Kaeldra stroked Lyf’s face and felt a dread and a hopelessness. Fiora reared up in her mind, filled her thoughts.
“The milk was taking, Kael,” Mirym said, as though trying to console her for letting them down. “It just wasn’t—”
“I know. It wasn’t enough.”
As Lyf grew worse, Kaeldra often caught Ryfenn staring at her, as if Lyf’s illness were somehow her fault. Sometimes, as Ryfenn turned away, Kaeldra thought she saw her move her thumb and little finger in the sign-against-evil. Once Kaeldra let a mug slip from her hands; it broke upon the floor.
“Isn’t that just like you,” Ryfenn snapped. “Breaking things, losing your amulet. Now you’ll never marry, and you’ll be on my hands forever.”
On the fourteenth day, the day Fiora had commanded Kaeldra to return, Granmyr came to where she was tending sheep in the graze. Kaeldra watched as she picked her way up the snow-patched hillside, surrounded by a shifting tide of sheep. She sat by Kaeldra, on a boulder near the blackwood copse. “Lyf needs more milk,” Granmyr said.
Kaeldra picked at the moss on the boulder. She knew it.
“When will you go?”
A newborn lamb bleated pitifully. Behind her, Kaeldra felt the shadow of the mountains stretch down and chill her back.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
Granmyr’s hand lightly touched her own. “I know, child,” she said. “But you must.”
“Couldn’t someone else go?”
Granmyr shook her head. “I’ll say that I sent you for medicine. Mirym can tend the flock.”
“I’m afraid,” Kaeldra whispered.
“You are the one fate has named. Your eyes—”
“I don’t care about my eyes! I wish they were brown or gray or even blue. Any color but green!”
Granmyr sighed. “Kara’s gift is not an easy one to own, I grant you. Your mother—”
Kaeldra looked up. Granmyr seldom spoke of her mother. When Kaeldra had used to ask about her, Granmyr avoided answering. In time Kaeldra had come to believe that her mother had done something shameful. No one ever spoke of a father, and Kaeldra was afraid to ask.
“Your mother was forced to flee Kragrom, for the ruling powers feared her gift. They thought she possessed a wizardry that could one day overthrow them. She was the last of Kara’s heirs, except, of course, for you. She was ill and knew she had not long to live. So he sent the two of you to me.”
“Who sent us? My father?”
“No. He was killed in the wars long before. It was—Hush!” Granmyr gripped Kaeldra’s hand. Then Kaeldra heard it, too, a thundering in the ground.
And a motley troop of horsemen galloped up from the valley, scattering sheep. Kaeldra jumped up to collect the flock, but Granmyr would not release her hand.
“What do you want?” Granmyr demanded of the leader, Rhyll Ilyff, the smithy. Behind him, shifting uneasily in their saddles, were men from neighboring farms and from the village of Wyrmward.
“Move aside, old woman. We would speak with the green-eyed one.”
Granmyr pulled Kaeldra behind her, which was absurd, for the top of Granmyr’s head came only to Kaeldra’s chin. “The only eyes here are brown and hazel. Unless you would speak with sheep—”
Rhyll Ilyff leaned forward in his saddle, anger darkening his face. “That girl’s eyes are green enough for our purpose.”
“And what would that be?”
“You know very well, old woman. A dragon menaces the crofts of Elythia; the Kragish youth tells it. A green-eyed one could track the beast, bring us glory in place of shame. Now move aside!”
Granmyr did not budge. Rhyll Ilyff spurred his horse forward; Kaeldra grabbed Granmyr, twisted away and fell, dragging the old woman down with her. But Granmyr shook her off and rose to her feet, shouting, “You, Yan Styval! You bounced Kaeldra on your knee when she was little more than a babe. And now you would send her to track dragons?”
Yan looked embarrassed and squirmed in his saddle. “She always was a strange one,” he muttered.
“And you, Jayk Pyreth, and you, Brys Wyffad, and—Wynn Calyff! Does your mother know you’re here?”
Wynn’s face reddened. He did not meet Granmyr’s eyes. “Yes, she—no, she—I can do what I please; I’m grown now, I don’t have to ask my mother.”
“Grown, are you? Come to get a young girl to do your work. And what would you do? Tie her up like a horse thief and flog her until she produces your dragon? Is this the glory of which you speak? Shame on you! Shame on you all!”
