peered down at the hatchling in its sack. It breathed in a shaky breath, whistling softly. With a finger, Lyf stroked its bony head. She thought back to the start of her journey, when she had refused to fetch water for Kymo. What a sniveler he must have thought her!
Spens broke into her musings. “I went back to my aunt,” he said. “She told me Kaeldra came last night with her husband and a harper and—”
“Kaeldra—here? And free?”
Spens nodded.
Lyf breathed in deep, seemed to fill up with hope. “Where is she? Why didn’t you bring her here?”
“She’s gone with my uncle up the coast to the cave. They thought you and the draclings might be there. Her husband came here with them, and a harper, and some kinsman or other—”
“Kinsman? What kinsman?”
“I don’t know. Somebody’s husband, I think.”
“Our sister’s husband? Nysien?”
“Yes, that’s the one. And they ….”
Nysien. Lyf had forgotten about Nysien. Spens was still talking, but she couldn’t attend. All the hope within her was shrinking, shrinking to a hard, cold knot.
“So, Nysien rode up to the cave with Kaeldra?” she asked.
“No! I just told you—Kaeldra and my uncle and the harper went there in my uncle’s boat. Nysien and Kaeldra’s husband stayed behind, but my aunt doesn’t know where. And then the soldiers came riding into the village, and my aunt was afeared. She said …” Spens hesitated. “She said some of them were boasting, sticking their hands with knives. She said they didn’t bleed.”
Lyf recoiled. Invulnerable to sharp metal Was it true then? The little draclings …
But no. It wouldn’t have to have been the little draclings. It could have been some other dragon. Their mother. But … the little ones had died—Lyf owned it to herself now. She knew this from the pain she had felt.
Tears welled in her eyes. But there was something she must tell Spens.
“I saw Nysien with soldiers, on the road going out of town.”
“You saw him? Why didn’t you say?”
“I tried, but you never listened.”
“What would he be doing with the soldiers? Leading them away?”
“No,”
Lyf said. “He betrayed Kaeldra. But I don’t think she knows”
“Betrayed? Why?”
‘For gold” Lyf said simply.
Spens opened his mouth as if to ask another question, then shut it, took thought, spoke again. “That road they took goes north. It curves along the coast. I doubt the soldiers could see the cave from the road, but they could find it by my uncle’s boat. It would be anchored nearby.”
“So she’ll lead them straight to the dragon.”
Spens nodded grimly. “And if we try to warn her, and take the draclings with us, we’ll be walking into the trap. But we can’t be stayin’ here. Did you see those hunters? They came into the village after you left. They were searching for us.”
“I saw them.”
“ I hope that Lunedweth—” Spens broke off.
Lyf hoped as well. For Lunedweth. For Alys. But for the two little draclings, she could only mourn.
Footsteps, outside the door.
“Spens?”
The door creaked ajar. The draclings’ heads snapped up, alert, their gazes fixed on the doorway. In the shadows, Lyf saw a girl’s face—heart shaped, with wide-set, intelligent eyes.
Spens leapt to his feet. “Aura!”
“Will they harm me?” she asked. “The draclings?”
Spens turned to Lyf. “This is Aura. My friend. They won’t harm her, now, will they?”
They had not hurt to Spens, nor any other they had met—until Spens’s aunt. The memory of that still burned in Lyf ’s mind.
“I don’t think they’ll do you harm,* Lyf said. “But move slowly. Stay by the door till they grow used to you.”
Aura did not look reassured. “I thought you’d be here,” she said to Spens.
“But your da said you’d none of you help.”
“I disobeyed him. I—and Donal and the twins.”
Two more faces appeared in the doorway—a boy and a girl of seven winters or so. Aura was older. Her own age, Lyf guessed.
“Donal’s gone to fetch Turi.” Aura held up a sack. “Here. Likely you’ll need food.”
It was the food that placated the draclings—especially the cheese. They loved cheese. At first they were leery of the children. They arched their backs, snorting out smoke. But when Aura set a chunk of cheese on the ground, Skorch ventured slowly forward and sniffed at it. He took it up in his talons, turned it over, flicked at it with his forked tongue. Then he gulped it down whole. The other draclings swarmed about Aura, butting their heads against her legs, thrumming, begging for more.
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