Ren chuckled. “You can’t be serious. Are you, Mr. Academy—”
“Remember who you are!” Ander snapped at Ren, leveling a finger at him. “Don’t talk about things like that. You never know when the air may have ears.”
Tyber knelt and began to arrange the wood in the pit Ander had cleared.
“We may have to steal some livestock in order to get by,” Ander went on, watching Tyber’s hands work.
He raised his eyes to Tyber’s face, and Tyber stalled, releasing the thin, crooked branches and sitting back on his heels.
“This is the life we’ve chosen, Ty. And if you are going to have a problem with what we must do in order to get by, then you’re going to have to get over it, and get over it quick. Understood?”
Tyber drew in a deep breath. He nodded, then turned his attention back to the firewood. Ander’s warning wasn’t a bolt from the blue or anything. In the air, watching the monotonous landscape pass beneath him and Rius, it had occurred to him that in order to pass themselves off as dragonjacks, they might have to skirt the laws they had sworn to uphold.
“You remember when I met Listico?” Tyber asked, looking back to Ander. “The first time?”
Ander’s gaze hardened. He nodded.
“I have always been willing to do what had to be done.”
Ander regarded him a few seconds longer, then nodded again. “That’s a good point you make. Just keep in mind that you’re terrible at it.”
Tyber blinked at Ander, an awkward smile curling his lips. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Ander said as he started to stand, “you got caught.”
He stood over Tyber, the sun in the west beating on his face.
“Keep your priorities straight, Tyber. And this goes for you, too,” he said with a glance at Ren. “You may think you’re willing to do whatever needs to be done, but to say that for certain, you have to know what it is. In your case, Tyber, when you first met Listico, what you needed to do was not get caught. You didn’t do that.”
Tyber began to rearrange the wood again.
Ander stood a moment longer, then turned back to Verana. There was a slight pause in his step before he went to her. If Tyber had been able to see Ander’s face, he was certain he would have seen a fleeting look of surprise as Ander turned around and found Verana instead of Listico.
Tyber sat back on his heels and studied Rius, who laid in the grass and watched his every movement from atop her long neck. Ander had left Listico behind to do the King’s bidding. Would Tyber have agreed to the same?
A buckle jangled. Ander rummaged around in Verana’s saddlebag, then pulled a tinderbox from its depths.
Tyber wanted to believe that he would always do what needed to be done, but the truth was he didn’t know. Maybe getting caught by Ander was what he’d needed to do. If he hadn’t been caught stealing, he wouldn’t have joined the academy to avoid prison. He wouldn’t have Rius, and he wouldn’t be out here, kneeling before a pile of firewood, staring at the blinding sun as it slumped into the stalks of grass.
And his family wouldn’t live in the closest thing to paradise that Tyber could imagine.
Chapter 10
Ren dropped the branch he’d been picking up, then skipped back a step, his eyes wide. He clutched the biggest of the sticks he was cradling in his arms, then threw the rest to his feet in a clatter as he brandished the stick like a club.
“Snake!” he spat, then stomped at the ground before himself. “Get!”
Tyber grinned as he approached. “What kind?”
“The slithering kind,” Ren said. “The snake kind. What else is there?”
The grass stirred slightly as a dark band of scales slipped away.
“You don’t like snakes?”
“What?” Ren asked, his brow furrowed. He shook his head. “Of course I don’t like snakes. Who likes snakes?”
“That’s very interesting,” Tyber said with a nod, then looked at their dragons, tethered to the trees at the edge of the clearing. All three of the dragons watched the interaction between Ren and Tyber.
“What’s very interesting? That I don’t like snakes? Isn’t that a bit like finding the fact that the sky is blue to be very interesting?”
Tyber shrugged, and his armload of wood shifted. “It’s just that you’ve never really gotten along with Maybelle all that well, and it turns out you’re afraid of—”
“Hey!” Ren snapped as he leveled the club at Tyber. “I never said I was afraid of snakes.”