“Don’t listen to the old shrew!” Rhyll Ilyff spun round and addressed the men. “We won’t hurt the girl. She’s got green eyes. I told you what that means. She likely knows where it is even now!”
But the others were muttering amongst themselves, casting furtive glances at Granmyr and Kaeldra. Brys Wyffad turned his horse around and headed back across the graze. Then, two and three at a time, the others followed.
“Cowards!” shouted their leader, galloping after them. “Afraid of an old woman and a girl!”
When the last faint hoofbeat had stilled, Granmyr turned to Kaeldra.
“You must go to the dragon,” she said. “You must leave tonight.”
chapter 8
Six pewter spoons, two sheep, one leather boot, four apples, one ox-yoke, one ox, one leather jerkin, seventeen fish, one pair linen trousers, five anchor-weight crushed limestone.
—Being the contents
of the stomach
of a dragon slain near Rog,
A Historie of Dragons
hello?”
Kaeldra’s voice washed back at her from deep within the cave. She stood in the dappled light, peering into the darkness, waiting, she didn’t know for what. Not a greeting, certainly. Perhaps some sign the dragons had heard her. At the very least, a sign the dragons were there.
But she knew they were there, or had been recently. She had seen the heat-shimmer above the snow; she had passed, near the cave mouth, the eruption of greenery, outlandish in a world glazed white.
Kaeldra edged inside, uneasy. It was warm, as she had remembered. Behind, she could hear the drip of meltwater on stone. Ahead, she could make out the shapes of boulders and rock heaps and the track that wound down among them into the shadows.
Kaeldra knelt and untied her blanket roll. She had better light her torch here where she could still see.
The chink of iron on flint echoed loudly in the cave. Now she must know I’m here, she thought. Why doesn’t she do something? Kaeldra tried to imagine the dragons, far back in the second cavern. Fiora must be doing something. But what?
A spark lit on the punk; Kaeldra blew to kindle it and dropped it on the torch. She retied her blanket roll and walked with the torch down the track through the cavern and into the passage beyond, darkness creeping ever closer. Her shadow blackened, split, flared out from her feet in a quavery wedge.
A sudden smoky odor, different from the torch smell, filled her nose. Kaeldra’s neck prickled. Just walk, she told herself.
A tingling sensation inside her head. Not a headache, but more like the beginning of a sneeze or the way a feather would feel if it got inside and tickled.
Kaeldra stopped. Something about that feeling, something—
Whonk! Something hurtled through the air, clawed at her shoulder, and thudded at her feet.
She screamed. Her torch slipped out of her hands. Darkness flooded in.
Something attacked the backs of her thighs, then slid to the ground.
Still screaming, Kaeldra whirled around. She ran back the way she had come, feeling her way along the bumpy cave walls. Something pounced on her back, clung to her blanket roll. She tried to shake it off, but it stuck fast, jouncing as she ran.
A faint light ahead. The cavern. Run!
The cave opened up; a sudden pain stabbed at her toes. She lurched forward, slammed into the sand.
〈Get back in there!〉
The voice was a ripping inside Kaeldra
’s head. A hot wind scorched her face. Sparks streaked past, and beyond them green eyes flashed in a glittering sea of scales.
Fiora.
Kaeldra’s three small attackers scurried past her into the cave. One of them was dragging her torn blanket.
The dragon watched them go, then turned to glare at Kaeldra. 〈You’re late.〉
She had forgotten how much it hurt. The voice felt like an orange-hot ball of metal, a molten mass inside her head. The hurt was so bad, Kaeldra couldn’t comprehend the words until the voice stopped and the words pulsed in her mind, an afterglow of pain.
“I—couldn’t get away. I—”
〈You’re lying.〉
Pain again. Fiora’s breath-stench lay heavy in the air; Kaeldra nearly retched. She wanted to deny the lie, but felt the truth trailing toward Fiora like a draft-tugged wisp of smoke: 〈I did not want to come.〉
〈Hah!〉 Fiora snorted. 〈But you did come. Why?〉
“I need more milk,” Kaeldra whispered.
〈That wasn’t our bargain! You are beholden to me!〉 Fiora’s rage flamed a jagged path through Kaeldra’s head.
