Rain Wild Chronicles 02 - Dragon Haven

by Robin Hobb

  Despite his plea, water slopped against his face again. His stupid sister was going to get it now!

  He opened his eyes to a new nightmare. He dangled face-down from the jaws of a dragon. The dragon was swimming in a white river. The sky had the uncertain light of dawn. Sedric’s head was barely above the water. He could feel the dragon’s teeth pressed lightly against the skin of his back and chest. His arms and legs were outside the dragon’s mouth, dragging through the water. The water pushed against the swimming dragon, shoving them steadily downstream. And the dragon was tired. She swam with a dogged one-two, one-two stroke of her front legs. He turned his head and saw that only the dragon’s front shoulders and head were still above water. The copper was sinking. And when her strength gave out and she went down, Sedric would go with her.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice a croak.

  Big water. She gurgled her response, but the words formed in his mind. She pressed an image at him, a crashing wave of white filled with rocks and logs and dead animals. Even now, the moving face of the river was littered with flotsam. She swam downstream beside a tangled mat of creepers and small bits of driftwood. A dead animal’s hoofed feet were partially visible in it. The river caught the tangle and spun it, and it dispersed.

  “What happened to everyone else?” The dragon gave him no response. He was so close to the water’s surface that he had no perspective. Nothing but water everywhere. Could that be so? He turned his head slowly from side to side. No Tarman. No boat. No keepers, no other dragons. Just himself, the copper dragon, the wide white river, and the forest in the distance.

  He tried to recall what had come before. He’d left the boat. He’d spoken to Thymara. He’d gone looking for the dragon. He’d intended to resolve his situation. Somehow. And there his recall of events ended. He shifted in the dragon’s mouth. That woke points of pain where the dragon’s teeth pressed against him. His dangling legs were cold and nearly numb. The skin of his face stung. He tried to move his arms and found he could, but even that small shift made the dragon’s head wobble. She caught herself and swam on, but now he was barely out of the water. The river threatened to start sloshing into her gullet.

  He looked to see how far away the shore was, but could not find any shore. To one side of them, he saw a line of trees sticking out of the water. When he turned his eyes the other way, he saw only more river. When had it become so wide? He blinked, trying to make his eyes focus. Day was growing stronger around them, and light bounced off the white surface of the river. There was no shore under the trees; the river was in a flood stage.

  And the dragon was swimming downriver with the current.

  “Copper,” he said, trying to get her attention. She paddled doggedly onward.

  He searched his mind and came up with her name. “Relpda. Swim toward the shore. Not down the river. Swim toward the trees. Over there.” He started to lift an arm to point, but moving hurt and when he shifted, the dragon turned her head, nearly putting his face in the water. She kept paddling steadily downstream.

  “Curse you, listen to me! Turn toward the shore! It’s our only hope. Carry me over there, by the trees, and then you can do what you wish. I don’t want to die in this river.”

  If she even noticed he was speaking to her, he could not tell. One-two, one-two. He rocked with the dogged rhythm of her paddling.

  He wondered if he could swim to the trees on his own. He’d never been a strong swimmer, but the fear of drowning might lend him a bit of strength. He flexed his legs experimentally, earning himself another dunk in the river and the knowledge that he was chilled to the bone. If the dragon didn’t carry him to shore, he wasn’t going to get there. And the way she was swimming now made him doubt that even she could make it. But she was his only chance, if he could get her to listen to him.

  He thought of Alise and Sintara. He lifted a hand to touch Relpda’s jaw, flesh to scale. His hands were tender, the skin deeply wrinkled from immersion in the river. They were red, too, and he suspected that if he warmed them up, they’d burn. He couldn’t think about that now.

  “Beauteous one,” he began, feeling foolish. Almost immediately, he felt a warm spark of attention in his mind. “Lovely copper queen, gleaming like a freshly minted coin. You of the swirling eyes and glistening scales, please hear me.”

  Hear you.

