His smile broadened as he began to whisk the brush over the blue scales, moving down her neck and toward her chest. Verana stared off through the trees. Maybelle had laid down, but her head was up. She glanced at Verana, then followed the alpha’s gaze into the woods.
Tyber searched Rius’ dark eyes. During the trip, he’d thought of Trysten and what she had done to their dragons. Maybelle was like a different dragon altogether, as if Trysten had swapped her with an identical dragon that followed directions. The change in Maybelle’s attitude was startling. She handled well. She listened to Ren. She flew in perfect formation. And after several days in the air, Ren’s expression of surprise and suspicion had softened into one of boredom.
Tyber suspected his friend missed his obstinate dragon. Ren loved being the thorn on the berry branch. Tyber often thought it was Ren’s attitude that caused his problems with Maybelle. But all this time, it might have been, as Trysten had suggested, nothing more than confusion on the part of the dragon.
“What is there to be confused about?” Tyber asked Rius as she twisted her neck around and watched him brush her shoulders. “The commands? The orders? Who’s in charge?”
If Rius knew the answer to any of it, she didn’t volunteer the information. She blinked her large, dark eyes, then swung her head around to the woods.
Tyber turned to see what had snagged her attention.
A man approached the clearing.
Tyber glanced at the bow hanging on the side of the saddle. His short sword was tucked in the saddlebag along with his knife.
He turned back to the approaching man. He wasn’t a whole lot older than Tyber. A long, thin knife hung at his side, but otherwise he appeared to be unarmed.
“Greetings!” the young man cried and held up his open palm. He grinned broadly, then dipped his head beneath a low-hanging bough.
“Hello,” Tyber called in return.
“I saw you and your friends fly over,” the man said, gesturing at the sky and canopy. “I was hoping you might have some dragon salve you can spare.”
“Dragon salve?” Tyber asked.
The man stepped out from beneath the canopy. The sun shone full on his orange tunic and dark green leggings. They were threadbare at the knee and hung from him loosely.
“It’s an unguent,” the man said, then held his hands before himself as if about to lift the lid off a small box. “Smells sharp and terrible. Don’t you put it on your dragon’s wounds?”
He shook his head as he stared at Rius, then looked at the other two. “Those are breathtaking mounts.”
Tyber stifled the urge to reach up and rub beneath Rius’ chin. It normally resulted in a display on her part, spreading her wings and stretching them out, drawing gasps from onlookers.
“Thanks,” Tyber said instead.
“Look,” the man said, running one hand through a thick mat of brown hair that fell past his shoulders. “I know the stuff is hard to come by and all, but if you have even a small quantity that you could spare, I would appreciate it. I might even be able to give you something in return.”
He looked to Rius, then back to Tyber. “She looks well-fed. But if you need some food, I can get you some.”
“What’s the problem with your dragon?” Tyber asked.
The man took a deep breath, his shoulders heaving with a look of tired frustration. “I think she has a humor imbalance. She’s shedding a few scales. And she has a boil. Nasty thing. Under her wing. It irritates her,” he said, his expression growing strained. “I want a little salve to put on it, you know?”
And Tyber did know. It was plain to see from the tension clouding the man’s face that he was telling the truth. He had a dragon. And he cared for her. He was worried about her.
And he was no hordesman.
Tyber’s back stiffened.
The man stiffened in response, almost mirroring Tyber, his eyes growing wide. He looked Tyber up and down quickly, searching for something.
“Look…” the man said, holding out a hand to Tyber. “I don’t know who you are. But I’m asking you, one dragon rider to another, can you please spare me some dragon salve? For the dragons.”
Tyber glanced over the man’s shoulder, willing Ander and Ren to return at that instant. But nothing stirred except dapples of sunlight across the stunted grass that grew among the trunks.
Tyber swallowed. The story they’d been practicing every night as they sat around a campfire swirled through his head like a flock of wild birds, and he found he couldn’t net a single detail of it.
“I promise you, man. If you want something for it, just name it. I can bring it to you. What is it you want?”