“I know. But Lyf will die. I need more milk.”
〈It will cost you.〉
“I know.”
The dragon turned toward the cave mouth, and Kaeldra felt again the yearning she had felt the last time she was there. She felt a buoying up, a sense of joy and flight and freedom.
Then Fiora’s voice cut her off.
〈I go now. When I return, you may have your milk. Then you will owe me anew. In a half-moon—no later—you will come. You will tend my draclings whilst I hunt.〉
“I will,” Kaeldra promised.
Fiora began to move, and Kaeldra scrambled out of her way, marveling, in spite of herself, at the lightness of the dragon’s gait. Fiora fairly pranced, her head held high, her body swaying gently, the tips of her talons seeming hardly to touch the ground. Her wings, streaming from her shoulders, were awash in misty rainbows; her scales glimmered emerald in the gloom.
Something caught at Kaeldra’s throat, and she forgot, for a moment, the pain of Fiora’s voice, the sharpness of her talons, the deadly conflagration of her breath.
Fiora moved into the sun, her scales exploding with light.
Kaeldra’s blanket roll had been torn off in the passage just beyond the outer cavern. She fumbled through the sand, collecting her things into a pile, barely able to see them in the gloom. The milk jar—thank the heavens—was unbroken, although the food was sandy and she could not find her flint. At last she felt it beneath a torn scrap of blanket.
She groped back through the dark passage in search of her torch, first walking and feeling for it with her feet, then scratching blindly in the cold damp sand on hands and knees. By the time she bumped into it she was chilled and dirty and out of sorts.
“The little monsters,” she muttered.
Kaeldra felt her way back to her provisions again, lit her torch and, carrying her things in her skirt, ventured back to the edge of the inner cavern. Kneeling, she dug the end of her torch into the sand, flattened herself against a recess in the wall, then peeked inside, not wanting to be ambushed again.
Illuminated by a shaft of sunlight, a dracling strutted round the cavern, trailing Kaeldra’s tattered blanket from its teeth. A smaller one, crouching, crept stealthily behind. Their birdlike talons seemed too large for their bodies; they moved with the clumsy stiffness of all young things. Yet there was an odd, lilting buoyancy to the draclings’ gait, as if they were inflated with air.
The little dracling made its move. It galloped toward the blanket and took a flying leap, its talons outstretched. At the last moment, the other dracling casually twitched the blanket away. The little one yowled plaintively and plunged to the ground, its talons clutching sand.
The next instant, the big reddish dracling plummeted through the air from its hiding place atop a tall boulder. It smacked down on the first dracling’s back, flattening it. The smitten dracling howled and turned to fight. Over and over they rolled, nipping and growling, the blanket forgotten.
But the littlest one remembered. It peered from side to side as if it couldn’t believe its luck. Then it streaked to the blanket, snatched it in its teeth, and bolted.
Kaeldra laughed aloud.
The draclings froze. They gawked at Kaeldra; then there was a sudden mad scramble for a rocky outcrop behind them.
“It’s all right,” Kaeldra said softly. “I won’t hurt you.”
No movement.
“Don’t you remember me? I was here before.” Slowly, she crept forward into the cavern.
A narrow head poked up from behind a rock. The middle-sized one, Kaeldra saw, the one that had paraded the blanket. It regarded her fiercely and snorted out a small, blue smoke-puff.
Stifling a smile, Kaeldra knelt on the floor at the center of the cavern. She emptied her provisions into the sand and separated out the food: five dried seaplums, a hunk of smoked rabbit meat, a wedge of cheese, four pilfur biscuits. She sat by the food, talking softly.
One by one, the draclings’ heads appeared above the rocks. They stared at Kaeldra. They stared at the food. Then at last, the middle-sized one tiptoed toward her down the rock pile, and through the light patch that pooled across the sand.
Kaeldra did not move. The dracling sniffed at the cheese wedge. It picked it up in its talons and turned it over. It flicked at it with its long forked tongue. Still warily eyeing Kaeldra, it gulped the cheese whole.
With that the reddish dracling bounded forward and attacked the meat, the little one fast behind. Sooner than Kaeldra would have believed possible, the food was gone, and the draclings were snuffling about, hoping for more. The big one approached Kaeldra, nibbled her boot.