“Oh, really? Would you like me to reenact your reaction to that snake?”
“Only if you want me to demonstrate on your head what I was about to do to that snake.” Ren brandished the club and swept it through the air with a woosh.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Tyber said. “It’s just that I can see how dragons can remind you of snakes. With those tails and necks. And scales. Snakes have scales.”
“And wings? And legs?” Ren snorted. “If there’s ever a winged snake, I quit.”
“You quit what?” Tyber asked.
“It all. Everything.”
“There’s no reason to be afraid—”
“Stop, Tyber. Just stop. Right there.” Ren pointed at him with the stick.
Tyber’s grin grew wide. He shook his head and turned away, glancing at Rius. All three dragons had turned to watch the sky to the southwest. Verana’s head was held a bit higher than the other two. She shuffled her weight from one set of claws to the other as if impatient.
“Uh oh,” Tyber said.
“It’s back,” Ren said. “I’m gonna brain it!”
Tyber dropped his armload of wood, took a running leap over the creek, and landed in a crouch on the other side. He steadied himself on the trunk of a pale tree then hurried out from under the canopy.
Six dragons approached from the southwest.
“Dragons!” Tyber called as he whirled around, looking for Ander.
“Dragons?” Ren asked. “What do you mean?”
Tyber leaped back over the creek. “Six of them. Approaching from the southwest. They have riders.”
“Six?” Ren asked, looking up into the bottom of the canopy. “That doesn’t sound like a horde. Were they in uniform?”
“Where’s Ander?” Tyber asked as he looked about, peering along the creek, through the track of trunks that crowded the waterway.
“Ander!” Ren called. “Ander! We got company!”
Ren tossed his club to the ground and started for Maybelle.
Tyber fell in at his side. “What are you doing?”
“Grabbing my bow. What do you think I’d do? If they want to attack or give us trouble, I want to be ready for it.”
“Boys!” Ander called. He ran through the woods, approaching from downstream. He glanced up at the canopy, looking off to the southwest as well. He’d seen them.
Ren pulled the quiver off of Maybelle’s saddle and slung it over his shoulder. He dipped beneath the neck of the watching dragon, then pulled the bow from where it rested on the other side of her saddle. As he reached for an arrow, Ander called for him to stand down.
Dragons swept over the trees and banked, flying a half-circle around Tyber and Ren. Several of the riders took up their bows as they locked eyes on Ren. Although two of them wore the leather armor of hordesmen, most of them were dressed in the clothes of civilians. And one of them was Halton, sitting atop a violet dragon.
The rider in the lead signaled to the others, but Tyber didn’t catch what he said. They banked away, flew out a short distance and then started back, approaching from the open plains in the north.
“That’s the direction I’d attack from if I was them, too,” Ren said. “Loose their arrows, then disappear over the canopy before we can respond in kind.”
Tyber glanced to his bow on Rius’ saddle. He started to reach out for it when Ander called for them to stay as they were.
Tyber watched over his shoulder as the dragoneer ran to joi
n them, his breath heavy with exertion. He nodded at the dragonjacks. “We’ll do nothing. We’re in their territory. Let them have a look.”
“You mean the first shot,” Ren said.
“I mean what I said,” Ander replied.
The lead rider signaled, and the six riders spread out behind him. The dragons flexed their wings, lowered their hindquarters, then settled to the ground amidst the bobbing and swaying grasses.
Five of the dragon riders, including Halton, drew their bows and notched arrows pointed at the three of them.
“A good morning to you,” the lead rider said with a nod. He pressed on the lip of the saddle and shifted in the seat, sitting up straight, his shoulders back.
“And a good morning to you as well,” Ander said. “I am Ander of Thralkeld. These are my men, Ren and Tyber. Each of the mother city.”
“The mother city?” the lead rider asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked between Ren and Tyber. “You hardly look old enough to be away from your mothers at all, let alone the city.”
“Are you the dragoneer of this band?” Ander asked, nodding to the others.