“Who are you?” Tyber asked.
“Me?” the man relaxed a bit. His hand went back to his side. He looked at Maybelle and Verana. His eyes lingered along their tack a few seconds before he turned back to Tyber. “Is that the deal? I tell you who I am? You give me a little salve?”
Tyber shook his head. “The salve is yours.” He rummaged around inside the saddlebag until he pulled out a small box of the pungent ointment.
“My name is Tyber,” he said, stepping up to the man and holding out the box. He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “This is Rius.”
The man smiled. He nodded as he plucked the box from Tyber’s hand as if expecting Tyber to change his mind.
“Halton,” the man said. “And my girl’s name is Gurvi.”
“Gurvi?” Tyber asked, raising his brow in surprise.
“I know,” Halton said with a sheepish grin. Color flushed through the cheeks beneath his scruffy beard. “Strange name, right? But that’s just what she’s called. None of my doing.”
Tyber smiled in return.
“Thank you, man,” Halton said. He lifted the wooden lid off the top of the box. His eyes nearly popped from his head.
“Whoa! No.” He shook his head. “No, man. I can’t take all of this. It’s full!”
Tyber held up a hand, then nodded at the other two dragons. “We got enough. Besides, it’s not like I paid for it.”
Halton’s face passed from surprise to confusion, and then to recognition. The smile slowly returned to his face, and he nodded slowly. “I got you. I understand. Yeah.”
“One thing you can do for me,” Tyber said.
“Anything, man. Name it.”
“Is this Iangan?” Tyber asked with a nod in the direction of the village.
“Iangan? Yeah, it’s Iangan. Why?”
Tyber shrugged. “No reason. My friends and I were on our way here. We’re looking for work, and we heard that we might be able to find it in Iangan.”
Halton’s gaze grew cautious. He looked from Tyber to the dragons again, and then back. “Work? What kind of work?”
Tyber shrugged again. “I don’t know. Just… you know. Work. A guy needs things. Dragon salve, for example.”
Halton returned the lid to the box. “Are you sure about this?”
Tyber nodded. “I hope it helps Gurvi.”
Halton stared at Tyber a few seconds longer, his lips tightening as if there was something more to say. He glanced again at the dragons, and as if they reminded him of something, he nodded once more at Tyber, then slipped back into the shadows of the canopy, the box of dragon salve clutched tightly in his hand.
Chapter 9
Verana stared down at Tyber with her dark orange eyes. She blinked once, then turned her head slightly as if about to look up into the woods, then changed her mind and held Tyber’s steady gaze.
He tapped the bristles of the brush against the palm of his other hand as he studied her, the look in her eyes, her posture, the way she held her neck. He tried to picture her as the pink Merilyss, the alpha to his own dragon when they were at the academy.
Verana stared at him a few seconds longer, and then found something more interesting in the woods.
“That’s it,” Tyber said softly and waggled the brush slowly at the dragon’s chest. “Merilyss wouldn’t have given me
the time of day. She would have simply stared out across the woods, or wherever she wanted to, and she wouldn’t have even so much as glanced at me unless she thought I might have something she wanted. But you, my friend…” Tyber’s smile broadened. “You don’t act like that. If I didn’t know better, you act like you’re a bit surprised, aren’t you? You probably had no idea at the start of the day, when you woke up just another dragon in another Aerona weyr, that you’d be an alpha within hours. Even if your horde only numbers two dragons.”
He looked at Rius. The blue dragon had curled up in the grass as soon as Tyber stepped away from her. Her chest rose in the slow, regular rhythm of a dragon deep within a nap.
His eyes traveled to Maybelle. The teal dragon sat on her belly and chest, head held high, and stared back into the woods as well.
Tyber spun around.
Ren began to laugh, doubling over and slapping his hand on his knee about ten yards back in the woods. Ander, standing beside him, grinned broadly.
“What?” Tyber asked as fire raced up his face.
