Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Robin Hobb

  “No. Not here, at least,” Ranculos replied wearily.

  Big blue Sestican slogged his way over to them. Mud streaked his azure hide. “Then it’s agreed. Tomorrow we move on.”

  “Nothing is agreed,” Mercor replied mildly. The gold dragon opened his wings and shook them lightly. Water and mud pattered down. His peacock-eyes markings were streaked with grime. She had not seen him so dirty since they had left Cassarick.

  “Strange,” Sestican commented sourly. “It sounded to me that we had decided not to lie down and die here. So the alternative would be, I think, to keep moving on, toward Kelsingra.”

  “Kelsingra,” said Fente. She made the name sound like a curse. The little green dragon fluffed out the fronds of her immature mane. If she’d been properly grown, it would have appeared threatening. As it was, she reminded Sintara of a green-and-gold blossom on a skinny stem.

  “I, for one, see no reason to wait for the keepers. We don’t need them.” Kalo wandered over. He limbered his wings as he came, spreading their blue-black expanse and shaking them to rid them of mud. They were larger than Mercor’s. Was he attempting to remind them all that he was the largest and most powerful male?

  “You’re splattering mud all over me. Stop it.” Sintara lifted the frills along her neck, confident that her own display was at least as intimidating as his.

  “You’re so covered with mud now, I don’t know how you’d tell,” Kalo complained, but he folded his wings all the same.

  Sintara was in no mood to let him make peace so easily. “And you may not need your keeper, but I’ve a use for mine. Tomorrow I will have them both groom me. I might have to stand in mud, but there’s no reason I must wear it.”

  “Mine is negligent. Lazy. Full of himself. Angry at everyone.” Kalo’s eyes spun with anger and unhappiness.

  “Does he still think that perhaps butchering a dragon and selling him like meat would solve his problems?” Sestican baited him happily.

  Kalo rose to it. No matter how often he complained of what a poor keeper Greft was, he would not tolerate comments critical of him. Even after Greft had made his obscene suggestion, Kalo had snapped at any of the others who dared complain about him. So now he opened his jaws wide and hissed loudly at Sestican.

  He seemed as surprised as any of them when a bluish mist of venom issued from his mouth, to hang briefly in the air. Sintara lidded her eyes and turned her face away. “What are you about?” Fente demanded angrily. The little green splattered mud up on all of them as she scampered out of reach of the cloud. Sestican immediately stretched his own jaws wide and gathered breath.

  “Stop!” Mercor commanded. “Stop it, both of you!”

  He had no more right to issue orders than any other dragon. Nonetheless, that never prevented him from doing it, thought Sintara. And almost always, the others obeyed him. There was something in his bearing that commanded their respect, even their loyalty. Now he waded closer to Kalo. The big blue-black dragon stood his ground, even half lifting his wings as if he would challenge Mercor. But the golden dragon had no intention of seeking battle. Instead, he stared intently at the other big male, his black eyes whirling as if they gathered up the darkness around them.

  “Now do that again,” Mercor challenged him, but not as male to male. Rather he stared at Kalo as if he could not believe what he had witnessed. He was not alone. The other dragons, sensing something about the urgency in Mercor’s voice, were drawing nearer.

  “But downwind of us!” Sestican interjected.

  “And put some heart in it,” Mercor added.

  Kalo folded his wings. He did it slowly, and slowly was how he turned away from the gathering dragons, to face downwind of them. If he was attempting to make it appear he was not obeying Mercor, he failed, thought Sintara. But she kept the thought to herself, for she too wished to see if he could, indeed, spit venom. All of them should have been capable of it since they emerged from their cases, but none had achieved reliability or potency with that most basic weapon in a dragon’s arsenal. Had Kalo? She watched his ribs swell as he took in air. This time, she saw him work the poison glands in his throat. The muscles in his powerful neck rippled. He threw back his head and snapped it forward, jaws opening wide. He roared and a visible mist of bluish toxin rode with the sound. It drifted in a cloud over the water. She was not the only dragon to rumble in amazement. She watched the toxin disperse and heard the very soft hiss when acid met acid as it settled on the water.