“What is it that you and the others are doing out here?” the lead rider asked. “The mother city is far off. And Thralkeld is so distant I’ve never heard of it before.”
“We are just passing through.”
“Through? Why, there’s very little left here to pass through. Edge of the kingdom’s just over there.” The lead rider nodded in the direction of the river. “I’m afraid you done passed through all that there is to pass through. You might as well just turn yourselves around now and go back.”
“We’ll probably do that,” Ander said with a nod. “But first, our supplies are a little low. We thought we might find some work, line our pockets a bit before heading back the way we came.”
“Oh?” the lead rider asked. “And what kind of work is it that you’re looking for?”
“Honest work.”
Surprised by the comment, Tyber whipped his attention to Ander. The dragoneer held a solemn, impassive expression.
“Honest work?” the lead rider asked. He sat back in his saddle and chuckled. “The kind of honest work that a man finds when he and his friends are riding around on dragons of their own, right?”
Ander nodded. “What other kind is there for men like us?”
One of the other riders stirred slightly in the saddle. The tip of his arrow dipped as a slight grin started on his face.
Tyber relaxed some, the tension in his shoulders easing.
“Well,” the lead rider said as he leaned forward and planted his hands on the saddle lip again. “There’s honest work, and then there’s the King’s work. And usually, when I run across men on dragons, they’re out and about on the King’s work.”
“We no longer work for the King. And the dragons,” Ander said with a nod to their mounts, “are ours. We do not recognize the authority of the new king.”
The lead rider nodded. “A king who can’t walk or ride a dragon is no king.”
“And not even heir to the throne,” Ander went on, shaking his head. “The Cadwaller family has fallen, and until a new king takes the throne, then I am a dragon rider without a king, without a commander.”
“But you speak for these two?” the lead rider asked as he gestured at Tyber and Ren.
Ander smirked. “They’re hardly more than boys. They were out on a training mission for the academy. Their dragoneer was attacked and killed. The dragons absconded. I managed to find them.”
The lead rider lifted his chin as if considering Ander’s words. He looked to Halton for a moment, and then turned back to Ander. “Is that where you got the dragon salve, then? From these boys?”
“I don’t see that it matters where I got it. I can’t send you there to buy any of it.”
The lead rider pressed down on the lip of the saddle and adjusted his position in the seat as if growing uncomfortable.
“Well, it seems that you have enough of it to give away. And if you indeed have that much, then I’d be interested in learning where you got it.”
“Like I said, it doesn’t matter where I got it because I can’t send you there to get more. The sale of it is forbidden. To honest men.”
The lead rider placed his palm on his thigh and rubbed his hand across it. “I’m getting a little tired of this joke. It was funny once, but I don’t have all day to sit here and be amused by a few jesters passing through. Now I’m going to ask you once again, where did you get the dragon salve?”
“I know a man,” Ander said. “His father was a dragon healer. He has passed on, but his son inherited all of his tools, including a book of his secrets.”
“I’d like to know such a man,” the rider said. “But that still doesn’t explain why you gave away a whole box of it. Generosity is the hallmark of fools. So either you and your friends are the biggest idiots to fly through here in some time, or you’re after something, and you’ll tell me what it is if you’d like to keep your hide intact.”
The rider who had relaxed his arrow grew tense again and aimed at Ren.
Ander looked at Tyber, held his gaze a second, then turned back to the rider. “The truth be told, my friend’s decision here was pretty stupid. I’ve certainly had words with him over the matter, and it will be coming out of his share of any… profits.”
“Profits?”
“From work. Any work we may find.”
“Well,” the rider said, then cleared his throat. He sat upright in the saddle again. “I can’t say that I know of any place to find work around here. It’s a small village. I suggest you head back the way you came. I hear all the ‘work’ to be had these days is along the Great Eastern Road. I suggest you head out that way now. No time like the present. Fortune helps those who help themselves and all of that.”