“Not... terrible reflexes,” Ander said. “But I’d like to think we couldn’t have gotten this close before you noticed. Verana noticed us as soon as we entered the woods.”
“Even Maybelle,” Ren said, gesturing at his dragon. “Oh, but please. Don’t let us interrupt. You looked deep in conversation with the dragon there. Please. Go on.”
Ren made little sweeping motions with his fingers, then rolled with laughter again, folding an arm against his belly.
Tyber shook his head. “What did you find?” he asked Ander.
Ander’s grin faded. “This is indeed Iangan. We found the local inn, but we weren’t able to do much more than get a drink.”
Ren stood upright and took a deep breath, his laughter dropping away. “The locals act like we came with leprosy or something. They wouldn’t say a single word to us that wasn’t absolutely necessary, but they sure couldn’t keep their eyes off of us when they thought we weren’t looking.”
Ander nodded as he stepped out from the canopy and began to inspect Verana. He held his hand out to Tyber and motioned for the brush. “There is definitely something going on. Strangers can’t be that rare around here. We’re not far from the road to Wightmouth. A lot of trade runs along that road. Surely traders come through here all the time.”
“They’re suspicious,” Ren said. “And I don’t for one minute think it’s because we put on such a convincing show.”
Ander began to brush Verana’s neck.
“Well,” Tyber said with a nod. “I had better luck while you two were gone. I think. A guy came out of the trees while I was brushing Rius. He wanted to know if I could spare him a small quantity of dragon salve.”
Tyber smiled and crossed his arms over his chest. “His name was Halton.”
Ander turned to him, the tips of his fingers still pressed to the scales of Verana’s neck. “What did he want dragon salve for?”
“Wait,” Ren said, “you didn’t give it to him, did you?”
Tyber shot Ren a glare. “And why shouldn’t I have?”
“Oh, man!” Ren snapped and threw his arms up in frustration. “Some wild dragonjack you make. Arrr!” he growled, scrunching up his face and closing one eye as he leaned forward. “They call me Tyber the Terrible, they do! Can I get you some water? Maybe a bite to eat? At least let me brush your dragon before I rob you blind and leave your guts steaming on the top of your freshly shined shoes!”
“Shut up!”
“That’s enough,” Ander said. “What did he want the dragon salve for?”
Tyber turned back to Ander, then glanced at Ren once more as his friend wandered off to Maybelle, shaking his head.
“Tyber?”
Tyber shrugged. “For his dragon.”
“His dragon?” Ander asked.
“What else would he want dragon salve for?”
“Did he specifically say that he wanted it for his dragon?”
“Stuff is expensive,” Ren called from Maybelle’s side. “Probably wanted to sell it to a proper dragonjack. Saw you and the bleeding heart on your sleeve and probably told you all about his poor little whelp, didn’t he? Blind in one eye, can’t see out the other, and flies with a limp when the wind comes out—”
“That’s enough!” Ander snapped, his voice hard in a way that Tyber hadn’t heard since their days in the academy.
“How much did you give him?” Ander asked Tyber.
Tyber averted his eyes. Heat rose across his face again. “A box.”
“A box?” Ander asked.
“The whole box?” Ren asked.
Tyber swallowed. “He needed it. For his dragon.”
Ander took a deep breath. “Yes. It is quite valuable to anyone who has a dragon. Which is why there is a black market for it. Tyber…” He shook his head.
“He has a dragon,” Tyber said. “Her name is Gurvi.”
“Gurvi?” Ren asked. “Who in the wilds names their dragon Gurvi?”
“He was telling the truth. I could tell,” Tyber said to Ander, holding his gaze. “The way he talked about her. The way he asked. His face lit up when I handed him the box.”
“My face would light up if you handed me a bar of gold, too,” Ren said.
Tyber glared at him, then shook his head as he turned back to Ander. “I’m serious. This guy really cares about this dragon. He wasn’t acting like he was putting one over on me. He sincerely is worried about his dragon.”
Ander’s brow grew heavy, his lips tight between his mustache and beard as he considered something.