  Before anyone else could react, Fente propelled herself out into the open river. She shook herself all over, opened her wings wide, and threw back her head. When she launched her toxin with a trumpet like a woman screaming, the cloud was smaller but more dense. Again and again, she shrieked it forth, until on her fourth try there was no visible sign of poison. Nonetheless, she turned to all of them and proclaimed, “Make no mistake. You may all be larger than I am, but I am just as deadly as any of you are. Respect me!”

  “It would be wiser to save your toxins for hunting rather than making a show of them,” Mercor rebuked her mildly. “You have no way of knowing how long it will take you to recover them. If you saw game right now, it would escape you.”

  The small green dragon spun to face them. Now the layered fronds of her immature mane stood out stiffly around her neck. She shivered them, a move more serpent than dragon. “Don’t preach to me about wisdom, golden one. Nor hunting. I do not need your advice. Now that I have my poison again, I am not sure that I even need your company.”

  “Or your keeper?” Ranculos asked in mild curiosity.

  “That remains to be seen,” she snapped. “Tats grooms me, and it pleases me to hear him praise me. I may keep him. But having a keeper does not mean I must stay in company with you or those other raggle-taggle keepers. Nor do I need to be near keepers so disrespectful they speak of butchering a dragon as if he were a cow.” She beat her wings, stirring air and spattering water. “I have my poison and soon I will be able to fly. Then I will need nothing of anyone save myself.”

  “So Heeby spoke of flying, too,” Sestican said quietly.

  “Heeby. That’s not even her true name. She couldn’t even summon her true name. Heeby. That’s a name for a dog or a rather stupid horse. Not a dragon.”

  “Speak no ill,” Mercor advised her. “Her end might be the same one we all meet.”

  “She didn’t end because she never began,” Fente retorted. “Half a dragon is no dragon at all.”

  Privately, Sintara agreed with her. The dimmer dragons still distressed her in a way she could not explain. To be around a creature with the shape of a dragon but to have no sense of that creature thinking the thoughts of a dragon was unsettling. One night she had overheard some of the keepers telling “ghost” stories to one another and wondered if that were not the same sensation. Something was there, but not there. A familiar shape with no substance to it.

  And that was exactly what she saw now as the silver dragon with no name laboriously paddled out into the river. His tail had long healed, but he still held it stiffly as if the skin were too tight. His body had muscled from travel, and since his keepers had wormed him, he had put on healthier flesh. But his legs were still stumpy and short. The wings he now spread were almost normal, however. All the dragons watched in silence as he lifted them carefully, flapped them several times in imitation of Fente, and then drew back his head. When he snapped it forward, jaws wide, Sintara saw that his teeth were twice the size of Fente’s and double rowed. And the cloud of toxin that came forth with his guttural roar was thick and nearly purple. The droplets were large and they fell, hissing, onto the river’s surface. Sintara turned her face away from the acrid scent of strong venom.

  “This half a dragon,” the silver said, “can make you no dragon at all.” He turned to glare at them, making sure they understood the threat. “Name? I TAKE a name. Spit my name. My name what I do. Fente, say my name.”

  The small green dragon spun away from him. She tried to remove
herself in a dignified way, but dragons were not designed for swimming. She looked hasty and awkward as she scuttled out of his range. Spit laughed, and when Fente turned her head to hiss at him, he released a small cloud of floating toxins at her. The river wind wafted it away before it could do her any harm. Even so, Mercor reacted to it.

  “Spit, save your venom. One of our hunters is gone, and our keepers have lost several of their boats and almost all their weapons. They are not going to be able to hunt as productively as they once did. All of us must strive harder to make our own kills. Save your venom for that.”

