The action still moved away from me. As Malik chased a soldier into the small waterfall, his wings behind him as a shield, all eyes turned their way. Screams and splashing and a horrible crunching noise echoed off the stone. I sidestepped quickly along the cave wall, fighting dry heaves, weeping. My boot snagged in the blood-soaked cloak of one of the newly dead. I pulled it free, stumbled again, continued toward the charnel wagon.
Malik charged again, and the action turned my way once more. I crouched as the swarm of shouting Harodhi wheeled past. One man spotted me and paused, confused. In that instant Malik stepped on him, dug his talons in, and ran after another man with the first still in his grasp. The man’s screams ended abruptly, and Malik discarded the crumpled body.
I lurched sideways, hoping beyond hope that I could slip past this conflict and into the cave unseen. I didn’t know if I would find my qit, or what I should do if I did. One step at a time. Keep moving.
Another soldier spied me, shouted, and other heads turned. He and a companion broke from the combat and ran my way. I loosed a bolt and hit the lead man in the chest. He fell backward like a sack full of meat. His companion raised his crossbow and aimed at me. I darted to one side and back again, then dashed for a boulder. I heard the snap of his crossbow and a sharp crack behind me, then took a misstep and fell.
The soldier stalked toward me as I scrambled to my feet. He tossed his crossbow aside and pulled a wicked, curved sword from his belt. I stepped into the foot strap of my bow, cocked the lever, fumbled and caused the bow to snap out of my grasp. I tried to back up, but tripped on my bow and fell.
Out of nowhere, Malik appeared, took the Harodhi in his jaws, and shook him like a rag. The man died with a burbling scream. Malik turned as arrows bounced off his haunches or pierced him, and leapt back into the fray.
“Avar Avar Avar Avar . . .” I panted as I put a boulder to my back. I found my bow, cocked it successfully this time, and loaded another quarrel. For what seemed an eternity, I sat gasping for breath, retching, listening to cries and crossbows snapping, roars of anger and pain, other noises too horrible to contemplate.
The cave ran back in a maze of crumbling stalactites and stalagmites, spotted with woven piles of branches and bones—the nests of dragons. It narrowed ahead, disappearing into a black crevice. I summoned my courage, gathered my things, and ran.
A roar behind me turned my head. Malik galloped after me. I dodged around a stalagmite, stumbled, scrambled back. Malik accelerated, nose wrinkled, eyes dark with fury. I passed a group of men sitting upright in bedrolls, crossbows leveled, wrapped in bloodied bandages. They looked past me at Malik, their faces contorted with fear. When he charged, they loosed as a group. He paused to rip them from their beds. Then a volley of crossbow bolts stung his rear legs and tail. He whirled about, growling and snarling.
I sprinted deeper into the cave, tripping at least twice on rocks or debris obscured by shadow, before finding the wagon tracks of the poachers. I careened on. The cavern walls closed in on either side, visible only by virtue of bright highlights on a wet surface, reflections of the distant opening behind me. The floor dropped, and I realized that I was running downhill. I collapsed to my knees, bloody palms grating on a rough stone floor.
Behind me: roars, shouts, crossbows, screams. Ahead of me: fathomless darkness.
I crept forward blindly, hand extended, testing each step. The sounds of battle were dwindling. I had to hurry.
The cave was deeper than I imagined and thick with the stench of rotting meat. Something snapped under my foot and flew up, hitting me in the face. I fell, and my hands landed on a jumbled bed of bones, inches deep. There were bones everywhere; this was a lair long used by dragons. I tried to push myself up, and my fingers found something wet and mushy. I recoiled in disgust. There was no way to know what it was.
I stood, and for a minute battled vertigo in the absolute dark. I attempted to find the wheel track, stumbled again, hit my head on a hanging pillar of stone and fell. I struggled to my feet and stood frozen, completely disoriented.
The full weight of my situation drove me to my knees again. I’d come here seeking redemption but found only death and terror. I tried to remember the feelings awakened in me by the appearance of the Summer Dragon, but they wouldn’t come. Even Getig had been reduced to an empty uncertainty. I was abandoned and utterly alone. It had all gone horribly, horribly wrong. My mother’s curse echoed in my memory.