Tyber swallowed. Ander’s words came back to him. His actions had shot through any credibility they’d have with these men.
He looked from the rider to Halton, and then down to the violet dragon.
“Is that Gurvi?” Tyber asked as he stepped forward.
All of the riders swung their arrowtips toward Tyber.
“Tyber,” Ander called, his voice low and full of warning.
Halton regarded Tyber a second, then nodded.
“She feeling any better?”
Halton held the arrow on Tyber for a second longer, then lowered it, easing the tension off his bowstring. He held Tyber’s gaze, then started to look back toward Gurvi’s wing before turning back to Tyber. “Yeah. The salve has helped. Thanks.”
Tyber approached slowly. He looked Gurvi over as she looked him up and down. There was no obvious sign of injury or sickness on her. Until he surveyed her foreleg. A tiny bit of wetness gleamed across one of her scales.
“What’s that?” Tyber asked, pointing to her leg.
“What’s what?” Halton asked, leaning forward to peer over his dragon’s shoulder. He slipped his arrow into the quiver on Gurvi’s gusset, then he grasped the saddle lip and pulled himself forward the better to peer down the front of her.
“Right there,” Tyber said, pointing to her leg. He kept his approach steady until he was nearly before the dragon. He crouched and continued to point at the spot.
Halton stowed his bow on the gusset, then climbed down.
“Oh, for all the skies,” he sighed. He crouched next to the dragon’s leg and began to prod gently at the wet scale.
Gurvi curled her neck around and watched his hands intently as his fingertips explored the scale above the wet one, and then to either side.
“What is it?” the lead rider asked.
“Another boil,” Halton said, looking up to the rider. “It’s weeping. Scale’s a bit soft. Fish and birds. I can’t believe this.” He looked back to the scale and shook his head before looking up to Gurvi.
“Another?” Ander asked.
“Mind your own business. In fact, I think you should each get back on your dragons and go m
ind it somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
“Have you got any kind of drawing compound?” Tyber asked Halton.
“Drawing compound?” Halton asked over his shoulder, his face lighting up with either fear or hope.
“Yeah. It draws the fluids out of the flesh. If there’s excess fluid.” He pointed to the weeping wound beneath a scale.
Halton shook his head. “Will dragon salve do?”
“No,” Tyber said.
“Do you have any?” Halton asked.
Tyber shook his head.
Halton looked from Tyber to Ander. “Do you know where to get it? Maybe the guy who makes the salve? It’s good salve.”
“It’s…” Ander began. “It’s not cheap. And we’re far from his home.”
Halton stood and looked from Ander to Tyber and back again. “Well, I have to have it. Tell me where he is. I’ll go get it.”
Ander smiled and shook his head. “Yeah. You show up on a dragon asking for potions, he’ll look at you like your dragoneer is looking at me.”
“He’s not the dragoneer,” Halton said with a nod at the lead rider.
“Halton!”
“Look,” Halton said, turning to Tyber, “I got to have it. If it’s what—”
“Halton! Shut your fat mouth!”
Halton spun on the lead rider. “What are you thinking you’re going to do then, Brath? Send these guys on their way? Let all the others die? They have the salve, and if they know how to treat the dragons, then I say we get their help.”
Brath’s jaw tightened. He cocked an eyebrow as he looked from Tyber to Ander, then back again. “You. How do you know about drawing compound and all of that?”
Tyber pulled his shoulders back and held his head up. “I studied at The King’s Academy of Royal Dragon Riders. They taught us all of this. It was part of how to care for our dragons.”
Brath looked at Ren and held his gaze for a moment. “And you’re an academy rat as well, right?”
Ren nodded. “Never graduated.”
“You know how to care for dragons, too, then?”
Ren didn’t respond right away. “I didn’t pay much attention in lectures.”
Brath chuckled, then turned to Tyber. “So can you prepare a drawing compound?”
Dragonjacks: Book 1 - The Shepherd: A Dragons of Cadwaller Novel Page 7