  “Yes, hear me. Turn your head. Do you see the trees there, sticking up from the water? Lovely one, if you carried me there, we could both rest. I could groom you and perhaps find you some food. I know you are hungry. I feel it.” That, he realized, was disconcertingly true. And if he let his mind wander there, he felt her increasing weariness, too. Back away from that! “Let us go there so you can take the rest you so richly deserve, and I can have the pleasure of cleaning your face of mud.”

  He was not very good at it. Other than telling her she was pretty, he had no idea of what compliments would please a dragon. After he had spoken, he waited for a response from her. She turned her head, looked at the trees and kept paddling. They were not headed straight for the shore, but at least now, at some point, they’d connect with it.

  “You are so wise, lovely copper one. So pretty and beautiful and shining and copper. Swim toward the trees, clever, pretty dragon.”

  He sensed again that warm touch and felt oddly moved by it. The aches in his body seemed to lessen as well. It didn’t seem to matter that his words were simple and ungraceful. He fed her praise, and she responded by turning more sharply toward the river’s edge and swimming more strongly. For an instant, he felt what that extra effort cost her. He felt almost shamed that he asked it of her. “But if I do not, neither of us will survive,” he muttered, and felt a shadow of agreement from her.

  As they got closer to the trees, his heart sank. The river had expanded its flow; there was no shore under the eaves of the forest, not even a muddy one. There was only the impenetrable line of trees, their trunks like the bars of a cage that would hold Relpda out in the river. In the shadow of the canopy, the pale water was a quiet lake without shores that spread off into the darkness.

  Only one section of shore offered him hope. In an alcove of the surrounding trees, limbs and logs and branches had been packed together by a back current. All sorts of broken tree limbs and bits of driftwood and even substantial timbers had piled up there in a floating logjam. It didn’t look promising. But once he was there, he could climb out of the water and perhaps dry off before nightfall.

  That was as much as he could offer himself. No hot food and comforting drink, no dry, clean change of clothing, not even a rude pallet on which to lie down; nothing awaited him there but the bare edge of survival.

  And even less for the dragon, he suspected. Whereas the wedged logs and matted driftwood might offer him a place to stand, she had no such hope. She swam with all her energy now, but it would avail her nothing. No hope for her and very little for him.

  Not save me?

  “We’ll try. I don’t know how, but we’ll try.”

  For an extended moment, he felt her absence from his mind. He became aware of how his skin stung, how her teeth dug into him. His aching muscles shrieked at him, and cold both numbed and burned him. Then she came back, bringing her warmth and pushing his misery aside.

  Can save you, she announced.

  Affection he could feel enfolded him. Why? he wondered. Why did she care about him?

  Less lonely. You make sense of world. Talk to me. Her warmth wrapped him.

  Sedric drew breath. All his life, he’d been aware that people loved him. His parents loved him. Hest had loved him, he thought. Alise did. He’d known of love and accepted that it existed for him. But never before had he actually felt love as a physical sensation that emanated from another creature and warmed and comforted him. It was incredible. A slow thought came to him.

  Can you feel it when I care about you?

  Sometimes. Her reply was guarded. I know it’s not real, sometimes. But kind words, pretty words, fee
l good even if not real. Like remembering food when hungry.

  Sudden shame flooded him. He took a slow breath and opened his gratitude to her. He let his thanks flow out of him, that she forgave him for taking her blood, that she had saved him, that she would continue to struggle on his behalf when he could not offer her definite hope of sanctuary.

  As if he had poured oil on a fire, her warmth and regard for him grew. He actually felt his body physically warm, and suddenly her dogged one-two, one-two paddling grew stronger. Together they just might survive. Both of them.

  For the first time in many years, he closed his eyes and breathed a heartfelt prayer to Sa.

  “TAKE YOUR FOOD and get up there. Keep looking,” Leftrin told Davvie. “I want you up on top of the deckhouse, scanning in all directions. Look on the water, look for anyone clinging to debris, look at the trees and up in the trees. Keep looking. And keep blowing that horn. Three long blasts and then stop and listen. Then three long blasts again.”

  “Yessir,” Davvie said faintly.