Behind me, the din of battle ended. The only sound was dripping water.
“Getig, what am I doing here?” I whispered.
From somewhere ahead, a baby dragon keened and chuffed with a tiny voice, then mowped for food. My heart skipped a beat. There followed a harsh shout, the clang of metal on metal, and fearful keening.
NINETEEN
I REALIZED THAT MY eyes had adjusted to the lack of light. The cave opening was well behind me—I’d come farther than I thought—but enough light leaked in to reveal a forest of strange stone columns like poured wax, the floor carpeted with bones, and dragons’ nests in every open space. A passage had been cleared through the boneyard, grooved with wheel tracks winding deeper into the cavern. I took a few deep breaths. Somewhere ahead was a trapped and frightened baby who needed me.
I dried my eyes, checked to see that my bow was still cocked and loaded, then gathered my quiver, my knapsack, and my resolve. I picked my way through the bones as quietly as possible and followed the track down.
Bit by bit, the light source changed. The thin blue light of day fell away behind me, and the diffuse orange glow of a lantern bloomed somewhere ahead. Hushed voices echoed in the Harodhi’s clipped tongue. I slipped carefully off the track and peered out from between the columns.
The way opened up into a natural chamber with fewer columns and a flat, sandy floor. The lantern sat on a boulder to the rear, throwing everything into bright relief with long, stark shadows. Two dragon hides were stretched across frames of tentpole pine to dry slowly in the cool cavern air. Against a low wall to the right, innumerable hides were folded and piled like blankets. Racks and racks of dried meat hung near the blackened pit of a cold fire.
Barrels streaked with black stains waited on carts. Dragon bones had been sorted and stacked by kind against the opposite wall; leg bones like firewood, wing bones like a delicate nest of kindling, ribs like barrel staves, vertebra like spiny stumps. Skulls.
More than two dozen of them, five or more from adults, but mostly juveniles. There were surprisingly few qitling skulls, however, and I reflected again on the bizarre mutilations of the qits outside.
Here was the center of their horrible enterprise, their stockpiled bounty. But where had all the babies gone? What was in the barrels? Blood? Why?
Anger welled up inside me, and it felt good. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t doubt. It was clean and straight and sharp as an arrow. It had purpose and direction. I breathed deeply and quietly, nostrils flared, as if anger was a form of sustenance I could take into my body through my lungs.
Four Harodhi warriors were gathered in quiet argument. I guessed that they debated how to respond to the noises from without. With their heads uncovered, I clearly saw their white hair and translucent skin, ghostly and strange. Behind them was the cart with the cage on it. The two donkeys were still hitched to the cart with their muzzles in feedbags, but their feet were hobbled.
Almost lost in the expanse of the cage was the baby. My heart raced at the sight of it, huddled into a corner, eyes wide, top frill laid back close to the neck in fear, wings instinctively crossed before it in defense. No bigger than a medium-sized dog or bobcat, plus wings. I instantly longed to reach out and caress the soft, dry scales of its neck, to comfort it and give it something to eat. So much like Malik with its tan and silver markings. Beautiful.
One of the ghostlike Harodhi called out, echoes fleeting away. When no answer came, he gave an order. One of the men
lit another lantern and pointed it up the slope. I ducked to avoid being seen or blinded. As they slinked upslope toward the opening, their light cast bizarre swinging shadows that confused the vista of the cavern. They passed me by, all four of them, without so much as a backward glance.
I waited until they were well up the trail, then slipped around the pillar and approached the cage. They’d left a lantern behind, and the baby’s silver markings twinkled in the light. It was curled into a ball, shivering, keening faintly, its little head tucked under a wing.
I slowed my step. I didn’t want to scare it. “Hi, baby.” I kept my voice soft and quiet, not quite a whisper. “Shhh shhh shhh.” Then I purred as best I could, the way a mother dragon soothes her qits to sleep. It was hard to maintain, as I had to do it with my tongue, whereas a dragon dam rumbled deep in her throat. But the little head appeared out from under the wing. The silver eyes that studied me were wide and trembling.
“Oh, High Ones, but you are cute.” I’d said it before I knew the words were coming. “How could anyone do to you what . . .”