  “Maybe I eat Fente,” Spit suggested poisonously. But then he turned and paddled back to the shallower water. He waded out onto the muddy shore and with a fine disregard for the filth, flung himself down to sleep. Sintara suddenly envied him. It would be so good to lie down. She could sleep. When she woke, Thymara and Alise could clean her. She was already dirty, so a bit more mud wouldn’t make any difference. And it was time they both showed some gratitude for her saving them.

  Her mind made up, she slogged to what she judged the highest point on the mudbank and eased herself down to sleep. The mud accepted her shape, coldly at first, but as she lay still, almost as a bed of thick grasses would, it warmed her. She lowered her head to her front legs to keep her nose out of the mud and closed her eyes. It was so good to lie down.

  Around her, she could hear the other dragons following her example. Ranculos found his old spot beside her, favoring his left side as he lay down. Sestican settled on the other side.

  The dragons slept.

  Day the 24th of the Prayer Moon

  Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

  From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

  To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

  In this case, a message from Hest Finbok, delivered by pigeon from Jamaillia to be sent on, by the swiftest means possible, to the barge Tarman and its passengers Sedric Meldar and Alise Finbok, directing them to return to Bingtown at the earliest possible moment. Traders in Cassarick and Trehaug to be informed by a general posting in both Trader Concourses that no debts incurred by these two will be honored by the Finbok family after the 30th day of the Prayer Moon.

  Detozi!

  Someone sounds very unhappy! I confess I am becoming intrigued. Has she run off with his secretary? But why decamp to the Rain Wilds? The gossip here is that both of them seemed well content with their lives, so all are astounded and scandalized at the prospect.

  Erek

  CHAPTER TEN

  CONFESSIONS

  Relpda tore into the carcass with no complaints about how it stank. Sedric wished he could share her equanimity about it. She stood now always at the edge of his mind and thoughts. The stench of the meat and its rank flavor were like ghost memories in his mouth. He pushed them away, trying not to let it taint the fruit that Carson had gathered.

  The hunter had come back as he had promised. Relpda had still been reluctant to reenter the water, so the two men had maneuvered the floating carcass within reach of her raft. It was streaked with mud and had been sampled by scavengers. Relpda didn’t care. Since they had delivered it to her, her only thought had been to fill her belly.

  The smooth-barked trees that had defied Sedric had yielded to Carson. For such a large man, he was very spry. He appeared to have no more difficulty ascending than a spider had in running up a wall. Sedric had tried to follow him, but his river-scalded hands were too tender for climbing. He’d given up when he was just over twice his height up the tree. Even backing down had been tricky. When he launched backward from the trunk, he’d landed badly. Now his ankle was tender.

  Carson had returned from his climb just as darkness was falling. He cradled a sling of fruit, some like the stuff that Jess had brought, and two other kinds, one yellow and sweet, and the other the size of his fist, hard and green. So many plants and trees grew in the Rain Wilds, and he knew so little about any of it. He picked up one of the green fruits and turned it in his hands until Carson took it from him without a word and tapped it on the log between them as if it were a hard-boiled egg. The thick green shell peeled away from a pulpy white skin. “Eat it all,” Carson advised him. “They don’t taste like much, but there’s a lot of moisture in them.”

  Carson had talked himself out. Sedric had heard the full tale of the wave hitting the ship, and how they had ridden it out, recovered the captain, and then discovered most of the missing keepers. Sedric has been shocked to discover that Alise had not been safely on board the vessel, and relieved she was safe. He’d let the hunter talk himself all the way to silence. Now he watched Sedric. He watched him closely, not with a direct stare, but from the corner of his eye and through his lashes. He shared the fruit out evenly between them, with no mention that Sedric hadn’t done a thing to earn his. Even after he fed the dragon, Sedric kept waiting for Carson to bring up a scheme to kill the creature and make a profit on it. If the other hunter and the captain were in on that plot, it only made sense that Carson would be, too. And if Jess had shared his knowledge of Sedric’s specimens with Carson, that would explain him and Davvie being so attentive and visiting Sedric’s room so often. They’d both know that he had brought dragon blood on board the Tarman. Find that trove, and they’d be wealthy men.