  “You can do it,” Carson said behind him. He gave the exhausted boy a pat on the shoulder that was half a push. The boy snatched up two rounds of ship’s bread and his mug of tea and left the deckhouse.

  “He’s a good lad. I know he’s tired,” Leftrin said. It was half apology for treating the boy so gruffly and half thanks for being able to use him.

  “He wants to find them as much as anyone else here. He’ll keep going as long as he can.” Carson hesitated, then plunged on with, “What about Tarman? Can he help us with the search?”

  He meant well, Leftrin reminded himself. Nonetheless. He was an old friend, not part of the crew. Some things weren’t spoken of outside that family, not even to old friends. “We’re using the barge in every possible way, Carson, short of having it sprout wings and fly over the river. What can you expect of a ship?”

  “Of course.” Carson bobbed a nod that he understood and would ask no more. His deference bothered Leftrin almost as much as his question had. He knew he was short-tempered; grief tore at his heart even as he clutched at hope and kept desperately searching. Alise. Alise, my darling. Why did we hold back, if only to lose each other this way?

  It wasn’t just the woman, though Sa knew that overwhelmed him and ruined his brain for cold logic. All the youngsters, every one of them was missing. Every dragon, gone. And Sedric. If he found Alise but had to tell her he had lost Sedric, what would she think of him? And all the dragons gone, and her dreams gone with them. He knew how she felt about the dragons and the keepers. He had failed her, utterly failed her. There could be no good end to this search. None at all.

  “Leftrin!”

  He startled at his name and saw by Carson’s face that he’d been trying to talk to him. “Sorry. Too long with no sleep,” he said gruffly.

  The hunter nodded sympathetically and rubbed at his own bloodshot eyes. “I know. We’re all tired. We’re damn lucky that tired is all we are. You’re a bit beat up, and Eider may have a few cracked ribs, but by and large, we came through it intact. And we all know that we’ll rest later. For right now, this is what I propose. My boat stayed with the Tarman; luckily I’ve the habit of bringing it aboard and lashing it down each night. I propose I take the spare ship’s horn and set out on my own. I’ll shoot down the river a ways, fast as I can, and then go right along the shore and search under the trees. You follow, but taking your time and searching carefully. Every so often, I’ll blow three long blasts, just like Davvie, to let you know where I am and that I’m still searching. If either of us finds anything, we’ll use three short blasts to call the other.”

  Leftrin listened grimly. He knew what Carson was implying. Bodies. He’d be looking for bodies, and for survivors in such poor condition that they could not signal their rescuers. It made sense. Tarman had been proceeding very slowly, first moving up the river to approximately where the wave had first struck them and then back down again, searching both the river’s face and the shoreline. Carson’s little boat could catch the current and shoot swiftly down to where they had begun to search and move downriver from there, searching the shallows.

  “Do you need anyone with you?”

  Carson shook his head. “I’d rather leave Davvie safe here with you. And I’ll go alone. If I find anyone, the boat’s small, and I’ll want to bring them on board right away.”

  “Three short blasts will mean we’ve found something. Even if it’s only a body?”

  Carson thought, then shook his head. “Neither of us can do anything for a body. No sense one of us summoning the other and taking a chance on missing a survivor. I’ll want some oil and one of the big cookpots. If we don’t meet up before nightfall, I’ll pull in, make a fire in the pot, and overnight there. The fire will keep me warm and serve as a beacon to anyone who might see it. And if I find someone near nightfall, I can use the horn and the firepot to guide you to us.”

  Leftrin nodded. “Take a good supply of rations and water. If you find anyone, they may be in bad shape. You’ll need them.”

  “I know.”

  “Good luck, then.”

  “Sa’s blessing on you.”

  Such words coming from the hunter made Leftrin feel even grimmer. “Sa’s blessing,” he replied and watched the man turn and go. “Please, please, find her,” he whispered, and then he went back up on deck to put his own eyes on the river.