The baby keened unhappily, and I fell silent until it stopped.
It looked malnourished, but not desperately so. Some rib showed, but its belly was still round. It seemed that Malik had kept it fed before the Harodhi arrived. Yet the mowping told me it was hungry, that the poachers hadn’t been feeding it well, if at all. I looked around to see what they had to offer. There was nothing here but dried dragon meat. Couldn’t they have provided anything else? My nose wrinkled in disgust at their amateurism. Of course it was starving—even an infant dragon knew better than to eat of its own kind.
Slowly I pulled my knapsack off and reversed it, so that it was hanging in front of me. Then I pulled out a piece of venison and held it into the cage. Baby’s nose twitched, and it unfurled its wings. As I looked for the sheath scales between the rear legs, uncertainty reared up again. If this were a little male, all my efforts would be undone. I needed a dam for Darian’s little sire.
But the sheath scales were well behind the pubic bone and facing rearward. “You’re a little girl . . .” Relief calmed my breathing. She stood awkwardly and paced back and forth in the cage, eyeing the meat in my hand, but unwilling to take it.
“Mowp?” I imitated her request for food. Then I purred some more. She stopped and cocked her head at me. It shouldn’t have been comical in these circumstances, but I couldn’t help smiling. Her eyes were so reflective—silver like her father’s—her ear and top frills perfect the way only a baby’s could be. Her broad chest and big feet indicated plenty of growth to come. She was a perfectly formed, perfectly beautiful qitling.
“Come on, baby,” I cooed. “I know you’re hungry. Come and eat. Mowp?”
The door of the cage was closed and latched, but it had no lock. I opened it so I could reach further in. She wailed lightly, so I gently eased the door the rest of the way to prevent it clanging against the bars. I was anxious for her to come to me; soon the Harodhi would return—or worse, Malik. I needed to win enough trust to get her into my knapsack, where the swaddling effect would calm her further, just like a human baby.
At last hunger decided for her. She approached cautiously, then stretched out her neck and gingerly took the meat from my hand. She dropped it to the cage floor and watched me until I withdrew my hand. Then she sniffed at the meat, licked it twice, and wolfed it down.
I purred, said, “Mowp?” again, and offered her another piece of venison. She took it more willingly this time, and swallowed it without the taste-test. I purred to encourage her. Qits at this age were ready to bond. I was counting on that. I hopped onto the cart and sat in the doorway of the cage. She retreated into her corner again. “Hungry baby?” I took out another piece of meat and held it forward with my right hand, reaching out with my empty left hand, too.
As she returned for the treat, I allowed my left-hand fingers to brush lightly against her cheek. I purred and cooed. She didn’t recoil from my touch, but came closer, sniffing at my pack, clearly starving. I reached in for another piece of meat, and she looked me in the eye.
“Mowp?” Her voice was clear and confident. Despite myself, I stroked her jawline. She recoiled only a little bit, then allowed me to touch her again. The skin was soft and dry and smoothly pebbled—exactly as I always imagined it would feel. I gave her another piece of meat, and she allowed me to stroke the top of her head and around her mouth, my hand imitating the grooming tongue of a mother dragon after a messy meal. “Good baby!” I tried to say, but my voice cracked, and it came out a whisper. A tear spilled onto my cheek. She responded easily to my touch, even in the midst of this horror—starving, and perhaps desperate for some comfort, too. I purred for her as she ate.
Last night I’d asked myself if I was willing to die for this baby. Circumstances had forced the answer then; I had little choice. Now I could finally respond to doubt with certainty: This little life was worth fighting for.
I smiled, and stroked her head. She purred, perhaps an instinctive response to the fulfillment of her basic needs.
Suddenly there were shouts from the direction of the cave’s entrance, and a deep, angry bellow resounded through the cave. The donkeys hitched to the cart looked up in fear. Their feedbags went limp. Screams of terror and the clacking of crossbows ended in wet, crunching noises and a gurgling cry. Scuffling, huge feet cracking in the carpet of bones, another scream that ended abruptly. A crossbow snap, crunching, a burble. Then came the sound of a person running, pursued by heavier footfalls, a roar, a shriek of pain, a crack, and silence. The donkeys tested their hobbles nervously.