  When the fruit was gone, Carson had fetched a heavy iron pot from his boat, poured in a small amount of oil, and set fire to it. He cut bits of wood and resinous branch tips from the drier hunks of driftwood and fed the fire in the pot. It gave off smoky light and welcome heat and kept some of the insects at bay. The two men sat, watching the night deepen over the river. Stars began to show in the strip of sky overhead.

  Carson cleared his throat. “I thought you couldn’t talk to the dragons. Couldn’t understand what they said at all.”

  Sedric didn’t have a planned answer to that. He ventured close to the truth. “That changed when I began to be around them more. And after she rescued me, after she carried me here, well, we began to understand each other better.” There. True enough and an easy explanation to remember. The best sort of lie. He stared off across the flat surface of the river.

  “You don’t talk much, do you?” Carson observed.

  “Not much to say,” Sedric replied guardedly. Then his manners caught up with him. “Except thank you.” He forced himself to turn and meet Carson’s sincere eyes. “Thanks for searching for us. I had no idea what I was going to do next. I couldn’t get up a tree to find fruit, and I’ve never been a hunter or a fisherman.” More formally he added, “I am in your debt.” Among Traders, those words were more than a nicety. They acknowledged a genuine obligation.

  “Oh, you looked like you were managing well enough,” Carson replied generously. “But usually a man in your situation would be full of his tale, how the wave hit you and what you did…” He let his words trail away hopefully.

  Sedric looked off into the darkness. Tell as much of the truth as he could. That would be safe. “I don’t remember the wave hitting. I’d gone ashore to—to stretch my legs. When I came around, Relpda had hold of me and was keeping my head above water. Of course, she was swimming downriver with me, and I had quite a time persuading her that we needed to head for what used to be the shore. I was afraid she’d be exhausted before we got here. But we made it.”

  “Yes. We did.” The dragon spoke around a mouthful of meat. She was pleased with herself. Pleased to hear Sedric tell of how she had saved him.

  “I’m not surprised you don’t recall everything. Looks like you took a hard knock to the head.”

  Sedric lifted a hand to his swollen face. “That I did,” he said quietly. And he tried to let the conversation die. It was almost pleasant to be still in the night next to the flickering fire in the pot. He was still hungry and he ached all over, but at least he didn’t have to wonder how he was going to survive the next day. Carson would take care of him, would get him back to the Tarman. His smelly little cabin beckoned him now, a haven from op
en water and starvation. There would be clean clothing there, and hot water and a razor. Cooked food in the galley. Simple things that he suddenly valued. That wasn’t very admirable, he thought. Earlier in the day, he’d been able to take care of himself and a dragon. Yesterday, he’d been capable of killing to stay alive. But now he was ready to abandon all pretense of being competent in this world and let someone else do all the worrying and the thinking.

  No wonder Hest had been able to discard him so easily.

  Planning to smuggle dragon parts to Chalced was the closest he’d had to a personal plan of action in years. And look how well that had turned out! Almost as well as his previous suggestion that Hest marry Alise. Such happiness that had brought to all three of them. When had he let go of his own life? When had he become a bit of driftwood caught in Hest’s current, tossed and turned and shaped by him and then, eventually, washed up here with the other debris? Idly he watched Carson add a piece of twisted white wood to the pot. Yes. That was him. Fuel for another man’s flames.

  Carson sighed suddenly. He seemed disappointed but game to forge ahead. “Well. Here’s our plan for tomorrow, then. I’d like to get up as early as we can see and head back upriver to the Tarman. Captain Leftrin and I agreed that I wouldn’t go more than a day’s paddle downriver, but I’ll admit that I covered a lot more distance than I thought I would. I may have to paddle hard to get back to him before sunset tomorrow. Think your dragon will be ready to travel by then?”

  His dragon. Was she his dragon now?

  Just thinking that question turned her awareness toward him.

  Yes. You are my keeper. And I’ll be ready to journey tomorrow. On to Kelsingra!