“Ouch!” Kaeldra cried. “That’s not to eat!” She reached for her waterskin. The big dracling nipped it. “No!” Kaeldra snatched the skin away. Quickly, she unstoppered it, soaked a corner of her gown and held it over her lap. The dracling bit off a hunk of cloth. “No, no! To drink!” Kaeldra trickled a thread of water onto the dracling’s nose. It backed away, blinking, shaking its head. Then it flicked its tongue and slowly crept near.
Kaeldra wrung the water out of her gown. The dracling flicked its tongue to catch the drops. Soon all three draclings were gathered around her lap, flicking their long forked tongues, drinking. They were larger than before, the size of foxes, only longer. Up close, Kaeldra saw that they were moulting. Their skins looked like too-tight suits of clothes, bursting at the seams, peeling away at heads and claws, exposing row upon row of tiny new scales, thin and translucent as a baby’s fingernails. The big one’s scales had a mottled, coppery red tint; the other two were a pale yellow-green.
Gently, Kaeldra touched the middle-sized one. She stroked the bony ridges above its eyes. She ran her hand across its pointy crest and down the serrated ridges that jutted from its spine. Fiora’s crest and ridge were rigid; the draclings’ were soft and floppy.
A gentle vibration began in Kaeldra’s head, a sort of thrumming that she felt rather than heard. The middle-sized dracling tipped up its head and flicked its tongue at her cheek, its throat vibrating like the low string on a harp. Its breath was warm. It smelled like burnt toast. The big one gently nibbled and sucked at her fingers; the littlest curled up in her lap.
And the thrumming thrummed louder until it pulsed through her blood: the music of dragons inside her.
chapter 9
And dragons, being kin to avian beings, oft commune with birds, and eat not the flesh thereof.
—The Bok of Dragon
Kaeldra went often to care for the draclings, almost every quarter-moon. She left before dawn and took a roundabout route so the dragon hunters could not track her. They seemed not to be searching near Myrrathog in any event, but somewhere to the south. Each time, she returned with milk; Lyf improved day by day. Each time, Fiora extracted from Kaeldra a promise to return.
The draclings greete
d her at the cave mouth when she came. They pushed their noses against her, looking for treats. Kaeldra brought them nuts and dried apples and cheeses. They especially liked the cheese.
Sometimes the draclings jostled her so hard she nearly fell. “Settle down,” Kaeldra would say, laughing, until once, after Fiora had left, she did fall, and there was a burning along her wrist. Blood welled in dark drops from a long, jagged scratch. “Now look what you’ve done,” Kaeldra cried. She blotted the blood with a corner of her gown, and at once there was a jolt in her mind, a sudden sadness.
And the middle-sized dracling was looking at her, was regarding her as if it had said something and expected a reply.
“It’s all right,” Kaeldra said, although the wound still burned. “Only a cut.”
The dracling tipped its narrow head and flicked its tongue at Kaeldra’s cheek. It, like the others, had shed its baby skin and gleamed, head to tail, with hard, mottle-hued scales. Only their back ridges and undersides were soft; and there, on the leathery hide just below this dracling’s jaw line, Kaeldra scratched. The dracling thrummed, its eyes glazing over in bliss. Such a sweet thing, Kaeldra thought. And I don’t even have a name for you.
There was a tingling sensation in her head, a prickling that gathered and grew until it made a word in her mind: 〈Embyr.〉
“Embyr,” Kaeldra said, trying it on her tongue. “Is that your name?”
Looking into the green dracling’s eyes, she knew that it was.
The largest dracling nudged Kaeldra’s elbow, knocking her arm away from Embyr. Kaeldra laughed. “Do you want to tell me your name, too?” She held its head in her hands, stroked the copper red scales. “All right. I’m listening.”
〈Pyro,〉 she felt.
And Kaeldra knew, although she did not know how she knew, that Pyro was a male, whereas Embyr was female.
Something touched Kaeldra’s arm. The smallest dracling licked her fingers.
〈Synge.〉
“Oh, Synge,” Kaeldra said, and gathered the little green female into her lap. Synge nibbled at Kaeldra’s fingers. Life pulsed in the dracling’s throat.
There was a sudden clattering, and Kaeldra looked round to see her blanket roll unrolled, its contents strewn across the sand. Embyr and Pyro nosed about, looking for something to eat.
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