  As he joined his crew on the deck, he felt their sympathy for him. Swarge, Bellin, Hennesey, and hulking Eider were silent and looked aside from him, as if ashamed they could not give him what he wanted. Skelly came to his side and took his hand. He glanced down at her, seeing his niece for a moment instead of his deckhand when she met his gaze. She gave his rough hand a small squeeze; her pinched mouth and a quick nod of her head let him know that she shared his concern. With no more than that, she left him and went back to her watching post. They are a good crew, he thought with a tight throat. Without a quibble, they had followed him on this jaunt up the river into unknown territory. Part of it was because that was the type of river folk they were: curious, adventurous, and confident of their skills. But a good part of it was that they would go where he and Tarman went. He commanded their lives. Sometimes that knowledge humbled him.

  He wondered why he had bothered being evasive with Carson. The man was no fool. The crew’s charade would not have fooled him for long. He knew the boat was sentient, and if he’d had any doubts, Tarman’s rescue of Leftrin last night would have dispersed them. When he’d shouted, the barge had come straight to him, and despite the current, had held himself steady in the river until his captain was safe aboard him again.

  Wrapped in a blanket but still dripping, shivering, he’d gone into the galley. “Is Alise all right?” he’d demanded, and the faces of his crew had told him all.

  He hadn’t slept since then. And he wouldn’t sleep until he found her.

  THE TANGLE OF floating debris was both too thick and not solid enough.

  Relpda had carried Sedric to it. Once she had got close to it, she had pushed her way into it like a spoon pushing through thick soup. Driftwood and matted brambles, leafy branches and long, dead logs, freshly torn trees and wads of grasses had given way to her shoving and then closed up behind her. Chesting against the mess, she had either judged it solid or close enough, for she had dropped him. He’d fallen from her jaws athwart a couple of floating logs and started to slip between them. His stiff limbs had screamed as he frantically moved them, thrashing and crawling until he was on the larger and thicker of the logs. There he had clung, and he felt how it bobbed in the current. Worse, he felt how it shifted and threatened to break away from the tangled mess along the shoreline as the frantic dragon pawed and bumped at it as she attempted to clamber on top of it.

  “It won’t hold you, Relpda. Stop. Stop tearing it apart. You can’t get on top of this; it’s just floating bits of wood and reeds.” He moved away from her to a part of the raft that her struggles were not affecting so violen
tly. He could feel her rising panic coupled with her weariness and despair. She was tired, and he knew guiltily that if she had abandoned him, her reserves of strength would have been much greater. He wondered again why she had saved him at obvious cost to herself.

  Then he wondered why he was doing nothing to save her.

  There was a quick and guilty answer to that. Once she had drowned, she’d be out of his head forever. He’d know his thoughts were completely his own again. When he went back to Bingtown, he could live just as he always had and—

  He thrust his selfishness aside. He was never going back to Bingtown. He was on a raft of debris over an acidic river. He inspected his stinging arms; the exposed skin looked like cured meat. No telling what the rest of him looked like and he was too cowardly to look. A shudder of chill ran over him. He hugged himself and tried to consider the incomprehensible situation he found himself in. Everything he had depended on in this savage place was gone. No ship, no crewmen, no hunters. No supplies of any kind. Alise was probably already dead, her body floating in the river somewhere. Sorrow smote him; he tried to push it aside. He had to clear his mind, or he’d join her.

  What was he going to do? He had no tools, no fire, no shelter, no food, and no knowledge of how to get any of that for himself. He looked at the copper. He’d told her the truth. He had no idea of how he could save her. If the dragon died, the river would wash her away, and then he would die, too. Probably slowly. And alone. With no way to move up or down the river.

  Right now, the dragon represented his only chance at getting out of here. She was his only ally. She’d risked her life for him. And asked so little of him in return.

  Relpda gave a short trumpet, and he looked back at her. She’d pushed her way deeper into the floating wreckage. She’d hooked one of her forelegs over the end of a substantial log and was struggling to lift her other front leg over, but she was at the narrow end of the long, dead tree. As she put her weight on it, the log bobbed under. The log was threatening to slip out from under her and shoot up into the air. And the danger was great that she would sink beneath the floating debris.