Heavy steps crunching through bone approached from the darkness along with whuffing and snarling, then a single loud click that echoed in the cavern.
I looked around for cover, a place to take the baby and hide. But there was nothing, and I didn’t have time to coax her into my knapsack anyway.
One of the donkeys started honking anxiously, and the other joined in. Baby held her head high in an effort to see past the edge of the light, calling plaintively. Movement beyond the pillars, silver flashing on tan. The donkeys erupted into high-pitched braying, kicking against their hobbles and the harness that strapped them to the cart. Baby cried out in fear at the sudden cacophony.
Father dragon rounded the last cluster of pillars. He panted, riddled with yet more arrows, bright blood striping his chest and legs. But he paused only long enough to take in the scene, then he launched himself at me.
I leapt backward into the cage and barely managed to close the door. His head slammed into it, rocking the cage and driving the door inward past its stop. His head entered the cage, but the twisted door was now between him and me. He snapped at me anyway with curved yellow teeth the length of daggers, limned with red along the gum line. Pink spittle struck me as he roared with breath that reeked of fresh blood. I cringed into the corner of the cage, screaming, with baby crowded next to me squealing in fear. Malik snapped and angled his head in hopes of reaching me, failed, pulled out and bit at the cage, shaking it. The donkeys brayed and bucked, their rear hooves cracking against the cart. He ignored them, buffeting the cage with his forefeet. A corner buckled. He reached into the door opening with his left paw, but an arrow snagged on the frame and he withdrew, snarling. He reached in again, his paw questing past the edge of the door. I had my knife in my hand, though I didn’t remember drawing it. I didn’t want to use it and risk angering him, even though his talons came within inches of me. I retreated as far as I could. Finally the narrowness of the opening and the arrows in his arm forced him to withdraw.
One of the donkeys broke its hobbles and attempted to run, but only pulled its teammate down. The cart lurched, knocking baby and me over. The second donkey struggled to rise, braying in fear.
Malik took the cage in his teeth and yanked. The cage pulled the cart over sideways before crashing to the ground. Baby cried out in fear. I shoute
d in pain and alarm. My crossbow went off, the arrow careening into the black. The cage landed door-side down, trapping me inside with the qit of a very angry wilding dragon. The cage wouldn’t take much more of this abuse.
The second donkey broke its hobbles and scrambled to its feet, and together the animals fled deeper into the cave with the cart scraping and bouncing on its side behind them.
A semblance of quiet returned. Malik circled the cage, studying it, growling low. Baby whimpered in fear. My knees and shins were bruised from falling on the bars of the cage. I caught my breath and rubbed them slowly, concentrating on my predicament. My knife was no longer in my hand. I scanned around until I saw it on the ground several feet away. I couldn’t reach it. Baby was in a panic, terrified by her sire’s assault. I stroked her chin and nose, purring and whispering, “Shhh, shhh, shhh . . .” Malik continued to examine us, no longer growling, but panting heavily.
I offered baby a strip of venison, but she was too frightened to take it. “Mowp?” I said, but she scrabbled at the bars, little forepaw questing out in her father’s direction. I tossed the meat out of the cage, at Malik’s feet, and said, “MOWP,” testily. He looked at it, then at me. Baby cried.
“I don’t want to hurt your baby! Can’t you see that I’m here to help?” With him mere feet away, it was clear that the arrows in his left alar pectoral were oozing pus. I wanted to cry for him. “I can’t treat your wounds; you’re too wild. But they’re infected. Poor, poor Malik. You’re in such bad shape.”
He glared at me. I avoided his eyes.
“I don’t know if you will survive. But I can care for your baby. I can! See?” Then I made mother noises and offered baby another plank of venison. Baby sniffed at it, but stuck her nose out through the bars again, keening. I petted her head, hoping that her father would see how gentle I was, how unconcerned baby was with my touch. Baby’s quivering nose led her back to the strip of venison in my hand. She ate it quickly and nosed into my knapsack for more. Relieved, I pulled out another piece for her, and she gobbled it down.
The Summer Dragon Page 15