“He’s a dragonjack,” Tyber said. “There’s no way he was academy. Or even a hordesman like the ones in Aerona. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have a dragon, and he was cagey until I handed over the salve. He thought I was a hordesman. Or he was worried that I was.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Ren groaned.
Ander nodded. “And so you handed him a whole box of dragon salve to prove to him that we aren’t hordesmen?”
“No,” Tyber said with a shake of his head. “I handed it to him because he needs it. He needs it more than we do. We still have two more boxes.”
“But three dragons,” Ren added.
“I can count,” Tyber snapped.
Ander rubbed at his chin. “Well, I can’t say that I would have approved of this had you consulted me first. A whole box of dragon salve is a lot. But if he truly does have an injured dragon, then he will be grateful.”
“And as soon as he tells his friends about the gullible idiot who gave it to him, they’ll be crawling all over us,” Ren said.
“Knock it off, you fathead!” Tyber barked at Ren. “What did you accomplish?”
Ren’s head shifted back on his neck in surprise. He blinked at Tyber. “Well I didn’t manage to lose a box of—”
“Shut up! Both of you!”
Ander turned to Tyber. “Well, let’s hope that something comes of it. Did he say what was wrong with his dragon?”
“He said she lost a couple scales and has a boil under her wing.”
“Ren, see to Maybelle,” Ander said, gesturing at the teal dragon. “And Tyber, gather some wood for a fire.”
“Yes,” Tyber began as he turned away, catching himself before adding proctor. His foot paused for a split second over the ground before he put his weight on it. Dragoneer wasn’t quite the word for Ander either. Nothing seemed to fit.
He stared out into the shade beneath the canopy and a low, plank fence visible just on the other side of the trees. How out of place everything suddenly was. Back in the academy, he had quickly learned how to behave and what to do. But since being ambushed while escorting a caravan back to the mother city during his last days at the academy, nothing had been the same. And here he was out on the edge of the kingdom again, wearing clothes that weren’t his and doing a terrible job of pretending he was someone other than the person he’d been practicing to be for the last year of his life.
&n
bsp; “Yes, Ander,” he finally said and walked away, listening to the grass whip across the shins of his trousers.
He plunged beneath the canopy, then slowed as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. Around him, stunted grass grew in patches. A creek rushed past, carrying water from the village and on out to the Wight River. But anything resembling firewood had long since been picked clean. He eventually walked along the creek, past the point where the trees thinned out. A half mile or so later, a smaller clump of trees ran along the path of the creek. There he was able to find an armload of wood to bring back.
It wouldn’t last the night.
He returned and dumped the wood in a clearing that Ander had made, a bare spot in which all the grass had been pulled away. Ander looked up at him, a questioning look on his face.
“That’s all there is,” Tyber said with a shake of his head. “These woods are picked clean.”
Ander looked through the tops of the grass, off in the direction of the village. He nodded. “I suppose it would be. Well, this will be enough for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll fly around and find some more. We’ll keep some for ourselves and sell the rest in the village.”
“What?” Ren called from where he sat, oiling his saddle. “Sell firewood?”
Ander’s face grew stern. “We are looking for work, aren’t we, Ren?”
Ren opened his mouth to say something, then turned his attention back to the saddle.
“And it will give us a chance to look around. I doubt that we’ll come across anything that looks like a weyr, but we might find something to indicate if there are indeed dragonjacks in this area. If nothing else, we’ll know where the paddocks are.”
“The paddocks?” Ren asked, looking up from his saddle again. “What? We’re going to take up sheep husbandry next?”
Ander looked to Ren, then Tyber. “We have enough food to last us several days, but it might come down to us needing to supplement with a sheep or a goat or two. If that’s the case, then I want to know where the most promising pickings can be found.”
“Wait, what?” Tyber asked, shaking his head and holding up his palm. “Promising pickings?”
Dragonjacks: Book 1 - The Shepherd: A Dragons of Cadwaller Novel Page 6